Howdy,
So I have a rogue at my table that is completely focused on finding traps and consistently rolls 30-45s on his Disable Device checks.
Recently, we came across a trap that was triggered anytime someone came within 10 feet of it.
My rogue argued that since he couldn't fail (without a nat-1), that he should have the chance to disable it. I ruled that he's going to have to get next to it first and that, since its trigger was Proximity (True Seeing) that he wouldn't be able to get close enough without it going off. He argued a bit (because that's his rogue thing) but I eventually just pulled a DM fiat since they'd had a super easy time with the dungeon so far.
My question is mostly for future reference, but is there a way for a rogue to bypass a proximity trigger like that? Obviously if he sees pressure plates or if it's not a true-seeing level detection there's probably a workaround somewhere, but I wanted to double check. Because I like letting players use their things.
A 45 on any skill check is beyond superhuman. The rogue doesn't need an explanation for how he bypasses the trigger any more than the bard needs to write a sonnet to use his perform skill. You should have let him beat the trap - otherwise you are invalidating potentially his only useful ability and making him feel like he is wasting his time playing.
Depending on the DC, a natural 1 might have let him pass fine as well. There are no natural 1 instant fails in skill checks.
There is equipment that lets you use DD at reach. There was some kind of enlongated tools, and there's a clockwork spider item in the Advanced Class Guide that's similar.
You could let them improvise 'reach' tools if they don't have them, with whatever the normal penalty is for that (-2 or -5 I think).
A 45 on any skill check is beyond superhuman. The rogue doesn't need an explanation for how he bypasses the trigger any more than the bard needs to write a sonnet to use his perform skill. You should have let him beat the trap - otherwise you are invalidating potentially his only useful ability and making him feel like he is wasting his time playing.
Depending on the DC, a natural 1 might have let him pass fine as well. There are no natural 1 instant fails in skill checks.
My specific reason for the DM fiat was because they'd used Dismissal on every single combat in the dungeon level up to that point (having gone in fully rested). Since these were combats rated a full CR over a full party and then we had a no-show, I decided to force them into one combat so we wouldn't be done with the entire session in 30 minutes.
(Normally I would just let them continue playing, but we play on a university and have to keep all the tables together so that players don't accidentally spoil the rest of the dungeon for players at other tables)
Ultimately, my reason was because he didn't have anything to disable it over the 15 feet he had to stay away. If he could get up to the trap, I'd have totally let him do it, but it was triggered based on anyone stepping into the area.
Interestingly enough, True Seeing could be countered by a fog spell. That'd let him get close enough, provided he could actually 'hide' from the trap he's disarming :P
If you can't really disable a trap then it should just be an obstacle to avoid upsetting a player. There is no purpose to a DC that can't be beat.
Now just to be clear there is a difference between it being impossible and the players not having the means to do so. Casting dispel magic could have shut the trap down for a long enough period of time for the rogue to get to it.
If I were you I would help the rogue think of ways to handle such traps, and to ask the party members for help if needed.
PS:To add to Paulicius idea, if the rogue has fog cutting lenses then he can see through the fog with no problem.
If you can't really disable a trap then it should just be an obstacle to avoid upsetting a player. There is no purpose to a DC that can't be beat.
Now just to be clear there is a difference between it being impossible and the players not having the means to do so. Casting dispel magic could have shut the trap down for a long enough period of time for the rogue to get to it.
If I were you I would help the rogue think of ways to handle such traps, and to ask the party members for help if needed.
PS:To add to Paulicius idea, if the rogue has fog cutting lenses then he can see through the fog with no problem.
Yeah, again the only reason that I just ruled against it was because they didn't have anything to get into the range or suppress the magic (the only casters they had were a bard and an inquisitor)
But I also didn't want to give them too much info because a) I'm a big fan of players taking charge, b) they'd walked through three encounters that were 1-2CR over them, and c) playing in the situation we have on my university means that friends that are at different tables will have to sit around and wait (so we try to keep as much of the same pace as we can. As such, if I'd let him just disable things, the party would've been done with all four encounters that we'd planned to take a 3-4 hour session in about 30 minutes. So there are external limitations as well. :/
If you can't really disable a trap then it should just be an obstacle to avoid upsetting a player. There is no purpose to a DC that can't be beat.
