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I was looking at putting a few Inflict Light Wounds trap in an adventure.
Cost to make:
Highest Spell Level: 50*1*1 = 50gp
Auto Reset: 500*1*1 = 500gp
Total Cost for an autoresetting Inflict Light Wounds Trap 550gp.
Challenge Rating: CR 1
Perception: DC 26, Disable DC 26
As I was setting up the map I realized the undead could use it as a healing center. They can heal for 1d8+1 just by walking across the 'trap'.
Why not have Cure Light Wounds traps in good temples. Just in case undead attack? To undead it is a trap, but to living creatures it is an infinite use cure light wounds. Also it is cheaper then a wand of cure light wounds.
Then I thought well you can put traps on chests, even small chests. If you can put an inflict light wounds trap on a small chest, why not a cure light wounds trap? For the low low price of 550gp PCs can have a standard action cure light wounds when the trap goes off.
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I was looking at putting a few Inflict Light Wounds trap in an adventure.
Cost to make:
Highest Spell Level: 50*1*1 = 50gp
Auto Reset: 500*1*1 = 500gp
Total Cost for an autoresetting Inflict Light Wounds Trap 550gp.
Challenge Rating: CR 1
Perception: DC 26, Disable DC 26As I was setting up the map I realized the undead could use it as a healing center. They can heal for 1d8+1 just by walking across the 'trap'.
Why not have Cure Light Wounds traps in good temples. Just in case undead attack? To undead it is a trap, but to living creatures it is an infinite use cure light wounds. Also it is cheaper then a wand of cure light wounds.
Then I thought well you can put traps on chests, even small chests. If you can put an inflict light wounds trap on a small chest, why not a cure light wounds trap? For the low low price of 550gp PCs can have a standard action cure light wounds when the trap goes off.
I love this idea...in fact. As a DM I'd definitely allow this. In fact with your permission I am going use it in the game that I'm running. The PC's are fixing to engage in a huge ongoing battle with a bunch of tribals that have kidnapped all the women from their crew (it's a high seas adventure) and I was planning on having an ancient ruined temple as the final confrontation setting, this will provide an excellent source of healing in a party with no healer. (Their healer is just an NPC and was one of the afore mentioned women.)
Yeah it's a good idea. But...in PF you have to choose between healing living creatures or inflicting damage on undead creatures when you cast the spell(craft the trap). By RAW.
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By the book yes...however I've houseruled that it does both simultaneously. GM has the final say after all. I just like the idea of a Cleric bursting amidst a group of undead and allies and healing the PCs while turning the skeletons to dust. It just feels more heroic to me.
Of course in my current campaign it doesn't really matter, I don't have any undead in the ruins just tribals, of course the tribals know where these "traps" are.
"Since undead are powered by negative
energy, this spell deals damage to them instead of curing their
wounds."
I can't see why you would have to choose, but besides that, this system with traps seems ... the b-word.
You could trap a shield, that everytime it is touched (blocking a weapon), it casts a cure serious wounds on you, with immediate reset.
Such a shield seems rather awesome compared to other magic stuff. Also wear shoes trapped in the same way, every step will trigger it.
I suppose here that magic traps don't really need a lot of mechanics, or does it somewhere say that you have to put in into a room or something?
Channel Energy: "...good cleric (or one who worships a good deity) channels positive energy and can choose to deal damage to undead
creatures or to heal living creatures".
Oh, and re: traps - no, just no. Traps are a permanent fixture, not a type of magic item you can carry around.
I would think that the choosing part is only for the class feature. But I can see your interpretation.
However, permanent fixtures are only as permanent as you want them to be. A cart should be able to be trapped, or a Mage's Mansion. I mean the trap is normally on a 5-foot square, let's suppose it's 2-foot down into the floor. Then you can still take out the trap and carry around that 5x5x2 feet thing around, can you not?
And for magic traps, I really can't see why it needs to be a permanent fixture. However even in that case, a mage should be able to "carry around" those permanent fixtures as healing pods.
