Well, Mike Mearls got promoted. Any hope for 5e?

[Winnah]

Second, how did this guy get behind me in the first place? I have a party! Why didn't they warn me that this guy was sneaking up behind me? Why weren't they watching my back? They're trained adventurers, this should be familiar territory even for a level one party.

Swordslinger is DM'ing. Your character was searching for traps. The rest of the party was helping. Noone noticed the JuJu meathead run screaming into the room behind you.

[Fuchs]

Also, if you did not say that your character takes a break every 2 rounds from searching for traps to breathe you suffocate. You can't breath while focusing on traps.

[Username17]

I've heard that in earlier editions Fighter was pretty much just the class you took if you rolled too poorly for the stats needed to get into a better class.

Not really true. Back in the earlier versions of D&D Clerics couldn't buff like they can in 3.5, so Fighters where actually the best at melee combat. Since creatures had less hitpoints and their ACs that tended to stay on the RNG the Fighter could actually contribute in combat. They also had the best saves, or close to it, so they weren't a liability in that department either.

You're talking after the decadent boosts to Fighters added in Unearthed Arcana and then expanded upon in 2e. In original D&D, Fighting Men had no advantages save that they didn't have attribute minimums. Hell, in the first version, they didn't even have a bigger hit die.

-Username17

[Swordslinger]

It's funny you should mention that, because I've been known to freak people out by immediately dropping into a guarding stance whenever I'm distracted from a technical activity by a loud noise. In fact, about the only time I don't react that way is if I have something fragile in my lap (like a laptop). The effects strike me as more the Spot/Listen penalty due to being distracted than instantly losing a solid six seconds of activity.

You could do it as a penalty too, though you'd want to make that penalty big enough to make it matter, otherwise you're back to always on searches, which is the entire point that the penalty has to be big enough so people don't do that.

Regardless, as you yourself pointed out, the Rogue gets screwed over by this system. From the party's perspective, the optimal strategy is still to throw the Rogue at anything that could ever be trapped, which sucks for the Rogue because he gets surprised in practically every combat. This creates a conflict of interest between people who are supposed to be on the same side.

No it really doesn't. You may get some PCs in the group who feel like the best way to play is always searching for traps, but others will probably want the rogue killing stuff. Not everyone is going to be a trap paranoid PC. Especially if your DM has a tendency to run potentially lethal combats, having the rogue in there for that very helpful first round of free sneak attacks is pretty big.

Second, how did this guy get behind me in the first place? I have a party! Why didn't they warn me that this guy was sneaking up behind me? Why weren't they watching my back? They're trained adventurers, this should be familiar territory even for a level one party.

Sure, but warnings don't happen instantly and you're dealing with split second reactions here. A guy yelling "We're under attack!" is probably just as much warning as a rampaging orc charging into the room. If you wanted you could set up a rear guard of course. That would mean the surprised guy couldn't get jumped initially from behind because a group of alert party members are in the corridor behind, but it'd also mean your group was split up anyway, so anyone not in the rear guard would be losing an action. Also it rather defeats the purpose to send a sentry ahead into the area the guy is checking for traps, so it's really not a great solution in the first place.

Obviously if you have party members so alert at listening for stuff that they can hear monsters way before they even get to the room, you may be able to warn someone in time for them to get out of search mode, but by the time they enter the room, combat has already started and any yelled warning is going to come on someone's initiative anyway (and by then, you're already surprised).

[Username17]

You could do it as a penalty too, though you'd want to make that penalty big enough to make it matter, otherwise you're back to always on searches, which is the entire point that the penalty has to be big enough so people don't do that.

That's a quite a leap. Why the fuck would trained adventurers not be careful when breaking into a fortress full of traps? That doesn't make any fucking sense.

If the player characters have reason to be cautious and they don't have reason to cover a lot of ground quickly, what possible reason why would it be a bad thing that the characters act cautiously for as long as those conditions persist? What the fuck?

-Username17

[Swordslinger]

That's a quite a leap. Why the fuck would trained adventurers not be careful when breaking into a fortress full of traps? That doesn't make any fucking sense.

Being careful for traps and careful for monsters is a different thing.

If the player characters have reason to be cautious and they don't have reason to cover a lot of ground quickly, what possible reason why would it be a bad thing that the characters act cautiously for as long as those conditions persist? What the fuck?

