Traps preview

[Jack99]

This are only MY assumptions about the skill challenges for the traps:

-) I think that the Thiefing Skill is only the default and the GM will be able to allow others by RAW, but most of the time it will be a bit harder. Examples: Perception for Clues, Arcana for stabilizing Arcane Triggers, History for old tricks, Acrobatics to "distract" the trap,...

Or maybe a "DC 28 thievery skill challenge" simply indicates that it is a skill challenge which must incorporate at least one DC 28 Thievery check? The rest of the challenge is up to the DM.

 

[Kishin]

Well, yeah. But there's gotta be more possibilities for disabling a trap than simply 'use Thievery' and more possibilities for breaking a trap than just 'mindlessly hack away with your most damaging attacks'.

Why not allow Arcana to let someone disable a magic trap on the basis of understanding the magic workings of the trap? Or using History to recall a story of a famous adventurer who disabled a similar mechanical trap?

Maybe a fire trap can be severely damaged by cold. Maybe someone could use a blade to cut key ropes in the trap, or a blunt weapon and a strength check to smash an important mechanism.

Stuff along those lines would be better than 'use Thievery or hack away'.

I remember there being a rolling boulder trap that appeared somewhere that you could make strength checks to slow the boulder's movement. I think it appeared in one of the pdf compilations people have been putting together.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Or maybe a "DC 28 thievery skill challenge" simply indicates that it is a skill challenge which must incorporate at least one DC 28 Thievery check? The rest of the challenge is up to the DM.

Simple Interpretation: roll n Thievery checks to see if you get it done.
Complex Interpretation: Thievery is the primary skill for the challenge. You can use others, if you're creative. How this works? Ask the DM(G).
Even More Complex Interpretation: There is a section (template) on "Thievery Challenges" in the DMG, similar to the Negotiation Challenge we've already seen.

 

[Jhaelen]

I'm not overly impressed with the traps (unless there is more to them than can be seen in the preview). They look (almost) exactly like the encounter traps in Dungeonscape (which I didn't like at all).

 

[wedgeski]

I like this a *lot*. I have a good vision in my head of a maze of traps, or a mad tinker's last, great work to keep villains from his horde. With rules like this you can construct traps to (hopefully) challenge the entire party for quite some time... not that you couldn't before, but at least now you have a framework for doing so.

And to the poster who bemoaned the fact that after observing a trap you could bypass it... how is that bad? That strikes me as a step forward made of pure gold.

 

[Celebrim]

And to the poster who bemoaned the fact that after observing a trap you could bypass it... how is that bad? That strikes me as a step forward made of pure gold.

It's not bad, it's just not a step forward either. For example, in the first corridor of the tomb of horrors back in like 1985, we didn't actually attempt to disable all the pit traps. We just figured out where they were and then bypassed them. Likewise, if a trap has a pressure plate trigger, you don't need to disarm it - the thief just pulls out a piece of chalk when he finds it, draws a square around it and tells the rest of the party, 'Don't step in the squares.' Or if the trap is an arrow trap, you don't need to disarm it, you just need to figure out where the arrows go and not be standing in the way when they do.

Traps are one of the real sacred cows of D&D. More attention has been lavished on the subject of designing traps than just about any other topic in D&D. Published Dungeons can always gain a measure of respect if they have inventive traps. Considering how much thought and imagination has gone into the subject of traps over the years, it would be utterly astounding if the 4e designers came up with anything really original. For example, the 'multiple successes required trap' was something one of my DM's started pulling on me once my 1e thiefs disable trap roll started getting up around 95%, so even thats not really that new.

 

[Jer]

Player: I open the door [makes passive check->fails]
DM: You see an empty room
Player: Really? [makes active check->success]
DM: No, there is a pedestal in the middle of the room with a big, fist sized to be exact, cut gem in the middle of it.

Not to be mean, but this is why Spot and Search checks have a bad rap in 3e. Making players roll to see obvious things is one of those things that makes my head hurt (and makes me want to hurt the DM I'm playing with). If there's something obvious in the room, the players need to be told about it. If they say "I look under the bed" and you know that there's a box under the bed, making them make a "Search" roll to find it is not only irritating, it's just plain weird.

