Post/Author/DateTime	Post
claypigeons 10-02-06, 09:54 PM	Alright, the PCs for which I DM are pretty clever. But, in this most recent campaign, no one is playing a class that has trapfinding. This in and of itself is not really a problem, but the fact that they choose not to hire anyone and that no one is of a level to take leadership, traps may kill them. And when/if such a thing happens, I anticipate lots of whining. So.. what can I do? Taking traps out of the game isnt an option. People wont undo their traps just because a group of adventures cant disarm them. I'm already forced to run a heal-bot DMPC, so throwing in a rogue DMPC wouldnt really work. If they come to traps, and somoene dies, do I just tell them "Eh, oh well. Should have played a rogue..."? :(
MaximumPain 10-02-06, 10:01 PM	Assuming you have at least 4 players and they chose not to have a rouge let them sleep in the bed which they made. Thats not to say have lots of traps in fact you may chose to tone down then number of traps and/or there effects. Have the traps do some minor damage but not out right kill. Also what about doors (is there a wand of knock?). In short I would punish but not kill, frustrate but not block. Or just give them a crappy NPC rouge (who wont/cant fight).
a_psh 10-02-06, 10:01 PM	There is such a thing as going on adventures in places other than super-booby-trapped ancient crypts.
ShadowDragon8685 10-02-06, 10:05 PM	There is such a thing as going on adventures in places other than super-booby-trapped ancient crypts. QFT. And if the players, knowing full-well that they can adventure in some place that is not a spider-and-undead-filled giant death-trap, choose to in fact go to the spider-and-undead-filled giant death-trap.... Well, they say a Clericless party is a self-correcting problem. So is a Rogue-less party. Make your healbot NPC the first fatality of the night. :)
Toloran 10-02-06, 10:07 PM	It really depends on how you run your campaigns. Do you play with the idea that players on their own and "let the die land where they fall" and all that or do you fudge things alot to keep them from dying? If you are the first type: Don't do anything different. Let your players learn that if you go unprepared, you'll face the concequences. If you are the second type: Use different kinds of traps. Not all traps can be solved by "I got 25 on my disable devices check and disabled the trap." You don't HAVE to disable a pit trap when you can just jump over it or put a plank over it and walk across. This solution requires you to be MUCH more creative with your traps. (although these kinds of traps SHOULD be easier if they had a trap monkey but they are doable without one).
trapspringer 10-02-06, 10:13 PM	Are you going to run a trap heavy dungeon? Your making problems where none exist. No one has complained yet. You have total control over the nature of the dungeons, so you can choose to simply prevent that aspect entirely. Alternatively you could just kill someone off with a trap and suggest he make a class with trap finding. But seriously, you knew that already.
a_psh 10-02-06, 10:13 PM	There are plenty of adventures that don't involve traps at all. Most city or wilderness scenes, for example. These adventures can be quite satisfying. Indeed, in a reasonable world, 99% of the places that anyone actually lives (and, therefore, the places that are interesting because they have someone to interact with) don't have traps. Neither do most ruins and graves. How many traps, for example, do you see in the entirety of Lord of the Rings? Make sure players both have the option of pursuing such adventures and know that it's really an option and you should be okay.
AlphaSquirell 10-02-06, 10:19 PM	Traps don't always have to be hidden, so to speak. There is a spear trap along the right wall. Springs to the left, all the way across the narrow hallway. On the left wall is a skeleton. Give them a spot check to notice that the hands are clutching a spear (one of several from the trap), and maybe another to notice a blood stane on the wall. (as if he got stabbed standing up, and then slid down to where he was) It's amazing how you can give them perfect warning, and they are excited whether they benefit or not. Either they are happy they picked up on it, or they end with "I wish we'd realized that earlier". It works! Trust me! Some obscure opening on a wall can easily be an arrow trap, and if they notice the obscure markings, they can "guess" a trap is there. (they aren't finding the traps, they are making edjucated guesses as to what might contain a trap) Until they trigger it, they haven't actually "found" the trap. While it is much easier to pick out traps with a rogue, this method can work, too.
