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first off, what level is this game? is the person with detect magic always moving at half speed? does he ever do anything else?
as general rules though:
thin sheets of lead or 1 inch of metal defeat detect magic. a magic trap hidden behind lead will not detect as magic. an item in a lead box does not detect
you only detect in a 90 degree arc, and only up to 60 feet. a mechanical trigger that trips a magic device 65 feet away wont be noticed.
Do not discount mechanical traps
also, remewmer rule 0, you are in control. if you need to houserule detect magic you can.
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I am new to pathfinder and a GM and player> they party of player is a dm'ing are rule mongers. They always have detect magic going do end y thing magic (I,e, traps or item are pointless. I need a to know if there is a fix for this ? They have it running at all times. This has made magic raps pointless. help please
"The spell can penetrate barriers, but 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt blocks it."
Why if you were expending all the effort and wealth to create a magic trap would you not also coat it in a thin sheet of lead, so as to foil (pun intended) detect magic?
*Ninja'd!*
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It takes a couple of rounds of concentration to find auras with detect magic. It's faster than taking 20 on searching but still not something you can do when pursuing or being pursued.
Otherwise - if the trap is centred on something you expect to be magic it may not be immediately obvious. Magic light fixtures for example, or in a book which might be a spellbook. If a mechanical trap is used to bring the magical trap into play it can be behind a barrier which detect magic can't penetrate until it's too late.
Findng magic items with detect magic is as intended, that's not a problem.
Edit: sometimes, too, a trap can be obvious and still be a problem. The door's trapped but you still need to get to the other side perhaps.
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There are a couple of ways to address this. Besides the things mentioned above, there's the civil technique of simply asking your group: "Please don't have detect magic up all the time. Instead, use it when it seems appropriate."
If that doesn't work, don't forget a rule that is commonly forgotten: hustling, which is double moving or taking a move and standard action (concentrating on detect magic) in a single round. If a character hustles longer than an hour, they take nonlethal damage and become fatigued. Now, not many dungeons take an hour to traverse, but keep track of any time they are rushing and count it as hustling. Tell players they are exhausting themselves in character by detecting magic constantly.
Yes, they can remove the fatigue with any kind of healing, but at some point your players should realize they are trying to play a video game instead of an interesting fantasy storyline. Imagine if in Lord of the Rings, every other sentence was "Gandalf scans the room for magic. They walk 10 feet forward. Gandalf scans the room for magic."
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Any sensible creator of magic traps will utilise magic aura to hide the magic. My players are all warned that that is the industry standard right from the outset.
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First, make sure you are adjudicating the spell properly:
Range 60 ft.
Area cone-shaped emanation
Duration concentration, up to 1 min./level (D)
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance no
You detect magical auras. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you study a particular area or subject.1st Round: Presence or absence of magical auras.
2nd Round: Number of different magical auras and the power of the most potent aura.
3rd Round: The strength and location of each aura. If the items or creatures bearing the auras are in line of sight, you can make Knowledge (arcana) skill checks to determine the school of magic involved in each. (Make one check per aura: DC 15 + spell level, or 15 + 1/2 caster level for a nonspell effect.) If the aura emanates from a magic item, you can attempt to identify its properties (see Spellcraft).
Magical areas, multiple types of magic, or strong local magical emanations may distort or conceal weaker auras.
1) If the party has magic items (which they probably do at 3rd-5th level) or an active spell effect (such as a long-term buff), then they will "ping" the spell whenever they are in the area (it can't discriminate until the third round of concentration). This means that the caster needs to be out in front of the rest of the party or else they will keep getting "false" readings.
2) The caster has to stop and remain still for additional rounds each time it "pings" to get anything other than a positive "there is magic present." It doesn't allow them to differentiate individual locations until the third round. Every time the caster moves or concentrates on a different area, they have to start over from the beginning. Do not allow the spell to work as if it is arcane sight.
3) Detect magic is easily fooled by magic aura (which requires identify or higher level spells to penetrate), in addition to the non-magical barriers mentioned. Also note the text "Magical areas, multiple types of magic, or strong local magical emanations may distort or conceal weaker auras." Additionally, if there is a lot of magic (continual flame lighting, etc.), then the spell will keep "pinging" on the "background" magic as well as the "dangerous" magic.
