Who said otherwise?Oh, final hint regarding wands: apparently not everyone here has read the magic items chapter. Casting a spell from a wand takes at least a standard action, but longer if the spell requires more time. Lesser restoration thus requires 3 rounds.
It's in the magic items chapter in the wands section, so again, rules.
Vivianne Laflamme.
The time that it takes ro remove ability damage has effects on the entire reasoning as to why avoiding it is important, so it seems to be an assumption by others as well that you can immediately take care of that. Similar to always getting access to items at the lowest possible spell level, and always having a shop available.
That's why I didn't address only to VF.
Available shops and what you can find in them ARE covered by the rules. You might not like the rule, just like I don't like sneak attack being so poor ability (the best place to fight a human rogue is a dark alley. That's absurd). But that does not change how the rule is.
And yes, you'll have to survive the Con poison trap before healing it with lesser restoration. Just like you'll have to survive the HP damaging fireball trap before healing it with Cure Light Wounds. That doesn't change a little bit what I've said:
Traps come in two styles. The one that kill you outright, and the one that only do gold damage. Either your GM puts a trap that does enough damage to instantly kill you if you fail your save (either through hp or con damage), or it doesn't matter at all because Cure Light Wounds and Lesser Restoration come at 15gp per charge. I guess there are some GM out there that use the "save or death" traps, but it comes down to playstyle. In the published APs, few traps, if any, can directly kill a character for rolling low. Fortunately for rogues, which are the class more prone to roll vs traps, and thus the more prone to die in a low disable device roll, most traps are dangerous but not instantly lethal
Who said otherwise?Oh, final hint regarding wands: apparently not everyone here has read the magic items chapter. Casting a spell from a wand takes at least a standard action, but longer if the spell requires more time. Lesser restoration thus requires 3 rounds.
It's in the magic items chapter in the wands section, so again, rules.
Vivianne Laflamme.
The time that it takes ro remove ability damage has effects on the entire reasoning as to why avoiding it is important, so it seems to be an assumption by others as well that you can immediately take care of that. Similar to always getting access to items at the lowest possible spell level, and always having a shop available.
That's why I didn't address only to VF.
Available shops and what you can find in them ARE covered by the rules. You might not like the rule, just like I don't like sneak attack being so poor ability (the best place to fight a human rogue is a dark alley. That's absurd). But that does not change how the rule is.
And yes, you'll have to survive the Con poison trap before healing it with lesser restoration. Just like you'll have to survive the HP damaging fireball trap before healing it with Cure Light Wounds. That doesn't change a little bit what I've said:
Traps come in two styles. The one that kill you outright, and the one that only do gold damage. Either your GM puts a trap that does enough damage to instantly kill you if you fail your save (either through hp or con damage), or it doesn't matter at all because Cure Light Wounds and Lesser Restoration come at 15gp per charge. I guess there are some GM out there that use the "save or death" traps, but it comes down to playstyle. In the published APs, few traps, if any, can directly kill a character for rolling low. Fortunately for rogues, which are the class more prone to roll vs traps, and thus the more prone to die in a low disable device roll, most traps are dangerous but not instantly...
Ok, where in the rules are shops covered?
I know of the availability of magic items, which is 75%.And there are APs like Serpent Skull where you have to go for several levels without any chance to shop at all.
Low rolls are taken care of with skill mastery.
And arguing that something just costs money is a strange. If you spend x thousand gp to relieve those problems, you may not be able to afford better equipment because you lack x/2 Gp, for example.
Most GMs is an individual reasoning as well, playstyles vastly differ. A trap counts as an encounter. A scenario where you have 3 traps per day and 1 battle is as legitimate and covered by the rules as 4 battles and no traps. It's playstyle, and just because some here don't like traps or don't use them often does not mean their way is the baseline.
But I am letting myself get dragged into into it again. You have your opinion, that is fine. You and others have not convinced me, so I'll keep mine.
Enjoy playing vivisectionist alchemists or trapper rangers or whatever, we will continue to consider rogues valuable group members :-)
It's disappointing to see that when you don't agree you are either accused of trolling or being in denial.
I only pointed out flaws in assumptions which according to the rules are not extreme but the default.
I also explained why I don't consider medium BAB to be a problem. And that rogues should not be as powerful in combat as full BAB classes.I consider the package of the rogue to be quite decent. With the new rulings on SLA you can even be a magic item crafter early on. You have SA which gives you a damage boost when necessary. You sap away Str damage on opponents, weakening them for the benefit of you companions.
