Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kuros81 07-30-07, 09:58 PM	If you follow the craft rules, it would take forever to make a mechanical trap. For a mechanical trap of CR 1-3, a week's work, hitting the DC of 20 and mulitplying it by itself (since it takes at least a roll of 20 to make the DC), results in a value of 400sp, or 40gp. Even if you had 15 ranks, 20 INT and rolled a 20, it would still only amount to 800sp, or 80gp. The problem is, the cheapest listed mechanical traps cost 400gp. That would take 5-10 weeks to craft!!! 3.5 has really bungled this. I don't see how its possible to make a simple trap in a place like Undermountain in 5-10 weeks. -------------------------- DESIGNING A TRAP Mechanical Traps: Simply select the elements you want the trap to have and add up the adjustments to the trap’s Challenge Rating that those elements require (see Table: CR Modifiers for Mechanical Traps) to arrive at the trap’s final CR. From the CR you can derive the DC of the Craft (trapmaking) checks a character must make to construct the trap. Mechanical Trap Cost The base cost of a mechanical trap is 1,000 gp. Apply all the modifiers from Table: Cost Modifiers for Mechanical Traps for the various features you’ve added to the trap to get the modified base cost. The final cost is equal to (modified base cost x Challenge Rating) + extra costs. The minimum cost for a mechanical trap is (CR x 100) gp. After you’ve multiplied the modified base cost by the Challenge Rating, add the price of any alchemical items or poison you incorporated into the trap. If the trap uses one of these elements and has an automatic reset, multiply the poison or alchemical item cost by 20 to provide an adequate supply of doses. ---------------------------- CRAFT (INT) Like Knowledge, Perform, and Profession, Craft is actually a number of separate skills. You could have several Craft skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill. A Craft skill is specifically focused on creating something. If nothing is created by the endeavor, it probably falls under the heading of a Profession skill. Check: You can practice your trade and make a decent living, earning about half your check result in gold pieces per week of dedicated work. You know how to use the tools of your trade, how to perform the craft’s daily tasks, how to supervise untrained helpers, and how to handle common problems. (Untrained laborers and assistants earn an average of 1 silver piece per day.) The basic function of the Craft skill, however, is to allow you to make an item of the appropriate type. The DC depends on the complexity of the item to be created. The DC, your check results, and the price of the item determine how long it takes to make a particular item. The item’s finished price also determines the cost of raw materials. In some cases, the fabricate spell can be used to achieve the results of a Craft check with no actual check involved. However, you must make an appropriate Craft check when using the spell to make articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship. A successful Craft check related to woodworking in conjunction with the casting of the ironwood spell enables you to make wooden items that have the strength of steel. When casting the spell minor creation, you must succeed on an appropriate Craft check to make a complex item. All crafts require artisan’s tools to give the best chance of success. If improvised tools are used, the check is made with a –2 circumstance penalty. On the other hand, masterwork artisan’s tools provide a +2 circumstance bonus on the check. To determine how much time and money it takes to make an item, follow these steps. 1. Find the item’s price. Put the price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp). 2. Find the DC from the table below. 3. Pay one-third of the item’s price for the cost of raw materials. 4. Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week’s work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you’ve completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn’t equal the price, then it represents the progress you’ve made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces. If you fail a check by 4 or less, you make no progress this week. If you fail by 5 or more, you ruin half the raw materials and have to pay half the original raw material cost again. Progress by the Day: You can make checks by the day instead of by the week. In this case your progress (check result × DC) is in copper pieces instead of silver pieces. Creating Masterwork Items: You can make a masterwork item—a weapon, suit of armor, shield, or tool that conveys a bonus on its use through its exceptional craftsmanship, not through being magical. To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item. The masterwork component has its own price (300 gp for a weapon or 150 gp for a suit of armor or a shield) and a Craft DC of 20. Once both the standard component and the masterwork component are completed, the masterwork item is finished. Note: The cost you pay for the masterwork component is one-third of the given amount, just as it is for the cost in raw materials. Repairing Items: Generally, you can repair an item by making checks against the same DC that it took to make the item in the first place. The cost of repairing an item is one-fifth of the item’s price. When you use the Craft skill to make a particular sort of item, the DC for checks involving the creation of that item are typically as given on the following table.
