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We had a spot of trouble with the quicksand too. My group's victim kept getting her head in the air so was never close to suffocation, but could not seal the deal and get out. Aid helped some but not enough. I ended up ruling that allies could use an athletics check so long as she was not fully submerged. That popped her out with a minimum of fuss. Not sure if it was the right call for the rules but for my table in that moment it was the right call to move the game along. The Ankheg was long dead by then, by the way.
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I'm not quite sure from your description but: did you give the trapped character only one chance per round? or one chance per action, so three per round?
The athletics DC is 18, so the worst possible character is at (level 4, -4 untrained, -1 STR, -5 ACP) -6, but that is a gnome or halfling in full plate. That one has to roll a 14 to not sink.
A typical bad athletics bonus should be around (level 4, -4 untrained, STR combined with ACP ~0) +0, needing an 8 on the die to not sink.
The monk in OP's post would be around that bonus, if he trained something else than athletics and has no Strength to speak of.
Throwing a rope should grant a +2 conditional bonus, Aid a +2 circumstance bonus, so the typically bad athlete's odds increase by 20%. His chance to sink is now 15%, and his chance to swim is at 35%, so he should try multiple times a round.
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I found the quicksand both confusing and weird. The table I was running for spotted the mound and decided to give it a wide berth, which missed the quicksand. I was very glad because I still have no idea how that encounter is supposed to play out without being a bunch of "the GM is a jerk" railroading.
I was very surprised that there was no save. If you walk on it, even if you notice it, you automatically fall in. Luckily our Sorcerer cast web on the corner of the quicksands area and the camel critically failed its save. So no one except the Ankheg died in it, and that's only because I ruled it could burrow through, but that's where the last arrow got it.
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I have to agree with the complaints about quicksand, while they might not be a deathtrap (unless you have bad Athletics), it takes forever to help someone to get out of it.
Aid another is just a very clunky way to resolve this and even with several characters standing by to support via aid another check on one of the three attempts each turn.
I would rather not see it again, but something like this might actually need unique rules to resolve.
EDIT: Also this is a huge trap, but as written it will always affect the first person to move into one of its squares, not sure if that is absolutely intentional given the size of it. I don't even see a situation where the person slipping into it won't always be at the border of it.
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The rules seem to be trying to model the difficulty of escaping quicksand once you have sunk to your waist, and assume that you are not bouyant, which may be true for an adventurer laden with gear.
In real quicksand, you sink slowly and as long as you think to lie on your back right away, you won't sink very far and can easily be pulled out by someone else. Edited to add: The ease with which this can be done does not seem to be modeled well.
If you don't, you sink to your waist, at which point it is next to impossible to be pulled out unless you can wiggle your legs enough to free the water around them (sounds like a swim check to me?)
But you don't sink farther or drown. People and animals that get trapped in quicksand die of exposure or from predation. Quicksand really is dangerous and deadly, but only if you don't know what to do or are alone.
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I despise Quicksand with a fiery passion for all the reasons mentioned here (well, none of my PCs actually died, but otherwise).
I also agree that the complete inability of someone with Str 18 to pull out someone in a mechanically meaningful fashion is the standout bit of weirdness here.
Us trying to stay Close to RAW and the traps being thrown together with limited space is what makes this Hazard unfun and unintuiive.
I am not sure I agree with this. The basic hazard as written in the Bestiary is unrealistic in how quickly it works, and offers no saving throw when you trigger it. It's basically "swim checks until you escape or die". I don't see how this is fun.
Real quicksand works very slowly and doesn't drown you. You sink to your waist and get stuck, requiring outside help to free you. Modeled as a game mechanic, you would be making swim checks until you were exhausted, or had help to pull/dig you out (yes, you can dig in quicksand, it's just sand that is saturated with water).
At least in that scenario the trapped character would still have actions even when they were up to their waist. And things might get interesting if a random encounter came along. :)
This trap needs to change.
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I think we feel the restraints of a playtest here. In a normal Situation, everybody would come up with several Workarounds on how to model "3 Guys and a rope solve this Problem", be it Athletics rolls via a theoretical Pull Maneuver or whatever.
Us trying to stay Close to RAW and the traps being thrown together with limited space is what makes this Hazard unfun and unintuiive.
That would allow others to make the checks, but the fact that it's 'three checks a round until you escape or die' often for as much as 15 minutes of real-world time, would still be a major issue.
Us trying to stay Close to RAW and the traps being thrown together with limited space is what makes this Hazard unfun and unintuiive.I am not sure I agree with this. The basic hazard as written in the Bestiary is unrealistic in how quickly it works, and offers no saving throw when you trigger it. It's basically "swim checks until you escape or die". I don't see how this is fun.
Real quicksand works very slowly and doesn't drown you. You sink to your waist and get stuck, requiring outside help to free you. Modeled as a game mechanic, you would be making swim checks until you were exhausted, or had help to pull/dig you out (yes, you can dig in quicksand, it's just sand that is saturated with water).
At least in that scenario the trapped character would still have actions even when they were up to their waist. And things might get interesting if a random encounter came along. :)
This trap needs to change.
I think the trap is supposed to be unrealistic movie quicksand and that is fine by me. That said, I still share OP's concerns.
I think the trap is supposed to be unrealistic movie quicksand and that is fine by me. That said, I still share OP's concerns.
Or characters wearing medium and heavy armor, which would be fine by me, too.
Regardless, I think we all agree that roll-until-escape-or-die puts this in some bad territory.