XPs (for) Traps?


Rules Questions


We get XPs for "defeating monsters, overcomming challenges and completing adventures" (Core, p. 399). So far so good.

But how do we overcome traps? Surviving them? Finding them? Do we have to disable them, or simply get past them?

I'm confused.


If a player never makes contact with a monster, do we give them EXP for it? Stealthing around a monster is making contact with it, although one sided contact.

If a player interacts with a trap, they get EXP. If they never walk into the trap at all, never have to roll a dice at it, the don't get EXP.

Scarab Sages

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RoseCrown wrote:

We get XPs for "defeating monsters, overcomming challenges and completing adventures" (Core, p. 399). So far so good.

But how do we overcome traps? Surviving them? Finding them? Do we have to disable them, or simply get past them?

I'm confused.

Up to the GM, but usually PCs are given full XP for avoiding a trap, rather than disabling it.

That said, if the PCs truly never notice the trap and it never goes off, the GM may choose to ignore the trap's CR when calculating an adventure's XP (and just pretend the trap was never there).

Really, though, kinda depends on how the GM is calculating XP. I mean, if the GM is making it up as they go along, then they are giving XP based on what you encounter, you won't get xp for traps you don't encounter. If they designed the whole dungeon in advance, they may, instead, be calculating XP based on the entire dungeon, rather than by what you encounter - in this case, you may get XP for traps you never saw. A GM style, sorta thing.

The main thing, regarding traps, is that not disabling them, may have additional consequences later in the scenario. For example, allied NPCs taking the "stupid route" to meet up with the party after you defeat the main boss of a dungeon.

Additionally, some traps actually contain lootable items, depending on how the trap is disabled. Avoiding traps may give XP, but you may also find yourself avoiding treasure.


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To put it another way, the players should probably get XP if they somehow react to the presence of the trap. That could mean having the rogue disable it, but it could also be things like cleverly setting it off in a way that doesn't hurt them, physically sabotaging it without using Disable Device, or intelligently figuring out where/what the trigger is and avoiding that.

The main reason for this is that PCs probably shouldn't feel like they have to do things in just one way in order to benefit - that pushes them into just murdering every opponent, picking every lock, and so on. Giving them XP for somehow overcoming the challenge is usually better if you want to encourage creativity.

If they're never aware of it and avoid it basically on accident, they shouldn't get XP... but if they find out about it and choose some way of dealing with it, they probably should get their reward.


I could see awarding partial XP if some players get caught in the trap and other manage to bypass it. If 2/5 fail to jump over the pit trap, then they get 60% of the XP.

Scarab Sages

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Oh, just for added clarity. The Party should get full XP if they just trigger the trap too. Although avoiding/disabling it in an intelligent way is much better, having the Fighter get dropped into a pit of spikes would qualify as a "learning experience" and award full XP for "defeating" the trap (especially if the trap isn't designed to automatically reset). Really, you should be giving full xp for defeating it, even if they just go around after noticing it.

That's why, at least in my opinion, traps have a very low CR when compared to creature encounters. So, as the GM, you need to be careful with traps, as designing traps has much greater potential to kill the party, due to their misleadingly low CR.

I will note that not all "traps" award xp in the normal manner, since not all things the rogue detects as traps, are actually traps.... For example Phantom Trap or a Deathtrap Ooze. In these cases, the Phantom trap would award XP based on defeating the caster and the Ooze would award XP based on defeating the creature. But in both cases, if the party just sees a trap and avoids it, they may not gain XP in the normal manner (so demanding XP based on defeating the trap may not always be appropriate).


OK, as I thought them. Thanks for confirmation everyone. :)


Murdock Mudeater wrote:
That's why, at least in my opinion, traps have a very low CR when compared to creature encounters.

This really depends on the kind of trap you're creating. The trap CR rules are kinda bad, and can easily result in massively inflated or underrated traps.

My favorite example is to contrast the one-shot Fireball trap, which clocks in at a ludicrous CR 7, with the self-resetting Summon Monster IX trap, which comes in at CR 10. So a one-shot trap that duplicates a spell that can be cast by a CR 4 NPC clocks in at CR 7, while a trap that summons CR 14 creatures non-stop is CR 10. Riiight. Always sanity-check your trap CR, by RAW the numbers are often completely out of the ballpark.

Scarab Sages

Dasrak wrote:
Murdock Mudeater wrote:
That's why, at least in my opinion, traps have a very low CR when compared to creature encounters.

This really depends on the kind of trap you're creating. The trap CR rules are kinda bad, and can easily result in massively inflated or underrated traps.

My favorite example is to contrast the one-shot Fireball trap, which clocks in at a ludicrous CR 7

How are you getting CR 7? Fireball traps are one of the sample traps in the CRB, and clock in at a meager CR5.

That said, I'm not sure how they got that number for the CR.


Quote:
How are you getting CR 7? Fireball traps are one of the sample traps in the CRB, and clock in at a meager CR5.