You have lots of flexibility built into the class.
Other classes can do parts of it, but never everything, and never without expending resources.When some here consider traps boring, that is their personal opinion. I don't, my groups don't, and others here don't see it that way either.
Every class has some weak spots so that they are dependent on others. Ranger sucks when you picked the wrong FE. Casters have problems with golems and in AMF. The list goes on.
We enjoy playing rogues as well as bards, fighters, sorcs etc. They complement each other, which is fun.
Enjoy the debate, I agree that it's not worth continuing :-)
3/4 BAB: it is actually a significant problem. Early game, the differences between BAB are pretty minimal, but when you get to mid game and beyond, the differences are pretty clear. At level 10 a rogue has a +7/+2 BAB where as a fighter has +10/+5 BAB. That is a significant difference. Additionally, unlike every other 3/4 BAB class, the rogue is the only one not capable of increasing its own combat ability. The Magus can use buff spells WHILE fighting, the cleric has some of the best buffs in the game, the Oracle has it's mysteries in addition to buff spells, the druid can wild shape into a huge magical beast or elemental AND STILL cast spells, the alchemist has his mutagen, and the bard has his perform.
Sneak Attack: its pretty useful... if you can hit. The best application of sneak attack is actually not the rogue, it's the retarded beastmorph/vivisectionist alchemist.
Str damage: You are targetting the stat that has the highest likelyhood of being the creatures best stat (barring other casters and low level games). Until you do more than 4 str damage (giving a -2 penelty), it is not going to amount to much.
Resource Expenditure: ok, the only time this comes into play is with disable device (the face is best handled by the Bard/Inquisitor/Paladin). But remember, this is not 3.5. ANYONE can take disable device. Ok the rogue is a little better at lock picking because it is a class skill but you can make up for it by using masterwork lockpicks.
Classes Weakness: Um what? Caster's do not suck against golems. Hell, if anything, a caster makes an Adamantine Golem an easy cake walk. "Oh but golems are immune to magic!" you say! Well what they are not immune to is the laws (or rather, guidelines for everyday use) of physics. Yes a golem is immune to magic, but they are not immune to falling into a convienently placed pit right beneath them. Or Reverse Gravity. Or a swarm of Lantern Archons (Summoners FTW). The problem with a rogue is that he covers a "weakness" that either simply does not exist, or is so marginal that it kinda feels forced just to give the guy something to do. Literally there is nothing the guy can do that the others in the party can't handle by themselves (besides like a giant locked door at level 1). Does he make it convienent? Sure (More stuff I can do now), but is he necessary? Not at all.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ok, where in the rules are shops covered?
I know of the availability of magic items, which is 75%
In the DMG, with the Base Value assumptions per settlement size. A settlement with 201 to 2000 people living there has 1000gp base value, which means 75% of the time you can buy any item with a gold cost of 1000gp or less in that given settlement..
And there are APs like Serpent Skull where you have to go for several levels without any chance to shop at all.
There are campaigns where no metal weapons are allowed. Dark Sun for example. That means nothing to the base assumptions of the game.
Low rolls are taken care of with skill mastery at level 10
fixed for you
And arguing that something just costs money is a strange. If you spend x thousand gp to relieve those problems, you may not be able to afford better equipment because you lack x/2 Gp, for example.
You spend 750gp in a lesser restoration wand and you don't need to worry about ability damage ever in the campaign, they come with FIFTY charges. CLW wands are ubiquitous anyway.
Most GMs is an individual reasoning as well, playstyles vastly differ. A trap counts as an encounter. A scenario where you have 3 traps per day and 1 battle is as legitimate and covered by the rules as 4 battles and no traps. It's playstyle, and just because some here don't like traps or don't use them often does not mean their way is the baseline.
Sure 3 traps and a battle is legitimate. Or even 4 traps and no battle. It might make non-trapfinding classes a bit bored after a while, but it is legitimate. The problem with traps, however, is that they aren't that meaningful as a threat. As I said, they often mean you use a few CLW and keep walking. Let's see a few examples of Traps in the book:
A Javelin Trap. It's CR 2. +15 attack with javelin, 1d6+6. Not going to kill any lvl 2 char. So Cure Light Wounds (or a cleric chanelling) and keep walking.