Mock26 07-30-07, 10:30 PM	This only matters when the players are trying to build traps. DM's have a magical wand that can enable mythical-type NPCs to craft anything, for any cost, with any CR, at any DC, and in any amount of time! Simply wave the wand, utter the magical word, and, "Voila!" you have the trap of your desires! The best part is that the wand holds infinite charges!
Tedronai 07-31-07, 12:04 AM	Similar problems, however, arise whenever a PC attempts to craft any but the cheapest, of items. For Boccob's sake, people! The simpler the item is, the longer it takes to make! (assuming a 'simpler' item indicates a lower DC without a lower cost)
Sildatorak 07-31-07, 02:54 AM	I recommend using the rule from Complete Adventurer where you can intentionally boost the item's craft DC in increments of 10 to speed up crafting. It doesn't totally fix the problem, but it helps some.
Heros_Backpack 07-31-07, 04:25 PM	The DMG2 has a number of 'booby traps' (CR1/2) that can be thrown together in an hour or so (or since many cost between about 40-100gp, carefully crafted in a check or two).
Kuros81 08-01-07, 01:37 AM	This only matters when the players are trying to build traps. Yes, that would be the situation here. The DMG2 has a number of 'booby traps' (CR1/2) that can be thrown together in an hour or so (or since many cost between about 40-100gp, carefully crafted in a check or two). Do the math. Progress over a week is measured in sp. If you do it by the day, its measured in cp. A 7th level rogue with 10 ranks in Trapmaking and 16 INT would average a result of a 23 on the check. Let's say we have a generous DM who allows you a +2 circumstance bonus for having the right tools. Thats 25. If you up the check DC to 30 its unlikely the trap would get made. But lets do it, anyway. The rogue rolls a 30, and multiplies that by the DC, also 30. That would be 900cp, or 9gp, worth of daily progress. A trap of 100gp would be done in about a tenday. My question is how traps like the Wall Blade Trap ever get made: Wall Blade Trap: CR 1; mechanical; touch trigger; automatic reset; hidden switch bypass (Search DC 25); Atk +10 melee (2d4/x4, scythe); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 22. Market Price: 2,500 gp. With a market price of 2,500gp and progress at maximum for a 7th level character (its unimaginable to me that a Legendary character of 11th or higher wouldn't have something better to do) being roughly 100gp a week, it would take half a year of full 8 hour days to finish this trap. And, oh yes, over 800gp in raw materials. This is madness.
Mock26 08-01-07, 02:34 AM	My question is how traps like the Wall Blade Trap ever get made: Spells. Also, one third of the cost is paid up front. One way to reduce the time would be to exclude this 1/3rd cost from the target goal of the cost of the item. For example, if the item costs 3,000 gp then you would only have to reach a goal of 2,000 gp in your weekly checks to complete the item. Also, also, can't you get additional modifiers for assistants? If it was a small trap you'd be limited to only 1 assistant for a +2 bonus, but if it was larger you could easily add in quite a few more people. So, for the wall blade trap you have a DC of 20 to craft it, and if you roll a 20 and have ten ranks you get a result of 30. Multiply this tiimes the DC of 20 and you get 600. If you take that to be gold you'd have your trap done in 5 weeks. That makes it more manageable. And if you apply this also to common items you could rule that the minimum time to make anything is one day. After all, a skilled blacksmith could easily make a sword in one day. As a final thought, just invoke Rule 0 and speed things up. You could have the cost per week be in gold instead of silver.
Lotusblossom 08-01-07, 02:54 AM	Poisons and siege weapons (HoB) get built ten times as fast.
Marcus Majarra 08-01-07, 09:50 AM	My question is how traps like the Wall Blade Trap ever get made Turn to page 229 of your PHB: the answer is the fabricate spell. This is how you craft items instantly.
wrecan 08-01-07, 10:00 AM	Teamwork also helps. One trapmaker might require half a year to build traps. A team of 10 trapmakers can do it in three weeks. That's the secret behind kobolds. With sorcery as a favored class, I imagine there are moderately powerful sorcerer/trapsmith kobolds who can cast fabricate and travel from kobold tribe to tribe helping them build traps. In the interim vast teams of kobold trapsmiths work on traps together. Look at it this way. A factory can create dozens of cars a day. An individual takes months to build a car. The traps your party encounters in dungeons was built by teams of trapsmiths and fabricate-casting wizards. When your players decide to build a trap, it shoudl take a while. Now, I would houe-rule that traps without any complicated triggers should go a lot quicker. After all, should it really cost 300 gp to dig a ten foot pit?
