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- Permanently have a dog walk in front of the party. Emphasise how much the PCs love those dogs, and how heartbroken they are all when "Sweeper #18" bites the dust.
- Refuse to go anywhere there might be traps. "This one isn't worth the bother, fellows."
- Rerolls. Get as many options to reroll failures as you possibly can.
- Harvest traps. Forget about treasures, just gather al the components that made up those devious devices. There is apparently a big market for them.
- Just say you don't like his house rule, and put it to a vote.
well I have 2 suggestions talk to the other players and if this really bothers them too have you all collective ask him to keep to the core rules
and my other suggestion is to use this to your advantage play a rogue or ranger that seriously focus's on making traps then set them up in dungeons and lure,taunt, or even push enemies into them.
you could also try playing a bard and use their jack of all trades ability to work around it by taking 20s instantly and say its magical
Try to work out ways to trigger traps without getting hurt, using long sticks or low level magic.
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Also, just set the temple on fire.
It should make the foundations weak enough that any traps should crumble, along with the rest of the temple.
The fire should make a great beacon for rescue ships.
Even if none come, the scraps amongst the rubble, along with the nearby trees, should workout for a makeshift boat.
If there is magic items in the temple, then they should survive the fire.
You can search the rubble with Detect Magic.
It sounds like the GM doesn't want you to always automatically succeed, which seems reasonable to me. Taking 10 minutes to search, isn't unreasonable, but 5 minutes might be more realistic to search a single door.
The way I understand taking 20, is that multiple successive attempts are made. Eventually you keep trying repeatedly, until you succeed. So if you are trying to pick a lock with no traps, you can just keep trying while only expending time. If there is a trap on that lock, you will almost certainly set it off. So don't take 20 with this GM, just keep rolling d20 rolls until you get a "20" or a result that succeeds. Or just say you take 20 minutes to take 20.
You should probably get more creative with how you deal with traps, rather than trying to argue about how the GM interprets the skill rules.
Have you tried the Open cantrip?
How about cutting down a tree and using it as a battering ram to smash down doors without being adjacent to the door.
Charm/coerce someone who lives in the dungeon to reveal how they avoid the traps.
I think the GM wants you to be more creative with your actions, rather than taking 10 on search and disable device checks.
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Basically, he has made it possible for a PC to choose between failing to make it through a game of hopscotch, or having it take 10 minutes.
Also, this means a PC taking a peaceful walk through a museum may miss the first exhibit, or take 10 minutes to find it.
Talk to the other players.
If they would prefer RAW on this, then go to the DM with your concerns.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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So the GM is cutting out rules intended to make the game flow more smoothly in order to preserve his traps? Why doesn't he just set trap DCs greater than 11+best Perception in the party? Now the traps can't be found by taking 10, and the mechanic isn't destroyed for all its other uses. Generally once the party starts using minute per level buffs the time on taking 20 is its own penalty.
If you want to hammer the point home just have the searchers roll over and over at every door until a 20 is rolled - that's what taking 20 is supposed to represent anyway, and you'll likely save in game time by getting a 20 in less than 400 rolls (20 minutes of move actions). By the time the 3rd or 4th instance of this comes around maybe he'll understand what taking 20 is for.
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I think in general Take 10/20 is a good mechanic, but it can indeed somewhat suck the excitement out of traps.
However, even without house rules, they don't totally dominate trapfinding;
Take 10 is only possible in safe conditions. Any trap you can find/disarm with Take 10 is basically a "routine" trap for someone of your skill level.
Take 20 represents trying twenty times to eventually get a 20. It's only possible if you can try 20 times ("no penalty for failure"). You can Take 20 to search for a trap, because a failed search attempt doesn't trigger a trap. You can't Take 20 on disarming the trap because failure triggers it.
Take 20 isn't practical under time constraints. If the dungeon is devoid of denizens, you can go over it with a fine-toothed comb and find all the traps; but if there's monsters in there, going slow but sure will mean that your buffs run out at some point, and that monsters have all the time in the world to set up ambushes. This is worth pointing out to the GM: traps and monsters are not entirely independent.