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I.had issues too the same as the OP. I solved it by making dungeons shorter, removing most of the traps, and ramping up the attacks by the monsters. My baseline encounter is always APL +3. Pcs in pathfinder are pretty powerful as it is.
I also don't make my players identify magic items anymore unless it's plot relevant.
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First and foremost I have to ask as a worried DM:
Is your enjoyment coming from the story or from watching your players trigger traps and take damage?
Be very careful with DMing...it's a mistake I made for YEARS. Just because you're playing the monsters and the dungeons doesn't mean you "win" by killing or injuring characters and "lose" when your players complete your campaign. D&D Isn't about winning and losing, it's about experiencing an interactive story.
Your job as the DM is to tell this story...to make it entertaining for the players...not to simply kill characters and injure party members. Death and injury are tools in a campaign to make it more interesting, after all a campaign without risk becomes little more than a power grab and gets boring quickly.
That advice aside, I can second a couple of the things above. Power gamers or as they're sometimes referred to "Munchkins" are actually not difficult to deal with. If they're perpetually casting "detect magic" to get around the challenges of the story, then put non-magical challenges in.
At the end of the day, I find a group of players who are rules lawyering you to death aren't invested in the story, they're invested in what the next cool toy is. In many cases, trust is the key to a great D&D tabletop experience. If your players are death adverse, take it off the table short of exceptionally stupid situations. There's at least one campaign group I used to DM for that quit trying to rules lawyer me to death after I promised that I wouldn't kill characters out of hand.
I had one game group who were really only interested in leveling and acquiring equipment...so I created a short but rather fun campaign where the party were captured and put into an arena. I simply picked monsters out of the various monster books and set them against the party in single room combat scenarios...the players got exactly what they wanted and we all had fun playing out battle after battle.
At the end of the day, though, it gets pretty boring to endlessly combat with no story and no goal other than personal gain...and eventually my players wanted a real campaign. The benefit to this was every time they started rules lawyering or power gaming me, I was always able to simply suggest that we put the campaign on hold and go back to the arena for a while...and most of the time they all agreed that wasn't what they wanted...and went back to playing.
One of the things many players don't get till they've done this for a while is that a great campaign and a great story is EVERYONE'S job to tell. Players have to be just as invested in the plot as they are in acquiring the next item.
Good Luck with your players. If it were me in your shoes? I'd sit them down at the beginning of the next section, explain to them that you're not having much fun with the way things are going, and ask what's causing them to want to break your game. Solve, as a group, the concerns that cause them to power game, and then go back to having fun together.
One more piece of advice: If you haven't already, go lookup up a short movie called "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising". I'm going to get laughed at for suggesting this, but outside of the fun the movie pokes at D&D, there's actually some AWESOME advice for DM's on dealing with trouble players. The story opens with a DM and his group of powergamers, and as the story evolves you get some interesting insights on handling the powergamer problem.
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You can also have magical traps that are triggered by detect magic spells. Kind of a jerk move if you use it a lot, but if the talking to them doesn't work, show them your point of view. Maybe a magic trap that does dispel magic and does 2 points of damage per active spell dispelled (1 point for cantrips & orisons).
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It takes a couple of rounds of concentration to find auras with detect magic. It's faster than taking 20 on searching but still not something you can do when pursuing or being pursued.
So dark souls it- have the enemy they can see at a short distance run off to join larger group- walks around the trap.
Also, have enemies show up behind while they are concentrating and moving at a speed that makes snails look fast.
That, and place a 3 round cost on every 5' (since it takes 3 rounds of concentration). Doesn't seem like much, but how much is that in spells when you have 10/min buffs going. When it takes them 5 minutes to go the barbarian's charging distance, things go SLOW.
If you REALLY want to punish this, make it something that isn't 'automatic'- make them experience every 5 feet, amke them move, say "you do not see a trap", move "you do not see a trap", etc. This isn't something automatic like the rogue's trap finding- a spell is an active ...action.