CR 1 base for magical traps, +3 for spell level, +3 due to average damage of 35. That gives CR 7

I don't know how they got CR 5 either. It doesn't follow the CR guidelines for traps. Even CR 5 is too high a CR, IMO, when you compare it to a 5th level Wizard or 6th level Sorcerer that carries the spell.

Scarab Sages

Dasrak wrote:
Quote:
How are you getting CR 7? Fireball traps are one of the sample traps in the CRB, and clock in at a meager CR5.

CR 1 base for magical traps, +3 for spell level, +3 due to average damage of 35. That gives CR 7

I don't know how they got CR 5 either. It doesn't follow the CR guidelines for traps. Even CR 5 is too high a CR, IMO, when you compare it to a 5th level Wizard or 6th level Sorcerer that carries the spell.

Hmmm...took me a bit. They list 6d6 fireball damage for the Fireball Trap. How does that work out as 35 damage? Shouldn't the average roll be 3.5 per d6? So 21 damage on average, or a +2 modifier (unclear if we round up, or if they mean +1 per whole unit of 10 damage)?

Magical Trap DC is highest spell level + 1 per 10 damage. Not seeing your CR 1 base in the rules for magical traps. So, as I read it, Fireball Trap should be a CR 5 (or 6, if 21 damage is +3).

So, regarding CR 5, a party of six 1st level characters would regard the Fireball Trap as an "Epic" encounter. That does, actually, sound about right. At 21 damage, you could TPK the entire party, and they probably won't notice it, or be able to disable it, at least in PFS...

Meanwhile, a party of six 5th level characters would regard this as an "Easy" encounter. It's not that they'd find it effortless, but given that it probably can't kill any of the players, even wizards, it's just not the challenge it would be for the same group at 5th level.

Though, thread does make me wonder regarding using cantrips in traps. What's the CR of an Acid Splash Trap?


Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Hmmm...took me a bit. They list 6d6 fireball damage for the Fireball Trap. How does that work out as 35 damage?

Sorry, for some reason I was thinking 10d6 damage in my head. Yeah, for 6d6 it would be average 21 damage, so that puts it at CR 6

As for the rounding issue, as phrased it's "+1 CR for every 10 points of damage", so that's definitely rounding down. You either hit the next multiple of 10 or you don't.

Quote:
So, regarding CR 5, a party of six 1st level characters would regard the Fireball Trap as an "Epic" encounter.

This would be completely inappropriate to throw at a 1st level party. Instant damage nukes are easy to build (whether we're talking traps, monsters, or NPC's with class levels), and if you spend the entire encounter budget on that one big "boom" then you can easily TPK your party. That's less an issue of this trap deserving a higher CR and more an issue of it being bad encounter design to throw this trap at a low-level party.

Scarab Sages

Dasrak wrote:
Quote:
So, regarding CR 5, a party of six 1st level characters would regard the Fireball Trap as an "Epic" encounter.
This would be completely inappropriate to throw at a 1st level party. Instant damage nukes are easy to build (whether we're talking traps, monsters, or NPC's with class levels), and if you spend the entire encounter budget on that one big "boom" then you can easily TPK your party. That's less an issue of this trap deserving a higher CR and more an issue of it being bad encounter design to throw this trap at a low-level party.

"Epic" encounters, by their very nature, are supposed to be completely inappropriate to throw at a 1st level party. I wouldn't recommend it, but I was posting it for comparison on the CR rules. A first level party of 6 is treated as having an Average Party Level (APL) of 2. So a CR 2 encounter would be average, a CR3 encounter would be challenging, a CR 4 encounter would be hard, and a CR 5 encounter would be epic.

Totally legal, but I agree, definitely a questionable GM thing to do. It is true, though, some players do like playing with lots of deadly encounters. And, this would yield faster character advancement (A CR 5 enounter is 265 xp per player, which is about 1/5th of a level for a fast advancement character). Dunno, I can certainly picture some players being down for this, but you'd certainly need to warn them in advance, that your GM's playstyle would include genuinely deadly traps and encounters.

Scarab Sages

Paris Crenshaw wrote:

From the PRD, in the section below the trap statistic tables,

Challenge Rating of a Trap wrote:

To calculate the Challenge Rating of a trap, add all the CR modifiers (see Table: CR Modifiers for Mechanical Traps or CR Modifiers for Magic Traps) to the base CR for the trap type.

Mechanical Trap: The base CR for a mechanical trap is 0. If your final CR is 0 or lower, add features until you get a CR of 1 or higher.

Magic Trap: For a spell trap or magic device trap, the base CR is 1. The highest-level spell used modifies the CR (see CR Modifiers for Magic Traps).

I think that means that no magical trap can have a CR less than 1.

You could use the Acid Arrow Trap as an example.

Base CR = 1
Acid Arrow Spell Level = +2
Total CR = 3

The attack modifier appears to be based on a wizard with min Caster Level 3 (BAB +1) and a Dex of 12 (Ranged Touch Attack +1).

That one is more confusing. I'm unclear how it is calculating damage. As I see it, 2d4 is 5 damage on average, so for 4 rounds, it should deal 20 damage, or a +2 CR modifier.

Another weird trap interaction that came up in session, was whether or not a caster could attempt to counterspell a spell generated from a trap.