Crusader Blades: CR 2, +15 attack, 1d8+1 to all PC in a row. Not going to kill anyone either.
This doesn't seem really important. Actually it's free XP, as SURVIVING the trap gives you as much XP as disabling it. Let's go with higher levels then:
At CR 7 we find Acid Fog trap. But a single Acid Fog spell isn't going to kill a CR 7 group, is it?
With CR 10 there is a rolling boulder wich does 12d6. That's 40 or so hp, not enough to kill a 10th level char either.
With CR 15 we have a chain lightning trap. That's like 20d6 damage. But at that level, players are facing Creatures that can Chain Lighting at will... Seriously, how is a trap that cast chain lighting ONCE, the same CR than a 16th level sorcerer, who can chain lighting multiple times, or even SUMMON creatures that CAN chain lighting?
I could go with more examples, but you get the point I think. Traps *aren't scary*. And it's hard they are, because to be scary, they need to do enough damage to be a coin flip: you save or you die. Few published AP have such kind of traps, and the game as a whole has separate itself from such mechanics (See the changes to Finger of Death for example). If you look at the example traps, they are NOT close to the point where they can kill a group of the proper level. Traps need a redone if the designers want to keep trapfinding relevant.
But I am letting myself get dragged into into it again. You have your opinion, that is fine. You and others have not convinced me, so I'll keep mine.Enjoy playing vivisectionist alchemists or trapper rangers or whatever, we will continue to consider rogues valuable group members :-)
My intent is not to convince you to stop playing underpowered classes. Do it if you please, I couldn't care less. My intent is to highlight the class weaknesses, and to find solutions so the class stop being underpowered, either through the designers or through homebrew. That's how I gave rogues in my campaings the ablity to sneak incorporeals, elementals, or people in concealment, and I gave them ninja tricks and ki for free, and a pool of free talents they can access spending a Ki point, so they get access to all those situational talents that are somewhat decent when you can use them, but don't come online except once or twice in the campaign.
Oh, final hint regarding wands: apparently not everyone here has read the magic items chapter. Casting a spell from a wand takes at least a standard action, but longer if the spell requires more time. Lesser restoration thus requires 3 rounds.
It's in the magic items chapter in the wands section, so again, rules.
I was looking at the rules for spell trigger items and missed that there was a parenthetical stating an exception for wands in the wands section. So I was wrong. Regardless, the point still stands that the traps you claimed were a significant drain on party resources really only cost at most a few hundred gp. They cost nothing if you make your saves.
Let's say we replace the rogue in the party with a paladin who is going to deal with traps simply by walking into them. They have high AC and high saves, which will negate most of the cost of the traps. They could even pick up Craft Wands and make Lesser Restoration wands for 375gp each. This can be done at 9th level, or 7th level if you are like me and always pick up the +2 CL trait when you play a paladin or ranger. Outside of taking care of traps, they are powerful in combat, can heal, and has the charisma to take advantage of the social skills. The only resources they spent on taking care of traps is a single feat, which also is useful elsewhere (for example, crafting wands of Cure Light Wounds or Resist Energy).
Of course, this isn't to say that it's badwrong to play a rogue or that they cannot be optimized. I don't believe either of those. Rather, I'm saying they aren't a necessity for a party. Which is a good. It'd be bad game design if every party needed a cleric because they were the only class that could heal and it'd be bad game design if every party needed a rogue.
...Who said otherwise?Oh, final hint regarding wands: apparently not everyone here has read the magic items chapter. Casting a spell from a wand takes at least a standard action, but longer if the spell requires more time. Lesser restoration thus requires 3 rounds.
It's in the magic items chapter in the wands section, so again, rules.
Vivianne Laflamme.
The time that it takes ro remove ability damage has effects on the entire reasoning as to why avoiding it is important, so it seems to be an assumption by others as well that you can immediately take care of that. Similar to always getting access to items at the lowest possible spell level, and always having a shop available.
That's why I didn't address only to VF.
Available shops and what you can find in them ARE covered by the rules. You might not like the rule, just like I don't like sneak attack being so poor ability (the best place to fight a human rogue is a dark alley. That's absurd). But that does not change how the rule is.