Now... items? Yeah, you are just going to have to write that one off. Even if they aren't cautious enough to have detect up all the time, they are going to definitely check out loot, both to see if it is good, and to see if it is cursed. That is their wallet's bottom line and the basic paranoia needed for adventurers.
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Stop oppressing my culture, you ethnocentric *****!
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nosig, the Wizard doesn't need identify to identify magic items. Detect magic + Spellcraft will do nicely for most items.
Otherwise, good stuff. :)
Magic raps are never pointless, just ask B.o.B.
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Detect magic works out to 60'. Why would they have to stop every 5'?
120 foot halways. And blind turns, which means that 60' is basically 10'.
Just think of a hallway shaped like the S piece in tetris. You have to go to end of the first corner, look left/right, move 5', and then turn again to look down the other straight part. Each of those require the full time to concentrate, since your vision was blocked by stone wall before.
So adding more tight, twisting halways can interfer with the effect of this strategy.
Also, just putting it on the other side of a (1 inch) metal door, I suppose. Lots of doors. Dungeons just don't seem to have enough doors.
There are tons of exceedingly minor obstacles that can make detect magic abuse a nightmare. Because it takes 5 seconds to deal with it, but it is quadrupled (1+3 rounds) when you try to concentrate on it.
Add in some enemies patrolling the hallways (cause that is a 'thing', paricularly when you take your good sweet time to move along), and suddenly, you don't have the luxury of waiting a full minute at a door.
It is hardly unfair. Because EVERYONE can find magical traps jsut by using perception. This just makes it harder to use detect magic to skip past the need for that perception. And it isn't like it completely invalidates detect magic (since you can still take occasional glances into a room before entering; only punish with patrols when they abuse it).
Just because a magic trap is spotted, it doesn't actually do anything about it. Put magic traps in places where they can't be easily avoided and where it makes sense to place them. On doors, on treasure chests, ect ...
If the caster suspects there is a trap on the door by reading auras, okay. Now she's still got to get rid of it somehow. She'll either burn a resource by casting a spell to deal with it, or the party unRogue will still have to disable it like normal (if he can even make the perception check to see it himself).
If it's an issue for the DM, I would suggest houseruling that magic traps are, by their nature as traps, hidden from such base levels of detection as a cantrip. Give someone with Detect Magic active a +1 or 2 on Perception checks to locate magic traps (which is in line with the bonuses provided by other cantrips to things), tell the players this upfront and run with it.
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why is it a problem at all? Okay, you detect all the magic traps and items. Awesome. Like, why is this considered a problem?
"Dang, now I can't gloat that you missed the hidden +5 vorpal longsword, cause you did find it. "
"Dang, now I can't gloat as you take the fireball trap."
Like, this also is assuming that a perception guy wouldn't have found these things anyway.
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Oh boy if you think detect magic is bad don't ever let one of your players get the trapfinder talent...
Traps (as they exist in the rules) are not meant to be huge challenges to find (or disable) if you want them to be effective put them in places where they are armed during a fight, or places where the fight will go and the players can't take the time to search.
Example:
Fight between 5 goblins and players - 1 goblin runs down the hall after saying out lout 'Imma gonna get da 100 other goblins two rooms over guys'
Players will try to stop him - but goblin goes past the *TRAP* which he avoids because he knows it's there and did the entire thing intentionally to trap the players (because there are no more goblins in the other room).
Player runs into the trap because they can't search and chase a goblin at the same time.
Another downside to Detect Magic is needing to cast it regularly. Psychic casters are fine with this, but arcane or divine casters will be announcing their presence in a clear voice in three-minute intervals while moving slowly.
Oh boy if you think detect magic is bad don't ever let one of your players get the trapfinder talent...
Traps (as they exist in the rules) are not meant to be huge challenges to find (or disable) if you want them to be effective put them in places where they are armed during a fight, or places where the fight will go and the players can't take the time to search.
I think the main obstacle there is that they are finding the traps without even a perception check (even if it is a boosted one). So even if it is a DC 100 to notice normally, they would notice it with their MAGICAL SMELL-O-VISION that just notices any spells laying about. Ergo, they invalidate it even further.
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Having never witnessed an episode of Star Trek get ruined by the characters' frequent and thorough use of tricorders, I really have to wonder about all these campaigns that are getting ruined by the characters' frequent and thorough use of detect magic.