Now onto the actual example you're butchering here - the Perception check specifically says "you spot the strange gem". It doesn't say "you see the pedestal". There's a lot of leeway in the reading of "you spot the strange gem" - the way I'd run it would be along these lines:

Me: ... in the center of the room you see a large pedestal engraved with skeletal figures around its base. Atop the pedestal is a large mutl-faceted crystal.
Player: I want to examine the crystal
Me: Does that mean you're going to try to pick it up?
Player: NO! I'm not even leaving the doorway - I just want to see what I can tell from here.

[Make secret Perception check or have player make perception check - it fails]
Me: It looks like it's probably too big to be a gem, unless it's a really expensive one. But you can't really tell much more than that from where you're standing.

[or, if the Perception check succeeds]
Me: There's something ... strange about the crystal. At first you thought it was reflecting some of the light from your torches, but as you inspect it, you could swear that it's actually glowing on its own. It's definitely weirding you out a bit.

Now, on the other hand, given the text description of the trap, I'd probably make the gem much smaller and embed it in a statue. That makes the reading of the line "you notice the strange gem" make a bit more sense - if you're standing 25' away from a large statue, you may not notice that one of its eyes has a small blue gemstone in it. But as it stands there's nothing wrong with the trap description - it just assumes that there's going to be a DM there to interpret it for the party at the table.

 

[Derren]

Now onto the actual example you're butchering here - the Perception check specifically says "you spot the strange gem". It doesn't say "you see the pedestal". There's a lot of leeway in the reading of "you spot the strange gem" - the way I'd run it would be along these lines:
.

The problem with that is that the perception roll is only required once in the tire career of the PC. After the first Soul Gem the PCs know about it and, because of the obvious placement of the gem, will never fall for it anymore even without perception checks.
And because it is a high level solo trap it also means that most of the time there won't be any additional hazards around it, making the gem into a tactical challenge.

 

[hong]

It's not bad, it's just not a step forward either. For example, in the first corridor of the tomb of horrors back in like 1985, we didn't actually attempt to disable all the pit traps. We just figured out where they were and then bypassed them. Likewise, if a trap has a pressure plate trigger, you don't need to disarm it - the thief just pulls out a piece of chalk when he finds it, draws a square around it and tells the rest of the party, 'Don't step in the squares.' Or if the trap is an arrow trap, you don't need to disarm it, you just need to figure out where the arrows go and not be standing in the way when they do.

Traps are one of the real sacred cows of D&D. More attention has been lavished on the subject of designing traps than just about any other topic in D&D. Published Dungeons can always gain a measure of respect if they have inventive traps. Considering how much thought and imagination has gone into the subject of traps over the years, it would be utterly astounding if the 4e designers came up with anything really original. For example, the 'multiple successes required trap' was something one of my DM's started pulling on me once my 1e thiefs disable trap roll started getting up around 95%, so even thats not really that new.

I agree. I tend to just ban traps.

 

[Jer]

Or maybe a "DC 28 thievery skill challenge" simply indicates that it is a skill challenge which must incorporate at least one DC 28 Thievery check? The rest of the challenge is up to the DM.

My guess is that it's just going to be "4 successes with Thievery at DC 28" by the RAW.

However, I will be going with a looser interpretation at my table and make it more like you're suggesting - at least one successful DC 28 Thievery attempt with 3 other things as proposed by the players. That's how I already kind of run "Encounter Traps" in my games and since my players have enjoyed them since I've introduced them, I'll probably keep doing it.

(And I do think that it's actually "the rest of the challenge is up to the players", given what we've seen of skill challenges so far. It seems to be incumbent on them to suggest a skill and how they're going to make it work, not up to the DM to tell the players what to roll. Which I've actually been doing skill checks for a long time - another thing I picked up when I ran Torg back in the day - and it definitely makes for some great at the table moments.)