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I see people around there talking about the value of trapfinding like it's a vital part of the game, and yet most CR appropriate traps really aren't that difficult. Add to that how easy it is to get by traps with summoned monsters/simply avoiding them/ect, the value of the trapfinder (especially for non magical traps, which anyone can find) has decreased to a point where I don't see the value in considering it party composition.
What value do you see in trapfinding? Do you think a party needs it as a skill in and of itself, or that it can be ignored.
A rogue adds 1/2 her level to Perception skill checks made to locate traps and to Disable Device skill checks (minimum +1). A [rogue or whoever has trapfinding] can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.
The DC isn't hard to hit once you get to a certain level, yes. And spellcaster can/may use dispel magic to 'turn off' a magic trap. But if you want to use the skill to do so, you need trapfinding.
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It's nigh useless in published adventures, but I've had GMs really trump up their value.
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I think its mostly an attempt to make rogues feel useful. Its good if your party is too lazy to say "I search for traps" every time they enter a room. Because RAW, you don't notice a trap unless you explicitly say you are searching for traps.I see people around there talking about the value of trapfinding like it's a vital part of the game, and yet most CR appropriate traps really aren't that difficult. Add to that how easy it is to get by traps with summoned monsters/simply avoiding them/ect, the value of the trapfinder (especially for non magical traps, which anyone can find) has decreased to a point where I don't see the value in considering it party composition.
What value do you see in trapfinding? Do you think a party needs it as a skill in and of itself, or that it can be ignored.
But trapfinding doesn't allow you to spot traps without actually searching for them, for that you need the rogue talent trap spotter or the dwarf racial trait stonecunning (for stone traps at least).
@OP
If by valuable you mean good to have around sure yes, if you mean rare/expensive etc. then no.
Here is a list of ways to get trapfinding (which is just a skill bonus and the ability to disarm magical traps)
1) 1st level rogue (a bunch of archetypes give that up)
2) 3rd level urban ranger
3) 1st level trapper ranger
4) 1st level seeker oracle*
5) 1st level seeker sorcerer*
6) 1st level crypt breaker alchemist
7) 2nd level detective bard*
8) The 2nd level bard/alchemist/wizard spell Aram Zey's focus (too bad the duration is only 1 minute per level)
9) 2nd level archevist bard*
10) 6th level archeologist bard*
11) 1st level sandman bard*
*those 6 get trapfinding in everything but the name
A rogue adds 1/2 her level to Perception skill checks made to locate traps and to Disable Device skill checks (minimum +1). A [rogue or whoever has trapfinding] can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.The DC isn't hard to hit once you get to a certain level, yes. And spellcaster can/may use dispel magic to 'turn off' a magic trap. But if you want to use the skill to do so, you need trapfinding.
Also, the disable device has unlimited uses - dispel magic uses up a limited spell slot.
Vital? No, Handy? Yes. I like having it if I can get it, but if doesn't fit my build I'm generally not going to cry over its loss.
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In the past 8 campaigns I've been in, it was somewhat useful in one of them.
To a certain extent, the GM should be tailoring his encounters to the PC's capabilities, so not having trap finding would mean traps don't show up as often.
I play a lot of rogues and like them. I also like trapfinding and trapspotter talent. But in the last years i didn´t find it very useful. We encountered very, very few traps. If it was a normal trap it was good to have it, but not that necessary, because there are other ways around most times or traps are just not deadly enough. If they would be more deadly though, rogues would have to specialize more and that´s not a good thing either, because it would eat their already valuable resources to get useful in other situations.
Most of the time though, traps are not traps you can disarm like that, but som riddlestuff.
I think its mostly an attempt to make rogues feel useful. Its good if your party is too lazy to say "I search for traps" every time they enter a room. Because RAW, you don't notice a trap unless you explicitly say you are searching for traps.I see people around there talking about the value of trapfinding like it's a vital part of the game, and yet most CR appropriate traps really aren't that difficult. Add to that how easy it is to get by traps with summoned monsters/simply avoiding them/ect, the value of the trapfinder (especially for non magical traps, which anyone can find) has decreased to a point where I don't see the value in considering it party composition.