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I think the main obstacle there is that they are finding the traps without even a perception check (even if it is a boosted one). So even if it is a DC 100 to notice normally, they would notice it with their MAGICAL SMELL-O-VISION that just notices any spells laying about. Ergo, they invalidate it even further.Oh boy if you think detect magic is bad don't ever let one of your players get the trapfinder talent...
Traps (as they exist in the rules) are not meant to be huge challenges to find (or disable) if you want them to be effective put them in places where they are armed during a fight, or places where the fight will go and the players can't take the time to search.
How on earth does detect magic invalidate a trap?
Round 1 -- yes, there are magic auras in front of you somewhere.
Round 2 -- there is a single aura and it's moderately powerful
Round 3 -- it appears to be a conjuration aura in front of the door
That's it for information. In what sense have you invalidated this trap?
If you just want to houserule in a way that makes it less spammable, have the spell cause 1 non lethal damage to the caster, once upon casting and again every sustained minute thereafter. This damage cannot be healed or prevented, but goes away 10 minutes after the spell ends.
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Also note that magical traps are easy to find but hard to disarm. Disarming a non-magical trap can be done by anyone with a decent Disable Device bonus -- but you actually have to have the Trapfinding ability or its equivalent to disable a magical trap.
I think the main obstacle there is that they are finding the traps without even a perception check (even if it is a boosted one). So even if it is a DC 100 to notice normally, they would notice it with their MAGICAL SMELL-O-VISION that just notices any spells laying about. Ergo, they invalidate it even further.Oh boy if you think detect magic is bad don't ever let one of your players get the trapfinder talent...
Traps (as they exist in the rules) are not meant to be huge challenges to find (or disable) if you want them to be effective put them in places where they are armed during a fight, or places where the fight will go and the players can't take the time to search.
How on earth does detect magic invalidate a trap?
Round 1 -- yes, there are magic auras in front of you somewhere.
Round 2 -- there is a single aura and it's moderately powerful
Round 3 -- it appears to be a conjuration aura in front of the doorThat's it for information. In what sense have you invalidated this trap?
Alright, it invalidates 'finding' the trap. For some traps, that might allow you to just avoid it.
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Alright, it invalidates 'finding' the trap. For some traps, that might allow you to just avoid it.
How on earth does detect magic invalidate a trap?
Round 1 -- yes, there are magic auras in front of you somewhere.
Round 2 -- there is a single aura and it's moderately powerful
Round 3 -- it appears to be a conjuration aura in front of the doorThat's it for information. In what sense have you invalidated this trap?
Which is actually what trapbuilders want.
Historically -- and in the modern day -- traps are used, basically for two purposes
* deprive the enemy of the use of an item or area
* slow the enemy down so that you can get a tactical advantage
That's not just my description. US Army Field Manual 20-32 ("Mine/Countermine Operations") goes into more detail and lists the following as the uses of traps:
* Slow the enemy's advance.
* Deny the enemy use of facilities and material.
* Warn of enemy approach.
* Deter the enemy from using ground not covered by direct fire.
* Plan defensive operations.
Specifically absent from this list is the idea of causing significant casualties, since traps have never really been able to cause significant casualties. The US Army puts it this way in another of their field manuals (FM 5-31, "Booby Traps"): "Boobytraps [sic] cause uncertainty in the mind of the enemy. They may surprise him, frustrate his plans, and inspire in his soldiers a fear of the unknown.[...] In defense, boobytraps, placed in the path fo the enemy at strategic locations in sufficient numbers, may impede his progress, prevent detailed reconnaoissance [sic], and delay disarming and removal of minefields." The purpose, from the same source, is to "delay and confuse the enemy."
Congratulations! By your own acknowledgement, the PC/intruders have just decided to avoid this trap, and to spend time, energy, and resources finding another way, one that avoids the trapped area. This means that the trap did its job, and you just won a tactical victory.
The Army goes on to say that "when an enemy meets a boobytrap at the first obstacle, his progress throughout the area will be delayed even though no others have been laid."