Mitchell 10-02-06, 11:48 PM	As mentioned earlier, I would tone the traps down, but not eliminate them entirely. The trap doesn't have to be lethal to hurt them. If they lose a few HP right before a fight, or they suffer from a spell effect that hinders their ability to operate effectively, like a slow spell, then they should get the hint. Dpending on how many books you use, there are alternatives to the "classic" rogue (thief).
Red12 10-03-06, 12:00 AM	I think that it depends on what your DM style is. If you're of the opinion that the world is as it is regardless what or who the characters are, dont tone down anything. The orc barbarains are coming to attack town and they have to deal with it, doesnt matter if ran a low level party of 4 arcane spellcasters. If you tailor your campagin to fit the PC's and the abilites they possess, I would severely limit traps. If you run a party of 4 arcane spellcasters, you make it so the PC's can use their magical abilites to spy on the orc encampment and maybe take a prisoner, so they can alert the militia. While the first option may be more "hardcore" or "realistic" I lean towards the latter. Up to you really.
Rabscuttle 10-03-06, 01:59 AM	It sounds to me like a good place to put in some traps which don't damage the PC's significantly but make them feel foolish. e.g. Pit traps in the forest that take fighters out of melee when there are goblins or kobalds around or a pit trap that sends the party a couple of levels down into a dungeon and they have to find thier way out.
StoneStokes 10-03-06, 02:53 AM	Pros DM fun. It is enjoyable making a deviously trapped dungeon. Admit it. Rogue fun. This is where Rogues really shine. If you have a Rogue in the party, provide her with lots of traps to test her mettle. If you don't have a Rogue, you won't need as many traps. Cinematic. Traps provide a good sense of actual danger to the players. This is a good thing. They should be scared to pinch that ancient solid gold idol. Cons Slows Game. Making your players worry that everything is trapped will really slow the game down, a lot. There are three solutions to this that still allow you to use some traps: Only put traps on things that should obviously be trapped, like the gold idol in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Give strong clues to the traps' existence (as suggested above by another poster) a la Goonies and Chester Copperpot. Allow everyone a casual Search check. This check will be used until the next trap they encounter or until they enter combat or the like. This prevents the "I search THAT 5-foot square...25...okay, now I search THIS 5-foot square." If the PCs do want to seach something in particular, they will make a new Search check. You could even declare that these casual Search checks are always Take 10. Player Frustration. Sometimes this is a result of the game-slowing efffect, sometimes it is death-by-15d6-fireball-trap. Either way it isn't fun for anyone (except possibly sadistic DMs). Now weigh these for yourself. It is also possible to design "traps" that don't actually do any harm in and of themselves, but make an otherwise easy encounter more difficult: Imagine the antechamber to the Wizard's Vault protected by an arcane ooze (some kind of spell-casting ooze). As the party runs into the room to attack the ooze, they trigger the silence trap. Without the wizard, this encounter just got a lot tougher. A trap like this won't actually be deadly to a typical party, but it will force them to retreat if they don't discover it. This is an ideal type of trap for a Rogueless party.
claypigeons 10-03-06, 03:11 AM	Thanks to everyone that has replied. So, would it be safe to assume that keeping some traps in the game would be fine, and, frankly, downright expected? I wont send traps that will kill the PCs outright, but nuisance traps that could be disarmed will still be used. I dont want to force someone to play a rogue, as no one wants to. But, there are traps. I'm not big on traps to begin with, but they do add a certain...flare to a dungeon, so they have their place. Again, thank you for the input and advice everyone.