Game design. If traps are something you always search for, then they're not interesting. Either the DM designs a fuck you trap that nobody can find, or traps aren't an issue because you always find them. Either that or you remove repeated searching and play trapfinding as this lottery by whim of the dice where you make a search check and sometimes fail or sometimes succeed.

In all these cases, there's no decision making on the part of the PC. He's just playing that entire trap encounter on autopilot. The DM can make that auto encounter one where he gets anally violated or one where he breezes through, but it doesn't change the fact that the entire encounter is fucking pointless and boring.

Games are about decision-making.

The most interesting thing about traps is deciding to search for them or not searching for them. If you decide to search in the right spots, you get rewarded. The logical game theory extension to this is that there has to be some kind of penalty for searching. Search in the wrong spots, you get punished. Otherwise people will always search, in which case it doesn't become a decision anymore.

Games are about decisions. You can't always call the bet in poker, nor can you always fold. The optimal play is something in between.

Decisions in RPGs should be much the same way.

[Fuchs]

If the most interesting thing about traps is the decision whether or not to search for them, then one should get rid of traps, simple as that.

The most interesting thing about traps should be dealing with them - disarming, avoiding, using them aganst enemies.

And if that can't be made to be interesting, then one should get rid of traps.

[rasmuswagner]

Being careful for traps and careful for monsters is a different thing.

Everybody disagrees with you on this point. Since you're obviously not going to convince anybody that your view is the One True Way, bringing it up is just noise. To keep up the signal ratio, if you want to continue to contribute to the discussion, please keep in mind that nobody thinks "But you won't be aware of monsters" is a valid cost for the choice of "checking for traps".

[Chamomile]

Sure, but warnings don't happen instantly and you're dealing with split second reactions here.

Which means that unless the monster is attacking me right now and not even a second later, I'm not surprised when he gets close enough to swing an axe at my face. If initiative gets rolled when we're more than 30' away...Why? What do I care if I miss a round where the monster moves towards us and the rest of the party just waits for him to get there anyway?

[ishy]

What matters greatly is what kind of traps we're talking about. If you have traps that can instantly kill adventurers if they don't find them, they will of course search every cobble stone for traps, because that is just the way they survive (unless resurrection or life/death is really cheap).
Though if traps are just some hp dmg they will just get outhealed with cure light wounds wands.

Before you think about making searching for traps interesting you need to make the traps themselves interesting.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I still want to know why we even still use traps.

That as an action-adventure trope has both been parodied to death and has become increasingly phased out over time. Mostly because unless the gameplay is explicitly about avoiding traps (like Super Mario or Shadowrun) they're just not exciting more than once or twice. And I mean like per 50 games, not in a session or even campaign.

Even D&D, which once again shat all over TTRPGs with its ancestor mechanics, has enough gameplay and avenues to explore that you could create a game that didn't have anything about traps other than MTP and only grognards would even care. Oh sure, people still complain about shitty trap mechanics, but they sure as hell don't complain about them not being there at all. Even though D&D is supposed to be a dungeon crawling game, what's the ratio of complaints of Traps to Diplomacy or Magic Items? Real fucking low, that's what.

We have a finite amount of space to write books in and I'd rather spend it on something that people will give a shit about. Like the default campaign setting or stronghold building rules. So why not just take explicit trap mechanics out of the game entirely?

[Swordslinger]

Everybody disagrees with you on this point. Since you're obviously not going to convince anybody that your view is the One True Way, bringing it up is just noise. To keep up the signal ratio, if you want to continue to contribute to the discussion, please keep in mind that nobody thinks "But you won't be aware of monsters" is a valid cost for the choice of "checking for traps".

You guys are trying to sell me that a guy holding a rifle at ready waiting for the enemy to round the corner is somehow just as alert as a guy staring at the ground looking for landmines. Apparently, according to you, a security guard can watch cameras just as well if he's doing paperwork or reading a newspaper as he could if he was fully alert actually doing his job.

You are flat out wrong if you believe that. The kind of bullshit some of you people believe is astounding.

I realize a lot of people here are probably part of the derp gamer generation where everything is supposed to be painfully easy and obvious. You want your character to find the trap for you without any input and go and disarm it, all without you having to rub any brain cells together. Because god forbid, if someone gives you a choice, you may pick wrong and look stupid. *GASP*

There could be a legitimate argument for the removal of traps as a mechanic entirely, but your derp gamer bullshit is stupid.

I really wonder why you aren't just watching a movie or reading a fantasy novel. You obviously didn't show up to play a game.