Lormador 08-01-07, 03:48 PM	Let's assume we are building a Crushing Wall trap, CR 10, market price 25,000gp. This will be a DC 35 endeavor, the base DC 30 for a CR 10 trap with +5 due to the automatic reset feature. Therefore, the check result multiplied by 35 will be the amount of work accomplished in a given week. Now let's take a community of dwarves, in fact, let's take a Dwarven underground metropolis. Let's take the Experts of the entire city and assume that 25% of them have ranks in Craft (trapmaking). The commoners we'll have busy doing other things such as mining, farming, repairing wagon wheels, drinking ale, and whatever else it is that dwarven commoners do. We'll average four 20th level Experts, eight 10th level Experts, sixteen 5th level Experts, thirty-two 3rd level Experts, sixty-four 2nd level Experts, and one hundred twenty-eight 1st level Experts. That will give us 63 Craft (trapmaking) Experts, and since it's an important defensive function, let's assume one of the 20th level Experts has this as his field. We'll give him Skill Focus: Craft (trapmaking), an Intelligence of 20, maximum ranks, and an item granting him +10 to his skill check. His modifier will be +41 and his average result will be 51. If his 62 assistants, representing every single dwarf in the city trained in Craft: trapmaking, all assist him, they will give him a prodigious +124 bonus from Aid Another. That's a 175 when they take 10 to construct this trap. Oops, forgot the stonecunning, that's 177. This multiplied by the DC gives 6,195gp of value created in an average work week. It takes an entire Dwarven metropolis more than a month to construct a Crushing Wall trap! And weeks are ten days long in Forgotten Realms, ouch. They had better have magic, because that's ridiculous. When the rules are such that the average wizard can come along and with the snap of his fingers equal or exceed the labor of an entire dwarven metropolis for a month, I suspect the rules for constructing traps are a little out of whack.
Sildatorak 08-01-07, 04:00 PM	Craft is usable untrained, so it seems like recruiting commoners to boost the check even more is not beyond possibility.
Lormador 08-01-07, 04:28 PM	I think we've already stretched the bounds of believability enough by allowing 63 people to work on a single trap simultaneously and constructively. Let's remember that this is not a large trap by any means. What happens when there are too many cooks, hmm? We already have the entire Craft: trapmaking expert population of a METROPOLIS working on this.
meabolex 08-01-07, 04:51 PM	I think you guys are forgetting that you can always up the DC on the craft by +10 as much as you want. If you know you're going to get a +120 check, you can set the DC to 120 (or +10 10 times). Edit: After looking it over, I'm not sure exactly how that's supposed to be worded (: A single +10 to the DC doesn't seem like much benefit at all, but allowing multiple +10s seems to be a little silly -- in that the overall costs for 1 week of work (mats + labor) is less than half of the overall cost. I think in retrospect I'd side with the single +10 DC.
meabolex 08-01-07, 04:52 PM	I think we've already stretched the bounds of believability enough by allowing 63 people to work on a single trap simultaneously and constructively. Let's remember that this is not a large trap by any means. Well, there are plenty of components. Each component could be worked on by various groups of people. For instance, you could -- instead of 75 workers -- say you hire a metalworker's guild to help you build it. That guild could have 75 workers in it.
Mock26 08-01-07, 05:51 PM	Well, there are plenty of components. Each component could be worked on by various groups of people. For instance, you could -- instead of 75 workers -- say you hire a metalworker's guild to help you build it. That guild could have 75 workers in it. If you're not above house ruling a bit, try this: For the use of spells that could aid in the creation of the trap (or item), add 2 times the spell level to you die roll. For example, in that crushing wall trap, you could use Stone Shape to assist you for a +8 to your die roll (level 4 for a wizard) or possibly use Transmute Rock to Mud followed up by Transmute Mud to Rock. In this case, you'd only get the benefit of one of them, and this would be a +10 to your die roll. This does require the DM to use some common sense on determing what spells could be used and when some spells, even though they could be used, wouldn't generate a bonus (such as the rock-to-mud-to-rock thing because it is two spells that are being used for pretty much the same purpose, to quicken up working of the stone).