And yes, you'll have to survive the Con poison trap before healing it with lesser restoration. Just like you'll have to survive the HP damaging fireball trap before healing it with Cure Light Wounds. That doesn't change a little bit what I've said:
Traps come in two styles. The one that kill you outright, and the one that only do gold damage. Either your GM puts a trap that does enough damage to instantly kill you if you fail your save (either through hp or con damage), or it doesn't matter at all because Cure Light Wounds and Lesser Restoration come at 15gp per charge. I guess there are some GM out there that use the "save or death" traps, but it comes down to playstyle. In the published APs, few traps, if any, can directly kill a character for rolling low. Fortunately for rogues, which are the class more prone to roll vs traps, and thus the more prone to die in a low disable device roll, most
Errr, if you are playing up-country, deep in the borderlands or the middle of nowhere, with only villages around, there won't be much in the way of magic marts. Lol.
Think goblin-raided rural Isger. Or border keeps of stern watchmen. Or giant untamed forests. Or gnoll-filled deserts. There are a lot of places far from the cosmopolitan magic trading hubs.
On poison and traps, the really nasty ones are beyond your ability to easily heal: 1) you are lowish enough level that you don't have restoration coming out of your ears. 2) the poison comes thick and heavy to multiple party members, and it is very effective how much restoration do you have? The game is meant to challenge, if it doesn't the dm is doing something wrong.
Don't forget the Mwangi expanse and beyond the borders of Sargava. Where dealing with the locals who do use magic, is not as easy as strolling up and checking out their wands. The worshippers of the evil mummy are more likely to try and sacrifice you and your party than offer you a good deal.
Ok, where in the rules are shops covered?
I know of the availability of magic items, which is 75%
In the DMG, with the Base Value assumptions per settlement size. A settlement with 201 to 2000 people living there has 1000gp base value, which means 75% of the time you can buy any item with a gold cost of 1000gp or less in that given settlement..
And there are APs like Serpent Skull where you have to go for several levels without any chance to shop at all.There are campaigns where no metal weapons are allowed. Dark Sun for example. That means nothing to the base assumptions of the game.
Low rolls are taken care of with skill mastery at level 10
fixed for you
And arguing that something just costs money is a strange. If you spend x thousand gp to relieve those problems, you may not be able to afford better equipment because you lack x/2 Gp, for example.You spend 750gp in a lesser restoration wand and you don't need to worry about ability damage ever in the campaign, they come with FIFTY charges. CLW wands are ubiquitous anyway.
Most GMs is an individual reasoning as well, playstyles vastly differ. A trap counts as an encounter. A scenario where you have 3 traps per day and 1 battle is as legitimate and covered by the rules as 4 battles and no traps. It's playstyle, and just because some here don't like traps or don't use them often does not mean their way is the baseline.Sure 3 traps and a battle is legitimate. Or even 4 traps and no battle. It might make non-trapfinding classes a bit bored after a while, but it is legitimate. The problem with traps, however, is that they aren't that meaningful as a threat. As I said, they often mean you use a few CLW and keep walking. Let's see a few examples of Traps in the book:
A Javelin Trap. It's CR 2. +15 attack with javelin, 1d6+6. Not going to kill any lvl 2 char. So Cure Light Wounds (or a cleric chanelling) and keep walking.
Crusader Blades: CR...
I disagree with your playstyle a bit (no big deal), but traps don't just have to target a single person, and the good ones that can challenge the party are the ones that hurt multiple pcs, spread around a bit of poison and start a combat by setting off an alarm. Then oh we use our wand and bypass everything does not readily apply.
Traps + challenge + pressure = a real threat and something memorable to overcome.
Another one is traps and small summons in a small space, which quickly attack. It removes the luxury of healing up before the next challenge. The critters attack when you are at your most vulnerable.
Latest one I heard of, pit trap and spikes. Oh wow, how boring right? What is this, 1980?
The spikes are halberds.
Then there is always the sarlac pit of blades, where if you get in and survive the fall, getting out isn't so easy.
Oh, final hint regarding wands: apparently not everyone here has read the magic items chapter. Casting a spell from a wand takes at least a standard action, but longer if the spell requires more time. Lesser restoration thus requires 3 rounds.
It's in the magic items chapter in the wands section, so again, rules.
I was looking at the rules for spell trigger items and missed that there was a parenthetical stating an exception for wands in the wands section. So I was wrong. Regardless, the point still stands that the traps you claimed were a significant drain on party resources really only cost at most a few hundred gp. They cost nothing if you make your saves.