[hogarth]

You guys are trying to sell me that a guy holding a rifle at ready waiting for the enemy to round the corner is somehow just as alert as a guy staring at the ground looking for landmines.

What I'm saying is that no sane person is going to run through a suspected minefield just because there might be an enemy about to come around the corner (which seems to be the trade-off you're hoping for). The logical course of action is either to (a) search for mines anyways after making all necessary precautions against being surprised by enemies, or (b) to go somewhere else where there isn't a minefield.

I still want to know why we even still use traps.

It depends what you're asking. If you mean, "why do we have rules for concealed pit traps?", it's because sometimes the PCs or NPCs might want to dig a pit and cover it with leaves because that makes sense as a real-world tactic in some cases. If you mean, "why does D&D have so many random traps that they invented a class whose sole purpose is to find and disarm traps?", there's no justification; "wandering monster" traps are just fucking stupid.

[RobbyPants]

I realize a lot of people here are probably part of the derp gamer generation where everything is supposed to be painfully easy and obvious. You want your character to find the trap for you without any input and go and disarm it, all without you having to rub any brain cells together. Because god forbid, if someone gives you a choice, you may pick wrong and look stupid. *GASP*

The problem with the way traps are presented is that it gets boring quickly. If the DM just put traps on locked doors and chests, that would speed things up as people wouldn't search the floors, but it would kill suspense.

So the DM starts trapping other random areas. Once the PCs get caught off guard by some trap in an unexpected place, they'll start searching everything. It only makes sense, but that becomes tedious. While it's a realistic and expected result, it's not a fun thing to actually play out at the table.

So you run into situations of:

• Is there an agreement between the DM and the players of what's trapped? (no suspense)
• Can anything be trapped and you have to explicitly make your checks and rolls? (tedious)
• Are checks passive? (easy mode)

So, it's not so much that people want everything handed to them as it's really boring to explicitly make 143 Search checks.

[tussock]

Hell, in the first version, they didn't even have a bigger hit die.

They did get more of them though. Fighting-Men had 1 HD per level until 10th, and then 1 per 2. Magic-Users have 4 HD at 7th, 7 at 10th, and then 1 per 4. Clerics have 7 HD at 8th, then 1 per 3.

Games are about decision-making.

They're also about forcing you into situations where you have to make previously unconsidered decisions. Any game where everything is a choice is solvable, and thus offers no real choice at all. So traps are bad because they're not a real choice, but good anyway if they can force the players to respond by making new, unexpected choices.

derp gamer bullshit

Seriously? Most folk here are suggesting your penalties have no basis in reality, not that they're too cruel. The appropriate penalty for being a trap-springer is that sometimes you eat a lot of trap in a day, and you deal with that by asking the Barbarian to take a turn now and then, which is at least some sort of choice (and one a pure save vs trap mechanic makes harder to use, sometimes you want the option to have guy A search and guy B eat the trap, on chests and doors mostly).

[Hieronymous Rex]

"wandering monster" traps are just fucking stupid.

Is there a sort of trap I'm not aware of? Or are you talking about Wandering Monsters in general, which are not traps and are both realistic and good for gameplay?


Ideally, traps should exist in two ways:

*"Not Paying Attention". Punishes going to fast/not keeping up with SOPs. Examples include pit traps (which only an incompetent party would ever fall for, unless they were running for some reason). This creates a tension between wanting to move quickly (so as to avoid Wandering Monsters) and move slowly (so as to be thorough).

*Puzzle. The fact that there is a trap is made obvious. It is up to the party to to figure out how to bypass or safely set off the trap.

Note that in the first type, a Find Traps ability would be pointless, and in the second type, such an ability would ruin the minigame.

[hogarth]

"wandering monster" traps are just fucking stupid.

Is there a sort of trap I'm not aware of? Or are you talking about Wandering Monsters in general, which are not traps and are both realistic and good for gameplay?

I mean random traps that are just inserted in the module in order to give trapfinders something to do and a reason to exist (and the only reason trapfinders exist is because random traps are inserted into modules to give them something to do).

[tzor]

Ok, so since there were some AD&D adventures that were not built on the assumptions of the Conan game, this somehow proves that unarmored Fighters in DnD were ever a good idea?

It would take me a while to really get into the 1E mindset, but Gygax's edition was not as stacked against no armor / low armor fighters as the revisions of his game. Subtle changes to movement speeds could suddenly have this combat deciding element if you add up the advantages of charging and getting surprise on the enemy. And of course there were always RUST MONSTERS.

