Spells and channeling is something completely different (disreguarding the fact that there are many more classes that can cast arcane spells and channel energy then there are classes that can disable magical devices). I'm talking about being able to use a skill to it's fullest extent when I have put ranks into it. The fact that only Rogues (or a very few others) can use the skill Disable Device in a certain way is stupid. It would be like if only Rogues can use Bluff to feint in combat or if only Rangers could use Survival to track. Rangers are AMAZING at tracking compared to other classes- but they shouldn't be the only ones who can do it. In the same vein, Rogues are amazing at finding and dismantling magical traps, but they shouldn't be the only ones (or near enough) who can do it.
Ehhh... so all powerful wizards are reweaving the physics of the universe to leave a trap....
ok...
Honestly... I have a hard time justifying ANYONE being able to 'disarm' these kinds of things... Dispel, sure! but pulling out a lockpick and just doing it... Pushes my believability too far.
BUT WHATEVER... they wanted to give the rogue something that makes him Better at disarming traps than anyone else with a high skill... FINE.. i can accept that...
But now the arguement is that ANYONE should be able to unwork the magic in the trap?
I don't like that at all... Is there any justification for it? Why do you think random normal people should be able to unwork magic?
If "I" had designed the game... I think i would have had the Trapfinding +1/2 level to disarming traps... included in the Rogue section. then 'Disarm magic traps' be either a rogue talent or Feat with 'trapfinding' as the prerequisite...
I'm talking about being able to use a skill to it's fullest extent when I have put ranks into it.
You could say the very same thing about the Spellcraft skill since the ability to write and read magic spells is part and parsel with the skill, how about Perform for Bards or Diplomacy for Rangers/Druids. Those classes have closer ties with the skills in question or use them in unique ways I see no difference between them and the argument you are trying to make with Disable Device.
Should every character with high ranks in perform be able to use bardic abilities or tame wild animals with their diplomacy skill? With the argument you are trying to make the answer would be yes.
Situations like this are interesting because push the players in overcoming obstacles differently. If everybody does the same in the same manner, why have classes?
A class that has feature X can do it better than other classes. If you don't have feature X you can still succeed, but it won't be as easy.
Traps are just not a big enough threat in PF to make feature X a "must have".
Ehhh... so all powerful wizards are reweaving the physics of the universe to leave a trap....
ok...
Honestly... I have a hard time justifying ANYONE being able to 'disarm' these kinds of things... Dispel, sure! but pulling out a lockpick and just doing it... Pushes my believability too far.
BUT WHATEVER... they wanted to give the rogue something that makes him Better at disarming traps than anyone else with a high skill... FINE.. i can accept that...
But now the arguement is that ANYONE should be able to unwork the magic in the trap?
I don't like that at all... Is there any justification for it? Why do you think random normal people should be able to unwork magic?
If "I" had designed the game... I think i would have had the Trapfinding +1/2 level to disarming traps... included in the Rogue section. then 'Disarm magic traps' be either a rogue talent or Feat with 'trapfinding' as the prerequisite...
If it is magic from a spell then it can be dispelled. That makes perfect sense to me, and people that can do such things are not random in any sense of the word.
Unless you take away the 1/2 level bonus to finding traps and Disable Device, that's too good for a feat, much less a trait. For JUST finding magic traps, eh, somewhere between a trait and a feat. That could work.
I like the idea of offering "trapfinding" as a trait, that is something I may consider since I am already allowing traits.
Yes you are quite right - too powerful for a trait. All I was going for is the most painless way to give a PC the ability to disable magical traps.
OK, so I want to offer trapfinding, or more specifically the ability to disable magical traps to a non-rogue PC.
So how powerful is that? Should it be a feat? A magic item?
I don't want to be monte hall, but I want to reward this player who has stated his willingness to be the "trap guy" in the rogue-less party.
Unless you take away the 1/2 level bonus to finding traps and Disable Device, that's too good for a feat, much less a trait. For JUST finding magic traps, eh, somewhere between a trait and a feat. That could work.
I like the idea of offering "trapfinding" as a trait, that is something I may consider since I am already allowing traits.Yes you are quite right - too powerful for a trait. All I was going for is the most painless way to give a PC the ability to disable magical traps.
