Unfair Character Death?

[The Thayan Menace]

More ....

So the people who passed the spellcraft check would have noticed a spell but not what triggered it.

I agree, but they made no attempt to find out and no one searched the vicinity for a caster.

By the way, I told them they triggered it by stepping on the platform. I did not specifically tie this information in to the Spellcraft roll, but I did inform them.

 

[gizmo33]

Moreover, if a PC sets off a trap and is hit by an arrow while crossing the room, the PC knows where he was standing when the arrow hit him.

The player would also know whether or not he was inhaling/exhaling when the trap went off. He would know that moved his right arm at that moment. He would know what time of day it was. Etc. Really - there's a difference between knowing where you are, and knowing what it was that activated a spell effect. The DM is giving away too much information by explictly connecting the dots without reason.

There's nothing in the rules, or even what you can infer from the "reality" behind the rules, that makes it obvious that a PC should be able to detect the presence of a trap WITHOUT MAKING A SEARCH CHECK (and taking the time to do so!) All the rules suggest is that the PCs probably observe a spell effect within the given target area. Really, all of statements to the contrary are completely speculative and IMO is the judgement call of the DM.

Really!! I'm going to make a Will save and avoid saying anything else on this post until SOMEBODY uses the word "Search Check" in their post. The rest of this is just baseless speculation since none of you has actually ever seen a Black Tentacles trap discharged (and clearly it was a situation not too familiar to the players either, or else they wouldn't have waited until now to start complaining about it).

 

[reveal]

I agree, but they made no attempt to find out and no one searched the vicinity for a caster.

By the way, I told them they triggered it by stepping on the platform. I did not specifically tie this information in to the Spellcraft roll, but I did inform them.

Well, if they were in the Tentacles, I doubt anyone thought about it at the time. After they were done they might have either a) forgot about it (as players do because they're human) or b) figured the caster would have already left so there was no use in searching the area as they probably wouldn't find him/her.

 

[DonTadow]

Black tentacles that appear from out of nowhere, without verbal cues or appearance of a mage, are not likely to come from an invisible caster.

And, like I already said, the party did not suspect an invisible caster.

All of your other explanations are stretching the truth to fit the facts.

A magical trap is the simplest explanation.

Yes, you keep saying the party suspected, the party assumed, the party guessed ect. . But the party did not know. this is dungeons and dragons, things are never as they seem to be. If a trap goes off, there are other clues , again auditory and visual clues, that tip a party off as knowing it is a trap. This is not about the pcs guessing ability. You did not confirm, nor give the pcs the opportunity to confirm, that they were setting off traps and other means were not at work.

I see your point of view, you think the tenacles ( a typical trap effect) should have been enough, but it was not for the player. Death is death. I'm not going to say anyone's at fault about his death. But you could have done more or at least allowed the pcs sensory checks so they could know for sure that traps were going off. Doing that eliminates this whole thread.

After every game, I look at the decisions the pcs made (especially during character deaths) and look at if I adequaltely described the situation and prepared the pcs.

 

[reveal]

I see your point of view, you think the tenacles ( a typical trap effect) should have been enough, but it was not for the player.

I had the PCs scared to death last session because the sorcerer they were fighting kept casting Black Tentacles. They had never seen the spell before.

So it's not just a trap spell.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

More (x2)

Silent spell doesn't exist in your game? So, what level does a wizard need to be to set up magical traps then?

Thank you for the obvious.

My point is that none of my players reacted to the supposed threat of a spellcaster or made any attempt to investigate the trap.

The disruptive player basically gave up and believed he couldn't disrupt these spell effects, so why bother?

He did not lay blame to a conspiring mage, until after he had died.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

So it's not just a trap spell.

I never said it was, specifically. But what else could a triggered spell be, if it has no outside source?

 

[reveal]

I never said it was, specifically. But what else could a triggered spell be, if it has no outside source?

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=2389482&postcount=150

I already covered it.

Besides, the players never checked to see if it was a triggered spell, as you have said. What does it matter, then, if it was a triggered spell?

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I disagree - IRL, if you were blind-sided, it would not be obvious from which direction the shot came were you to be stumbling around trying to pull a bolt out of your head.

No, but the player should know about where the PC was standing *when* he got hit.

Look at the original post I'm responding to:

If the player says, "My character moves to X," and I describe some effect, then that's all the warning s/he gets unless s/he gives me something more to work with, like, "Was it when I reached the statue, or before that?"

If the player doesn't specifically ask The Shaman, "Gee, boss, where was Fighter Joe when the floor dropped out from under him?", he doesn't get that information.

That's ridiculous.

Alternatively, a PC walks down a hallway, using two move actions. At the end of his turn, the DM states, "OK - while you were walking down the hallway, you were hit by an arrow, and took 5 damage."

Does this provide any real, useful information to the player? No, because in the above description there's no indication of when this sequence of events happened. There are important, in-game-world differences between "As you leave your cover behind the column, you're hit" vs. "When you pass by the open hallway to the left, you're hit" vs. "As you near the torchlight at the end of the hallway, you're hit."

And the analogy is misleading anyway. There is no clear visible effect between the source of the spell and it's result.

Unless it's a magic trap, whose runes burn briefly as a foot crosses over them and they are discharged.

True - but the existance of a magic trap is not basic information (at least if you extrapolate from the core rules). If it's basic information, then why does it require a rogue to detect the presence of a magic trap? Doesn't sound that basic to me. And given that search checks require time for a given area, it's not a trivial and instant check like Spot is.

Two different definitions of "basic info" here. You seem to referring to in-character basic info, like "Wizards cast spells, some of which look like ..." and "The city of X is known for its exports of Y ..." whereas I am referring to game playability basic info: "You're standing here, the room looks like X, smells like Y, and you feel a breeze coming from your left - probably from the open window."

And, in any event, you don't need a rogue to detect the presence of a magic trap. You need a rogue to mundanely locate a magic trap or to mundanely disarm it before you mundanely set it off.

Any fool can mundanely find a magical trap just by blundering into it.

The basic information I'm talking about, in this case, is "Roll a Spot check - yeah, the stone you just stepped on just before the room filled with smoke was slightly less worn than the stones around it."

In other words, throw your players a freakin' bone if, for some reason, they aren't coming to the obvious conclusion, according to the DM's idea of what obvious is. The problem may just by you.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Okay

I see your point of view, you think the tenacles ( a typical trap effect) should have been enough, but it was not for the player. Death is death. I'm not going to say anyone's at fault about his death. But you could have done more or at least allowed the pcs sensory checks so they could know for sure that traps were going off. Doing that eliminates this whole thread.

I agree and I have told him as much (see below).