| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Most Perception checks are reactive, made in response to observable stimulus. Intentionally searching for stimulus is a move action.
It is a move action to use an active perception check. This does not change if you are in combat.
In combat should certainly add a modifier to the DC for being distracted, and there are also modifiers for distance:
Creature making the check is distracted: +5
Distance to the source, object, or creature: +1/10 feet
I had thought unchained rules for perception had specified a 10'x10' area for an active search/perception check, but I'm not having any luck finding that on AoN at the moment.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I had thought unchained rules for perception had specified a 10'x10' area for an active search/perception check, but I'm not having any luck finding that on AoN at the moment.
It is in Ultimate Intrigue:
The Core Rulebook doesn’t specify what area a PC can actively search, but for a given Perception check it should be no larger than a 10-foot-by-10-foot area, and often a smaller space if that area is cluttered. For instance, in an intrigue-based game, it is fairly common to look through a filing cabinet full of files. Though the cabinet itself might fill only a 5-foot-by-5-foot area, the number of files present could cause a search to take a particularly long time.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
To clarify for myself, a character standing at the doorway of a 20 ft x 20 ft room would take 2 or 4 Perception checks to scan the room for traps?
The +1 DC on the Perception check(s) looking at the farther half of the room.
How much time is used if the character then Takes 20 on the room? Is that even possible if there are any traps in the room or are they automatically triggered?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
for streamlining of play, a single "I search for traps in the room" with a single roll is usually enough. Traps are generally far and few between, and are usually more of a nuisance than a problem. To prevent the game from getting bogged down by players searching every 10'x10' space, allowing a single search per room/large area should suffice (adding specific searches for doors and chests, not withstanding).
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Creature making the check is distracted: +5
Distance to the source, object, or creature: +1/10 feet
That's true, but keep in mind it's almost unusual for GMs to actually account for those modifiers to perception. At least, that's been my experience.
Some rules just get ignored more than others.
Light Generation: Fully 30% of magic weapons shed light equivalent to a light spell. These glowing weapons are quite obviously magical. Such a weapon can't be concealed when drawn, nor can its light be shut off. Some of the specific weapons detailed below always or never glow, as defined in their descriptions.
It's good to know how things are supposed to work, but don't be shocked if it doesn't work that way at your own table. It's up to you how much you want to complain about that. Personally, it doesn't bother me much as long as the GM is consistent about it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I house rule a Spot DC and a Search DC and use hidden rolls (Excel script) for Spot rather than a passive take 10.
As an example, there's a gold ring in the cobwebs on a staircase. I have given it a Spot DC of 30 and a Search DC of 5. If the party walk down the stairs, I roll once for each party member as they pass the ring (actually click once on the script button, which does the whole party). If a party member chooses to search the stairs then they will almost certainly find the ring.
If I had allowed a passive take 10 then the Spot check will be an auto-succeed or auto-fail and because I know the composition of the party will be something that I know ahead of time. If I know what will happen, I might as well read the players a story rather than play a TTRPG.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Taking 20 will trigger the traps, so that's out. Take 10 however is possible if the PC(s) are not under duress. I didn't know about the Ultimate Intrigue rule, but a single Move action apparently lets you search a 10'x10' space, so a 20'x20' would require 4 Move equivalent actions, or 2 rounds; 12 seconds. Note that folks with the Trapfinding ability can perceive traps within 10' w/out actively searching for them.
Taking 20 to detect the traps will not trigger them unless the trap is triggered by seeing it and you are within its range of effect.
Takin 20 to disam the traps will trigger them if rolling 1+your disable device bonus is insufficient to disarm it. A 1 on the dice isn't an automatic failure for skills.
The problem with taking 20 to search for traps is that it requires 20 perception checks for each 10'x10' square (or even a smaller area for cluttered spaces). That is 1 minute for every 10'x10' area.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sure about that Diego? The RAW states that on a successful Perception check, you detect the trigger before the trap goes off. If Taking 20 involves failures before success, wouldn't that mean that you failed to detect the trigger, before the trap went off, and therefore the trap went off?
ckdragons post was about standing in the doorway and taking 20 to look for traps in the room ahead.
I am at a T intersection of a corridor, coming from the bottom of the T.