Let's say we replace the rogue in the party with a paladin who is going to deal with traps simply by walking into them. They have high AC and high saves, which will negate most of the cost of the traps. They could even pick up Craft Wands and make Lesser Restoration wands for 375gp each. This can be done at 9th level, or 7th level if you are like me and always pick up the +2 CL trait when you play a paladin or ranger. Outside of taking care of traps, they are powerful in combat, can heal, and has the charisma to take advantage of the social skills. The only resources they spent on taking care of traps is a single feat, which also is useful elsewhere (for example, crafting wands of Cure Light Wounds or Resist Energy).
Of course, this isn't to say that it's badwrong to play a rogue or that they cannot be optimized. I don't believe either of those. Rather, I'm saying they aren't a necessity for a party. Which is a good. It'd be bad game design if every party needed a cleric because they were the only class that could heal and it'd be bad game design if every party needed a rogue.
Ha! Nice build and tactics, but if anyone ran anything like an old school game, that paladin would be stone dead very quickly if they just walked through trapped dungeons with their rod hanging out.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I disagree with your playstyle a bit (no big deal), but traps don't just have to target a single person, and the good ones that can challenge the party are the ones that hurt multiple pcs, spread around a bit of poison and start a combat by setting off an alarm. Then oh we use our wand and bypass everything does not readily apply.
Remember, I'm not talking about my playstyle here. I'm talking about the general assumptions of the game. I change and houserule a lot of things that I feel are wrong in the game. For example, I don't give half cost for magic items with crafting feats, I let then to build what they want (instead of buying what is in the shops up to the base level) and to build custom items (like a cloak of displacement that is also a cloak of resistance), because I feel a feat that double your WBL is way too powerful. But I'd never use that in a debate about how powerful is the default Craft Woundreous Item
Traps + challenge + pressure = a real threat and something memorable to overcome.
Maybe. But 95% of the traps found in APs are just a CR similar to the party level and just do a bunch of HP/ability damage, that can be healed easy. See again the CR2 javelin trap. It's healed with 1 single use of Infernal Healing wand or 2 charges of CLW. That's all. And that's IF it hits, which it might not.
Another one is traps and small summons in a small space, which quickly attack. It removes the luxury of healing up before the next challenge. The critters attack when you are at your most vulnerable.
Summon traps are nice, because they become a normal encounter. Encounters are ok, traps are bad. In a encounter, all players play, all of them contribute, the risk is meaningful if you slack. A trap is just one thing that either ONE player solve with a roll while the rest go for pizza, or that deal X damage to Y player.
Latest one I heard of, pit trap and spikes. Oh wow, how boring right? What is this, 1980?
The spikes are halberds.Then there is always the sarlac pit of blades, where if you get in and survive the fall, getting out isn't so easy.
Spikes or halberds, it's just damage. We go back to my previous statement: traps do damage. So it's either enough damage to kill you, making them a coin flip (you save or you die), or it's pointless damage that you heal right after it.
But you can't heal it all right away if you fall down a pit and onto halberds and away from the wand and the rest of the party. Sure they can throw it down, but traps can effectively split up the party and really push the pcs, their resources and their possible actions. As in, darts poison party members and one goes down a spiked pit, the monsters are coming, what do you do?
That is how a dm should use traps when they want to actually present a threat. Walking through traps without a care in the world should kill the players. This idea goes back to first ed.
"Summon traps are nice, because they become a normal encounter. Encounters are ok, traps are bad."
No, use the traps, and the summons and ranged support to help the summons. That is an encounter. There is nothing saying when monsters are on, traps are off. :D
Rps not mixing traps and encounters, that is lazy and not challenging. From what I recall runelords mixed traps and monsters in the first two books.
Ha! Nice build and tactics, but if anyone ran anything like an old school game, that paladin would be stone dead very quickly if they just walked through trapped dungeons with their rod hanging out.
Oh, I certainly don't think that sketch of a build is in anyway remotely optimal. Taking care of traps by blindly walking into them isn't the best strategy. However, it suffices for most campaigns. Look again at some of the trap Gustavo posted. If your party is facing a reasonable number of level-appropriate encounters per day, those traps won't be doing enough damage to kill. Sure facing a large enough number of traps per day without time to heal up between them may kill this paladin. But this is about the stupidest trap-finding strategy you can use. If blindly setting off every trap you come across is a viable strategy for most cases, it really says something about the lack of challenge in traps in Pathfinder.