What value do you see in trapfinding? Do you think a party needs it as a skill in and of itself, or that it can be ignored.
But trapfinding doesn't allow you to spot traps without actually searching for them, for that you need the rogue talent trap spotter or the dwarf racial trait stonecunning (for stone traps at least).
@OP
If by valuable you mean good to have around sure yes, if you mean rare/expensive etc. then no.
Here is a list of ways to get trapfinding (which is just a skill bonus and the ability to disarm magical traps)
1) 1st level rogue (a bunch of archetypes give that up)
2) 3rd level urban ranger
3) 1st level trapper ranger
4) 1st level seeker oracle*
5) 1st level seeker sorcerer*
6) 1st level crypt breaker alchemist
7) 2nd level detective bard*
8) The 2nd level bard/alchemist/wizard spell Aram Zey's focus (too bad the duration is only 1 minute per level)
9) 2nd level archevist bard*
10) 6th level archeologist bard*
11) 1st level sandman bard**those 6 get trapfinding in everything but the name
The 6th level Archeologist bard gets evasion not trapfinding. Here is the link to it.
Nah, he was right. It's in the Clever Explorer ability.
At 6th level, an archaeologist can take 10 on Disable Device checks, even if distracted or endangered, and can disarm magical traps.
Blah, open mouth, insert foot lol you are right. I did not see in with that other ability.
In the current ap we are on, trapfinding/disabling/lockpick are really useful. I couldn't see us getting very far unless the GM handwaved it because we didn't have a trapmonkey.
Depends upon the dungeon and the campaign. In old school Gygaxian dungeon crawls, you NEED trapfinding and the trapspotter talent. Period.
But from what I have seen PF is a little less trap-happy, and usually detect magic, a great perception skill, and a little common sense will get you thru.
Don’t discount it as worthless, but do tailor it to your campaign. If you see your DM with a copy of Tomb of Horrors, then I think you should put it on your ‘must get” list (along with a whole ream of blank character sheets).
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Trapfinding formerly specify that it was required to find traps with a DC higher than 20 (in addition to the ability to disarm magical traps). PFRPG removed that when it added the level bonus.
That's actually a pretty clever trade-off, making the skill modifier important, not the class ability, but in order to maintain the value of trapfinding, PFRPG also needed to implement a scaled increase of trap DCs, which AFAICT it didn't do.
Traps really have become all but meaningless in most games I've played in and GMed. (Although there was one PC-killing exception in our current AP ... ) As has been touched on, it's a tough balance: they can't be too hard to find or too deadly, or the game slows to a crawl. On the other hand, if they don't do anything much at all (and most don't), they're not worth the XP they provide (and most aren't).
One solution would be to give rogues Trap Spotter as a bonus talent, slightly up the DC for traps, and focus more on ability-damaging, annoying-but-not-crippling effects. Stuff like "CR 4, 1d2 Dexterity damage, movement halved until the damage is healed." It's not damaging enough to incentivize checking every space, especially given the ability to Trap Spot, but it's a legitimate hindrance.
We have just been running Crown of the Kobold King, plenty of pretty nasty traps in there. Some my rogue was able to get, some I didn't. There are several traps with a perception DC greater than 20, which can be pretty tricky for a level 3 character with an unfortunate score of 10 in wisdom, and a penchant for rolling less than 4 on a D20 at least 60% of the time :(
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There are several traps with a perception DC greater than 20, which can be pretty tricky for a level 3 character with an unfortunate score of 10 in wisdom
It's not often it's worth a feat for Alertness or Skill Focus (Perception), but this might be one of those times.
I assume you're not a half-elf? 'Cause, if so, Keen Senses and Skill Focus (Perception), plus your 3 class-skill ranks, plus your Trapfinding ... +12. Take 10 FTW on most low-level traps.