I don't say the GM should allow it, I just say if he allows this kind of traps, he can hardly forbid someone trying to take them with them.
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I would think that the choosing part is only for the class feature.
I can see how you would interpret it like this. The GM I play under interprets it as you choose when you channel energy, every time. Not just at character creation. It makes for a more versatile cleric that way. And of course you've read my personal houserule reguarding it.
To each their own, but if you're playing under different GM's on a regular basis it's good to get clarification.
@Relkor: no, i wasn't saying whether they channel positive or negative energy. I was saying that when you channel positive energy, you must choose whether to heal living creatures or hurt undead creatures.
Just to be clear.
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@ Tanis: Yea I got that, I was commenting on RL's take on the rule as written. I just think it's an interesting way of looking at it. And in some games could be really interesting. A cleric that only heals when he channels is better IMHO than a cleric that can only damage undead when he channels.
Still, Richard, it is an interesting take on the rule. And please don't take that as me saying your understanding is incorrect, like I said before all interpretations are finalized by the GM. His game, his Rules. (Or her if a lady GM.)
;)
okay, there surely are different ways of interpretation for channeling energy trough spell of class feature.
My GM's always allowed all the uses, and so did I.
I somehow think that this cheap-heal-trap business is important. That's why I bump it a little. :)
Edit: also flagged it for FAQ, not only for traps, but also for the channeling.
The problem is the heal traps taking them with you could get broken if you put it on a cart or a chest on a cart. If it is on a chest and while the pcs are in a dungeon have someone replace the cure light wounds trap with an inflict light wounds trap would be funny and could lead to an adventure to get it back.
The only place really balanced is to build into the interior of the dungeon.
Also the party should not get xp for cure light wounds traps.
Also if the pcs have the cure light wounds chest for the trap. Also with the existence of a cure light wounds trap somone will try to rent it out when thought of in character. A trapped bed of healing. I could see the clerics of a church renting this out. The cost of this only costing 550 gp is wierd when a wand of cure light wounds cost more and this gets up to infinitely more uses and how is that balanced.
If anything these traps may be rented in good temples.
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I dislike resetting traps of all kinds now. Where do they get their energy from? Why no charges? I'd rule a wand of sorts is part of the trap and is what makes it so expensive, and when charges are used up the trap mechanics keep working, but the magic doesn't.
You do realize this thread is from 5 years ago right?
I dislike resetting traps of all kinds now. Where do they get their energy from? Why no charges? I'd rule a wand of sorts is part of the trap and is what makes it so expensive, and when charges are used up the trap mechanics keep working, but the magic doesn't.
Why would you rule that?
The game HAS rules for creating magic items that never run out of charges, that don't even have charges. Your +1 sword doesn't have charges. Your ring of protection doesn't have charges.
The game also has rules for traps that don't have charges. Ruling otherwise is just a house-rule. Tat's fine, but this is the Rules Question forum - you dug up a long dead post to counteract a discussion of actual game rules with your own house rule.
As for the actual game rules, I see this kind of thing come up on these boards a lot - why not make beneficial buffing/healing/curing traps all over the place?
Well, aside from the cost (which can be surprisingly cheap in some cases), the rules don't specifically prohibit it. So the only limiting factor is the GM; if it's your game, do you want this kind of stuff all over the place?
A classic CRPG example is every game in the Might And Magic series. As you explore the world, you find countless objects that give you day-long buffs or even permanent increases to your attributes. These things are just laying around the world waiting to be touched by heroes (and presumably by everybody else, too). I always thought it was overdone: "Oh, look, here's our 23rd barrel of red liquid - get my fighter to step up and drink it and poof! he's permanently stronger... Again...".
I personally won't be using this idea, not because I'm ruling against it, but because I don't envision Golarion as the kind of world where this stuff exists. Maybe it's just because the vast majority of people wealthy enough to build these things are not altruistic enough to do it.