Jutter 10-03-06, 03:45 AM	It depends. After all, it's all about fun. Both for you and your players. If they run into a kobold-lair, knowing kobolds are famous for traps, then by all means. If you send them in an egyptian-style pyramid and they know this culture is about protecting the dead with deadly traps, again: by all means, insert some traps. But make sure they hurt and don't kill, and give them the opportunity to acquire information and hire an expert. You can use traps to lower (for example) the fighters hitpoints and toss in a few monsters in the next second, which creates a nice challenge. Or you can use traps to split up the party, let one of them sit out combat on the bottom of the 20 ft. pit with his fullplate on ;) A good DM won't kill his PC's because the players preferred not to play a rogue. Nobody likes a game where the DM states "this is how my world works. If you won't play a certain character, you'll be rolling up new PC's every other week". Instead, it's your challenge to create interesting challenges for them to overcome. Make the lack of a rogue hurt. Make them pay for experts, or take the damage. Toughen their way to victory. Just don't make it immediatly fatal by inserting save-or-die traps, or extremly high damage traps. Make it interesting instead.
amethal 10-03-06, 07:58 AM	Put traps where there ought to be traps. For instance, you don't need a rogue to know that the BBEG's treasure chest is trapped. This is D&D; the dratted thing is ALWAYS trapped (and locked). The players will have to be creative - summon a monkey to set off the trap, then smash open the chest. Or drag the chest back to town and get an expert to open it. Or whatever - my players are constantly doing things I'd never have expected. Its common after they have defeated the latest fiendish encounter for them to ask "How were we supposed to beat it?" to which I answer "I didn't have a clue how to beat that encounter, but I knew you'd think of something". However, if the players choose to go into the tomb of horrors without a rogue, when they could just have easily chosen to set off on an orc hunt in the mountains, they deserve all they get. Its only your fault if you force them into the tomb of horrors, for example by telling them the world will end if they don't defeat the evil which lurks on the other side of a million traps, and there's no one else available to save the day.
oxybe 10-03-06, 08:32 AM	i agree. put traps where they should be, not because you want to teach those players a lesson. this happened last session (sunday) our normal trapspringer.... er trapfinder was not able to make it, so my rogue/fighter, who's job is to tank & flank, was able to find traps due to a few skills points in search, but not disarm them. but i did have a crowbar (which is quickly becoming my favorite mundane equipment). trapped doors that activate by blasting what's in front of them? pry off the hinges from the side while the trap activates and whizzes by harmlessly. mechanical trap? use the crowbar to brace & lock the mechanisms. i ended up dying by being eaten and smothered but that's another topic for another time.
dizfactor 10-03-06, 09:12 AM	Part of this problem is that you and your players don't seem to have the same expectations about the nature of the game. You think of traps as being a sort of fixed element in the setting, and that it's their fault if they choose not to be able to deal with part of the setting. On the other hand, you're worried that they might have the (quite reasonable) expectation that you would tailor your game to the characters involved. I think there are basically two ways to handle the issues of player skill sets and game design. 1) The DM lets the players play whatever they want, and creates a game around them. This can work quite well if the DM is flexible and the players have characters that go well together thematically. If your players create a ranger, a druid, a bard, and a scout, it's easy to have a game centered around protecting a remote village from threats, or exploring the trackless wilderness, or whatever. If instead they come up with a swashbuckler, a rogue, an enchanter, and a cleric of the god of wine, women, and song, you build a game around courtly intrigue, damsels in distress, and high adventure and derring-do. If they all come up with similar skill-sets (all fighting characters, or all skill-focused characters, or all spellcasters), you come up with something appropriate (a grim, low-magic campaign of warfare, an urban campaign centered around a thieves' guild, a very high magic game centered on rivalries between different magical academies, etc). However, this tends to fall apart if the players come up with wildly different or incompatible concepts (an aasimar paladin, a half-orc necromancer, a wacky gnomish bard, and a spirit shaman from a primitive and superstitious tribe), or if they come up with a group of characters geared towards a type of game that the DM doesn't want to run. 2) The DM comes up with a concept for the game, and tells the players which types of characters are needed. If you're going to be running a bunch of dungeon crawls, you need a pretty traditional "classic D&D" group balance: a combat character, an arcane caster, a healer/backup caster/backup fighter, and someone with stealth, lockpicking, and trapfinding skills. If you want to run a game of courtly intrigue, the axe-wielding