Spell Sunder vs traps

[Seraphimpunk]

I was trying to figure out how this would mesh. Players detect a magical trap inside a room that'll trigger ( proximity trigger: alarm ) when they enter the room. Barbarian with rage cycle and Spell Sunder wants to sunder the trap. Can he sunder the proximity alarm from outside the area? or does he need to enter the area, and trigger the trap to try and sunder it ?

can it be sundered as the trap doesn't have a caster level, but the instantaneous flame strike within the trap does have a caster level?

[Bob Bob Bob]

Short answer, it's not specific.

Long answer, probably yes.

I say this because presumably a rogue can disable magic traps (otherwise granting them the ability to do so is... well, wasted words). In order to do so they face all of the same restrictions that a barbarian sundering the trap faces. If the trap automatically goes off before the barbarian is close enough to sunder it, the trap automatically goes off before the rogue can actually reach it to disable it. Same for the proximity trigger. So either the trap is immune to disabling without being triggered (poor, poor rogue) or however the rogue does it the barbarian does it too.

The trap has a caster level. A magic trap is literally just a spell, tied to a location, triggered by a specific condition. The caster level is the caster level of the spell. The trap rules seem to imply you can have multiple spells on one trap but I haven't actually seen any of those published.

[Seraphimpunk]

yeah, but what's the ongoing effect? the spell tying the trap together?
because flame strike isn't an ongoing effect. if someone cast it on the barbarian, he wouldn't be able to sunder it. Its still an instantaneous effect.

if anything the Alarm is the ongoing effect, or the trap itself is an ongoing effect. but the caster level is only given for the triggering spell, not for any of the containing effects of the trap.

in a home game i'd set the CMD at the disarm DC +5 or something. but i'm trying to figure the proper way to handle it as is, for pfs.

[Pizza Lord]

It's tough call for me. The proximity (alarm) wording makes it seem like it's functioning as the alarm spell (only covering the trap's effect area and, instead of alerting the caster or producing an audible alarm, it triggers the trap.)

Other things that function as trap triggers (like clairaudience or arcane eye clearly only increase the trap's Perception (and what it can perceive), so those would be an easy 'No' to your question.

As for the alarm trigger, I guess I would have to say it comes down to how you normally handle it. Using a typical rogue searching for traps: they use Perception to notice a trap just before it triggers, so for a magical trap, even an alarm-based one they don't use the DC for an alarm spell for either the Perception or the Disable check, they use the actual trap's DC which is based on the effect (alarm isn't even listed as a magical trap. It seems more like ward, similar to forbiddance).

Similarly, a caster detecting magic in the trap area and casting dispel magic would use the flame strike DC as the target to determine if the trap is suppressed.

I am inclined to say that the trap trigger itself can't just be Spell Sundered because the nature of creating and building the trap binds it with the Magic Trap's effect. Even if you do allow it, it should be against the full trap DC, since that's the cost paid for by the trap's creator (theoretically).

Obviously this does not include actual ongoing spells, an alarm could be spell sundered if the barbarian could figure out where to hit it.

Also remember, the barbarian may not know if the effect is only suppressed for 1 or 2 rounds rather than completely dispelled. You could be perfectly within your rights to make that check secretly, since they don't know. Unless they have someone already concentrating and scanning the area with detect magic, it may take 2 rounds if there's any other auras in that direction and they can remember the number of them, 3 rounds if they actually try and see if that specific area still detects.

Another consideration, you could rule Crafted Magic Device Traps may be considered magical items if they require Craft Wondrous Items and may not actually be subject to Spell Sunder any more than a magical wand (though the actual Sundering part might be detrimental to a wand). Any spell effects they cause would still be though, such as a wall of fire or a stinking cloud

[blackbloodtroll]

I am actually working on a Sunder focused PC, and wondering how to bring this forth to a PFS Judge.