I look from trap left and right while standing at the center of the intersection and fail to see the pit trap 10' to the left of my position.
I take the right corridor.
Why I should fall into the trap in the left corridor simply because I looked at it?
If someone takes 20 to search an area for traps I don't read that as "I walk into the area and start jumping and yelling." Doing that will detect the traps, by activating them, but I wouldn't call that searching.
One of the sayings of my gaming group is: "Anyone can detect traps ..." with the implicit "by triggering them."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
There is no reason you cannot search an area for traps without being next to or in the area of the trap. The DC to make the check will increase by +1 for every 10 feet you are from where you are searching. So if you are standing in the doorway of and want to search for traps without going in you get a normal perception roll for squares within 10 feet. The DC to spot the trap increases by 1 for every 10 feet. Depending on what is in the room the GM may decide that the conditions are unfavorable or even terrible and increase the DC to spot the trap. As long as the character is not in combat and has time, they could spend 2 move actions per turn to search 2 10-foot cubes.
If the character has the rogue talent trap spotter, they get a check when they get within 10 feet of the trap without having to spend a move action. Realistically that or the spell detect traps are about the only reasonable way to detect traps in combat. Otherwise, you would have to take a move action to search the 10 feet you are in. After that you could take a 5 foot step and get single attack. If you want to move further than 5 feet you would have to forgo your attacks to take another move action.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
for streamlining of play, a single "I search for traps in the room" with a single roll is usually enough. Traps are generally far and few between, and are usually more of a nuisance than a problem. To prevent the game from getting bogged down by players searching every 10'x10' space, allowing a single search per room/large area should suffice (adding specific searches for doors and chests, not withstanding).Emphasis mine. They're a nuisance... unless the Trigger is Visual Proximity or Sound. These triggers are areas of effect, sometimes fully at Line of Sight from the trap itself. If the trap can detect you before you detect it, or you are forced by circumstance to pass THROUGH the trigger area before you can reach the trap to disable it, you are guaranteed to suffer the consequence of the trap regardless of your Perception check.
and I vehemently disagree with having a trap that cannot be perceived and disabled without having to set it off. A rogue with trap sense should be able to tell that a trap exists BEFORE entering the trigger area, and should have the means of disabling it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Welcome to Symbol traps, which are granted much higher level than this one is meant to be encountered in. Even symbol spells can be avoided if you don't directly look at them (use a mirror or close your eyes and use detect magic), but getting caught by a trap that requires you to be cautious, even extremely so, is perfectly fair; in fact it's just as fair as someone getting caught by a simple trap that shoots you when you open the chest containing it because they didn't call for a perception to open it and didn't say they were opening it slowly, for the GM to offer them one anyway.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
You can see why some parties prefer to just run a meat shield in front of them rather than trying to detect and bypass the traps.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Barbarians aren't trained in disable traps, but they are trained in activate traps.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I will typically not give the PC's a Perception check to notice Traps unless they actually tell me "I'm looking for traps as we go through this hallway" or "I check this door for a booby trap" or something along those lines. If they take Trap Spotter then I'll give them the Perception roll even if they haven't told me they're searching for traps, because that's the whole point of taking it. As far as searching an area for non-traps, I don't go by the 10x10 rule simply for brevity reasons, I usually just have everyone make a perception roll and that searches the entire room, whoever defeats the DC finds the stuff.
The point of any trap is to be so hidden that any would-be trespassers get injured, maimed, killed, or otherwise jacked up even if you were specifically looking for traps, so if you don't tell me that you're specifically looking for these things, you're not even going to get a check and the trap is going to go off.
If I put traps out, I'm trying to kill you :) I'm not going to pull punches or hand out freebies :)
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As far as searching an area for non-traps, I don't go by the 10x10 rule simply for brevity reasons, I usually just have everyone make a perception roll and that searches the entire room, whoever defeats the DC finds the stuff.
I generally will go for the single roll but will consider how many 10'x10x10' cubes are in the room when calculating the time spent checking it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
As far as searching an area for non-traps, I don't go by the 10x10 rule simply for brevity reasons, I usually just have everyone make a perception roll and that searches the entire room, whoever defeats the DC finds the stuff.I generally will go for the single roll but will consider how many 10'x10x10' cubes are in the room when calculating the time spent checking it.