Some traps are merely there as speedbumps; to hinder people trying to cram multiple combats into a single 1minute/level buff spell or blitzkrieg the monsters before they've had a time to regroup. There's no house rules required here; Take 20 is too slow and Take 10 isn't guaranteed to find all traps (under normal circumstances: PC search skills roughly in tune with trap difficulty).
Some traps were meant to stop adventurers cold. We're talking walls closing in to kill you here. These are the sort of things you expect in Egyptian pyramids. These things are there for a reason. They're meant to be an independent challenge, to potentially stop the entire party. They're the kind of traps you only get past with major effort and puzzling. They're also rare; they're on the central burial chamber, not the cleaning closet. These are traps you don't want to simplify into a Disable Device check; they're more meant to be puzzles.
The best way for a GM to handle such major traps would be to make it doable to detect them in time for the PCs to have a chance to not stumble into it, or when they do trigger it, death shouldn't be instant so that you have a couple of minutes to figure out how to escape from the room filling with acid or the ceiling descending on you. Getting past this trap won't be a single Disable Device check; multiple things will need to be done. Maybe the rogue needs to climb through the room avoiding some whirling blades to get to the "off" button on the other side. Maybe the walls can be broken down to let the acid flow away. Maybe some platform-jumping is in order.
But the smaller, casual traps - those should be handled the normal RAW way.
Unseen servant is more useful than summon monster in some ways (and lasts longer). If the party is non-good, undead (either created or controlled) make an efficient expendable resource to "detect" traps.
Basically, one of the reasons that Take 10 and Take 20 were developed for 3.x was because the techniques developed in 1st/2nd Ed AD&D (and earlier versions of D&D) tended to make traps "boring/not fun." After the 10th time a "disposable" summoned creature or undead shell gets mangled, traps start to lose their charm.
Basically it means there's no corpse, and no guilt about causing the death of a "servant". It's a force that simply ceases to be.
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Roll 3 or 4 times per search rather than taking ten. Explain it as triple checking the door. With there or four rolls you will usually get one over 10 and it's not too time consuming. In fact it's not a bad plan even if your dm does follow the rules. Taking ten guarantees that you won't find any traps that require an 11+.
Take 20 represents trying twenty times to eventually get a 20. It's only possible if you can try 20 times ("no penalty for failure"). You can Take 20 to search for a trap, because a failed search attempt doesn't trigger a trap. You can't Take 20 on disarming the trap because failure triggers it.
I don't allow taking 20 to search for a trap. There is absolutely no way for you to know if you've searched your best or not. There's no way to know when you've succeeded if there is no trap, and since there's no way to know for sure if there is or isn't a trap, no way to tell when you've "critically" succeeded.
Of course if the party does somehow know there's a trap there, I'll allow a Take 20, for example if an NPC tells them that the third door is trapped.
Roll 3 or 4 times per search rather than taking ten. Explain it as triple checking the door. With there or four rolls you will usually get one over 10 and it's not too time consuming. In fact it's not a bad plan even if your dm does follow the rules. Taking ten guarantees that you won't find any traps that require an 11+.
Searching with Perception is a move action, so you could roll four times in two rounds -- just with one character. Between this, and detect magic, most traps aren't that hard to find and GMs shouldn't be too bent out of shape for them being detected.
When you Take 20, it's a standard rule that you suffer the worst possible roll 'first' -- just like rolling the 20 is inevitable, so is rolling a 1, and those results are assumed to happen first.
CRB, page 86:
"Since taking 20 assumes that your character will fail many
times before succeeding, your character would automatically
incur any penalties for failure before he or she could complete
the task (hence why it is generally not allowed with skills
that carry such penalties)."
I think your GM should peel back these rules a little bit, but if worst comes to worst, you could just start rolling 20 times since that's exactly what Take 20 is for.
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Open-Close - level 0 Wizard cantrip. Any trap triggered by the actual opening of the door is done, unless the door is locked.
Mage Hand - level 0 Wizard. Find a five-pound rock and push it along the floor 35 feet in front of you. That will likely take care of any trip wire traps, and potentially trigger low-weight pressure plates as well.