Kuros81 08-01-07, 06:10 PM	Turn to page 229 of your PHB: the answer is the fabricate spell. This is how you craft items instantly. Yes, and that would hose the 7th level rogue in my hypo, wouldn't it? I think its really sad that 3.5 has made constructing good traps nearly as inaccessible as making magic items were in 2nd edition. Oh, and even with the Fabricate spell, the raw materials would cost 800gp. That's quite a haul! Teamwork also helps. One trapmaker might require half a year to build traps. A team of 10 trapmakers can do it in three weeks. That's the secret behind kobolds. With sorcery as a favored class, I imagine there are moderately powerful sorcerer/trapsmith kobolds who can cast fabricate and travel from kobold tribe to tribe helping them build traps. In the interim vast teams of kobold trapsmiths work on traps together. Look at it this way. A factory can create dozens of cars a day. An individual takes months to build a car. The traps your party encounters in dungeons was built by teams of trapsmiths and fabricate-casting wizards. When your players decide to build a trap, it shoudl take a while. Now, I would houe-rule that traps without any complicated triggers should go a lot quicker. After all, should it really cost 300 gp to dig a ten foot pit? Your kobold example is helpful, but I wonder where the kobolds get the money to craft all those traps? Also, a 10th level kobold sorcerer is quite the pre-requisite. As a DM, I would hate to have to run a kobold tribe of 25-50 adults that couldn't fashion a dozen mediocre traps within 5-7 days. As you say, a ten foot pit shouldn't have such a high market price. The market price is a function of its effectiveness (see the traps section in the DMG) rather than how easy it is to construct. And the effectiveness ratings don't stack up well to other values in terms of magic items. Would I build a trap worth 2,500gp or spend a little more and build a +1 Greatsword? The problem with the trap is that it springs on anything. Another kobold or a dog or even a summoned creature could wander into my dungeon and spring the trap. I have no control over what the trap hits, and if a PC springs my trap with a summoned imp, does it really cover the value of the trap? The solution I'm toying with is making the base costs for all non-magical traps 40-100 times cheaper. Also, I'm thinking about doing the entire trap thing over again, and measuring the cost by construction cost rather than trap effectiveness in certain areas (like when pits are used).
wrecan 08-01-07, 06:23 PM	Your kobold example is helpful, but I wonder where the kobolds get the money to craft all those traps? They don't need the money. They just need the components. Most traps are made form the materials around them. It's just a matter of scavenging. Also, a 10th level kobold sorcerer is quite the pre-requisite. That's why I had the kobold as a nomad. He doesn't appear on the community stats for the kobolds because when the PCs arrive, he's off on his way to the next kobold community. As a DM, I would hate to have to run a kobold tribe of 25-50 adults that couldn't fashion a dozen mediocre traps within 5-7 days. Why? Why do kobolds need to work quickly? The market price is a function of its effectiveness (see the traps section in the DMG) rather than how easy it is to construct. Which is fine, to me. That's an abstraction since most traps are not fungible. Basically, pricing is based on demand (utility), not supply (materials). I'm thinking about doing the entire trap thing over again, and measuring the cost by construction cost rather than trap effectiveness in certain areas (like when pits are used). I think that's a horrible idea. It will create totally unbalancing traps. One of those traps will be too cheap for its effectiveness and, rationally, they should be everywhere.
