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Has anyone ever put Craft(trapmaking) skill to good use? I'm tryng to be honest about the trapmaking abilities of an NPC, and based on the rules in the skill writeup and in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master's Guide, I've come to these conclusions.
DC 20 is the lowest crafting difficulty, so this may not be worth trying until you have +10 skill (can't Take 20 when crafting).
Crafting even the very simple Swinging Block Trap (DMG p71) would cost 234 gp and take about 10 weeks to complete.
CR 3 and higher traps can cost thousands of gold and take a year or more to make.
Has anyone ever put Craft(trapmaking) skill to good use? I'm tryng to be honest about the trapmaking abilities of an NPC, and based on the rules in the skill writeup and in chapter 3 of the Dungeon Master's Guide, I've come to these conclusions.
DC 20 is the lowest crafting difficulty, so this may not be worth trying until you have +10 skill (can't Take 20 when crafting).
Crafting even the very simple Swinging Block Trap (DMG p71) would cost 234 gp and take about 10 weeks to complete.
CR 3 and higher traps can cost thousands of gold and take a year or more to make.
Yes, I know, it doesn't always make sense. I justify it by using experts in trapmaking in the tribes that use them. If you make a kobold expert 3, this provides a +6 bonus (class skill, 6 ranks at third level) and a +2 racial bonus. With the non-elite array of ability scores, placing one of the better scores in Int also provides an ability score bonus of +1. This is a +9 bonus total. When you factor in aid another bonuses (all kobolds have +2 racial bonus, so the 10 they need for aid another is easily achieved) it doesn't seem so outlandish. But I get what you're saying.... kobolds worship the god of trapmaking, so they're a bit of a skewed example.
- Ashavan
Yes, I know, it doesn't always make sense. I justify it by using experts in trapmaking in the tribes that use them. If you make a kobold expert 3, this provides a +6 bonus (class skill, 6 ranks at third level) and a +2 racial bonus. With the non-elite array of ability scores, placing one of the better scores in Int also provides an ability score bonus of +1. This is a +9 bonus total. When you...
There are many skills used as flavor to the game. (I always have 10 ranks in Craft{sculpting}, no matter what class I am just because.)
Crafting even the very simple Swinging Block Trap (DMG p71) would cost 234 gp and take about 10 weeks to complete.
CR 3 and higher traps can cost thousands of gold and take a year or more to make.
Do you how hard it is to make a trap vs. weapons. You got complex arrow-firing, blade-swinging, death-dealing action in a trap. A weapon is a glorfied hunk of metal or wood (or other substance). That is why almost all lethal(?) traps are magic or poisonous in nature. Not that a good hole in the ground doesn't work in a pinch.
But, yes as the rules say, it is very hard, and you need to be trained well to make something that will work well and correctly.
if one of my players were taking that as a skill I'd consider giving him/her a +2 synergy bonus for all find traps and disable traps checks.
OK, an average crafts-guy is blowing full skill ranks and he has at least an Int 12. That means that as an Expert 3, he's looking at a minimum of a +7 to his Craft roll. If this is this guy's profession, then we can assume that he's got Skill Focus as well, bring him up to +10. If he takes 10, he can make the DC of 20 with no problems.
Don't forget masterwork tools for another +2.
For the 500 gp swinging block, he's blowing 167 gp, and he can make it in 228 weeks, or just under five years(a +22 nets you 2.2 gp a week towards your total cost of 500 gp).
Add 40 untrained helpers(using aid another), and you can expect an average of another +40, bring you down to 8 weeks. Untrained hirelings cost 1 sp per day, so its an extra 2000 gp to build this in only 8 weeks. Of course, this is assuming that the DM will let you add another 40 helpers to the task.
At some point, buying a scroll of Fabricate and investing in Use Magic Device(on top of your Craft skills) becomes cost effective. I assume that in DnD boats, gemcutting, poisons, heavy armor, and most traps are made by this method, which is why they are so common compared to the real world.
Good luck!