I forgot to mention : Party is shipwrecked on an island and is trying to find a way to get off it. Currently exploring a temple to Zun-kuthon(sp) and almost every door has turned out to have a scythe trap so far (scythe rolls to attack with some pretty hefty mods...like a +15 to hit or something).
So our options are pretty limited.
Edit : Nobody has those abilities as far as i know, it's a level 3 campaign.
Not sure how the rest of the players feel about because most of them are VERY hard to contact outside of session time...i get the impression that they don't really care though.
Very simple. Just try 20 times at each door.
Yes, you can "take 20" when searching for traps as a failure does not set off the trap. You can NOT take 20 on Disarming them.
His reason being that traps either get auto-detected with take 10, or are never detected because their DC is too high.
The easiest way to "fix" this is to have a single trap requiring 11+ to find. The group will never take 10 when searching for traps again.
By the way, I don't think I've ever seen PCs take 10 when looking for traps. That would ensure you only find the easy traps, while you don't find the difficult traps (which are likely more troublesome to be caught in).
Does he also saddle you with guest adventurer NPCs? Or DMPCs? If so, make them open everything and walk in first. Kill two birds with one stone.
So our new DM turns out to love traps, and has a house rule where taking 10 on any skill check takes 10 minutes, taking 20 takes 20 minutes and results are rolled 1, 2, 3, 4...in that order.
His reason being that traps either get auto-detected with take 10, or are never detected because their DC is too high.
Any suggestions for talking the DM out of this one?
Firstly, I don't think that's strictly a house rule he made up arbitrarily. If I'm not mistaken, the 3.5 rules either stated that was the case, or some other consensus was made on the old 3.5 boards, because I remember EVERYBODY playing take 10 as 10 minutes, or take 20 as 20 minutes.
Secondly, consider yourselves getting off easy. You didn't say that he rules that taking 10 or 20 versus traps automatically incurs any penalties that would ordinarily go along with failure, but the Core Rulebook does. On page 86.
It assumes that if the result of a take 10 would be a failure, you get the pain. It also assumes that ANY attempt to take 20 results in failure where penalty would otherwise be incurred. So rolling each minute is actually a benefit to you.
I'd be happy to remind your GM of this, if that's somehow preferable to pretending to wait 10 or 20 mins in a game where 10 or 20 mins translates to 10 seconds of real world time.
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Taking 20 took 20 times as long as doing the action once did. It was basically the player saying "I'm using this skill twenty times, rolling a 1, a 2, a 3 ... all the way until I get 20."
Searching a 10x10 square used to take 1 minute of work, so Taking 20 on searching took 20 minutes.
I admit that even I'm disappointed that there's no real disadvantage to Taking 20 to pick locks. I also used to think that trying to pick a diabolically complex lock took longer -- but nope, they're all full round actions.
Granted, I'm not entirely sure the rogue should be made weaker, so I'm not sure I want to house-rule them back. That's just what the wizards want.
Get a 10 foot pole...
Firstly, I don't think that's strictly a house rule he made up arbitrarily. If I'm not mistaken, the 3.5 rules either stated that was the case, or some other consensus was made on the old 3.5 boards, because I remember EVERYBODY playing take 10 as 10 minutes, or take 20 as 20 minutes.
Secondly, consider yourselves getting off easy. You didn't say that he rules that taking 10 or 20 versus traps automatically incurs any penalties that would ordinarily go along with failure, but the Core Rulebook does. On page 86.
Take 10 is one round. Take 20 is 20 rounds or 2 minutes. Been that way since 3.5.
Next- there is exactly Zero, zip, nada 'penalty" for a failed perception check on finding a trap. The RAW even uses Taking 20 on a Perception as an example = "Common “take 20” skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps)."
SKR and JJ have both verified this. You do NOT set off a trap by a failed Perception check.
