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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steverooo" data-source="post: 2761935" data-attributes="member: 9410">Playing a Ranger, I expect my PC to be an expert at wilderness survival.  I expect him to be able to do anything that I see in any of my survival manuals (to a greater or lesser extent, depending upon ranks in the skill).When expecting an attack, I wanted my PC to be able to set some snares, and other simple traps, using his survival skill.  The GM said no, you can't do that, that's Craft (Trapmaking).  I said that finding food is DC:10 Survival, and that snares, deadfalls, net and limb traps are part of that.  He said no, so I asked what the DC for traps was, with Craft, since any craft can be performed unskilled.He looked at the Trapmaking section in the DMG, and said no, you can't do that.  Making a trap takes 1,000 GP and one WEEK of time for every CR of the trap.  I said sure, if you want to pound a sword into a bear trap, in the wilderness, but I just want to rig some snares, deadfalls, covered pit traps, and such-like.  That doesn't require money, just some time and an axe or knife!Again, he said no.  I pointed him to the Detect Snares and Pits spell, which specifically sets out deadfalls, pits, and snares as being different from other traps.  Since this is one of those GMs who doesn't want to be "argued with during the game", the Final No was given, and my Ranger couldn't set any traps, except with magic (like the Snare spell).Irritated by the idiocy of being told that my "Hero" can't do something that I, my non-heroic self, easily can, I sent him off to stand watch, while the spellslingers handled the plans for the coming attack, since he couldn't (effectively) do anything else...  My enjoyment of this session was zero or less, and my PC (who is usually very involved in the group) did little... and his absence was noted.After the game, the GM admitted that I had pretty good arguements, but he just didn't know how to handle it, off the cuff.  How long does it take to prepare a deadfall?  How long to set a mechanically simple/complex snare?  What's the chance of finding a pit, and how long does it take to cover it?  Etc.  So I showed him a simple snare, and offered to go outside and set him a complex one.  He declined.  I offered to work up some rules, but nothing was ever done with them (I even allowed either Craft (Trapmaking) or Survival to work, so Barbarians, Druids, Rogues (who don't have Survival), or even Fighters with Craft (Trapmaking) would be able to do the same).Bleh!  A GOOD GM WILL NOT SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF!  PCs run into traps set by others ALL THE TIME!  They have the skill to build them... I WISH my "Hero" did! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> As for the Feats arguement, I agree that many simply limit the PCs.  These are ADVENTURERS and Hero(in)es!  Any of them should be able to increase their horse's ACs with a (succesful) Ride check (this was JUST and aspect of the Ride proficiency, in 2e), or attack someone who is wielding a weapon, unarmed, without provoking an attack of opportunity (like in 1e)!  They are Heroes who ADVENTURE!  This is literally what they do for a living!</blockquote>

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