Now just to be clear there is a difference between it being impossible and the players not having the means to do so. Casting dispel magic could have shut the trap down for a long enough period of time for the rogue to get to it.
If I were you I would help the rogue think of ways to handle such traps, and to ask the party members for help if needed.
PS:To add to Paulicius idea, if the rogue has fog cutting lenses then he can see through the fog with no problem.
Yeah, again the only reason that I just ruled against it was because they didn't have anything to get into the range or suppress the magic (the only casters they had were a bard and an inquisitor)
But I also didn't want to give them too much info because a) I'm a big fan of players taking charge, b) they'd walked through three encounters that were 1-2CR over them, and c) playing in the situation we have on my university means that friends that are at different tables will have to sit around and wait (so we try to keep as much of the same pace as we can. As such, if I'd let him just disable things, the party would've been done with all four encounters that we'd planned to take a 3-4 hour session in about 30 minutes. So there are external limitations as well. :/
So every encounter was consisting of outsiders?
If so, advice follows:
You should probably mix the encounters up if they have a possible "I win" button. Another idea is to put a counter into a room. As an example, the game has spells that block extraplanar travel.That should stop outsiders from being dismissed even if they fail a save. Of course that would also shut down their ability to teleport, but it is better than the alternative.
Look, have the rogue roll acrobatics to avoid the consequences of the trap, then let him disarm it. Each round needed to disarm it he needs to roll another acrobatics check to beat the traps attack roll.
Look, have the rogue roll acrobatics to avoid the consequences of the trap, then let him disarm it. Each round needed to disarm it he needs to roll another acrobatics check to beat the traps attack roll.
If it had been a pressure-plate type proximity thing, I'd have totally done that. But it had True Seeing, so I don't see how Acrobatics would help.
If so, advice follows:
You should probably mix the encounters up if they have a possible "I win" button. Another idea is to put a counter into a room. As an example, the game has spells that block extraplanar travel.That should stop outsiders from being dismissed even if they fail a save. Of course that would also shut down their ability to teleport, but it is better than the alternative.
Yeah, I didn't realize that the inquisitor had Dismissal. I'm planning on doing Dimensional Anchor on rooms closer to the BBEG (who had summoned the creatures here and then given them specific instructions about not using plane shift to go home). My players are steamrolling things as it is (even with advancing creatures and adding more)
My question is mostly for future reference, but is there a way for a rogue to bypass a proximity trigger like that? Obviously if he sees pressure plates or if it's not a true-seeing level detection there's probably a workaround somewhere, but I wanted to double check. Because I like letting players use their things.
Yes.
From an out-of-game perspective, a trap you can't disable is a middle finger to an already weak class. From an in-game perspective, yes, if this guy is so superhumanly good, then he can do it.
I can think of several ways one could to this in the real world, starting with using an appropriate tool attached to a telescoping wand -- and I don't consider myself a high-level trap-specialized rogue. Anything using true seeing to detect things, for example, can't see through a sheet of aluminum foil or even heavy paper, so simply throwing a chewing gum wrapper at the right place would do it. Similarly, the trap itself could have been disabled, so even if the trap was triggered, the powder was damp enough that it didn't explode (or whatever the exact trap is/was).
A 45 on any skill check is beyond superhuman. The rogue doesn't need an explanation for how he bypasses the trigger any more than the bard needs to write a sonnet to use his perform skill. You should have let him beat the trap - otherwise you are invalidating potentially his only useful ability and making him feel like he is wasting his time playing.
Depending on the DC, a natural 1 might have let him pass fine as well. There are no natural 1 instant fails in skill checks.
My specific reason for the DM fiat was because they'd used Dismissal on every single combat in the dungeon level up to that point (having gone in fully rested). Since these were combats rated a full CR over a full party and then we had a no-show, I decided to force them into one combat so we wouldn't be done with the entire session in 30 minutes.
(Normally I would just let them continue playing, but we play on a university and have to keep all the tables together so that players don't accidentally spoil the rest of the dungeon for players at other tables)
Ultimately, my reason was because he didn't have anything to disable it over the 15 feet he had to stay away. If he could get up to the trap, I'd have totally let him do it, but it was triggered based on anyone stepping into the area.
