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Hey folks! I’ve been playing a kobold rogue with the Snarecrafter archetype in Pathfinder Society for the past couple of years (just hit level 8—woohoo!). I’ve spent a ton of Achievement Points unlocking exotic snares and their formulas, and my build is heavily invested in snares and stealth. I love the concept: sneak ahead, set traps, lure enemies into them, and laugh maniacally from the shadows. When it works, it’s awesome.
But… it rarely works.
As many of you know, most PFS scenarios are designed to be fast-paced and proactive. Snares, by contrast, are mostly defensive in nature. Even with all the feats and options that let you use them in combat, they’re often not action-efficient or as effective as just sneak attacking twice.
In practice, I often go multiple scenarios without using a single snare. It’s frustrating, especially when I’ve invested so heavily into them. A big part of the problem is tactical dissonance. I’ll drop a snare in a likely charge lane and wait for the enemy to blunder into it… but then another PC charges right past it to engage the enemy first, bypassing the trap entirely. I get it—they’re playing their characters—but it feels like I’m being penalized for trying to play mine.
Worse still, some GMs don’t really play along either. Enemies “coincidentally” avoid snare placements, even without line of sight or any reason to know they’re there (even mindless enemies seem to somehow wizen up to my schemes sometimes). When I’ve tried to adapt by scouting ahead and laying snares in advance in between encounters, I sometimes hear pushback from players:
For the record: I can set up a dozen snares in less time than it takes the party to heal themselves. And I never tell others how to play. I just try to coordinate like a tactician would. But that often doesn’t fly in PFS.
So, I turn to you fine people:
How do you make snares work in Pathfinder Society?
Have you found strategies, scenarios, or table behaviors that make snaring worthwhile? Are there archetype combos, social tricks, or table etiquette tips that help? I’m not looking to "win" fights solo—just to have *my* character's specialty feel useful and fun more than once in a blue moon.
Thanks for reading and for any advice you can offer. Kobolds everywhere will thank you.
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Snares are very hard to use even in a home campaign.
But in PFS? I’ve never seen anybody even try, largely due to all the reasons you cite.
Other than applauding the effort I’ve got nothing for you. MAYBE trying to play with a regular group and sitting down and explaining what you’re trying to do might help a little?
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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There's not really any way that isn't "talk to people you're playing with" or "join games together with people who are on the same page."
The few times I've seen a party all work around making snares benefit them, the snares added a lot if value. But I can count the times I've seen that happen in PFS on the fingers of one hand. And the number of times I've seen them pay off big from something one player did alone instead of from a party plan after a conversation along the lines of "hey, we think that ogre is up in there, we could lay a bunch of traps here, take some bow shots and run and try to make him chase us out through them" is zero.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Some of it is definitely a people problem. For your character's build to really pan out, the other PCs need to adapt to your mechanics. But you're the only one they've ever met using those mechanics.
You're a bit like a champion; champions also work better when the other PCs don't run ahead of them. (The heavy armor tends to slow champions down.) But once people know the concept of the 15 foot service area and how useful the champion reaction is, they can use that knowledge again the next time they're playing with a champion.
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Also yes, PFS scenarios, and many adventure paths as well, have the players as pro-active going to new places where the enemies already are. Enemies are actually very likely to stay where they are. You know, in their own separate encounters. Even if they're oddly close to another room in which they can surely hear the sounds of fighting. Boy, it would be a really ultrasevere encounter if they got into the habit of investigating strange noises and combining encounters. But it would make snares work better...
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So yeah, I'm afraid snares are a bit of a solution in search of the right problem. And not having that much luck finding the right problem.
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Snare specialist here! Level 8 now, and it works ok.
Basics:
Kobold with Snare Setter then Snare Genius.
Ranger with Snarecrafter Dedication, Surprise Snare, Snare Specialist, Remote Trigger.
Free snares: Snare Genius gives me 4, snare specialist 6, and snarecrafter dedication gives me 6; so 16 free snares per day.
You used to want Powerful Snares at level 8, but now that's baked into the Snarecrafter Dedication in remaster.
There will be some games where you can really shine, but I'll admit it's pretty rare that you're charged with defending a plot of land from an expected attack. About one per year, really. So you'll want to be a bit selective about what missions you go on.
The rest of the time: Surprise Snare IS your game. This feat lets you spend 3 actions to bowl your snare into an opponent's square and set it off. Before remaster, it did lower your DC by two, but with remaster that's gone! What remaster DIDN'T do is fix the range question. The feat doesn't say how far away you can set these snares. But in 2020 I happened to be at a table with Tonya as GM, who made a table ruling of 20' range. That wasn't issued as a campaign rule though, so your table may vary.
Outside of snares, I've got crossbow ace. And in theory Hunt Prey -> Precision applies to the surprise snare, as it doesn't say the hit has to be a strike.
Which snares to take? The hard limits: nothing with a cost, nothing that takes more than a minute to craft. Those just don't work. Outside of that... same as picking spells. Some damage, some conditions, some utility. A couple snares are fort instead of ref, and a couple have no save. Take a variety.
I have NEVER had other players be a problem or complain about my snares. And I've not had GMs try to go around them either. I've got a bunch of cardboard tiles that I'll lay out when we're defending an area, with a mark under them to say which type of snare they are. Then we get a surprise when they go off.
The only problem I've had is playing dumb. Because when you're putting snares around a campsite, your character doesn't know that the map only goes one direction. So if you don't want to be meta, you waste some snares on approaches that as a player you know won't happen. Oh well.
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Outside of snares, I've got crossbow ace. And in theory Hunt Prey -> Precision applies to the surprise snare, as it doesn't say the hit has to be a strike.
I would beware of that interpretation.
While the rules don't explicitly define what a hit is, they strongly imply in multiple places that a hit is the result of a successful attack roll.