It's not often it's worth a feat for Alertness or Skill Focus (Perception), but this might be one of those times.I assume you're not a half-elf? 'Cause, if so, Keen Senses and Skill Focus (Perception), plus your 3 class-skill ranks, plus your Trapfinding ... +12. Take 10 FTW on most low-level traps.
Yup I took HELF. But I put my free skill focus into UMD, and it has really saved our bacon twice now so no regrets. Plus - we rolled stats rather than bought them and I ended up with a 10 wisdom so no stat bonus to perception. Even with taking 10 my skill is too low (9) to get DC's over 20 without a roll of 12+
I think not. Why? How many traps you can find in an average adventure? One, two? Sometimes not even one. Maybe is important for the party, but for the player? You make a single roll, and all is ended. I just think is not so funny.
I ran Kingmaker and traps didn't seem prominently featured.
We just started Serpent Skull. One party member got shot into the negatives from full hit points by a trap, and my character -- biggest hit points in the party -- was brought to exactly 0 by the same kind of trap in a different spot.
ymmv?
As far as i know of traps they are worst on low levels. Difficult to spot for the average not WIS person, not easy to disarm and eventually deadly. I think this fades on higher levels, especially since the hit point gap between classes widens.
The other thing is, magical traps can easily be spotted by sorcerers or bards etc who can have detect magic active all day. Probably clerics or rangers have higher chances of spotting the traps as rogues do.
It is useful, but not mandatory. I like to have it since it avoid using other resources or thinking outside the box to negate the trap. In my games its more useful because my traps are more dangerous.
Honestly, what happened to the Track feat should have happened to trapfinding. For those not familiar, in 3.5 you needed to possess a specific feat (called Track) in order to gain the ability to use Survival to follow tracks. Rangers recieved Track as a bonus feat at 1st level. In Pathfinder, Track went away entirely and was baked into the Survival skill for anyone who invested in it, and Rangers got a scaling bonus on Survival checks made to follow tracks to compensate.
The problem is that when you're writing an Adventure, you have to make assumptions about what your party is going to consist of. Most parties are going to have an arcane spellcaster, a divine spellcaster, a skill-focused character, and a melee combatant and Adventure Paths are typically balanced as such. However, with so many classes fulfilling each of these roles, it would be foolish to assume every party has a rogue, or that every party has a ranger. Because of that, developers have to design their adventures assuming the party does not have things specific to a certain class, which is why Adventures will sometimes make use of follow tracks now, because everyone can do it. On the other hand, it feels lame to be forced into taking trapfinding, so most developers will opt not to include traps in the first place. If 3.5 and Pathfinder teach us anything, its that people love choice, so while most wouldn't mind needing to be placed in a specific role (PLENTY of classes and options to fulfill that role), most will get annoyed with having to take specific character options because no one else can / wants to.
In any respect, I agree with Cheapy that if you're a GM of a character with trapfinding, its your responsibility to make sure that ability is useful. If its not useful, that's your fault and not your player's for taking it because you are choosing to not make use of the character's abilities. Although personally, I'd sooner see trapfinding get baked into Disable Device and increase the DC of magical traps to compensate or whatnot.
Alexander Augunas, that is quite a good idea how to deal with trapfinding. I´m not sure about the DC increase, but you can surely handle things with giving out the abilitiy to disarm traps and magical traps if you have disable device as a class skill.
Most of the rogue archetypes replace it anyway as a feature.
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Absolutely. You'll notice that a lot of dungeons are prefaced with an 'alarm system' -- a trap or a monster that goes off shortly after the players hit the front door, and notify the other monsters that they have visitors.
The very first encounter of a dungeon may be weak, but very important, because once you've been announced you're never getting the full element of surprise back.