[Pizza Lord]

Some things I'd like to see specifically addressed is whether you can Spell Sunder something you can't actually hit. For instance, I don't think you should be able to stand in the bottom of a create pit just swinging your sword around and suppress the spell. I'd say at the very least you'd need to strike the edge or bottom of the pit.

If there's an object with silence on it, you should have to sunder it from the object, not just wave your fist in the air. I think you need to have something you can actually swing 'at' even it's an illusion or a definitive (even incorporeal) 'thing', like the fog of obscuring mist or the flames of a wall of fire. Yes this would prevent sundering wards and other things unless they're cast on an object or floor tile or whatever. Maybe that's how it really was intended.

It also keeps from being inside a room in a magnificient mansion and trying to spell sunder something but, you hit the "air" of the spell. I'd rule that you need to actually sunder the spell where it originates, at the door.

Also, I'd like it specifically spelled out whether it should be able to dispel or even suppress effects that aren't subject to dispel magic. As it's written it would seem to be able to do so, but that seems incredibly powerful to let someone just lift ancient curses and break down walls of force Maybe it shouldn't be able to affect such things, or maybe it should but only to suppress them temporarily. This means the character could still pass through a wall of force (an astounding and nearly epic thing for anyone who can't bend time-and-space to teleport or possess the power to disintegrate matter) and even get his party through.

It would probably be clearly viewed as a nerf by anyone with Spell Sunder, but that might just be how it was meant to be balanced. I'd like it addressed at least.

[Seraphimpunk]

yah, but those are just suppositions and how you'd rule it. thanks for the advice. but not helpful in pfs. there's some wording, like not being subject to any miss chance when attempting to sunder the magic. so if you want to sunder an invisible wizard's invisibility, you just need to know what square to strike, and to target the invisibility ( its unclear whether its enough to know "them being invisible" is the target, or if they need to know whether its Invisibility or Greater Invisibility being used... ) and then just beat their CMD by 5 .

the trap stuff gets tricky. i'm probably going to let them try and sunder the trap next time, which sunders the warding/binding and just immediately triggers the spell stored in the trap... ( which is instantaneous and shouldn't be sunderable anyway )

[Bob Bob Bob]

Seraphimpunk wrote:

the trap stuff gets tricky. i'm probably going to let them try and sunder the trap next time, which sunders the warding/binding and just immediately triggers the spell stored in the trap... ( which is instantaneous and shouldn't be sunderable anyway )

"You succeed at sundering the trap you're trying to destroy! The trap automatically triggers!" If you try this, please let me know whether the players throw dice, books, or the table, because it's going to be something.

Look, it's not that hard. Spell Sunder works on "an ongoing spell effect". Is a trap an ongoing spell effect? Depends on the trap. Symbol spells and fire trap, absolutely. Other stuff? Probably not. At best, the ongoing spell effect is Alarm. At worst there is no ongoing spell effect. Since generic magic traps are made using Craft Wondrous Items, they're probably magical items.

[Ascalaphus]

(I was a bystander during this game.)

It's a complex question. The trap rules are rather arcane and occasionally defy common sense.

In this case, the effect is probably what it classified as a Magic Item Trap, as opposed to a Spell Trap. (Spell traps are spells like Glyph of Warding that have built-in trigger mechanisms.) It uses an Alarm spell to figure out when to activate a Flame Strike. As a magic item, it presumably has a magic aura, though the Magic Aura spell could be used to mask it since it's an object. In the absence of an explicit Magic Aura spell, I'd say the trap radiates magic just like any other magic item with the same caster level.

Since the magic item trap is part of an object, if you regular-sunder that object, you'd also destroy the trap. There's no rules basis for triggering the trap that way, even if it does feel quite appropriate. Just like there's no explosion if you sunder a wand of fireballs.

The problem with regular sunder here is that the trap's physical anchor is probably just out of reach of your weapon.