Take 20 represents trying twenty times to eventually get a 20. It's only possible if you can try 20 times ("no penalty for failure"). You can Take 20 to search for a trap, because a failed search attempt doesn't trigger a trap. You can't Take 20 on disarming the trap because failure triggers it.I don't allow taking 20 to search for a trap. There is absolutely no way for you to know if you've searched your best or not. There's no way to know when you've succeeded if there is no trap, and since there's no way to know for sure if there is or isn't a trap, no way to tell when you've "critically" succeeded.
Of course if the party does somehow know there's a trap there, I'll allow a Take 20, for example if an NPC tells them that the third door is trapped.
Except that is specifically in the rules. "Common “take 20” skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps)."
It's just being extra careful. like if you're in a dungeon and so far EVERY door has been trapped. Of course you take 20 on the next.
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It could be that your GM wants the "classic" trap experience, where people find and defeat traps with cleverness instead of Perception+Disable Device checks.
Then why have skills? Why are you then playing a ROLE playing game as then your PC is exactly as clever and experienced as you are, no matter his exps, abilities or skills?
This was "classic" only in ODD, before we invented the "thief" class, about year 2.
Take 20 represents trying twenty times to eventually get a 20. It's only possible if you can try 20 times ("no penalty for failure"). You can Take 20 to search for a trap, because a failed search attempt doesn't trigger a trap. You can't Take 20 on disarming the trap because failure triggers it.I don't allow taking 20 to search for a trap. There is absolutely no way for you to know if you've searched your best or not. There's no way to know when you've succeeded if there is no trap, and since there's no way to know for sure if there is or isn't a trap, no way to tell when you've "critically" succeeded.
Of course if the party does somehow know there's a trap there, I'll allow a Take 20, for example if an NPC tells them that the third door is trapped.
Except that is specifically in the rules. "Common “take 20” skills include Disable Device (when used to open locks), Escape Artist, and Perception (when attempting to find traps)."
It's just being extra careful. like if you're in a dungeon and so far EVERY door has been trapped. Of course you take 20 on the next.
I think that Jodokai was just informing us about his house rule DrDeth, at least that's what i get from his post.
I wouldn't have an issue playing by those rules. I would even play a rogue. I go by the same rule when I GM and it has never caused an issue.
I would like to suggest you have a talk with him about it. Taking 10 and 20 are built the way they are to make things flow better. Take 20 already takes 20 tries, and take 10 is meant to show a time without stress when you aren't actively looking. He can try to emphasize actively searching and the like, but if this house rule is creating a problem or stress and the only result is being hit with a scythe then this house rule doesn't seem to be that great either.(speaking of which, 1 in 20 chance of insta-gib doesn't sound fun to me.)
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Then why have skills? Why are you then playing a ROLE playing game as then your PC is exactly as clever and experienced as you are, no matter his exps, abilities or skills?
It could be that your GM wants the "classic" trap experience, where people find and defeat traps with cleverness instead of Perception+Disable Device checks.
Of course, what you're advocating is a purely ROLLplaying game.
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How does it work? Do you ban retrying any skill? If not, can't you just roll 20 times?I can see banning Take 10. I don't agree or like it, but I can see how it works. I can't see banning Take 20.
I can easily see banning take 20 making a LOT more sense tan banning take 10. Lets say you DO roll 20 times. Just because you roll 20 times, that does not absolutely guarantee that you will roll a 20.
But you shouldn't need to roll 20 times, and that consumes time. Its easier to guess that in 20 rolls you'll roll a 20. It might be on the first, it might be on the 1234th. But its easier to say "I take 20" than role 1234 times.
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Of course, what you're advocating is a purely ROLLplaying game.Then why have skills? Why are you then playing a ROLE playing game as then your PC is exactly as clever and experienced as you are, no matter his exps, abilities or skills?
It could be that your GM wants the "classic" trap experience, where people find and defeat traps with cleverness instead of Perception+Disable Device checks.
I don't understand how this b!!~&@@+ even gets tossed around any more.
We get it, people don't like "rollplaying". These people can go somewhere else and play a game that doesn't need rules, or rolls, or anything those filthy "rollplayers" and *gasp* GAMERS use to play Pathfinder (which is a ruleset, which inherently implies DICE WILL BE F&!$ING ROLLED).