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It(as an ability) is not very valuable. DM's shouldn't hoard visual information from players: half their job is describing what it is that the players see. The PC's are trained professionals who've managed to live this long in a very dangerous business: they shouldn't HAVE to say how they're looking around for traps any more than a druid should have to tell the DM how they're making friends with a crocodile: of course you're LOOKING for traps you're in a freaking dungeon. Players don't need to specify that they have their eyes open unless you want half of the gaming session to go like this
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We've had arguments about what the PCs would 'obviously do' before, and it's led us to making some standard operating procedures. We have cards players can put on the table saying SEARCHING and DETECT MAGIC to indicate that they're performing the indicated actions.
I don't feel cheated about it, since it eats into the rounds of their limited-duration spells / they have to re-cast the spell any time they stop concentrating. It's a tactical choice that they were willing to make.
I have a two-player rogue group, and we just have an agreement that anytime they're in a dungeon, they're trying to stealth. The character without Fast Stealth moves at half speed. It just makes it easier to have this agreement always be in effect unless told otherwise, because it means we're spending less time with me opening up an ambush combat and then having the player protest that they were stealthing and the ambushers shouldn't have seen them. In a bigger group, I'd probably also have STEALTHING cards or something.
There was a thread on here recently about a GM whose players would start metagaming and repositioning their characters as soon as he announced a trap or an ambush. Some people started chiming in that's why they have a standard marching order for traveling through the wilderness or down tunnels; and a standard operating procedure for encountering a door, looking for traps, and where the party is when trying to disarm it. It sounded like some good advice for avoiding fights.
If it doesn't matter what the players say and do because the GM is just going to narrate the best possible course of action, what's the point of playing?
Because combat is tactical, looking is not.: you pause time, go through every motion slowly, and take 10 minutes to figure out 6 what happens in 6 seconds of time. Where you're standing matters for how you hit.
Whats the tactics of looking? How does that even work? Why on earth would you want to spend 10 minutes deciding how the entire party looks at every rock in the dungeon?
Just ask the party if they want the perceptiony folks to move at half speed and look for traps. The party walks slower, perception checks are rolled, and you get to the interesting parts of the dungeon faster.
Or the cleric forgets about his healing potion so he blows a useful spell healing someone. The cleric has a 21 wisdom and 14 int so why does he forget about his potion? That's stupid. Shouldn't the GM play his turn for him as well?
Nothing wrong with reminding the player and letting them make the decision, just like there's nothing wrong with telling the party "hey there's a trap there"
Unless the party is in a very time sensitive situation what decision is being taken away from the player?
Almost always, the players looking for traps is paired with the rogue doing something else, like taking point or searching for treasure or lighting a torch so he can look around. If he doesn't say any of that and the fighter falls in a pit, do you let the rogue say, "oh I already actually lit a torch, got up near the front, checked the corner and spotted the trap."
"You see a bend in the hall. The rogue takes point, obviously moving silently, which I prerolled for you, and takes a look...
Why are you equating realizing that when the rogue is taking point he probably wants to move silently with prerolling for him? Thats disingenuous.
In the players head he's probably thinking that he wants to tip toe up there. As a DM by asking the player to move silently, or just asking for the roll, you're facilitating a better communication between the players brain and the characters actions, NOT taking control.
In my last play session, our group ambushed some savages, killed them, hid one body and dragged the other one away. An hour later we were attacked by a war party. At some point the GM pointed out that we hid the body but never tried to hide our trail.
At first I felt like it was kind of obvious -- the 'would you require me to announce I'm locking my door when I leave my house?' argument was used -- but I realized that we had never concealed our trail before, and it was a decision that would have had some serious consequences with our navigating through the jungle. I accepted it and chalked it up to learning to play smarter.
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@Cranefist- How do you get from "PCs are always wary of traps, let them make passive Perception checks to notice them" to "let the DM control all PCs actions" unless you take a shortcut through crazytown?
