Trapfinding - Good or Bad Idea as a Feat?

[virgil]

Pathfinder does it, but that doesn't indicate whether it's actually a good idea. On the one hand, it's mechanically "you are allowed to use your full Search bonus on that obviously trapped door". On the other hand, it's a role-defining ability; and you wouldn't let sneak attack or wildshape be feats. But is being the trap guy a sufficiently potent trait or even role to deserve protection from being sniped by the wizard with a spare feat; especially in a Tome environment, whether it's scaling feats or the new zeitgeist of 1 feat/level of feats like Tomb-Tainted Soul and Wings of Evil.

[TarkisFlux]

Trapfinding is not role defining, not even a little bit. You don't have a character in your party whose role is to prevent you from walking into traps and nothing else. At best it's a minor support addition to a poorly defined role that includes finding stuff and sneaking and striking for massive damages. It's also duplicated by a level 2 spell, which means you can pick it up in item format complete with skill bonuses to make it functional if it's not on a character in your party.

If you're not just going to let it be a functional part of a damn skill in the first place then sure, let it be a feat. But even that is wasteful and feat taxy IMO.

[Rawbeard]

yeah, if you have to have one dude who is "the trap guy" and that is locked into one class, while the "stands in front guy" and the "caster guy" and the "blaster guy" all have billion classes to chose from, then maybe that one trap class needs to go away.

[rasmuswagner]

Note that "Trapfinding" is mostly "the ability to use Disable Device to disarm magical traps". When it comes to finding traps, even in a Core environment, the Druid beats the Rogue from level 1 to level whatever just by showing up.

[Kaelik]

Like... in a world where like 4000 different people keep trying to give Fighters Sorcerer casting with a feat equal to a Sorcerer of their level, why on earth is Trapfinding even a thing that everyone doesn't have.

Just delete the line "While anyone can use Search to find a trap whose DC is 20 or lower, only a rogue can use Search to locate traps with higher DCs." and then replace the word Rogue and the parenthetical in this sentence with "People": "Rogues (and other characters with the trapfinding class feature) can disarm magic traps."

[deaddmwalking]

I think Kaelik is right - you're already investing in 'Search'. Why not let you 'find' a way to disarm a trap if you're good at finding traps. In addition to finding the trap, you find the way to disarm it.

Hell, you might want to think about how you use traps to begin with. If a trap 'just goes off' the party takes damage and it's annoying and they start checking every 5' square taking 20 if possible. Nobody enjoys that - not the DM and not the players.

You might want to just institute 'obvious traps' in most cases. Like the ceiling has several large heavy boulders hanging from chains and they're clearly rigged to fall. When the players notice it an consider how to bypass it, they're playing the game, as opposed to 'you walk into the room, rocks fall and you all die'. Even with saves and damage rolls, the second option really isn't that fun.

Now, if you want to include a hidden pit trap every now and again with an ambush, that's cool. But the 'trap you totally couldn't even notice leaps out and kills you' pretty much needs to die in a fire.

[virgil]

Like... in a world where like 4000 different people keep trying to give Fighters Sorcerer casting with a feat equal to a Sorcerer of their level, why on earth is Trapfinding even a thing that everyone doesn't have.

It helps that I'm not one of the multitude that wants to give fighters a "cast like a sorcerer" feat, and I figured I'd at least hear other peoples' opinions for something like this.

A random idea I had was to have Search/Disable not need the Trapfinding feature to deal with DC 20+ or handle magic traps, then have the class feature rogues get just give this feat as a bonus...

Trapfinding

• Benefit: You gain a +3 to Disable Device, Search, AC, & Reflex saves against traps and can Take 10 with both Disable Device & Search even when under pressure. If you beat a trap’s DC by 10+ with a Disable Device check, you can study the trap and bypass it (with the party) without disarming it.

[angelfromanotherpin]

A random idea I had was to have Search/Disable not need the Trapfinding feature to deal with DC 20+ or handle magic traps, then have the class feature rogues get just give this feat as a bonus...

That's very similar to how it's done in my Tome games, although the details of the feat are different.

[hyzmarca]

It depends. If you wanted to rebalance the game completely around traps, and make traps just as important, or even more important, than combat encounters, then dedicated trapfinding classes would make sense.

If you don't want to do that, then do what Kaelik said.

[Kaelik]

It depends. If you wanted to rebalance the game completely around traps, and make traps just as important, or even more important, than combat encounters, then dedicated trapfinding classes would make sense.

If you don't want to do that, then do what Kaelik said.

Okay that's grade fucking A nonsense. Every single character participates in combat which often makes up most of the play time of a session, that is why every class has to be equally as good at combat.

If traps are just as important as combat, then you definitely can't have dedicated trap classes. Every class needs to deal with traps.

If on the otherhand, traps are a minor thing that comes up rarely and is instantly sorted by the trapfinding class, then that is when you have an actual trapfinding class as a viable option.

[GâtFromKI]

As Kaelik said.

Also, if you wanted to rebalance the game around traps, you should remove the disarm device skill. Combats are important because there isn't any win fight skill solving the situation in 1 roll. Without disarm device, trapfinding is complete garbage - detecting magical traps isn't hard, detect magic does the job, so does summoning etc.

[virgil]

If traps are just as important as combat, then you definitely can't have dedicated trap classes. Every class needs to deal with traps.

If on the otherhand, traps are a minor thing that comes up rarely and is instantly sorted by the trapfinding class, then that is when you have an actual trapfinding class as a viable option.

This is the motivation behind the reasoning of questioning the idea of trapfinding being either a default feature of the skill or a class feature only. I do not plan on making traps a major, campaign-defining, facet of my campaign.

[Voss]

Pathfinder does it, but that doesn't indicate whether it's actually a good idea. On the one hand, it's mechanically "you are allowed to use your full Search bonus on that obviously trapped door". On the other hand, it's a role-defining ability; and you wouldn't let sneak attack or wildshape be feats. But is being the trap guy a sufficiently potent trait or even role to deserve protection from being sniped by the wizard with a spare feat; especially in a Tome environment, whether it's scaling feats or the new zeitgeist of 1 feat/level of feats like Tomb-Tainted Soul and Wings of Evil.

No. But sneak attack and wild shape aren't role defining either, and I'm not really sure why you think they are. They can be too good if you stack bonuses too high, or they can suck, like Bear Warriors or sneak attack on Fighters-Turned-Blackguards.

Trapfinding is just bullshit. If you invested in the multiple skills required - you can handle traps. It seriously doesn't matter who does it or what 'role' they have.