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Looks like the beloved Paizo boards ate my thread. I'll try again.
My players have a home base in our new campaign and are looking to set traps to keep out girlscouts and other unwanted guests. One of my players sent me the following email regarding the crafting of traps:
hat the hell is up with the trap crafting rules? Am I misreading this?Ok , suppose I wanted to make a new javelin trap, valued at 4,800 gp.
1) convert to sp, so 48,000 sps
2) find the DC...it's 20
3) pay 1/3 which is 12,000 sps
4) Make a craft check representing one week of work. On a 10, I get 22, which is pretty incredible for a 3rd level character.
Multiply this by the DC. So, 22x20=440. Each week you make progress until you reach the total amount of the item. So, that would take me over 109 weeks????
That's like 2 years to craft a CR2 trap? I HAVE to be doing something wrong. What gives?
I checked the rules, and his analysis appears correct. Did he/I miss anything? Anyone have any insight as to why a measley CR 2 trap is 5k in the first place?
Sebastian, you seem to be the victim of postmunchers an aweful lot. After the second time it happened to me I started opening notepad and copy/paste the post to it. Then I click submit post and hope it goes through. If not I start another post and copy/paste what I just wrote to the new post. Gotta love having a backup.
Now back to the topic at hand.
Crafting traps is the worst. I have a few disagreements with how other items are governed, but the time and cost for something that launches a pointy stick when a plate is pressed down is completely off the wall. I never noticed this until a couple of years ago when one of my players brought this to my attention. I thought he was reading something wrong so I read through the rules for crafting traps. He was right.
One of the fixes we thought about was not switching gold to silver for determining craft time. We never fully explored this however as it never came up in game.
Have you ever dealt with contractors?
8-)
IMO, all the crafting rules are sincerely broken in a default campaign, and traps may be the worst of the bunch. For a graphic example of this, consider pricing out the value of all the traps in the usual kobold lair and comparing it to the expected treasure of that number of kobolds. Worse, consider that the value of a poorly concealed pit trap (AKA, hole in the ground) in front of a commoner's hut is probably an order of magnitude greater than the value of the hut.
This is of a piece with the other problems of economics in D&D (make a SAN check; sanity loss: 1d2/1d8). There is no set of first principles from which the values of various goods and services has been derived; it's an assortment of incompatible ad hoc systems each created for game balance reasons.
Regrettably, I don't have an easy fix to suggest. I think you have to choose between easy (take the prices suggested without worrying about their sensibility) and fix (creating an economic system from scratch).
Good to know that I'm reading the book right. I completely agree regarding the wackiness that is the D&D economics system. It's particularly painful to me because I am always trying to build campaigns around thieves guilds, mines, and other economic units and I always have a hell of a time getting things to balance out. I hadn't ever looked at the cost of traps until this campaign and had no idea they were so out of whack.
Any idea as to the logic of the underlying game balance that is driving these prices? I can sorta see how the game rules seek to keep players from having companions, whether they be summoned, druidic, or otherwise, of equal CR, so is this just an extension of that same logic? Is it set up to make sure that the CR of traps is at least 2-3 below the CR of the players?
And as for post-eating, I always tend to remember to copy my messages - after I hit submit. I need to learn to remember 5 seconds earlier.
Any idea as to the logic of the underlying game balance that is driving these prices? I can sorta see how the game rules seek to keep players from having companions, whether they be summoned, druidic, or otherwise, of equal CR, so is this just an extension of that same logic? Is it set up to make sure that the CR of traps is at least 2-3 below the CR of the players?
I wish. This has barely ever been brought up, much less addressed by any 'official' explanation. It would be a alot easier to swallow if there were some reason to explain it other than sloppy design. Even with the switch to gold from silver the work time is still kinda wonky.
I hadn't looked at that before -- wow!!
As far as time is concerned, I would suggest going with the suggestion to change it from silver to gold. Although, have you ever tried to dig a 20' x 20' hole by yourself with a shovel and pickaxe?
I haven't, but judging by the turn around time in graveyards, I would hazard that it takes less than two years. ;-)
Doug Sundseth, 29 minutes ago Reply
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Have you ever dealt with contractors?
8-)
It takes two baby... or sometimes more.
I think this is a valid point. While I agree that the monetary value of the traps is too high,(I reallly like the not converting from silver to gold idea BTW) you have to think multiple workers who all contribute.
The cost of that same CR2 javelin trap is 1600gp (1/3 of 4800) and the thief making the trap does 440gp worth of work this week.
Now he promised his buddies a keg of beer to take this weekend off from cutting purses and they pitch in to lend a hand. With just two other sets of hands working on the project (not an unreasonable number IMO) they are done in a week and a half.
I get by with a little help...
I think it's really difficult to work on projects just by yourself, but a well connected thief with ties to a guild could make nasty traps fairly quickly.
just my two coppers,
-Roth
As an aside, if you have a player who is interested in trapsmithing, take a peek at the Complete Scoundrel. There is a PrC in there that specializes in setting traps in combat situations. It's much more practical than the standard trap setting rules in the PHB, although they're not permanent traps like one would put in a stronghold or dungeon.
Personally I have dug a huge hole by myself with pickaxe and shovel. It was a 10' deep x 30' long x 4' wide pit along my foundation so I could seal it. It took nearly 2 months to dig. Mind you I also had to deal with lots of large rocks and boulders and I was not working on it 8 hours a day every day.
So in the end yes the time to craft a trap is a bit skewed.
Stan