Now, your point about starting encounters with traps is a good one. Personally, as a DM and player, one thing I hate about the standard idea of how to use traps is how utterly disconnected from the narrative it is. For example, in one game I played in, our party was exploring an abandoned village when we stumbled across a pit trap in the middle of the main road. It was really immersion breaking and felt like it was thrown in out of nowhere. Hobgoblins springing an ambush after the party walks into their trap, on the other hand, is a much more exciting use of traps.
In this scenario, our paladin still has good AC and saves and is well protected on that front. If they are affected by the trap, they can lay on hands as a swift action to heal any HP damage. Depending on their level and mercies chosen, they may be able to do more. For example, at 9th level it's possible to have lay on hands also work as neutralize poison. At this point, it's just combat, which paladins do very well at. This is largely because paladin is a pretty resilient class, but I don't think this paladin would die as easy as you think.
That is how a dm should use traps when they want to actually present a threat. Walking through traps without a care in the world should kill the players. This idea goes back to first ed.
That perspective on traps has been largely dropped from Pathfinder. As Gustavo pointed out, the save and die mechanics necessary for traps to outright kill like that are mostly gone.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, but it is my concern that the game has lost its way if traps are breezed through, poorly used, not a challenge and the damage easily healed.
Except most players dislike killer traps. Or traps in general, really. Oops failed a perception check? Everybody takes damage and or a bad condition. Passed the perception check but failed to disarm the trap? Make a new character. Noone wants the burden of playing a rogue? Too bad, I'm forcing you. Want to play a face rogue or an assassin? Nope, has to be a trap expert.
A trap as a part of the encounter? That is better, since it's more about the encounter and the trap is more of a nuisance to add to the encounter. Not different from fighting underwater or in extreme heat/cold enviroments.
There is a reason few people play old school style traps. It's because few people like them.
I would bet that if it wasn't for the genre conventions, many would just do away with traps.
I would honestly just suggest that any player who wants to make a roguish character use the archeologist bard. It has all of the best elements of the rogue with bard casting and a to hit buff that's a luck bonus.
You could even use the magic as a fluff element. Just take the utility spells that makes your character better at being a scoundrel.
The rogue, oddly, isn't that much better at finding traps than anyone else is. You can replace them with a good perception score and a move action. Eyes of the eagle can be picked up for 2k, and are strictly better than trapfinding till 11th level.
The only things keeping trapfinding relevant are people still using the non existent 3.5 search skill rules and certain dm's insistence on the rogue being necessary to find traps.
The only things keeping trapfinding relevant are people still using the non existent 3.5 search skill rules and certain dm's insistence on the rogue being necessary to find traps.
Well the rogue can get eyes of the eagle to make himself better at it, and the trapspotter rogue talent, but I feel like the rogue talent should've been tacked on. Also magical traps can only be disabled by someone with trapfinding, but that's just niche protection there. I always thought it was arbitrary.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As for the whole "well make traps creatives and stuff" arguement, that only works for homebrew games. The problem with homebrew games, is that they are just that... homebrew. If we want to talk about the viability in a general sense, we need to look at something that is a common demoninator that is set in stone, aka the adventure paths released by paizo. In those circumstances the traps are rather minute and depressing. They are effectively a waste of time.
Or you could just alter the APs/modules, etc. And replace the boring unimaginative traps that Paizo seems to favor (when they bother with traps at all) with something more creative.
Paizo doesn't really seem to believe in traps, and they damn sure don't believe in traps done well.
Grimtooth is your new lord and master. I recommend any of the trap books with his names on them.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As for the whole "well make traps creatives and stuff" arguement, that only works for homebrew games. The problem with homebrew games, is that they are just that... homebrew. If we want to talk about the viability in a general sense, we need to look at something that is a common demoninator that is set in stone, aka the adventure paths released by paizo. In those circumstances the traps are rather minute and depressing. They are effectively a waste of time.Or you could just alter the APs/modules, etc. And replace the boring unimaginative traps that Paizo seems to favor (when they bother with traps at all) with something more creative.
Paizo doesn't really seem to believe in traps, and they damn sure don't believe in traps done well.
Grimtooth is your new lord and master. I recommend any of the trap books with his names on them.
Yeah, the "SCREW YOU, RE-ROLL YOUR CHAR" traps of 1E/2E were so fun oh wait.
