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<blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7709604" data-attributes="member: 37579">FormattingInitially I liked the more concise and delineated formatting. But, upon deeper thought, I don't think it would work well in a published adventure. Unlike monsters, which are normally detailed elsewhere and then referenced in plain language, traps tend to be described in plain language in room descriptions. &quot;When characters do X, then Y happens&quot;, and not separate trigger and effect paragraphs. Similarly, complex traps are cool, but as presented take up too many space to ever be used in an adventure. Why use a complex trap that takes a full page when you could have two or three combat encounters? Traps are already pretty sparsely used in published adventures. CountermeasuresI think these suffer from a problem similar to bad 4e skill challenges. The traps take 3+ actions to disarm because the challenge is designed to require multiple checks. Multiple checks as part of a multi-stage process are fine (i.e find the hidden compartment, unlock and remove the outer casing, disarm the mechanism). But when it's just repeating the exact same check three times, that's ridiculous. And not fun.This doesn't particularly work at the table: if the action had no immediate reaction or benefit, why would you try again let alone twice more? From personal experience with a 4e trap, a player rolled a 20 and was excited, but the trap still needed two more checks for anything to happen. (I ruled the 20 count as two successes, but it still *felt* uneventful at the table as there was no effect that could be felt in play.)This is especially problematic with spells and casting dispel magic. Even a 20th level wizard has to blow all their 3rd level spells to dispel a single complex trap. Who's going to do that?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jester David, post: 7709604, member: 37579"] [b]Formatting[/b] Initially I liked the more concise and delineated formatting. But, upon deeper thought, I don't think it would work well in a published adventure. Unlike monsters, which are normally detailed elsewhere and then referenced in plain language, traps tend to be described in plain language in room descriptions. "When characters do X, then Y happens", and not separate trigger and effect paragraphs. Similarly, complex traps are cool, but as presented take up too many space to ever be used in an adventure. Why use a complex trap that takes a full page when you could have two or three combat encounters? Traps are already pretty sparsely used in published adventures. [b]Countermeasures[/b] I think these suffer from a problem similar to bad 4e skill challenges. The traps take 3+ actions to disarm because the challenge is designed to require multiple checks. Multiple checks as part of a multi-stage process are fine (i.e find the hidden compartment, unlock and remove the outer casing, disarm the mechanism). But when it's just repeating the exact same check three times, that's ridiculous. And not fun. This doesn't particularly work at the table: if the action had no immediate reaction or benefit, why would you try again let alone twice more? From personal experience with a 4e trap, a player rolled a 20 and was excited, but the trap still needed two more checks for anything to happen. (I ruled the 20 count as two successes, but it still *felt* uneventful at the table as there was no effect that could be felt in play.) This is especially problematic with spells and casting [i]dispel magic[/i]. Even a 20th level wizard has to blow all their 3rd level spells to dispel a single complex trap. Who's going to do that? [/QUOTE]

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