D&D 5E Would you require a roll for this?

[aco175]

If you roll Investigate, you might discover there's a safe behind the painting.

If you actually tell the DM that you are picking the painting up and setting it aside, there's no reason to roll Investigate.

No, that would be a Perception roll at this point.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Good point, but what if the Thief has low Int? Would you allow it, require a test or just say the character is not clever enough to come up with this solution?

One would have to be very low intelligence to not come up with "let's use metal to prevent the needle from jabbing skin."

Not allowing this feels adversarial.

 

[aco175]

Good point, but what if the Thief has low Int? Would you allow it, require a test or just say the character is not clever enough to come up with this solution?

I would never tell the player that. DMs should not tell players how to run the PC.

 

[Leatherhead]

I'm in favor of anything that offers more counterplay, even if the counterplay seems kind of anti-climatic.

 

[Tonguez]

He's not disarming it, he's cleverly circumventing it. The salient roll was to detect the trap, and it turned out to be a trap that could easily be bypassed once you knew it was there. No roll - reward the player for being clever.

I agree
1 he's already investigated and found the trap
2 he's found a way to protect himself
3 he's safely Triggering the trap (ie not a disarm)
4 he opens the lock !

 

[Charlaquin]

He's not disarming it, he's cleverly circumventing it. The salient roll was to detect the trap, and it turned out to be a trap that could easily be bypassed once you knew it was there. No roll - reward the player for being clever.

Exactly. Although, I wouldn’t frame it as a reward for being clever, so much as it’s the clear outcome of the action they declared.

I would allow that to automatically bypass the trap.

Poison needle traps aren't interesting enough in play to merit not allowing players to bypass them with clever play.

In fact, encouraging this sort of play is exactly why one might want to include needle traps (and the like). The trap itself isn’t inherently interesting, but players engaging with the game by thinking about the fictional environment as a real place and describing what they want to do within it is interesting, and traps like this can facilitate that type of play. If you allow actions like this to succeed without a roll.

 

[Charlaquin]

Good point, but what if the Thief has low Int? Would you allow it, require a test or just say the character is not clever enough to come up with this solution?

Players decide, characters act. Whatever a character’s ability scores are, they should never prevent a player from making a decision. When the ability score is relevant to whether or not the character successfully executes the action the player decided to take, then that ability’s modifier is applied to any rolls that may be necessary.

 

[Reynard]

Good point, but what if the Thief has low Int? Would you allow it, require a test or just say the character is not clever enough to come up with this solution?

IMO no one should ever do.this. It isn't the GM's job to say what a PC does or why. The GM could reasonably ding the character XP as a bad roleplaying penalty, but I wouldn't do that even. The thief character might be as dumb as a stump but they have proficiency in traps. There are lots of ways to explain that narratively, from being something of a savant to being book dumb but hand smart.

If you want your players to come up with smart solutions to the challenges you present, you can't punish them for doing so.

 

[overgeeked]

There is a chest and the Rogue rolls and detects a trap. A needle trap that would eject into the thief's hand and poison them.

The Rogue's player says that he borrows the Fighters metal gauntlet (which the needle couldn't penetrate) and safely sets off the trap.

Roll for disarm or not?

No roll. For me, description beats rolling every time. If that described action would work, it works. No roll required.

 

[Meech17]

Nah. That's a solid plan. I'd just give it to them.

And then never use a poison needle trap again.

Or perhaps only as a decoy. The easily found poison needle trap is the trigger, that when set off trips a wire that runs to the statue behind the rogue. From the mouth of the statue fires a double poison needle trap, right into the rogues ass..

That'll show em.