If you want to play a game where encountering a trap nets you a 32% chance of throwing your char sheet away due to arbitrary because trap says so, 1E is the game for you. You're (again) telling people on a 3E forum that they've been playing the wrong game for the last 13 years. ("wimpy" traps are here since 2000, remember? They haven't been invented by The Evil Bogeyman SKR 4 ago.)
And if you really do that and put Grimtooth's in a 3E game, you'd really need to bring "you're dead, no save" monsters, "GM says you can't, you tried? You're dead" situations and other 1E/2E staples, otherwise you're having a tiny bit of pure arbitrary Gygaxianism in an otherwise counter-Gygaxian ecosystem.
Also, wands of summon monster and sending dogs and ponies to defuse traps by running into them. Hey, you couldn't do that during Gygax days! No wonders the old man didn't like 3E, so many ways to bypass the favorite GM toys of yore.
As for the whole "well make traps creatives and stuff" arguement, that only works for homebrew games. The problem with homebrew games, is that they are just that... homebrew. If we want to talk about the viability in a general sense, we need to look at something that is a common demoninator that is set in stone, aka the adventure paths released by paizo. In those circumstances the traps are rather minute and depressing. They are effectively a waste of time.Or you could just alter the APs/modules, etc. And replace the boring unimaginative traps that Paizo seems to favor (when they bother with traps at all) with something more creative.
Paizo doesn't really seem to believe in traps, and they damn sure don't believe in traps done well.
Grimtooth is your new lord and master. I recommend any of the trap books with his names on them.
Yep, yep, yes and yep.
There are so many good trap ideas online. Or, there is also history. The poisoned honey of the wild tribes of Pontus springs to mind. All those honey filled hives, I bet you want some eh?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
But you can't heal it all right away if you fall down a pit and onto halberds and away from the wand and the rest of the party. Sure they can throw it down, but traps can effectively split up the party and really push the pcs, their resources and their possible actions. As in, darts poison party members and one goes down a spiked pit, the monsters are coming, what do you do?
That is how a dm should use traps when they want to actually present a threat. Walking through traps without a care in the world should kill the players. This idea goes back to first ed.
"Summon traps are nice, because they become a normal encounter. Encounters are ok, traps are bad."
No, use the traps, and the summons and ranged support to help the summons. That is an encounter. There is nothing saying when monsters are on, traps are off. :D
Rps not mixing traps and encounters, that is lazy and not challenging. From what I recall runelords mixed traps and monsters in the first two books.
Traps as part of an encounter are incredibly cool and can add a lot of flavor to the encounter. The problem is... it defeat the purpose of a rogue.
Yes, having some plates that shoot poisoned darts at you while you try to maneouver around the orcs (who know where the traps are) is kinda cool. but the rogue's trapfinding ability is useless there anyway . Traps take too long to find, and too much concentration to disable. A rogue can't start disabling those plates in the middle of the encounter, so a party that faces a room with orcs and poisoned darts plates will do much better without a rogue, and a life oracle or paladin as 4th char. They can heal the damage during the encounter and remove those poisons too, while the rogue can't help with the traps.
That's the problem with trapfinding. It's kind of "netrunning" in cyberpunk styled games like Shadowrun, if you allow me the example. When the guy who infiltrates in the net goes to do their things, the rest of the group look at him and do nothing. And while the group is in combat, he can't really go into cyberspace.
Traps alone are mechanically boring. They are just a die roll, and unlike combat, don't involve the group, just one player. Even if the trap damages the whole group, defeating the trap is still a thing of one man (be it the rogue, or whoever took the job with archetypes/traits/spells). 4e tried to help into that with Skill Challenges, so the fighter could hold the closing wall while the rogue disable the mechanism, the wizard erase the arcane runes and the cleric heal the poison damage or whatever. The problem is that 4e Skill challenges, while a nice idea, was a bad mechanic, for several reasons. Maybe that idead could be reworked into something better, because the basics behind it have some merit
The traps themselves are also too weak for a CR. You can easily build a CR-2 fighter that throws a javeling like that of the CR-2 trap, but PER ROUND, instead of ONCE. Traps alone mean that either the damage is so high that the trap is a coin flip, or the damage isn't high enough to matter at all, because healing is so ubiqutois.
Traps in the middle of an encounter work better, but then rogues can't help with those traps, because combat happen in 6 seconds-frames, and disabling traps happen in several minutes-frames
Put a Fireball Trap (CR 5) in the middle of a dungeon for a group lvl 5 and see how many die.