Mock26 08-01-07, 06:53 PM	I think its really sad that 3.5 has made constructing good traps nearly as inaccessible as making magic items were in 2nd edition. As a player who still plays more 2nd edition than 3.x, I strongly disagree. I think that the system for making magic items in 2nd edition worked just fine. I also think that a lot of people who did have problems with it had those problems because of poor judgement on the part of the DM. But, that is just my opinion. I can only speak from my examples of creating magic items in 2nd edition, which were quite good and free from major headaches. The solution I'm toying with is making the base costs for all non-magical traps 40-100 times cheaper. Also, I'm thinking about doing the entire trap thing over again, and measuring the cost by construction cost rather than trap effectiveness in certain areas (like when pits are used). Two things that can really help is to recalculate the cost of the trap to exclude the 1/3rd that is paid upfront in materials and such and use this lower GP cost as your "target number" when you make your skill roll. Additionally, instead of calculating the cost in CP per day and SP per week, boost it to SP per day and GP per week. This will reduce the time to more realistic numbers. Another option is to do away with the whole voluntary +10 that you can add. Instead of that, divide the adjusted die roll by the DC to craft the item, and use that as a multiplier of the money "spent" towards the goal. For example, if your adjusted roll is a 30 and your DC to craft the item is a 10 this would result in a progress of 300 SP (by the rules as they are). If you were to add +10 to the DC this would be 30x20=600. But, if you divide the adjusted die roll by the DC then you get a number of 3. Multiply this by the progress of 300 SP and you would get 900 SP. This will greatly speed up easy items, and speed up (even if just a little) more complicated items.
Kuros81 08-01-07, 10:53 PM	As a player who still plays more 2nd edition than 3.x, I strongly disagree. I think that the system for making magic items in 2nd edition worked just fine. I also think that a lot of people who did have problems with it had those problems because of poor judgement on the part of the DM. But, that is just my opinion. I can only speak from my examples of creating magic items in 2nd edition, which were quite good and free from major headaches. I admit I did not play very much 2nd edition. But everytime I wanted to create a magic item, my DM told me I would need to pop a CON point for the permanency. Any magical item required me to bust a CON point, and since it was a deadly campaign and my character had died a few times, I decided not to create any magic items. Perhaps I merely do not understand the 2nd edition magic item rules. Oh, and there was always the option of using unicorn horns in that campaign, but my character was good, so... Two things that can really help is to recalculate the cost of the trap to exclude the 1/3rd that is paid upfront in materials and such and use this lower GP cost as your "target number" when you make your skill roll. Additionally, instead of calculating the cost in CP per day and SP per week, boost it to SP per day and GP per week. This will reduce the time to more realistic numbers. Another option is to do away with the whole voluntary +10 that you can add. Instead of that, divide the adjusted die roll by the DC to craft the item, and use that as a multiplier of the money "spent" towards the goal. For example, if your adjusted roll is a 30 and your DC to craft the item is a 10 this would result in a progress of 300 SP (by the rules as they are). If you were to add +10 to the DC this would be 30x20=600. But, if you divide the adjusted die roll by the DC then you get a number of 3. Multiply this by the progress of 300 SP and you would get 900 SP. This will greatly speed up easy items, and speed up (even if just a little) more complicated items. So let me get this straight. By your system, if a character is crafting a CR 5 trap, which would constitute a target of DC 25, and the character exceeds the DC by quite a bit, and manages to hit a 30, he would be able to multiply the result by the roll result and divide it by the DC (here 750*30/25) and get the true amount? That's an interesting rule. Quote: As a DM, I would hate to have to run a kobold tribe of 25-50 adults that couldn't fashion a dozen mediocre traps within 5-7 days. Why? Why do kobolds need to work quickly? 5-7 days isn't quickly for a dozen traps such as shallow pit traps and razor-wire strung across a hallway. Quote: I'm thinking about doing the entire trap thing over again, and measuring the cost by construction cost rather than trap effectiveness in certain areas (like when pits are used). I think that's a horrible idea. It will create totally unbalancing traps. One of those traps will be too cheap for its effectiveness and, rationally, they should be everywhere. Well, rationally, by the current system, nobody would invest in any of the more traps. The problem is that the raw materials costs for construction are based off of the market prices, and the market prices are determined by the effectiveness of the traps. I have no problem with 3.5 tying the effectiveness of traps to what they would be worth on the market, but when raw materials costs are so exorbitant because of it, there's a problem. And anyway, you're being overly-dramatic. The traps would not be totally imbalanced. As it is, we see a similar thing with magic items. 3.5 has simplified magic into 9 levels, and some spells within a certain level are admittedly generally better than others. Nevertheless, 3.5 has not determined the prices of magic items completely from their effectiveness, but based it instead on an abstraction of this level system multiplied by caster level. As a result, players are going to want that wand of detect magic or that wand of cure light before they go for the wand of inflict minor wounds or the wand of cause fear respectively.