Dasrak wrote:
Sorry, for some reason I was thinking 10d6 damage in my head. Yeah, for 6d6 it would be average 21 damage, so that puts it at CR 6

Perhaps 'average damage' is supposed to take into account the reflex save for half?

Liberty's Edge Contributor

Murdock Mudeater wrote:
Paris Crenshaw wrote:

From the PRD, in the section below the trap statistic tables,

Challenge Rating of a Trap wrote:

To calculate the Challenge Rating of a trap, add all the CR modifiers (see Table: CR Modifiers for Mechanical Traps or CR Modifiers for Magic Traps) to the base CR for the trap type.

Mechanical Trap: The base CR for a mechanical trap is 0. If your final CR is 0 or lower, add features until you get a CR of 1 or higher.

Magic Trap: For a spell trap or magic device trap, the base CR is 1. The highest-level spell used modifies the CR (see CR Modifiers for Magic Traps).

I think that means that no magical trap can have a CR less than 1.

You could use the Acid Arrow Trap as an example.

Base CR = 1
Acid Arrow Spell Level = +2
Total CR = 3

The attack modifier appears to be based on a wizard with min Caster Level 3 (BAB +1) and a Dex of 12 (Ranged Touch Attack +1).

That one is more confusing. I'm unclear how it is calculating damage. As I see it, 2d4 is 5 damage on average, so for 4 rounds, it should deal 20 damage, or a +2 CR modifier.

Another weird trap interaction that came up in session, was whether or not a caster could attempt to counterspell a spell generated from a trap.

Yeah. In reviewing the whole traps section, I realized that I'd muddled things. The "spell traps" are absolutely based on spell level AND damage. Otherwise, the fireball trap's CR makes no sense, which is what generated this discussion to begin with. I actually deleted my earlier post, because I realized I'd goofed.

It seems the damage from the acid arrow spell definitely takes into account the damage done over the full 4 rounds. Your calculation of 20 points (+2 CR modifier) is correct.

I think the problem is that there is a difference between spell traps (traps that just work like the spell) and magic traps (which are traps or devices that have spell effects). The implication is that they are treated differently when calculating CR.

Shadow Lodge

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I think you are missing that spells that target multiple creatures have their effective damage doubled when calculating the CR modifier.

The listed Fireball trap is CR5: 6d6=21 average damage *2 (multiple creatures) = +4 CR +1 CR base = CR 5. That's it.

The listed Acid Arrow trap is CR3: 2d4*4 = 20 average damage = +2 CR +1 CR base = CR 3.

It seems clear that all magic traps start at CR 1 before modifiers.

CRB: Environment - Traps wrote:

Magic Trap: For a spell trap or magic device trap, the base CR is 1. The highest-level spell used modifies the CR (see CR Modifiers for Magic Traps).

Average Damage: If a trap (mechanical or magical) does hit point damage, calculate the average damage for a successful hit and round that value to the nearest multiple of 10. If the trap is designed to hit more than one target, multiply this value by 2. If the trap is designed to deal damage over a number of rounds, multiply this value by the number of rounds the trap will be active (or the average number of rounds, if the duration is variable). Use this value to adjust the Challenge Rating of the trap, as indicated on Table: CR Modifiers for Mechanical Traps. Damage from poison does not count toward this value, but extra damage from pit spikes and multiple attacks does.

For a magic trap, only one modifier applies to the CR—either the level of the highest-level spell used in the trap, or the average damage figure, whichever is larger.

Scarab Sages

Serum wrote:
CRB: Environment - Traps wrote:

Magic Trap: For a spell trap or magic device trap, the base CR is 1. The highest-level spell used modifies the CR (see CR Modifiers for Magic Traps).

Average Damage: If a trap (mechanical or magical) does hit point damage, calculate the average damage for a successful hit and round that value to the nearest multiple of 10. If the trap is designed to hit more than one target, multiply this value by 2. If the trap is designed to deal damage over a number of rounds, multiply this value by the number of rounds the trap will be active (or the average number of rounds, if the duration is variable). Use this value to adjust the Challenge Rating of the trap, as indicated on Table: CR Modifiers for Mechanical Traps. Damage from poison does not count toward this value, but extra damage from pit spikes and multiple attacks does.

For a magic trap, only one modifier applies to the CR—either the level of the highest-level spell used in the trap, or the average damage figure, whichever is larger.

Yes, I did miss this whole section. Thanks.

Okay, so base CR 1 for magic trap. Then add either the spell level, or the damage modifier, whichever is higher. Since the fireball does 21 damage to multiple targets, we treat this as 42 damage, or +4. The spell is only +3 due to level, so we only add the one mod and get a CR of 1+4=5.

Confusing section. Doesn't help that both Magical and Mechanical headings start with "M." I read that section several times before realising the difference there.


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Murdock Mudeater wrote:


Confusing section. Doesn't help that both Magical and Mechanical headings start with "M." I read that section several times before realising the difference there.

Absolute mess of a section. I've read it multiple times and still felt the need to ask questions (obviously).

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