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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4682282" data-attributes="member: 4937">Faced with the tomb Indiana Jones is raiding, most players would probably adopt very traditional find and disable methods for the traps.  For example, no players I've ever had when faced with a room filled with dart traps would merely try to avoid them.  Avoidance is something you do when you don't know what the trap does.  In Indy's case, he's already triggered one trap deliberately, using a variation of 'poke the trigger with a 10' pole' and has deduced that all the traps in the room are of the same type.  Most PC's would then procede to disarm all the other traps in the room by the same method.  They'd simply keep poking the stone triggers until they'd cleared a path across the room.  The result of this is that when the PC's triggered the scenario trap at the end, evacuating the room would be easy and undramatic.Likewise, most players would have found the rolling ball trap on the way in to the dungeon, and - unable to find the trigger for the trap - would still have taken similar steps to disable it - probably by pounding a series of iron spikes so as to wedge the deadfall in place.   Again, when the scenario trap was triggered, evacuating the dungeon would be less dramatic.Most PC's would also have taken steps to bridge the pit, for similar reasons, and some of them might have by being thurough even found the falling stone block trap and taken steps to disable the trap similar to the ones that they might try to disable the rolling block.  In short, when the scenario trap was triggered, a typically skilled PC party would be able to evacuate the area without much drama because unlike Indiana Jones they would have taken great care to ensure that they had a get away plan.The thing about dealing with traps is that in my experience, it has as often as not not meant risking a 'disable trap' roll whenever you can avoid it.  Disable trap is very powerful, since it deals with almost anything, but since it involves recourse to the dice, it's also very risky.  You use it only when you have no other choice.Typically, when I search for traps it lets me find at the very least the trap's trigger.  Often this is a trip wire, a trip snare, or some mechanism that goes off when weight is placed on it.  In the case of a typical flagstone trigger mechanism, typically I won't bother trying to disable it at all.  I'll simply (in character) take a peice of chalk out of my pocket and draw an outline around the dangerous tile in question, turn back to the party and say, "No one step in the square, ok?"  Similar things apply to snares and trip wires.  You don't disarm them, you simply avoid them.Sometimes you can figure out what sort of trap you are dealing with.  In the case of swinging or scything traps, disarming them is usually completely unnecessary.  Generally you can just back off, set off the trap, and after observing the trajectory of the trap simply bypass it by crawling off to the side, ducking, jumping, or whatever is required.  Only if evasion seems risky do you worry about trying to disable the trap, which you typically try to do in a posture such that even if you set the trap off you'll evade the effects.In the case of pit traps, if you can, you bridge them or fill them in.  Disabling the cover is usually a good idea so at the least you'll remember where it is.  Often shallow ones can be traversed simply by going down to the bottom and climbing up the other side.In summary, Indiana Jones evading traps and deliberately setting them off very much reminds me of how I as a player and the players I've had as DM deal with traps, with the exception that Jones is not nearly as methodical about it as most players (to his cost).  But perhaps Jones was under time pressure (racing to get there before the rival NPC).Which brings up my last point, which is that Jones's DM is a total RBDM in that he completely screws Jones after Jones gets the McGuffin, not just once with the scenario trap, but at least twice (three times if you count the betrayal by his henchmen).  I wonder how many players would be outraged if they grabbed the McGuffin and then after 'winning' faced the sort of obstacles that Jones faced.</blockquote>

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