Why doesn't 4th ed have rituals for making "traps"?

[Silverblade The Ench]

4th ed has rituals, for out of combat spell use, I like that.
it has things like the "Alarm" spell, but updated.

So why not have rituals for making all those magic traps we see being used in adventures, hm? "Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander", or heroes vs villains

Rituals cost money, so that's a balance, but PCs should be able to make traps to "pull" enemies into, or to guard their own camp sites, castles, etc.

Maybe I've missed such, if they exist? (beyond the obvious Alarm style ones in PHB etc)

I've got a good bunch I can think of from both Players and DM's ideas of sneaky fun

 

[Belphanior]

Snare (lvl 4) and Wyvern Watch (lvl 6) are in the PHB2. They are identical in that they immobilize (save ends) once triggered, except the latter has a larger area and targets will instead of reflex.

But I do agree that more traps would be cool. I think a neat controller class could be made from that, inspired partially by Storm Pillar (a wizard at-will from Arcane Power that damages only if you walk up to it) and some of the gizmos we've seen in the artificer playtest a while back. Who knows, maybe Eberron will have some rules on that.

 

[CapnZapp]

The quick answer is:

Because abilities that add allies to the battle mat (whether summoned animals, hired hands, or conjured traps as in your suggestion) are next to impossible to balance.

That is why all (or almost all) such abilities result in worthless allies that cannot act on their own, do not do significant damage, cannot take significant damage, or cannot disable enemies in any significant way.

Take the existing traps-as-rituals as examples. They merely immobilize intruders, which is only useful if you initiate combat straight away.

What you'd want (if you aren't aware of the 4E design philosophy) is traps hurting, disabling and killing foes on their own. That is, real traps.

But I'm fairly certain we won't ever get those in 4E.

Even if you add a rule saying nobody get any XP from a monster attacked by your ritual-trap you can still abuse them (mainly by having your traps to deal with any adds, leaving you free to attack the BBEG yourself)

 

[Crothian]

So why not have rituals for making all those magic traps we see being used in adventures, hm? "Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander", or heroes vs villains

That's not how the game works at all though. PCs are very different from NPCs.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Because it's Dungeons & Dragons, not Dungeon Keeper.

 

[AllisterH]

Something along the lines of this?

Clockwork bomb

As an aside, don't traps only work because the party is the attacker? How do you "set a trap" if you're the one busting into the place?

 

[vagabundo]

Hmmm make one yourself, rituals are fun to make...

 

[Rechan]

As an aside, don't traps only work because the party is the attacker? How do you "set a trap" if you're the one busting into the place?

Depends. Just a slight bit of planning and voila.

Something as simple as "I dump oil in front of the place where the reinforcements are going to come out. You throw the torch when they get close."

You have room A and room B. PCs have killed everything in room A. PCs set traps, send one PC into room B, and have him flee towards room A. Monsters follow PC, run into traps, as the PCs unload on them.

 

[AllisterH]

Depends. Just a slight bit of planning and voila.

Something as simple as "I dump oil in front of the place where the reinforcements are going to come out. You throw the torch when they get close."

You have room A and room B. PCs have killed everything in room A. PCs set traps, send one PC into room B, and have him flee towards room A. Monsters follow PC, run into traps, as the PCs unload on them.

That I understand.

What the OP was talking about I assumed was those large mechanical traps like "crushing walls" and "drop floors". I mean, the example you gave certainly doesn't require a ritual...

 

[Rechan]

I imagine that the OP also means it in terms of "Alarm". Alarm is, after all, a protection spell when you are going to rest. So maybe the OP means something like "I want to set up a trap so that our enemy is slowed down/hurt/captured while we rest".