For what it's worth a similar situation arose in a game session I was running recently. I this case it was a Symbol of Stunning trap with a conditional trigger to be set off when any non-drow came within 10 feet.
The rogue easily perceived the trap from 30 feet away when he entered the trapped chamber and wisely chose to not to approach when I informed him that he could discern a proximity trigger. Instead the party discussed and were debating between having the wizard dispelling the trap or the rogue jury-rigging something to disable it from afar. The party decided that the rogue would try it as the wizard only had 1 dispel magic prepared and wanted to save it.
Using a pair of discarded spears from a previous encounter they lashed them together and I allowed him to make the check at -5 penalty. Since his DD is +30 and he has Skill Mastery he automatically disabled the trap as it was only DC 32 and his take 10 DD with the penalty was 35.
For what it is worth, the rogue player did not feel cheated or invalidated in any way. In fact, he was rather pleased with himself and the rest of the party for coming up with an innovative way around a difficult situation. (Not to mention that with his trap spotter talent and his insane scores he pretty much auto-disabled 4 CR 10 whirling blade traps with purple worm poison).
To be honest, I actually have a hard time making any trap feel relevant given that his skills are so high (and they weren't really all that hard to get them that high either) and know that every time I put a trap in an adventure I am pretty much giving free XP. I still feel the need to put them in the adventures though, otherwise he might feel robbed for making these choices and then having nothing to use them against.
For what it's worth a similar situation arose in a game session I was running recently. I this case it was a Symbol of Stunning trap with a conditional trigger to be set off when any non-drow came within 10 feet.The rogue easily perceived the trap from 30 feet away when he entered the trapped chamber and wisely chose to not to approach when I informed him that he could discern a proximity trigger. Instead the party discussed and were debating between having the wizard dispelling the trap or the rogue jury-rigging something to disable it from afar.
One thing you did right was allowing the rogue to role-play instead of simply rolling the dice and saying "a 35, did I make it?" This provides rogues with much-needed moments in the sun and lets the player feel he got something out of all those skill points he spent.
The problem, of course, is that it can backfire horribly if the player can't or won't role-play those moments. Ms. Brightstar couldn't think of a way to disarm this trap from 15 feet away, and it's a fair bet that the player couldn't, either, or he would have simply mentioned it and the question wouldn't have arisen. But just as we don't expect a wizard's player to understand magic theory and we don't expect the bard's player to be able to perform sensuous enchanting music on a trombone, we shouldn't expect the rogue's player to be an expert on lock picking.
Least he got to know it had a proximity trigger. Usually I just get to know there is a trap, not anything about it. I might see a tripe wire or a pressure plate but that's about as far as it goes. Cus how does one see a proximity trigger, etc.
Least he got to know it had a proximity trigger. Usually I just get to know there is a trap, not anything about it. I might see a tripe wire or a pressure plate but that's about as far as it goes. Cus how does one see a proximity trigger, etc.
In this situation I ruled that he was able to discern some common variations on the rune that drawn for the symbol of stunning to recognize that special trigger conditions had been utilized. It was a reward for smart playing to some extent. He normally relies on the trap spotter talent but when entering the chamber and saw the strange runes and writings on the opposite wall he chose to examine the symbols from the doorway instead of approaching and make an active Perception check. I decided that since he took the care to do so, he should be aware that there is a proximity trigger though I did not tell him the conditions. The wizard then used detect magic and a really good spellcraft roll to identify what the trigger conditions were.
Least he got to know it had a proximity trigger. Usually I just get to know there is a trap, not anything about it. I might see a tripe wire or a pressure plate but that's about as far as it goes. Cus how does one see a proximity trigger, etc.
Lots of ways. Perhaps a standard thieves' kit includes a pocket thaumometer among the rest of the unspecified "tools," or perhaps if you spray hairspray near a true sight spell you can see the edges of the detection radius as a shimmer. Maybe he can hear the ultrasonic pinging as a vague buzzing in his ears. Or maybe he just Used the Force [tm].
There's obviously no realistic answer, because there's no realistic magical traps. And the unrealistic answers are handwaved away because the skill system is an abstraction. But at a +Inf Perception score and Disable Device score, he has the necessary skills, however you flavor it.