Unless you roll max, you're not likely to take anyone out.
Or the party includes something like a con-dumped wizard.
Unless you roll max, you're not likely to take anyone out.
Unless everyone walk through the entire dungeon with full hp the chance to someone die is high
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Anyone who doesn't heal up to full HP after taking damage in a dungeon is a fool.
Yes, because heal and time is infinite.
Put a Fireball Trap (CR 5) in the middle of a dungeon for a group lvl 5 and see how many die.
I thought this was a joke post, but seeing your other posts, I see it is serious. So I'll answer.
6d6 is an average of 21hp damage. With a DC 14 REF save, which isn't really that hard. On average, even FAILING the save, that can't kill ANYONE. And no, I don't mean any 5th level character. I mean ANYONE. An average 1st level wizard with con 14 and favored class bonus has 9hp. It take 21, so it goes to the floor with -12, which mean he is not dead. One single use of CLW later, he is safe, and can be healed normally (which mean the trap only stole some gold from the CLW wand) And that was a lvl 1 character who was traveling with the 5th level party, you know. Who failed the save. If we are talking about 5th level characters, 21hp are not going to kill anyone.
To put it in perspective: that CR5 trap does 6d6 damage, with DC 14 save for half. A CR5 NPC draconic sorcerer can toss 6d6+6 damage PER ROUND, with a DC which can be easily in the 16 to 18 zone, while levitating and protected by mirror image. So yes, comparatively, the CR5 trap is free experience.
If you're out of time, you're dead anyway. If you're out of heal, continuing through the dungeon is an extreme risk and you're better off leaving unless you have no choice.
C'mon, that is hardly a heroic attitude. "Out of healing, better run."
If you're out of time, you're dead anyway. If you're out of heal, continuing through the dungeon is an extreme risk and you're better off leaving unless you have no choice.C'mon, that is hardly a heroic attitude. "Out of healing, better run."
Yeah, if you subscribe to the Leeroy Jenkins school of heroism.
I swear, the arguements that are trying to support the rogue trapfinder are getting weaker and weaker.
"oh what if you run out of time?"
How does using 6 seconds to heal someone going to have ANY meaningful impact on time? If your running your party on THAT tight of a schedule, that is seriously messed up. Heck if you are REALLY worried, you can just send the Barbarian charging up ahead with Elemental Resistance to fire and shrug (a Invunerable Rager barbarian with fire resistance/immunity is going to suffer very little from CR appropriate traps). He has so much HP any damage he takes is kind of negligible.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
When I run a game, if someone stops having fun its a problem. If you run out of spells and your expected to spend the next few hours slogging it not doing what you picked your class to do, life can suck.
How fun is it for the people playing classes that don't have expendable resources to watch the casters blow their load with the first encounter, and then be told that they don't get to do anything else for the rest of the day because the wizurd is sleepy?
When I run a game, if someone stops having fun its a problem. If you run out of spells and your expected to spend the next few hours slogging it not doing what you picked your class to do, life can suck.How fun is it for the people playing classes that don't have expendable resources to watch the casters blow their load with the first encounter, and then be told that they don't get to do anything else for the rest of the day because the wizurd is sleepy?
Not very fun either. I don't like being the guy waiting or the guy without spells. If I can I try to play an alternative system, like maneuvers or psionics or Gish. the x/day design is probably one of my biggest gripes about the system.
Btw, did you just dig that up from a while ago? I don't think I've said that for at least a few days.
Most dedicated casters get a lot of spells very early in their careers, so running out isn't that big a deal. Certainly I find that casters' spell slots last about as long as other classes' HP, especially since HP loss often takes spells to fix. Honestly, I don't think my wizard has "run out" of spells since level 4 or so. The party's ninja and paladin have tended to run out of hp at a much faster rate. And most parties I know will certainly stop when the front-liners start to run out of HP and the party is low on healing.
Invisibility is just awesome for a lot of wizards, but yeah, knock is something of a waste of a slot at low levels.
Unless you just get a scroll of knock, I suppose; 125 gp isn't much of an investment. It's not like there are a ton of situations in which you're faced with a locked door that it's impolitic for the barbarian to just kick down, in my experience. I guess the sound could attract monsters, but if they were close enough to the door to hear the crash then the party was gonna have to deal with em soon enough anyway.