While playing this last weekend, I ran into some questions about running hazards. Namely, how to handle alternative ways of disabling or avoiding the hazard by using different skills/abilities than those listed in the hazard's stat block. Should these require rolls? Or is simply noticing the trap in some circumstances enough to avoid the hazard?
The first scenario the players came across an Treacherous Scree, which was the only entrance into a cave, so they had to cross it. Two party members attempted the trained survival check several times to disable the trap, but bad rolls had them all fail. so the party wanted to find an alternative solution to resolve/disable the hazard. They determined that they wanted to use grappling hooks and climb checks to attempt to climb the scree. I allowed this, rolling for the hook, and asking each party member to make the athletics check and they all passed. I set the DC for the climb check at 18, as per the DC by level table. I reasoned that by setting up the hook & rope (with the chance to critically fail and potentially trigger the trap) along with all characters needing to make the athletics check (along with the chance to fall and trigger the hazard again) balanced out the higher DC of the survival check to disable the hazard. This also did not disable the hazard, just avoided it, and they had the potential to deal with it again when they returned out of the cave. Does this logic make sense, and was it applied correctly?
The second scenario was inside of the cave, where kobolds had set up a scythe blades trap in a corridor. Again, this was the only route forward to proceed (because kobolds are bastards like that). The players noticed the tripwire, and instead of attempting to using Thievery to disable the trap, they wanted to just jump over the trip wire. One player suggested that it should not have to be a skill check, as often times (in previous editions) just noticing the trap was the "defeat" of the trap, so to speak. I wanted a little more action, so asked for flat athletics checks of DC 10 just jump over the wire, or was open to other suggestions to avoid the trap. Of course, the monk managed to roll a total of a 9 and triggered the hazard. While I don't feel wrong for asking for a roll when there was a skill and a risk involved and probably wouldn't ask for such a thing all the time, I am wondering what other people's takes are, and if simply noticing the trap should have been enough to allow them to defeat and avoid the hazard.
A trip wire or a moderate size pressure plate does seem like a good example of something that should be possible to bypass if you've spotied the trigger. Of course, if you go back down the same passage in a hurry later, it might be a problem if you don't do something to very clearly mark the location.
Other hazard triggers might be much more difficult to bypass without skill use, even if you've recognized exactly where all the bits and pieces are.
That being said, these are more Advice answers, not Rules answers. I don't have a rule to refer to for what hazards might be bypassable. This is just applying judgement to the grey area I don't see defined in the rules.
Generally speaking, noticing a hazard should enable any valid methods of avoiding it - and should give full XP for doing so. Whether that's seeing a trip wire and stepping over it, or not stepping on a particular floor tile, or just jumping over without a check because the jump is within what the rules outline as not needing a check.
Only when it's not "well... roll because I want there to be a roll" situations, such as when there's actually reasonable risk of failure to avoid the hazard even when you know how and know where it is, should a check be called for. And in those cases I suggest using the DCs presented by the hazard as a baseline even if the actions used fall outside what is listed, unless there's considerable reason for a difference in difficulty - it's not actually enabling a "cool idea" if it's significantly harder to pull off than the assumed default method of dealing with something, and anything that'd reasonably make the DC significantly lower probably falls in the "just let that work rather than roll something" realm mentioned earlier.
Thank you for your input. After reviewing the situation, I agree that normally it should not have called for a roll to just jump over the tripwire, but I was building to the theme of a trapped dungeon, and it was the first encounter of the night, so I felt a little more drama would be appropriate. As it was a short adventure/dungeon crawl I wanted to highlight abilities and hazards in play. On a long running campaign I think it makes since to resolve it.
That being said, these are more Advice answers, not Rules answers. I don't have a rule to refer to for what hazards might be bypassable. This is just applying judgement to the grey area I don't see defined in the rules.
That is exactly where I was. I knew what advise I would give, but wanting to make sure I wasn't missing any explicit rules that would have given guidelines for these situations. I re-read the CRB and GMG and it didn't seem to indicate solutions for resolving/defeating hazards beyond the listed skill check or breaking them, and the topic of avoiding was silent as well.