OK, so I want to offer trapfinding, or more specifically the ability to disable magical traps to a non-rogue PC.
So how powerful is that? Should it be a feat? A magic item?
I don't want to be monte hall, but I want to reward this player who has stated his willingness to be the "trap guy" in the rogue-less party.
Just to make my position clear here, I feel very strongly that disabling magic traps is best way to remove them. Throwing your body at them because you have a lot of hit points does not seem right to me. It should be the exception, not the rule. Unless your character concept involves enjoying pain and inflicting on yourself. Dispelling is good too of course, but there are other important uses for dispel.
Traps have always been a big part of the game, and that should not change just because the party does not have any rogues. Yes you should play whatever you want to play, but there should be some consequences for not making a balanced party.
So with my group, a player has volunteered to step up, shift some skill points to stealth and disable, to be the scout and trap guy. I want to reward that sacrifice by giving him the ability to disable magical traps, without going overboard.
K, so I want to offer trapfinding, or more specifically the ability to disable magical traps to a non-rogue PC.
So how powerful is that? Should it be a feat? A magic item?
One thought I had was that you could make a set of magical use-activated thieves tools that would give the ability to disarm magical traps. At 1,100gp you have MW tools with use-activated detect magic except the effect of the detect magic is not to allow the detection of magic, but the disarming of magical traps. You could also limit it to "x/day" to make it cheaper (2/day would be 500gp).
If you feel it is that important I would suggest a feat that allows a character to disable the harder traps maybe with a prerequisite of skill focus disable devise. Maybe throw in a trait that can gives the +1 bonus to disable devise and makes the skill a class skill for that character. I would say that would provide what you are looking for while maintaining balance.
A Rogue's only job should to be trap removal, just as the Cleric's shout not solely be healing. Strip trap finding off a Rogue and it's still one of better damage dealing classes as well as stealth/skill classes. Having other classes that can take up the trap slack frees a Rogue player to do other things with their skills. Same with getting more healing into the hands of non-Cleric classes, lets the Cleric branch out as a non-heal bot.
Of course it should not be his job only. But should be the best at it. As wraithstrike said, traps are not so deadly to force Trapfinding as a "must have". But if is there, is nice. As it should be.
My point is the OPPOSITE of "the only job". Rogues should be the best on other jobs, not trapfinding olny. And BTW, I'm not so sure about damage. They SHOULD deal a lot of it IMHO, not sure if they actually do.
One thought I had was that you could make a set of magical use-activated thieves tools that would give the ability to disarm magical traps. At 1,100gp you have MW tools with use-activated detect magic except the effect of the detect magic is not to allow the detection of magic, but the disarming of magical traps. You could also limit it to "x/day" to make it cheaper (2/day would be 500gp).K, so I want to offer trapfinding, or more specifically the ability to disable magical traps to a non-rogue PC.
So how powerful is that? Should it be a feat? A magic item?
That sounds reasonable to me. I think that is exactly what I am going to do.
Did you mean use-activated Dispel Magic?
Did you mean use-activated Dispel Magic?
Not at all. For one thing, if you had Dispel Magic you wouldn't need to disarm the magic - you could dispel it. For another, it would be FAR more expensive (30,100 use-activated, or 12,100 2/day).
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Play to your strengths, sez I. If you're a high-strength team, use a set of 'dwarven lockpicks' (a hammer and chisel). If you're team caster, perhaps a wand of knock (which unfortunately sucks now) could come in handy?
Forget trying to auto-discover magic traps with detect magic. It's a cheesy use of a cantrip, easily foiled by a level 1 spell (magic aura). Not to mention the fact that it shouldn't work like that in the first place.
Disarming magic traps... is hard. But having Erase and Dispel Magic prepped (or at least, having scrolls of them prepared) should eliminate the worst of it, or give you a good chance of eliminating the worst (like a symbol of death, for example).
...traps are not so deadly to force Trapfinding as a "must have"...
And this is a real pity. I am rather disappointed in the traps i see in pathfinder ap's et al. They tend to do a little damage and then are gone. They are ignorable. Where are the traps where the pressure plate starts the section you are in filling with sand or water. Or heck drops 40 feet of solid stone between you and the exit, and no it does not reset, ever.