I like inflict wounds traps when combined with intelligent undead. They can use it to heal, bull rush living opponents into it to hurt them (or grapple a living opponent and hurt the living and heal the undead at the same time), and living opponents can move in the way of the undead, blocking their access to it. It makes for a fun and dynamic battlefield.
@Claxon
I might be guilty of "Expand the scope of a thread beyond what the original topic was. All threads do this to an extent as they spin off into tangents but some necro threads are a complete shift in direction." as my comment was moving it from "is it mechanically allowed" to "does it make any sense ingame?" - and I guess I'd like it to be a discussion really. So maybe I should have opened a new thread in the discussion section with a link to this one. Still it's not like this one has 200 posts or anything.
@DM_Blake:
By "I'd make" I didn't quite mean as "I'd rule" but rather that the situation of that infinite magic felt to me to be a problem that needed adressing. I have exclusevily low level experience (both with having a low level PC and with GMing those). My fantasy inspirations are from low to mid magic prevalence. My thinking is sometimes rather annoyingly concerned about the how and why of things, even where they don't matter.
@SmiloDan I'd rather think it would be unfair to only allow inflict traps to heal undead if you don't also "allow" cure traps to heal the living... However, that doesn't mean you have to plant them anywhere. In a lot of video games there are heal pods spread conveniently through dungeons. I dislike them for breaking my sense of immersion
(how are they keeping introuders out? why would the architect have included those? -- unless they are hidden and actually meant for the inhabitants of the Dungeon to quickly heal up after fending off intruders... - or they are a "natural" (as in magical stuff) trap of sorts. I'm imagening glowing stones in certain kinds of mines... great fluff potential, though mining that stone for healing purposes would probaly leave the little pieces that are brought out loosing it's energy rather fast... still cool)
Because of my increased need for immersion and in-game logic something has to power magic, whenever it's more powerful or much more frequently used than other things in the same universe. If some cleric discovers building those traps in temples means free healing for everyone (after a one time fee) there will be loads of use of it. Gods could probably power such traps indefinitely if they care to. As was pointed out by DM_Blake many other items have indefinite re-usability (such as 1/day items, constant items and things like for example the weapon property flaming). However they are much more pricey, and/or limited in the frequency of use.
Let's consider traps in an ancient low level dungeon. It might have resetting spell triggers like inflict wound. What keeps it from simply fading in power when the caster who made them has long been dead, or the energy source depleated? Who knows, it's ancient. --- Actually thinking about it a bit, "it's magic" is a good enough answer, if only because I don't really want to question the working of all the other things like that, that would be affected by the answer.
I'm still uneasy with retriggering traps, but I would use them when building dungeons etc. - Although I think I also will put some thoughts into where it's power comes from and have some obvious traps that won't do anything because the god that powered them has long been forgotten. I'd also like to have traps that have charges, perhaps powered by a wand or such and taking the trap apart carefully could grant said item with the charges that remain.
Still sofar the only reference in the trap rules on d20pfsrd to traps with charges I've seen was this:
"electrified doors connected to a generator have no charge limit, otherwise the trap has only enough energy to function once with no reset"
Arrow traps triggered by a pressure plate with an automatic resetting mechanism could still run out of arrows at some point. Poisons might be affected by time too...
I guess it really depends on the setting and context a lot, too. Alright I retract the generality of my prior statement.
I've never seen any PCs build traps, but I guess it could and does happen sometimes. - Still at least the traps in the environments would have a chance of getting some closer attion next time I build something along those lines. At least if I have a rogue or someone who could actually figure out how the traps work, and be interested in it too. :)
I don't regret the necro. Your replies have made me think a bit harder about the topic, so thanks for your time. :)
I sometimes include healing areas (not necessarily traps....) in my dungeons, especially if they're ruined temples or the like.
Hey! How about a healing area that only affects those with the sigil or holy symbol of the creator on it? Then it might be used to heal summoned monsters, guardian constructs, tattooed mooks, and clever PCs that draw it on their foreheads.