On the other hand, how hard can it really be totie a string to a tree, post, etc, run it across a path, doorway, etc, around another tree or post, and attatch the end to the trigure of a well secured crossbow? The only real safety precaution necessary is to not load the bolt into the crossbow until after the tripline is set, then don't kick the string. I can see a DC 5 or even 10 check to make sure you get proper tension, aim the crossbow correctly, etc, but that's easy enough for an intelligent character to do without ranks. Now rigging op a concealed ax-like pendulum to swing down from the ceiling when a concealed pressure pad it stepped on, yeah that would be a lot harder andd take a while. Still, a decent trapmaker with the assistance of a good mason or carpenter (or the trapmaker having ranks in the appropriate craft as well as trapmaking) should be able to pull that off in a day or two, faster with more hands on the job.
This has yet to come up in one of my games but if it did then I'd make ad hoc DCs for simple traps at least (like the crossbow thing). A pit trap? It's a well disguised hole in the ground, for Pete's sake. Wedging a few pointy sticks in the bottom shouldn't be too hard either. The only thing I'd require a skill check for would be making the cover hard to notice, and I'd be likely to add synergy bonuses for ranks in Hide and/or Disguise (either the trapmaker or his/her rogue buddy that lends a hand). Maybe a constitution check if you're trying to dig the hole in a hurry.
Yeah, traps are pretty expensive. Especially compared to other item made using the craft skill. Somehow, i find it hard to believe that a simple hole in the ground covered with dirt will cost you 1800gp
I understand they where priced that high to dissuade players from putting traps in every 5x5 area of their stronghold. Still, there has to be a more reasonable way to achieve this. The pricing, as is, just doesn't make sense.
Well those are the "selling prices", should not the construction costs be half that ?
Yes, crafting things in general is a difficult task in D&D. Say you want to buy a suit of full plate. You find a 6th-level dwarven expert who is a blacksmith to help you out. This dwarven blacksmith has max ranks (+9) in Craft (armorsmithing) and Craft (weaponsmithing) not to mention Profession (blacksmith). Using the default array: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8, he wisely chose to make Intelligence his 13. At level 4, he bumped it to 14. Now of course he also has masterwork tools for his profession, netting him another +2. And of course, this is his primary means of making money. He has skill focus in armorsmithing as well. So what's his total bonus? +2 (Int) +2 (racial) +2 (mw tools) +3 (skill focus) +9 (ranks) = +18. This gives him enough to take 10 and get a 28 on his check, which incidentally is enough to add +10 to the DC in order to craft the item faster. At that rate, he will finish 784 sp worth of work a week, enough to finish the full plate in 19 weeks and change. That's a long flippin' time.
Now suppose he's in Eberron and he is a magewright. This gives him a +10 to his check. If we extrapolate the rules and assume a crafter can add an additional +10 to the DC (for a total of 38), then this brings the time down to about 10 1/3 weeks. Still a pretty long time. You would be hard-pressed to outfit even the officers in your army at that rate.
So here's my solution. Allow synergies like crazy. 5 ranks in both Craft (weaponsmithing) and Profession (blacksmith) should give him +2 synergy each. Add 5 ranks in Knowledge (architecture and engineering) to the mix and give him another +2. Give him a +2 for each magic item creation feat he has if he is a spellcaster. You could create a feat called Master Craftsman that gives you +2 to two Craft checks of your choice. There are a number of things you can do to raise the bonus of a Craft check. You have to be creative to do it though. I have no idea how long full plate takes to make by hand in real life but even assuming a best-case scenario, it is a rather time-consuming task by D&D rules. Then again, I do know this one guy who took three years to weave his own chain mail in his spare time.
For the people that are DC inclinded....
Using Craft (trapmaking)...how long would it take to set up a simple tripwire/xbow trap if the xbow simply rested upon a surface (pole, rack, table, etc...)