I think the designers are in a bind. A tpk via trap is easy to produce and very unsatisfying for all concerned. It feels less awesome to lose a character to starvation and madness because you are sealed in the tomb than it does to die in glorious combat with the tomb guardians. Pathfinder is about awesome so traps continue to be rather on the forgettable side. So long as this continues the thief will have a role problem.
At least that is the way I see it.
~will
Use traps in combination with monsters (same encounters, as alarms, subsequent..) and you will start to appreciate them :)
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As a house rule, my groups have always ditched the Rogue only stuff about trap and locks. Anyone can attemt to find traps through mundane or smart magical applications (Detect Poison, Detect Magic, etc. . .), and anyone with the right skills can attampt to open locks, regardless of difficulty.
There are exceptions, but they are logical and rare.
We find this more realistic and enjoyable, because we don't really like to have the classic 4 party all the time, and it actualy makes spells like Find Traps useful. (I absolutely do not see the point of this spell at all, especially as a 2nd level spell, "ok there it is, you still can't do anything about it").
It's stupid that I have to have the "trappfinding" class ability in order to disarm magical traps. Seriously, I can be a 20th level character with a +30 in Disable Device, Kn Arcana, and Spellcraft, yet I can't disable the magical device that a level 1 Rogue can.
Seriously, being able to disable magical traps should be a feat that rogues simply get as a bonus at first level.
Merkatz, keep in mind that yes while you do need to have Trapfinding to disable a magical trap.. you could easily "disable"/bypass/nullify the trap using various forms of magic. Magical traps can be counterspelled, it's possible for them to be dispelled or suppressed, it's also possible to avoid them all together and make use of them in strategic scenarios.
Yes, they do have Trapper rangers now that get the ability.. there are also other ways to handle it without actually having the dispel spell or without wasting prepared spells.
1) Wand of Dispel Magic in your Thieves tool kit
2) Item of Antimagic field to bypass them
3) Master Spy has class abilities that allow it to fool various spell triggers on magical traps.
4) Item of detect magic or arcane sight.. yeah it may take a couple rounds and you'd have to take your time but you will be able to see most magical traps with this.
5) Summon Monster/Animate Dead.. nothing says you can't send a minion through to spring a trap.
6) Barbarians. Just tell them that there's a shiny new axe on the other side of the door or something..
Eh, there's a ton of options out there. Rogues were mainly given the function of disabling magical traps normally so a Rogue could go all the way to 20 and not look at a magical trap and be useless. Traps are kinda a rogue's schtick.
The only five things I really want for Rogue's at this point..
1 new Rogue Talent
Door Spotter: As Trap Spotter but for hidden/secret doors as well (hidden by both magical or mundane means)
4 new Advanced Rogue Talents.
Chameleon: Ability to move up to double move speed without a stealth penalty, or run with a -5 stealth penalty.
Hide in Plain Sight: It's a 1st level shadowdancer 8th level assassin 17th level ranger ability.. no reason it shouldn't be open to pure rogues.
Improved Trap Spotter: Improves trap spotter range to 20' (or allow it to be used beyond the norm at a -1 penalty for every 5 or 10' distance with some sort of hard cap)
Improved Door Spotter: As Improved Trap Spotter, but for Secret/Hidden doors.
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I don't really see why Traps are a Rogue thing, honestly. In my point of view, they should actually be amongs the least likely to be able to disarm them, as they (especially as the Rogue vs the Thief class), are mre about avoiding and dodging them.
Traps and locked doors are also one of the easiest ways of ruining an adventure if there is no Rogue in he party. Nearly any other encounter can be overcome in another way, but coming to a locked door that you can't break, might mean you can't go any further, at all.
And it really doesn't make any sense that anyone regardless of class who has ranks in the appropriate skills can't find/disarm/unlock things a much lower level Rogue with less training can.
Take your example with the Wizard and apply it to a Dex-based swashbuckler Fighter type. It just doens't really work. Now I don't have a problem with Rogues getting a bonus that other classes don't, (besides that it is completely not needed as they already have too many skill points. . .)
To address a few points:
1. The game is built upon magic being everywhere, and roughly 50% of the time someone would want to use Disable Device it would be on a magical device. So for people other than the Rogue (and a few archetypes), they cannot use the Disable Device skill roughly half the time they would want to use it. That's not really justified in my opinion. Should Rogues be the best at Disable Device? Absolutely. Should Rogues be the only class that can use Disable Device half the time? Absolutely not.