If the party is using detect magic, they're moving at a rate of 60 feet every four rounds -- advance, scan-1, scan-2, scan-3 -- and possibly slower; they've already slowed their progress through the area at least fourfold. That's what the Army considers the basic purpose of traps to be -- and so, again, the trap did its job, and you just won a tactical victory.
FM 20-32 ("Mine/Countermine Operations") says something similar:
"Booby traps are psychological weapons. They make the enemy cautious and slow it down. These actions, in turn, cause enemy casualties. Do not waste time attempting to set elaborate traps that are undetectable or impossible to disarm. Also, do not waste time developing difficult sites, because simple traps usually have the same chance of catching the enemy. Even if booby traps are detected and cleared, their aim is achieved."
If you can persuade the party to go through the dungeon at the pace of an asthmatic ant carrying heavy shopping, while all their buffs are expiring, they're surrendering any possibility of surprise or even (strategic) initiative. The BBEG has all the time she needs to move her minions into the appropriate locations, cast any and all buff spells she feels like using, and generally giving herself all the advantages she could ask for. Furthermore, since the party are avoiding the traps, they're traveling along a path that the BBEG got to pick, one that runs directly into an area that can easily be made into a killing zone. The effect, as the Army with characteristic understatement puts it, will "cause ... casualties," even if none of the traps are ever triggered.
Please, please, please, avoid all my traps. Please allow me to lead you by the nose along a pre-planned path I have chosen, at a speed that would embarrass a drunken slug. I can't think of anything I'd rather do to keep my Evil Fortress of Evil secure at low cost and effort.
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Further to previous.
There's a great story told about the British operations in North Africa during the Second World War. (I've not been able to verify the story, but fable has strong shoulders that can often carry more truth than fact can.)
One of the main issues in the North Africa campaign was, of course, access to water. The various oases and such scattered across some of the Sahara were thus critical supply points for skirmish troops, as water-found is less heavy and makes less demand on logistics than water-carried.
So imagine the Germans' annoyance when they would push the Brits away from one of these oases, only to find a big sign, written in German, saying "Warning: This water is poisoned, do not drink." There were usually a number of dead birds and stuff lying around, too, since birds are notoriously illiterate. This put additional strain on the German supply lines and greatly restricted their ability to operate -- but well-poisoning is also illegal as hell under the Geneva Conventions.
After the war, the Germans pointed this out, formally charging the British troops involved in these operations with war crimes. The British commander's defense was that, while poisoning wells was indeed illegal, and of course he would never condone anything like that, there were no laws at all against putting up signs saying that a well had been poisoned, and scattering dead birds around in the process of retreat.
And that is why you use traps. Not to inflict casualties directly, but to --- what was the phrase? -- "surprise [the enemy], frustrate his plans [in this case, to use the water supplies], and inspire in his soldiers a fear of the unknown."
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Alright, it invalidates 'finding' the trap. For some traps, that might allow you to just avoid it.
How on earth does detect magic invalidate a trap?
Round 1 -- yes, there are magic auras in front of you somewhere.
Round 2 -- there is a single aura and it's moderately powerful
Round 3 -- it appears to be a conjuration aura in front of the doorThat's it for information. In what sense have you invalidated this trap?
Which is actually what trapbuilders want.
Historically -- and in the modern day -- traps are used, basically for two purposes
* deprive the enemy of the use of an item or area
* slow the enemy down so that you can get a tactical advantageThat's not just my description. US Army Field Manual 20-32 ("Mine/Countermine Operations") goes into the following and lists the following as the uses of traps:
* Slow the enemy's advance.
* Deny the enemy use of facilities and material.
* Warn of enemy approach.
* Deter the enemy from using ground not covered by direct fire.
* Plan defensive operations.Specifically absent from this list is the idea of causing significant casualties, since traps have never really been able to cause significant casualties. The US Army puts it this way in one of their field manuals (FM 5-31, "Booby Traps"): "Boobytraps [sic] cause uncertainty in the mind of the enemy. They may surprise him, frustrate his plans, and inspire in his soldiers a fear of the unknown.[...] In defense, boobytraps, placed in the path fo the enemy at strategic locations in sufficient numbers, may impede his progress, prevent detailed reconnaoissance [sic], and delay disarming and removal of minefields." The purpose, from the same source, is to "delay and confuse the enemy."