I don't know the DC offhand, but I know that I could personally do that in under a minute. Heck, when I was ten I would rig up tripline water balloon traps half the times that my mother left me at home while she went out for groceries. Porch stairs right next to the front door, a lightweight (easily breakable) piece of fishing line tied across the top of the stairs would run up to the roof and around a ventilation chute in the roof, ending just above the gutter, tied to a big water balloon. A small flat board would be placed over that section of gutter so the balloon wouldn't get stuck in it as it rolled down when the fishing line was broke. Somebody walks up the stairs, kicks the line (likely not even noticing if they're wearing jeans), and by the time they take another step, a water balloon is falling towards them. Total set up time? About ten minutes for a couple of ten year olds (the neighbor twins would usually be in on such little schemes), and that includes hauling a ten foot ladder from the shed in the back yard and then putting it back after we were done. Granted, our aim was never great and we ended up soaking a lot of feet and no heads, but it wasn't hard.
I don't know the DC offhand, but I know that I could personally do that in under a minute. Heck, when I was ten I would rig up tripline water balloon traps half the times that my mother left me at home while she went out for groceries. Porch stairs right next to the front door, a lightweight (easily breakable) piece of fishing line tied across the top of the stairs would run up to the roof and around a ventilation chute in the roof, ending just above the gutter, tied to a big water balloon. A small flat board would be placed over that section of gutter so the balloon wouldn't get stuck in it as it rolled down when the fishing line was broke. Somebody walks up the stairs, kicks the line (likely not even noticing if they're wearing jeans), and by the time they take another step, a water balloon is falling towards them. Total set up time? About ten minutes for a couple of ten year olds (the neighbor twins would usually be in on such little schemes), and that includes hauling a ten foot ladder from the shed...
Me thinks that that is my point. Anyone could do it...so why is Craft (trapmaking) such a...silly<?>...skill?
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Actually there are some mechanics floating around in 3rd party publications for this exact subject. Traps and Treachery has a PrC called the Trapmaster that has a class ability "improvised traps."
The Craft(Trapmaking) DC is 10+CR of the Trap being made. It takes 10 minutes*CR and for balance sake should be restricted to a CR equal to half the ranks the PC has in Craft(trapmaking). These are perfect for the Rogue, Ranger, or Scout who wants to rig some improvised traps in the wild or in a dungeon!
--"I am a Vrock, I'm a Tanar'ri!"
I never had difficulty changing the rules when they seemed a bit silly. Quite honestly, I doubt my players would ever make their own traps like that, they're always in way too much of a hurry and will use spells instead.
50 weeks + to make a simple trap? Give me a break....since you guys are talking about using a bunch of skill synergies to make this trap making rule more realistic in the time department, why don't we just cut the construction time by a factor of 20 and the cost by a factor of 10....3.5 is a great game system, but it was written by fallible humans.
I don't have much experience making traps but I do have a lot of experience in breaking rules. I find that when a D&D rule is just to stupid to believe, I just change it(providing the fact that I'm DM at the moment of course).
I eat traps for breakfast.
Usually the trap time is made for weeks because you usually do something drastic like add a pressure plate into the ground and then you have that connected to some kind of trigger usually further off. As in Indiana Jones the big bolder would have taken quite some time to have moved up the ramps and set into place, as it would with a large slab or a large swinging axe. If it were a shorter duration of making a trap then the D&D worlds would have traps nearly around every corner, but instead they are just guarding a few selective places that are high security.
I don’t make my traps take fifty weeks to build but I also don’t build them over night. Usually I cut the time down in half the first time and then I factor in help and rushing it DC checks. But if a trapmaker already has the trap ready and just needs to set it up with just a simple trip wire then it would take just a few hours. But building from scratch and putting a new fake wall or whatever into a dungeon would take time.
For the people that are DC inclinded....
Using Craft (trapmaking)...how long would it take to set up a simple tripwire/xbow trap if the xbow simply rested upon a surface (pole, rack, table, etc...)
Not very long at all....but to insure that the enterprising rogue doesn't discover the trap (DC 20). Well that is going to take longer and is harder to pull off I think. Just remember, a typical 1st level expert (you) isn't going to notice the trap until it is too late, far too late.
I eat traps for breakfast.
You might consider something that more closely follows your states recomended allowance of vitamins and minerals.