2. You can't really compare Disable Magic Device to things like Bardic Performance and Wild Empathy. Neither of these are really strongly attached to a skill. Bardic Performance doesn't require Perform skill checks most of the time. I actually play a Bard with 0 ranks in perform. And Wild Empathy isn't connected to Diplomacy at all. It is an ability that merely emulates Diplomacy. Whether you have 0 ranks in Diplomacy or 20, it has no effect on your Wild Empathy ability. Big difference from Trappfinding which essentially unlocks half the Disable Device skill for you.
3. For Spellcraft, you are right that not every class can use Spellcraft to it's fullest extent. But there is a big difference between having 1 class and handful of archetypes be able to eventually Disable Magical Devices, and half the base classes in the game be able to use Spellcraft to the fullest extent right out of the gate. And lets not forget the fact that if my Fighter really wanted to, he could take a trait to give him the Detect Magic cantrip so that he could actually use Spellcraft to identify a few potions a day or whatnot. If my Fighter wanted to Disable Magic Devices he would have to take a dip into Rogue. Silly.
4. Disable Device is the best way to bypass traps. Period. Setting them off, and even dispelling them often has negative side effects. First of all Disable Device is at will, and doesn't cost any money or spell slots. Second, letting traps go off can cause all kinds of unforeseen complications. Blocked pathways, destroyed items of interest, alerting enemies, etc, etc... Dispelling can run into similar issues. What happens if magic was holding the trap together, and your dispel makes it fall apart (eg a levitating boulder that was supposed to fall when triggered still falls when it is dispelled)? Finally, it is easier to focus on Disable Device. Traits, feats, magic items, and the like can all be used to improve your odds at disabling a device. However, Dispel Magic requires a Caster Level check. And there isn't really an easy way to raise that other than leveling up.
5. Addressing Wands of Detect Magic in particular, this seems awfully expensive to me. Over 11k for the base model with a CL of 5. That's more than the entire wealth of the average 5th level character, and at higher levels where 11k is more manageable, it simply won't work very often.
Several other classes get the trapfinding ability and can use disable device on magical traps. There are multiple ways of dealing with magical traps and many of them have their advantages.. such as being able to do it from range. Dispel will allow you to bypass a trap, it does not destroy the magic. As far as I know, it suppresses it allowing you to pass by.
On the list of classes that are able to get Trapfinding.
Rogue
Bard
Ranger
Yes, three classes. It's not a lot but it's there. Any dex based fighter, in order to be a "Skill based" dex fighter, will usually multiclass with either Bard or with Rogue as they both mesh well with the concept.
Ways of bypassing things that require disable device..
Locks - Almost every door can be magicked open or bashed in with a fighter, very few cannot. For those few, the disable device skill is there and is open to everyone to train.
Traps - Mecahnical traps actually cover 70% of all traps that you will encounter. The higher the average party level gets, and the more they deal with mages.. the higher the chance of dealing with magical traps. They can be bypassed/handled by either someone trained in trapfinding, or someone with magic that can handle them. Anyone without either of those is also capable of carrying a magical item to take care of them.
Ways that most classes will deal with Traps/Locks, magical or otherwise..
Barbarian - Resiliant to traps, they get Trap Sense, decent AC/Reflexes, and a DR. They also get a very high amount of health. Can usually survive most traps. Doors.. Barbarians ARE a lockpick. They can simply bash in most doors/chests/boxes/etc... Granted, that is most of them. For the ones they cannot bash in, get a bigger hammer.
Bard - Capable caster, skilled in disable device. Only thing they need help on is magical traps, but this is one of the classes capable of getting Trapfinding through variants.
Cleric - Capable caster, has spells that can deal with traps and locks quite well. Can also train disable device to open locks/doors and to disable mechanical traps. They have spells that essentially give them trapfinding bonuses to perception.
Druid - Similar to Cleric in many respects. Also has shapeshifting capabilities and can go places that most of the other classes cannot. Much more capable in natural environments.