Yeah if they're searching a 50x50 or 100x100 room, that would be 3-5 players making a thousand Perc checks to fully search it if you go by the proper rules, especially if there's an upstairs or a mezzanine in this room. So I would just do it with 1 Perc check from everyone, or maybe roll 5 Perc checks and take the highest 3 (or w/e), and you spend ~3-5 minutes. If they're in a library or some room that has a lot of items to rifle through, I might just have them take 10 or take 20 and say "even though you took 20, you guys spend ~30 minutes looking through all this stuff, and there were 5 things that caught your eye" or something.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Summon natures ally I, summon Mites to open things and Ponies to walk on things. Cheap trap detection.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Summon natures ally I, summon Mites to open things and Ponies to walk on things. Cheap trap detection.
Clockwork prowler
Source Pathfinder Society Field Guide pg. 48
Price 500 gp; Weight 25 lbs.
Category Alchemical Tools
Description
This 2-foot-tall wooden clockwork automaton is shaped roughly like a short-backed, wheeled chair. When wound up with the folding handle at its side, the clockwork prowler trundles forward at a speed of 15 feet per round for up to 2 minutes. A clockwork prowler cannot move through difficult terrain. Each round of vigorous winding powers 2 rounds of movement. If its brake is not released immediately after winding, the prowler loses 1 round of movement for every 2 rounds it sits idle. The clockwork prowler can carry up to 20 pounds of weight at full speed, or up to 50 pounds at a speed of 10 feet. Higher weights prevent the prowler from moving. A clockwork prowler has hardness 5 and 90 hit points, and when in motion has AC 12 (a motionless clockwork prowler has AC 5).
That will trigger several kinds of traps and Mending should "heal" it if it isn't destroyed.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
and I vehemently disagree with having a trap that cannot be perceived and disabled without having to set it off. A rogue with trap sense should be able to tell that a trap exists BEFORE entering the trigger area, and should have the means of disabling it.for streamlining of play, a single "I search for traps in the room" with a single roll is usually enough. Traps are generally far and few between, and are usually more of a nuisance than a problem. To prevent the game from getting bogged down by players searching every 10'x10' space, allowing a single search per room/large area should suffice (adding specific searches for doors and chests, not withstanding).Emphasis mine. They're a nuisance... unless the Trigger is Visual Proximity or Sound. These triggers are areas of effect, sometimes fully at Line of Sight from the trap itself. If the trap can detect you before you detect it, or you are forced by circumstance to pass THROUGH the trigger area before you can reach the trap to disable it, you are guaranteed to suffer the consequence of the trap regardless of your Perception check.
Plenty of traps can be set off from a safe distance after you have discovered them. A large percentage of bomb disposal in RL is done that way.
The job of the crafter that makes the trap is to make it hard to disable, not to make it a cakewalk.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The job of the crafter that makes the trap is to make it hard to disable, not to make it a cakewalk.
But the job of the game is to make it so that traps can be disarmed, or there'd be no point in having a trap specialist.
It ought to be pretty much impossible for a well constructed magic trap to be disarmed. There's an invisible magic eye looking down the corridor. If it sees any moving entity it doesn't recognise, that person is blasted a fireball. There's no way to reach the eye or the fireball-launcher without entering the area the eye is looking at. As soon as you enter the corridor, you get blasted, and until you enter the corridor, you can't interact with the trap.
In order for this to work in gameplay terms, there has to be a solution the PC can use to get around it. So maybe the Rogue can spot the trap without triggering it by peeking round the corner with a tiny mirror, and then fool the sensors that allow it to tell friend from foe by holding up the severed head of a dead guard...
And Pathfinder isn't the kind of game where it's the player's job to think of that, it's a game where the character thinks of that if they can pass a skill roll.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And Pathfinder isn't the kind of game where it's the player's job to think of that, it's a game where the character thinks of that if they can pass a skill roll.The job of the crafter that makes the trap is to make it hard to disable, not to make it a cakewalk.
I prefer to play in a way that requires the players to use their brains at least a little.
We are ROLE-players, not ROLL-players
But the job of the game is to make it so that traps can be disarmed, or there'd be no point in having a trap specialist.