To me it seems that comparing real-life trap making and D&D game mechanics for trap making is intrinsically flawed and of little value:
1) In real life, the deadliness and subtlety of a trap have very little to do with its cost or complexity
2) Most real-life traps are mere annoyances in a D&D setting where the game mechanics are geared towards attrition of resources (HP, spells, attributes) that have very little in common with real-life physiology (I might be a 5th level Nerd with great CON score in real life, that does not mean I can scuff off a crossbow bolt lodged in my chest)
3) D&D traps are an extension/adaptation of really cool and spectacular (but unrealistic) Hollywood props ans special effects ... think Indiana Jones
4) In real life, structural traps are unheard of (who has a hidden swinging axe blade in their basement?) therefore, understanding their mechanics and subtleties is at best uninformed guess-work ... unless you're a civil engineer with a major in deadly humor
Neverwinter Night is especially hilarious if you think about it ... How can a trap made of basic components and dropped on the floor be subtle? It's a GIZMO! How can you NOT see it (unless you are blind)? why would you step on it?
In my games, I totally ditched the whole trap-crafting rules ... There are 3 types of traps that can be built:
A) Traps constructed from spells and/or item creation feats as, after all, this is a fantasy game ... (I have my own spells/feats, very popular with Rogue/Wizards or Ranger/Wizard multiclasses) ... In such a case, it's very much like an area spell / magic item ... The spell/feat description contains the rules for cost/effort/prerequisites/spot/disable/etc ... You can get away with murderous inconsistencies if you can justify it with "Wizard!" ...
B) Structural traps have to be accounted for when designing/building the structure (dungeon, tower, etc) and are therefore an intrinsic part of its cost. These tend to be very deadly, difficult to avoid/disable and somewhat easy to reset (almost always manual, rarely involving additional costs or craft rolls) ... Adding a trap to a finished structure is VERY costly and difficult to implement and tend to produce traps that are somewhat easier to spot and then disable and more difficult to reset (additional cost, craft reroll) ...
C) Snares & Pits, the usual trip-line-water-balloon sort of trap ... Any hunter/poacher/trickster/"kid on Santa's naughty list" knows the ABC of this ... They usually are very easy to disable, whereas the difficulty to spot them and their deadliness are proportional to the craft roll (ingenuity, rolled by only one character no take 10 or take 20, may be aided by others) and time spent (effort, calculated in man-hours, the more skilled participants, the faster/better the result) ... costs tend to be trivial, the time spent is totally up to the players, but must be called before the craft roll ... They work better outside or in cluttered environments (it's difficult to set trip wires in a dungeon full of straight walls) ... In any case, I require my players to come up with some seemingly consistent explanation for the trap layout and effect ... (Of course they can always aid themselves with various spells in the execution plan)
The only practical use that I see for the Craft Trapmaking skill is when
a) you're in a thieves' guild and you have to pass some tests
b) you've got time to plan
c) you're hired to trap a building or tomb, etc
Probably the best course of action is to be aware of your players' skills and make sure they have an opportunity to use them (for b, hearing of an attack force moving in and setting up an ambush is a great example). I've had a lot of luck in getting players to use skills that aren't often used.
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I have one player who LOVES craft (trapmaking) and another who LOVES craft (poison)- and cannot abide the length of time it takes to make these things, or anything for that matter, in D&D, which is why I generally, like so many others, just throw the rules aside sometimes and adjudicate time and costs.
I can deal with the traps we have no concept of how to make taking forever (flooding rooms, magic runes, etc.), but a 20-foot hole isn't that difficult to make, or even cover and hide fairly well.
I think I'm going to use formula in whic the DC is 10 + CR, and craft time takes 10xCR minutes, within certain parameters. Similar rules should probably be used with all craft skills.
Yeah, I've always found Trapmaking to be used by NPCs way more often than PCs. It really takes up a lot of down time, and you can never get it to work out like Arnold in Predator, or even the Ewoks in Star Wars.