Fighter - Low skill points, no magic, tons of feats. This class can pick up Disable Device and grab a Skill Focus to it at significantly less sacrifice then any other class. While that isn't much, they are also very combat capable.. and in a pinch can also bash a door in.
Monk - Very high saves, evasion, improved evasion, immune to poisons/diseases, and eventually get SR. They can also train disable device if they want to, and benefit quite well from having decent wisdom/dex which improve their perception checks and disable checks.
Paladin - Very high saves with some of their abilities, quite capable casters at higher levels. Can also heal up and cure. With specific feats, it's also possible to get Dispel and Detect Magic.
Ranger - They make a trapper ranger now that gets trapfinding, besides that they also have very high perception checks and are very at home in natural environments. Has similar benefits as druid also.
Sorcerers - Casters.. without preparation. If you take the right spells, it's not hard to deal with any traps at all. Also, can train disable device.
Wizards - Prepared casters, not quite as awesome as Sorcerers in some situations.. but their flexibility is king out of all casters. Nothing like being able to scribe every spell you can get your hands on. And with the way that scribing magic works, quite easy to swap if you can have a little bit of downtime.
I can come up with other reasons for the other classes in the game as well.. I will NOT defend variants that specifically are not good at dealing with traps and locks, because honestly if you pick something that gets a penalty to that further then their base class, then you have no right to complain about it.
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In my campaign no one wanted to play a rogue, nor did I as GM want to strip/nerf magical traps out of the campaign. My solution was to houserule the following feat:
Trapfinding - Character gains Disable Device as a class skill and can disarm magical traps.
The group ranger (she didn't want to play an Urban Ranger) took the feat and is working fine as the team scout.
In my campaign no one wanted to play a rogue, nor did I as GM want to strip/nerf magical traps out of the campaign. My solution was to houserule the following feat:
Trapfinding - Character gains Disable Device as a class skill and can disarm magical traps.
The group ranger (she didn't want to play an Urban Ranger) took the feat and is working fine as the team scout.
I approve of, and honestly like houserules where appropriate. Whatever works for you and has your players having fun, that's really what matters. As long as you acknowledge that it is a houserule and that it doesn't work in every situation. :)
Play to your strengths, sez I. If you're a high-strength team, use a set of 'dwarven lockpicks' (a hammer and chisel). If you're team caster, perhaps a wand of knock (which unfortunately sucks now) could come in handy?
Forget trying to auto-discover magic traps with detect magic. It's a cheesy use of a cantrip, easily foiled by a level 1 spell (magic aura). Not to mention the fact that it shouldn't work like that in the first place.
Disarming magic traps... is hard. But having Erase and Dispel Magic prepped (or at least, having scrolls of them prepared) should eliminate the worst of it, or give you a good chance of eliminating the worst (like a symbol of death, for example).
Detect Magic only tells you there is an aura. I have never seen the auto-detect idea work in a real game. To pinpoint the magical aura is a 3 round process. Having bad guys around the trap can help if it becomes an issue.
So how powerful is that? Should it be a feat? A magic item?
I don't want to be monte hall, but I want to reward this player who has stated his willingness to be the "trap guy" in the rogue-less party.
Just follow the template of an object that already exists, say, something like Bracers of Archery, and go from there. Eg:
Gloves of Disarming
Aura faint transmutation; CL 4th
Slot hands; Price 5,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
These gloves are finely made of thin, flexible leather and well oiled. When worn, the gloves grant a +5 competence bonus to all attempts to Disable Device. If the wearer of the gloves does not have the ability to do so from a class or racial ability such as trapfinding, the gloves grant that ability without the competence bonus. Both gloves must be worn in order for the magic to be effective.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, crafter must have Trapfinding class ability and 5 ranks in disable device; Cost 2,500 gp
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The way to make traps better is not to do HP damage, but ability damage. Characters often have Lesser Restoration memorized, but with enough ability damage, it overcomes 1 or 2 castings of Less Restoration.
Another way to make traps better is to have them in actual fights that the opponents setup and know about (or uses mooks to trigger on purpose). Like the party senses traps, and right before they overcome it, a summoned monster is brought into play directly onto the trap, and then the rest of the opponents all attack during that time so they cannot recover from the trap properly.
Just plain HP damage is usually not a real threat to PCs as they can heal from it easily.