Mock26 08-01-07, 11:39 PM	I admit I did not play very much 2nd edition. But everytime I wanted to create a magic item, my DM told me I would need to pop a CON point for the permanency. Any magical item required me to bust a CON point, and since it was a deadly campaign and my character had died a few times, I decided not to create any magic items. That was a bit of a "mistake" in the player's handbook that was later cleared up in the Wizard's Spell Compendium. The loss of a Constitution point was only supposed to be for applying permanancy to yourself. So let me get this straight. By your system, if a character is crafting a CR 5 trap, which would constitute a target of DC 25, and the character exceeds the DC by quite a bit, and manages to hit a 30, he would be able to multiply the result by the roll result and divide it by the DC (here 750*30/25) and get the true amount? Yep. In your example you would then have a total amount of 900 instead of 750. Like others, I find that the craft item rules are poorly written (such as it possibly taking a full week to make a wooden spoon!) and take a really long time to make expensive items. So, I've tweaked it a bit to speed it up (such as figuring weekly cost in gold and daily cost in silver). Yet, I don't think that it unbalances it at all.
Finarin Panjoro 08-02-07, 09:15 AM	House Rule for purely mechanical traps: One 10 hour day per 1,000 gp of value (including fractions, so a 100 gp trap takes 1 hour). Skill Check required each day (or once for less than a day). Fail by 4 or less, lose a day (start over if less than a day required). Fail by 5 or more, lose a day and half your materials. Succeed by DC+10 save 25% of time or 10% of cost, DC+20 save 50% of time or 25% of cost (crafter's choice). No more than 2 assistants may grant a bonus and only if they beat a DC 10 skill check for that day. Masterwork tools grant a +2 circumstance bonus.
wrecan 08-02-07, 01:11 PM	Kobold trapmakers.... A band of kobolds has 10-100 kobolds (average 55) and an equal number of noncombatants. The combatants are warriors, but what if some of the non-child "noncombatants" are experts? In a given population maybe a third are going to be children. So let's assume this band of 110 kobolds has 36 kids. That leaves 19 noncombatants. Let's make them Commoners with maxed out ranks in Craft (trapmaking). With a racial bonus of +2, each of the Kobold trapsmiths has a +6 Craft (trapmaking ability). Designate one of the kobolds to be chief trapsmith (let's further assume the smartest of the noncombatant kobolds gets this job, with a +2 Ability bonus). The other 18 will aid the chief trapsmith (each of them will succeed on an Aid Another check 55% of the time). The chief trapsmith can assume he will get a +20 bonus from her assistants and will herself thus have a +28 on her trapsmith checks. Let's also give her some masterwork trapmaking tools. By taking 10, she can assume a 40 on her trapsmith rolls. The trapsmith can make 160 gp/week. Now, if the 55 combat ready kobolds can assist (with their +2 bonus), each has a 40% of successfully aiding another. That's another +44 in bonuses! Now the DC increases to 80! The trapsmith can make 640 gp of traps in a week, but requires 213 gp in materials. With the entire band chipping in, the group can make most traps in a number of weeks equal to the square of its CR. I would also allow a trapsmith to improve an existing trap in the way others improve magic items.
Mock26 08-02-07, 02:08 PM	Kobold trapmakers.... Another thing to consider is that you can probably make some big reductions in the cost of traps for some monsters simply because they don't have to be paid. A kobold chief who wants a 20' deep pit only has to really pay for a few picks, some scraps of wood and rope to make a cheap ladder, and some whicker baskets for removing the rock. That would probably run, at most, maybe 5-10 gp, if that. When the kobold chief says, "Dig a pit!" there are only really two responses that a kobold can give. One is, "What's a pit?" and the other is "How deep?" Sure, you will run into other expenses if you want cover it up with a realistic looking trapdoor and a reset mechanism, but at least the cost of the pit can be reduced or possibly negated.
wrecan 08-02-07, 02:28 PM	I would note that a simple pit is not a trap per se. The traps in the DMG are hidden traps for which a Search DC is needed and which can actually be disarmed. They have floor triggers and need to be reset. A 10' pit is just a hole. The razor wire trap is another commonly misunderstood trap. The wire actively cuts you and hurts you. If it's just laid out on a hallway like brambles, it should be considered an obstacle, not a trap, like caltrops are.