Poisoned Dart Gallery DC


Monsters and Hazards


On page 343, the Poison Dart Gallery lists it's (expert) stealth at a +16 and its (master) stealth at a DC 29. At first glance, this looks like it means that it's harder for a master perception proficiency as harder to find. It's not obvious enough that the DC 29 (master) is for only the control panel, and the +16 (expert) is for the rest of the trap.

A comma, semicolon, or explicitly saying that the +16 (expert) is for the dart shooting component of the trap, would make it more clear.


Playtest Rulebook wrote:
Reaction "For complex hazards, the reaction also causes the hazard to roll initiative" (p. 343)

If I'm reading this correctly the "Stealth +16 (expert)" portion is the Stealth modifier the trap uses when rolling it's initiative, using Stealth instead of Perception. So it has a +16 bonus on the initiative roll and the trap is an expert at stealth for making that roll (though I'm not sure why that would matter since the flat bonus is already listed).

Playtest Rulebook wrote:
Stealth "A complex hazard instead lists its Stealth modifier for rolling initiative, followed by a DC if there’s a chance someone might detect it. If the hazard requires a minimum proficiency rank in Perception to find it, that rank appears in parentheses." (p. 342)

The "DC 29 (master) to notice the control panel" is the Perception DC to notice the control panel and you must be master proficiency to notice it. You'd then go to the Disable section to find the Thievery DC 21 (expert) to disable the control panel and you must be a expert at thievery.

Paizo formatting this differently may remove some of the confusion. Move the initiative portion to it's own entry at the bottom of the top section of the description after the "and then rolls initiative" in the Effect entry or to the top of the bottom section immediately before Routine since that is where the roll will happen and must precede the Routine beginning.

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What I'm confused about here is how many attacks does this trap have?

Playtest Rulebook wrote:
Effect The trap makes an attack against the triggering creature and then rolls initiative.

This seems clear. 1 attack against the creature that triggers the trap

Then after rolling initiative on its turn...

Playtest Rulebook wrote:


Routine (1 action) The trap launches one dart against every
creature in the gallery as 1 action. Because it launches darts
continuously, the trap also has a free action to launch a dart at
each creature during that creature’s turns.

So, for 1 action it launches a dart against everyone in the gallery. It has 3 actions so 3 attacks against everyone or does it take only the 1 action on its turn? So for the sake of counting were at 1 or 3 attacks.

Either way its turn is over now and something else's turn begins, likely a PC but could be anything. Now comes the part about the free action in the Routine. It gets another attack as a free action or does this portion of the routine reference Continuous Barrage? With the former we're at 2 or 4 and the later still 1 or 3. Now let's take a look at Continuous Barrage.

Playtest Rulebook wrote:

[[F]] Continuous Barrage

Trigger A creature within the active gallery finishes an action.
Effect The trap makes a poisoned dart Strike against the triggering creature.

As a free action this can happen multiple times per turn but only once per trigger. Unless the free action portion of the Routine refers specifically to the Continuous Barrage free action (not a separate free action) AND the "has A free action" implies it can only do this once it bring this trap as high as 7 attacks per turn against every PC. 3 from actions, 3 from Continuous Barrage, and 1 from the unspecified free action.

Let's assume we have a level 8 barbarian with +4 CON mod for 8*12+8*4=128 HP. He'll have master proficiency in medium armor. Let's assume he's using an master quality BP and has a dex of at least 14 (to get the +3 max dex) bonus an AC of 27. The trap attacks at +18 so it hits on a 9. That's a 60% hit chance. On possibly 7 attacks? At 3d4. He also has Master proficiency on fort saves for a minimum +14 fort save vs DC 20 is a 25% chance of being poisoned. This is less likely to happen but on 7 attacks at an average of 4.2 hits per round so on average he'll fail just over 1 fort save per round. On average these to-hit numbers may be a high not having accounted for other bonuses e.g. magic items, other modifiers to AC/fort, special materials, higher CON than +4, etc.

DPR math time using a simple version of the dpr formula (7 attacks * 3d4 (7.5 avg) damage * 60% hit chance) * 1.10 crit chance (for 10% crit chance on die roll of 19(18+19=37 is AC27+10) or 20) + 1d6 poison (3.5 avg) * 7 attacks * 60% hit change * 20% fort fail rate (on roll of 2 to 6) * (1.05 * 2d6 {7avg} poison) for crit fail jumping directly to stage 2.

7*7.5*.6*1.10+3.5*7*.6*.2*(1.05*7) = 56.259 DPR

Now on our barbarian that's not terrible. More armored characters or better for it'll be lower less armored or worse fort it'll be more. But that's only one round and it's going for everyone in the room which may be the full party. I suspect this would be a significant danger to an party that triggers the trap instead of disarming it. If the likely only one person in the group, although some groups may have more than one, who can disable it goes down rest of the party better get out of the room or everyone dies.

Someone please check/update this math using stats from some real characters. It's gotten late and I'm not sure about the math for the poison damage including critical fails.


I reread the section on hazards today and it lists the number of actions a complex hazard has in the "Routine" section before the description. So the (1 action) in there for this one is the number of actions it has not the number of actions the routine uses as I was previously thinking.

This seems very appropriate for a lvl 8 trap.

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