Congratulations! By your own acknowledgement, the PC/intruders have just decided to avoid this trap, and to spend time, energy, and resources finding another way, one that avoids the trapped area. This means...
True, but most dungeons are not dynamic with monster movement, they are static.
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True, but most dungeons are not dynamic with monster movement, they are static.
Then maybe most dungeons shouldn't have traps at all, as they will do little other than
* Slow the enemy's advance.
* Deny the enemy use of facilities and material.
* Warn of enemy approach.
* Deter the enemy from using ground not covered by direct fire.
* Plan defensive operations.
Basically, if you're trying to use traps for something that the actual professionals tell us they aren't very good at, you shouldn't be surprised that they aren't very good at it.
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I can recall an old home game where I felt bad about the amount of treasure (or lack thereof) that I had given out in an earlier game. So I placed a large gem (a ruby) in the hall for the players to find. I reasoned that another adventuring party had dropped it as they left - and had not noticed it.
So as the players approached a intersection they caught sight of a "red twinkle" on the floor ahead. Out came the detect spell, the rogue checking for traps, the works. Ultimately, even discovering that it was a gem, they elected to bypass that section of tunnel to avoid approaching it, as they could come up with NO REASON FOR IT TO BE THERE. It HAD to be a trap, and one they couldn't figure out, so best to bust a hole in a couple room walls to bypass the intersection entirely...
"I always think everything could be a trap. Which is why I'm still alive."
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Just because it's a slow day in the office, I'm going to actually do an analysis of how hard it is to do any serious damage with traps....
I present unto you all <drum roll>, Nabisco the Incompetent, Bard of Bards. (All stats 13, no useful skills except his Perception score is +5 [+1 Wis, +1 rank, +3 class skill], no useful equipment or spells. He's got max hp at first level [9] and saves of +1/+3/+3). He will attempt to walk through the Hall of Infinite CR 1 Traps, encountering each one in turn -- but fortunately, because this dungeon is "not dynamic with monster movement," he can just back out and heal up before wandering in again, so he always encounters each trap at full hp.
Now, as a CR 1 creature himself, (actually, CR 1/2 because he effectively doesn't have PC wealth), he should, by the logic of the CR system, die 50% of the time or more at each trap. If he doesn't -- if he actually survives most of these traps -- that will show you just how ineffective traps are at causing casualties.
So let's begin.
I) He stumbles across the threshold and spots an arrow trap. With +15 to hit, it almost surely hits him for 2-9 points of damage, but he almost certainly stumbles back and recovers. Even at full damage, he is not dead, only seriously injured -- and from here on, I will assume average damage for simplicity.
II) On his next trip, he crosses the same threshold, but because the arrow trap doesn't self-reset, he's safe.... until he steps forward onto the collapsing floor. Needing a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid it, he naturally fails and tumbles 10 feet down, taking 1d6 damage.
III) Bypassing the unrepaired collapsing floor, he instead trips and slides into a pit trap, taking 2d6 damage, which could actually kill him but doesn't because we're assuming average damage. Nevertheless, he takes much greater precautions on his next trip where
IV) ... he staggers in front of a a poisoned dart trap, taking 1d3 points of a damage and up to 4 (probably two) points of Con damage. Still standing, he promises to wear a breastplate after he completes this dungeon.
V) ... but first, he needs to get past the Indiana Jones swinging log trap. This one is actually dangerous (it does 1d6+5 points, which could actually kill him if it hits), but with only a +5 attack roll, there's a good sporting chance it will miss. More seriously, though, it's only a Perception DC 12 check to find, which he can easily make by taking 10 and thus bypass the trap entirely.
VI) Moving on (and for the first time encountering two traps in one day), he finally moves out of this first corridor and into a chamber, a chamber <dun dun DUN!> dominated by a large enchanted pool of fear. With no chance whatsoever of recognizing that it's a trap (DC 26 to spot), he stares into it and would immediately be frightened away for 1d4 rounds except he makes the DC 11 Will save easily and is immune.
