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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9335112" data-attributes="member: 6877472">I don't use a lot of traps anymore.&nbsp; Back in the day, the players would be incautious, I'd get to tell them some horrible thing occurred to them, they'd be annoyed, start religiously checking every 5' square of the map for awhile, slowing the game down to a halt and there'd be a long string of &quot;you don't find any traps&quot;, they'd get careless again, etc. etc..4e came along with passive Perception and things got easier, people didn't have to check every 5' square and if you had a good group spotter, you'd never run afoul of a trap.&nbsp; But occasionally this tactic would fail as there are really hard to find traps.&nbsp; So it came to pass that my 4e group sprung a trap and...They took a little damage and just healed up.&nbsp; Which is when I realized that most traps don't have the same sting they once did.&nbsp; I wrestled with this for awhile, thinking maybe I should make traps more lethal, but then I was like, &quot;do I really want a TPK because a tripwire made rocks fall for 5d10 damage?&nbsp; Is that as much fun as them encountering whatever hellish beasts lie ahead?&quot;, so I didn't change anything.When I ran the 5e &quot;converted&quot; Sunless Citadel, there were tons of traps, and because I enforced the dim lighting rules, the party who thought they could sneak around everywhere because everyone had darkvision blundered into quite a few traps (mostly because the DC's were set too high for 5e, IMO) but all it did was drag out the proceedings, or make the party want to rest and eat up...well time that wasn't valuable at all, since the dungeon wasn't built on a clock, and if it was, it'd have been a disaster &quot;we failed because some kobold set up a hallway full of crossbows&quot;.Plus, as we went on, the players started asking the one question these trap-filled dungeons never seem to have an answer for- why are all these traps perfectly ready to go off every time?&nbsp; Why do you rarely encounter a trap that some giant rat or goblin set off?&nbsp; Who is maintaining these traps in this dank dungeon anyways, especially in areas &quot;that have been sealed off for centuries&quot;?Sure a glyph of warding can last a long time, but why is it always the PC's that blunder into them, and you don't find any that were triggered by some other hapless fools?Hence where I am now.&nbsp; Using traps pretty rarely because unless I make them super lethal, it's at most a speed bump in the adventure, and worse, usually a speed bump one guy gets to interact with &quot;I roll an x, do I beat the trap or do we lose another healing spell?&quot;.&nbsp; I could get the same result with more engagement by having the party enter a room with four orcs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9335112, member: 6877472"] I don't use a lot of traps anymore. Back in the day, the players would be incautious, I'd get to tell them some horrible thing occurred to them, they'd be annoyed, start religiously checking every 5' square of the map for awhile, slowing the game down to a halt and there'd be a long string of "you don't find any traps", they'd get careless again, etc. etc.. 4e came along with passive Perception and things got easier, people didn't have to check every 5' square and if you had a good group spotter, you'd never run afoul of a trap. But occasionally this tactic would fail as there are really hard to find traps. So it came to pass that my 4e group sprung a trap and... They took a little damage and just healed up. Which is when I realized that most traps don't have the same sting they once did. I wrestled with this for awhile, thinking maybe I should make traps more lethal, but then I was like, "do I really want a TPK because a tripwire made rocks fall for 5d10 damage? Is that as much fun as them encountering whatever hellish beasts lie ahead?", so I didn't change anything. When I ran the 5e "converted" Sunless Citadel, there were tons of traps, and because I enforced the dim lighting rules, the party who thought they could sneak around everywhere because everyone had darkvision blundered into quite a few traps (mostly because the DC's were set too high for 5e, IMO) but all it did was drag out the proceedings, or make the party want to rest and eat up...well time that wasn't valuable at all, since the dungeon wasn't built on a clock, and if it was, it'd have been a disaster "we failed because some kobold set up a hallway full of crossbows". Plus, as we went on, the players started asking the one question these trap-filled dungeons never seem to have an answer for- why are all these traps perfectly ready to go off every time? Why do you rarely encounter a trap that some giant rat or goblin set off? Who is maintaining these traps in this dank dungeon anyways, especially in areas "that have been sealed off for centuries"? Sure a glyph of warding can last a long time, but why is it always the PC's that blunder into them, and you don't find any that were triggered by some other hapless fools? Hence where I am now. Using traps pretty rarely because unless I make them super lethal, it's at most a speed bump in the adventure, and worse, usually a speed bump one guy gets to interact with "I roll an x, do I beat the trap or do we lose another healing spell?". I could get the same result with more engagement by having the party enter a room with four orcs. [/QUOTE]

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