And who said that the trap can't be disarmed? Or circumvented?
Your example trap can be a problem the first time you encounter it, but it has its limits.
The "Magic eye" can be one of 3 models:
Clairvoyance, Perception +15, see a specific location
Arcane eye, Perception +20, unlimited LOS
True seeing, Perception +30, 120' LOS
All 3 can be beaten by stealth and trap specialists generally have good stealth. So your trap specialist can scout and detect the traps, then disable or bypass them.
The corridor is well-lit and completely featureless? Odd combination in a dungeon, maybe it should raise some doubt in the mind of the players (granted, the GM should take care to describe the corridor).
At that point, they could try using some simple tactic to test the suspicious area: roll a ball, a low-level summon, a chicken, or even a PC playing sacrificial bait.
If the players want to chat about the last football game or about who is dating who during the game session it can become "difficult". But at that point they aren't playing an RPG, they are socializing while rolling some dice,
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It is physically impossible for a trap to be undetectable. In order to trigger the trap's sensor must contact the victim. [By contact, this could be touch, or a broken light beam, radar reflection etc]. That contact requires that there is no obstacle blocking contact, which also means that the victim (with the appropriate sense for invisible, magic etc) has the potential to see the trap's sensor. It may be extremely difficult to notice the sensor, but not impossible.
Likewise, it should be impossible to spot a trap within a 10'square if the trap is blocked from view. E.g a poison needle trapped jewelery box hidden in a chest drawer. A pressure plate triggering a pit trap hidden under a rug. In the latter example, a perceptive character walking across the rug may notice a little extra give before pressing hard enough to trigger the trap.
I always roll a hidden perception check just before a trap is triggered and advise the player that they almost triggered a trap.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Depending on how far they are from the trap, if you're saying they need to stealth THROUGH the area covered by the visual trigger to get to the trap, this might be a pretty challenging...
@ Diego Rossi: you want your players to reason things out right? Well, let's see: if the PC has a super high Stealth, they beat the trap detecting them and thus the trap is trivial. If their Stealth is abysmal compared to the Visual trigger used, then what, the spell goes off?Doesn't sound like anyone's using their brains so far, they're just making skill checks. But let's fast forward; the PC makes the Stealth check and enters whatever area is seen by the trap but doesn't set it off. Now they have to roll a Perception check to spot the trap. Again, we're still JUST making skill checks.
Benefit of the doubt, the PC stealths past the sensor AND rolls a decent Perception check. Well, by RAW if they just hit the DC of the check they know there's a Visual Trigger; if they get 5 or more over the Perception DC THEN they know something about the actual trap. In this instance, a standard Fireball Trap has a DC 28 modified by distance.
Traps should be proportioned to the skills of the characters, but some poster seems to think that that that is all that matter, not using the skills with a bit of thought.
How common is the trap expert scouting 20'-30' before the party and using stealth? Him checking what is behind the corner ahead of the rest of the party?That is one of his roles, but a lot of people seem to think that his position should be in the middle of the party.
Depending on how far they are from the trap, if you're saying they need to stealth THROUGH the area covered by the visual trigger to get to the trap, this might be a pretty challenging...
You don't play to be challenged a least a bit?
@ Matthew Downie: THANK you! You have succinctly said what I've been ranting about for several trap threads now. Designing a trap that REQUIRES a PC to spend resources in order to find or attempt to remove it is poor design, IMO, and the above post explains why I have said opinion.
"Designing a trap that REQUIRES a PC to spend resources in order to find or attempt to remove it is poor design," Again, you seem to dislike even minimal challenges. Traps are meant to siphon party resources, monster encounters before the BEEG are meant to siphon party resources. If all that matter is the big battle with the BEEG we can design 2 room dungeon: the BEEG room followed by the loot room, all other stuff is superfluous.
Munchkin is a fun game, but not a RPG.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Traps using up resources isn't unexpected. Most combats use up resources too, and I don't see traps being that different.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The problem with traps is that most of them are boring, being only a skill check challenge and a speed bump for the game. They require less tactical thinking than combat.
But if traps are designed to be more interesting and to require some tactical thinking a simple skill check will not resolve them.
Pick what you prefer for your games.