VII) Going for a three-fer, our "hero" Nabisco finds two acid spraying skulls on the other side of the pool and immediately takes 2d3 of damage from them (again, which he can just walk away from and heal).
... et cetera, et cetera, world without end, selah. As you can see, traps in Pathfinder aren't actually that dangerous, and even stumbling into a trap-filled dungeon with your eyes wide shut won't actually kill you. Traps are only useful as an adjunct to the active defenders that would love to find Nabisco with his foot caught in a punji stake trap or low on hit points from a swinging axe trap. Traps are bad, not because they will hurt you particularly badly -- Nabisco would have been HOSED against this many CR 1 monsters -- but because they can put you in a bad position, and because someone can use that bad position against you.....
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I play roguelikes. One of my favourites is Angband which, for those of you who don't play roguelikes, is a randomly generated 100 floor dungeon.
It is also designed to kill you.
Repeatedly.
However, the traps in Angband make for a great example here. Trap detection in Angband is simple. Rogues, and wizards have detect traps, or find traps, stairs and doors as spells. Staves and scrolls of detect traps are cheap. Traps won't kill you either. Effects range from stat drops to status effects like confused or blind. However, traps are involved in many deaths.
Imagine that you're running from the pack of orcs down a corridor you haven't scanned yet. But then, you're suddenly hit by a dart and confused! You can't run in a straight line anymore! How will you escape now? You won't. If you haven't got a potion to cure it, that's game over.
Or you're fleeing down a different corridor and waiting for your mana to recharge. You almost have enough to teleport or magic missile the creature into oblivion. And then, a trap triggers and you're blind. In Angband, blind mages can't cast as they can't read their spellbooks.
Traps shouldn't be the main focus. They enable the other things to kill you.
lots of stuff, not re-quoting
Quite a bit of a strawman since you utilized CR1 non-lethal traps. CRs (of anything) equivalent to the APL are not overly challenging by themselves. The hero should be walking through the "Hall of Infinte CR 3 traps" instead.
Traps shouldn't be the main focus. They enable the other things to kill you.
This is definitely one of the best ways to use traps. Unfortunately, in most printed modules I've come across they are rarely designed this way. This isn't an issue at all if you take creative license in changing stuff, but it does sound like (from reading various posts) a lot of people run the core module as written.
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A CR1 wolf or 2 CR1/3 orcs (a CR1 fight) will kill Nabisco on average. These CR1 traps will not. And he used every CR1 trap the book had to offer. If I made Nabisco fight every CR1 creature in Bestiary 1, even 1 at a time at full HP, he would lose plenty of those encounters.
What you're saying is that a CR3 trap is what's required to be the equivalent of a CR1 monster, and that was OQ's point.
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Traps shouldn't be the main focus. They enable the other things to kill you.
Absolutely. And if the trap designer knows what she's doing, one way they enable other things to kill you is by being detected and detectable, since that slows you down and directs you to go where she wants.
Ideally, it turns into a heads-she-wins, tails-you-lose situation. If you don't spot the trap, you're messed up (blinded, confused, weakened, prone, covered in gravy, whatever) and something can kill you more easily. But if you DO spot the trap, you'll spend ten minutes removing the tripwire from the gravy boat and allow everything in the next room to get into position to thwack you.
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lots of stuff, not re-quotingQuite a bit of a strawman since you utilized CR1 non-lethal traps.
That's an ... interesting ... comment. I guess I'm confused at what a CR1 "lethal" trap looks like, then, because I didn't see any. A lot of the traps did nuisance-level "lethal" damage, but nothing that Nabisco wouldn't/couldn't/shouldn't soak up and walk away from.
Remember that CR == APL is only unchallenging if you've got a typical four person party. A level 1 PC by himself is himself a CR 1 encounter, so he's got roughly a 50/50 chance of survival against a CR 1 opponent. If Nabisco the bard and his sister Metamucil the sorceress were to go into the dungeon together, the pair of them would be a CR 3 encounter.
Detect magic doesn't disarm traps, and honestly traps are mostly irrelevant anyway, they literally just exist to force someone to bring someone who can disable them. Just rely on actual combat encounters instead of traps, unless you have a super trap focused rogue noone will mind.