So how do rogues do it? Presumably they only need to be able to contact the edge of the trap's trigger area, at which point they start fiddling with it. Since rogues can suspend a trap without destroying it (on a good roll), they might in fact just be disabling the trigger.

Looking at it very carefully, I don't think Spell Sunder should work against this specific trap. It's a magic item trap, and Spell Sunder doesn't work against magic items, only spells. Spell Sunder would work against a Glyph of Warding. But for this trap you need the Sunder Enchantment power. And that would only suspend it briefly, so you need to do a quick snag on the item!

---

As I was saying, trap rules don't play nice with common sense. The issue is that they're highly abstracted.

A location trap presumably uses a pressure plate or infra-red laser to detect people, but doesn't say that, it just says Location. If players try to play intelligently and ask the GM how the trap detects people in the location, the GM has nothing. If he gives them something ("pressure plate") he opens the door to using other techniques to get past it (Fly).

Likewise, if you detect what a trap is going to do, you could use all manner of abilities to prevent that, without once using Disable Device. Inserting some wedges or plugging arrow firing holes will do the trick in some cases.

This can annoy people who feel this cheapens rogues/people who invest in Disable Device, or who feel that this is Too Easy. On the other hand if you don't get to fiddle with the gears, people will complain that it's stupid, uncreative, video-game like or worse.

I do think Disable Device has some virtues; not everyone has time or the mechanical aptitude to either invent (as GM) or circumvent (as player) traps in the "intelligent play" way.

This is an "old school D&D" debate item that, I'm pretty sure, is impossible to resolve to 100% satisfaction in PFS.

[Seraphimpunk]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Likewise, if you detect what a trap is going to do, you could use all manner of abilities to prevent that, without once using Disable Device. Inserting some wedges or plugging arrow firing holes will do the trick in some cases.

oh i have stuff like that trigger the trap as well. but i warn them before they attempt it. i consider it an attempt at unskilled use of the disable device skill. There's a reason you need to be trained in shoving arrowheads under the pressure plate and not setting it off. My out of game rationale is that if you're not trained in bomb disposal / disarming, and you're not on the bomb squad. you probably know its not a good idea to go cutting wires.

considering most traps magic items though is probably the most rational way of thinking about it that i've come across, i like that. symbol spells and some of those things, sure they're magical spell traps. that's an ongoing magic effect. But spell sunder doesn't work on golems and creatures, so i like the traps are magic items rationale. i can at least run with that and consistently rule that in games when presented with new trap stat blocks.

[Ascalaphus]

Seraphimpunk wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Likewise, if you detect what a trap is going to do, you could use all manner of abilities to prevent that, without once using Disable Device. Inserting some wedges or plugging arrow firing holes will do the trick in some cases.

oh i have stuff like that trigger the trap as well. but i warn them before they attempt it. i consider it an attempt at unskilled use of the disable device skill. There's a reason you need to be trained in shoving arrowheads under the pressure plate and not setting it off. My out of game rationale is that if you're not trained in bomb disposal / disarming, and you're not on the bomb squad. you probably know its not a good idea to go cutting wires.

It's an edition thing. Once upon a time we didn't have trap removal skills so that was the way to disable traps. And personally I still like the "outthink" approach over the "outroll" approach. But PF isn't built that way, so too bad.

Seraphimpunk wrote:

considering most traps magic items though is probably the most rational way of thinking about it that i've come across, i like that. symbol spells and some of those things, sure they're magical spell traps. that's an ongoing magic effect. But spell sunder doesn't work on golems and creatures, so i like the traps are magic items rationale. i can at least run with that and consistently rule that in games when presented with new trap stat blocks.

I'm fairly sure that's actually the RAW of it, but it's a somewhat obscure rule and I think few people are aware of it. I wasn't until I started digging.

It also implies that Dispel Magic only buys you a few rounds of suspended trap, not a permanently disabled trap. That raises the value of Trapfinding a bit...