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It's nigh useless in published adventures, but I've had GMs really trump up their value.I'm one of those DMs. I'll have 3rd level characters chasing a group of CR 1/2 enemies who decide to leave something behind like a 15' spiked pit trap with poison, crap, or rotting flesh on the spikes to wreck whoever is coming after them. Or you will open a door and get a caldron of hot tar or flammable oil dumped on your head followed by a barrage of flaming arrows that don't have to hit to ignite the compound.
No, no, that's all legit.
I had a DM that basically requires an EXPERT trapsmith in any adventure. Let me paint the picture: every door is locked and trapped and requires active searching to find. Every trap is lethal to whatever level you're playing. We were level 1 and the Spot DC of a trap was 32 and the Disarm DC was 24. The penalty for failure? 1d6 con damage. A round. For 6 rounds. Fort save 24 for half. Yeah that's a save or die.Basically he spends more time describing and "role-playing" trap finding and disarming than he does describing the rest of the dungeon, including combat and vital plot points. Why did he do this? He says to give the Rogue something enjoyable to do. Why did my friend roll a Rogue? Because h knew there would be traps every g$$#++n where based on the DM's MO.
To wit- the only reason (magical) traps exist is to give rogues something to do. The only reason rogues exist is to disarm magical traps.
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It(as an ability) is not very valuable. DM's shouldn't hoard visual information from players: half their job is describing what it is that the players see. The PC's are trained professionals who've managed to live this long in a very dangerous business: they shouldn't HAVE to say how they're looking around for traps any more than a druid should have to tell the DM how they're making friends with a crocodile: of course you're LOOKING for traps you're in a freaking dungeon. Players don't need to specify that they have their eyes open unless you want half of the gaming session to go like this
If it doesn't matter what the players say and do because the GM is just going to narrate the best possible course of action, what's the point of playing?
Imagine a fighter and an orc in one on one combat and the rogue joins in, attacking the orc from the front. Well that's stupid. Does the GM move the rogue to the flank so that he can do SA damage? The rogue would obviously do that even if the player forgot.
Or the cleric forgets about his healing potion so he blows a useful spell healing someone. The cleric has a 21 wisdom and 14 int so why does he forget about his potion? That's stupid. Shouldn't the GM play his turn for him as well?
Almost always, the players looking for traps is paired with the rogue doing something else, like taking point or searching for treasure or lighting a torch so he can look around. If he doesn't say any of that and the fighter falls in a pit, do you let the rogue say, "oh I already actually lit a torch, got up near the front, checked the corner and spotted the trap."
There isn't anything in this game besides saying what you are doing.
"You see a turn in the hall about 20' up."
"Ok, this is how I approach the bend."
Not:
"You see a bend in the hall. The rogue takes point, obviously moving silently, which I prerolled for you, and takes a look...
Your counter is not accurate. As a player I should only have to say "I am looking for ___" and roll the perception check. My character in the game world then takes the appropriate action.
That is a far cry from the GM telling me when to flank. That is something the player has to decide.
To go back to the perception check example, I say "my character attacks", but my attack roll, just like the perception roll determines the success. I don't have to name a specific sword technique. It is up to my character to know that, not me.
Saying that the party is always looking for traps is the same as playing their turn.
Player: OK, I cast a spell, have [BADDY] make a Will save DC 18.
DM: You didn't say you were reaching into your component pouch, or that you were incanting the right words, so your spell fails as you stand there blankly.Player: Dick!
I mean seriously. I don't tell my DM I'm eating, I just erase the rations, but somehow the DM doesn't tell me I starve. I don't specifically tell him that I put my clothes on in the morning, but miraculously I don't die of hypothermia.
Warriors routinely tell me, as a DM "Just FYI, I'm always power attacking unless I say otherwise" and it's copacetic. Would saying to the DM at the beginning of a dungeon "Hey, so you know, when we're not resting or in combat, we're moving half speed and looking for traps with a take 10, FYI" be enough? Or do I need to tell you which squares I'm searching, what my light source is, how I obtained this light source, roll for each individual square...