But in general fighters who were created in 1E were better disposed to wearing armor so most players played them that way. Lightly armored fighters tended to be rangers because of the eventual spell abilities at higher levels. Even those characters tended to armor up over time.

[Hieronymous Rex]

I mean random traps that are just inserted in the module in order to give trapfinders something to do and a reason to exist (and the only reason trapfinders exist is because random traps are inserted into modules to give them something to do).

This is true; "Trapfinder" shouldn't exist as a role. By its existence it removes what could be something the entire party could participate in. To quote:

Rogue Busy Work

“It’s a trap!”
– Admiral Ackbar, typical rogue

Now let’s say you’re the GM. You’ve worked very hard to make a complex interactive trap. It’s a work of art. You’ve figured out how water slowly collecting in cisterns floods the chamber but then drains hours later after the intruders are dead and even raises the fallen block that sealed the room — because any serious trap has to be able to reset, right?

Along comes the rogue. Rogues are supposed to be the guy that finds all the traps and helps the party avoid all that damage. Lo and behold, the rogue can make a roll to find the trap and a roll to turn the whole thing off. Crap.

No GM wants to put all that work into something and then have the whole thing get cancelled by one roll, particularly if you were counting on it to fill play time. It’s like skipping a major battle you prepped because someone made a diplomacy check (oh sure, you all have anecdotes about that one time that happened and how cool it was — sheesh, it was one time!). It’s just a bad design work vs playtime pay-off.

So you subtly sabotage the rogue. You make it too hard to find the cool trap or you fudge the roll, and even though you are being a rat bastard GM your instinct is correct: making a roll to skip a whole encounter isn’t good game play (being clever and skipping an encounter, maybe, but just rolling clear is lame). If the encounter was interesting, you are skipping the interesting. It’s a little like rolling to skip the adventure.

But now you have guilt. You’re taking away the rogue’s whole thing. Hmm, better give the rogue something to do. Better put in a lot of zap traps in the rest of the dungeon so the rogue can be useful. Now the rogue can remove all the lame hazards that you shouldn’t have included to begin with. It’s rogue busy work.

The other option is to play it straight and you let the rogue bypass the trap you put spent all that time on. What does that teach you as a GM? Not to waste your time building cool traps. Next game you just put in more fights instead.

Welcome to Bad Trap Syndrome.

[Swordslinger]

Seriously? Most folk here are suggesting your penalties have no basis in reality, not that they're too cruel.

I know, that's what makes their argument so retarded. People are saying that they're opposed to it because they don't understand how having your attention focused elsewhere would possibly lower overall awareness.

Probably from the same moronic generation that can't realize that texting while driving is dangerous. But no, they're all 100% aware while doing that too. Doesn't affect their awareness one bit, because looking down doesn't inhibit your ability to see stuff in front of you in any way whatsoever.

Apparently some people here feel like their perceptions are fueled by magic pixie dust that lets them defy all common sense.

[fectin]

If only there were a skill for noticing things in the surrounding area that was separate from the skill that actively searches...

[JigokuBosatsu]

The kind of bullshit some of you people believe is astounding.

What do you mean, you people?

[K]

Seriously? Most folk here are suggesting your penalties have no basis in reality, not that they're too cruel.

I know, that's what makes their argument so retarded. People are saying that they're opposed to it because they don't understand how having your attention focused elsewhere would possibly lower overall awareness.

Probably from the same moronic generation that can't realize that texting while driving is dangerous. But no, they're all 100% aware while doing that too. Doesn't affect their awareness one bit, because looking down doesn't inhibit your ability to see stuff in front of you in any way whatsoever.

Apparently some people here feel like their perceptions are fueled by magic pixie dust that lets them defy all common sense.

Even before we have the argument that texting and driving is not the same as two kinds of awareness of your surroundings, the mere fact that people successfully text and drive all the time makes your point stupid.

Then there is the fact that it's a non-choice to search for traps, so penalizing the trapfinder is dumb.

So that's a game design and real-world complaint from me.

[hogarth]

The kind of bullshit some of you people believe is astounding.

What do you mean, you people?

Ofays.

[OgreBattle]

Is it that "I search for traps"/exploration is inherently un-fun, or is it just poorly suited for D&D?

If the latter, what system is better for gameplay based around overcoming environmental hazards and nullifying traps?