In Neverwinter Nights, they have "trap kits", which take about a round or two to set up. Now, setting up a flooding room trap in one round is just stupid, but maybe for the crossbow trap, I could see something like this. For example, the player pays extra to craft a trap "kit". Then, when he needs it, he sets it down, and does his best to hide it. Not the best solution, but, it's okay. :)
WaterdhavianFlapjack
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The only practical use of this skill in my campaign has been in the preparing an ambush or protecting a campsight line. In this context, it's a useful skill. I also throw out the timeframe and gold expense rules and wing it in these situations. I make the trapmaker invest some time in town to find the necessary materials and I tie the success of the roll to how hard the thing is to spot. I generally make the rogue carry around some wire and potentially an extra xbow. The best traps, however, are the ones that combine mechanical and alchemical ingredients. The use of thunderstones, poisons, acid flasks, alchemist's fire, tanglefoot bags, and even flasks of oil (for a potemtially flammable grease effect) all give the party an advantage in an ambush or in slowing down creatures that break up a camping session (maybe long enough for the fighter to get his armor on).
Beyond these uses, I really don't see why you would ever bother with the skill. Who creates Indiana Jones-style boulder traps, anyway?
The ol' Stronghold Builder's Guide has an interesting bit that could interest you here.
In medieval Europe, castles often took years to build, and truly massive structures took even longer. Main construction on the cathedral in Reims, France, took 80 years, with decorative work continuing centuries after the groundbreaking in 1211.
Such long construction times don't work well in most D&D campaigns, because the pace of characters' lives moves too quickly. Characters could undertake multiple epic adventures while their castle was being built, and they would only get to live in their strongholds after they had retired. Any character willing to spend hard-earned gold on a stronghold deserves to enjoy the finished product.
The SBG sets the time to build strongholds at one week per 10,000 gp in price. Which is somewhat close to the cost of creating magical items (1,000 gp per day). So as a quick way to speed up trapmaking (or any other type of Crafting), you could set it to, for instance, 100 gp per day unless magic is used (in which case you'd follow the same rules as magic item creation).
As another alternative, you could have the weekly check result be in gold peices, or the daily in silver.
Beyond these uses, I really don't see why you would ever bother with the skill. Who creates Indiana Jones-style boulder traps, anyway?
Someone with the clairaudience spell and a twisted sense of humor. >:-D
Also, properly built (as a circular tube), this kind of trap would require minimal effort to reset. (or clean if you're using a sphere-shaped gelatinous cube as the boulder)
I have been considering this for a game I am planning to run in the not too distant future.
This is what I've determined, loosely. The construction of a trap comes in two parts; the components and the setup.
The components can be purchased or found, getting a perfectly spherical 15' boulder would cost a bit more than a crossbow and some string. Specially made items would of course cost more and take longer to have made for you.
The setup time will be calculated in either minutes or hours, depending on the type of trap and what sorts of alterations are required to set it up.
This seems to make sense to me and does make creating traps on the fly a restrictive endeavor. I'm assuming that most traps of great complexity that will require components that must be made for the purpose, unique to most setups. If a player does happen to have the components, then the traps can be set up in a reasonable time at need.
Now, there is only one annoyance with this solution. I just see the rogue/rogues in the game wanting to disasemble any trap they encounter, dragging parts along with them. It will be annoying, logistically, to deal with adding in those details to every trap they encounter.
To add to this discussion.
I just noticed that p. 41 of the DMG II has a series of booby traps that players (or kobolds etc.) can rig up real quick.
Contributor
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I wonder how many ranks in trapmaking Macauly Culkin had in home alone?
In my games I make a discrepancy between a professionally built trap and a quick boobytrap type thing.
I kind of rule it that the skill allows the character to build super deadly, hard to find and hard to disable precision traps.
If you want to decrease the DCs and cost for building them, make them crude and lower their search and disable checks. A quickly built pit trap would be easy to find, and easy to climb out of. A professional one would be hard to find and hard to climb out of.
As a real world analogy, I know how to replace the breaks on my car before once the pads start wearing into the rotors, however I'm usually inclined to have my mechanic do it for me.
I personally feel that /any/ craft skill can be useful if one has a plan for what to do with it. As a pertinent example, I just retired a character that had just taken a bunch of ranks in Craft(trapmaking). First off, it gave him a bonus on his disable device checks to disarm a trap. Second off, since he had psionic abilities, his intent was to make magical(psionic, whatever) 'insti-traps'. In short, traps that would instantly set themselves up, but require a skill check to do so. Alas, I ended up retiring him before I could realize my plans (he had an opportunity to gain control of a barony).