barbarian isn't going to fit without some doing. Simply tell the group what kind of game you want to run, and have them come up with characters that are appropriate and cover all the bases you need to have covered. If the players are receptive, this can work out really well, but many players are going to feel railroaded. --- You seem like you're kind of caught with the worst of both approaches. You seem to have a very particular type of game in mind (sounds like it's going to be a dungeon crawl), but you apparently didn't make the needs of that kind of game explicitly clear to the players, and didn't make sure they had the appropriate skill balance. If you have a detailed game setting in mind, which will require a specific set of skills to get through, you need to make that very clear to players during character generation and essentially require them to come up with appropriate characters (or at the very least, make it clear to them that they're going to have problems if they don't). If you don't feel comfortable arm-twisting them like that, then don't plan things out so far in advance. There are more things that characters in this game can do than any reasonably sized party can ever do all at once, so you can't just assume that they know they're going to need a trapfinder or a social skills specialist or any other specific skill set unless you tell them. You say that none of them are playing rogues, but you don't tell us what they are playing. Maybe you could come up with game ideas more closely suited to the skill set they do have, rather than sticking with what you have planned. If you really do want to have traps, use the techniques other people have posted upthread to give them fair warning and a chance to avoid or otherwise work around the traps. Alternately, you might even want to house rule some other skill or feat into allowing for trapfinding. Then you can cut loose with traps all you want.
Sereno 10-03-06, 09:50 AM	i agree. put traps where they should be, not because you want to teach those players a lesson. Exactly, dungeons should always make sense. A lair (where creatures actually live) might have a couple of "defensive" traps more like alarms and simple containment. No one (except the insane) put insta-death traps in their homes ... even if you've got a bypass it's always possible that something will affect you (like getting drunk or falling ill) and your own home will kill you. The crypt of a great king, who is expected to take his favorite gear into eternity, probably IS trapped with deadly traps because no one is ever supposed to go in once the king is laid to rest. As a DM, it's your job to provide multiple choices of adventuring for your players. Your world should be populated with a "realistic" ratio of "places with deadly traps" and "places without deadly traps." The same way the world should have monsters that are at, equal to, and above the party level. The PCs can then be responsible for their actions and choices ... if they decide to raid the king's final resting place when a hobgoblin lair was also available, it's their choice to face deadly traps without a trapspringer. If the only adventures you offer them are "deadly trapped", it's YOUR fault.
RobbyPants 10-03-06, 10:25 AM	It really depends on how you run your campaigns. Do you play with the idea that players on their own and "let the die land where they fall" and all that or do you fudge things alot to keep them from dying? If you are the first type: Don't do anything different. Let your players learn that if you go unprepared, you'll face the concequences. If you are the second type: Use different kinds of traps. Not all traps can be solved by "I got 25 on my disable devices check and disabled the trap." You don't HAVE to disable a pit trap when you can just jump over it or put a plank over it and walk across. This solution requires you to be MUCH more creative with your traps. (although these kinds of traps SHOULD be easier if they had a trap monkey but they are doable without one). I agree 100% I just started a new game, and am leaning toward the 1st mode (I used to fudge a lot, and it looses some thrill). A lot of things are naturally sorting themselves out now. The players realize the need to be more clever.
RecycledDM 10-03-06, 10:37 AM	To echo what other posters have said: I have found that, as a DM, you have to tailor the adventure to the party. Otherwise, you will spend hours and hours coming up with your awesome dungeon, only to have your players then say 15 minutes into the session, "this place is crawling with traps (undead), and we have no rogue (cleric); we retreat and find another place to adventure...what else ya' got, DM?"
Archangel62 10-03-06, 01:23 PM	I don't design adventures around the group, but I do take into account player ability. Simple example was when the party was working for Giants trying to find an artifact from the age of giants. Location of this thing is in an area crawling with undead, the ranger is angry because he hates giants, the beguiler is frustrated because her spells don't work, the crusader and monk are running into the problem of their opponents having fast healing 5 and being corpsecrafted. (Thank you libris mortis) The cleric really got a chance to shine there, but more because of his protective and buff spells than turning interestingly enough...that and the beguiler managed to save the group by stopping the cleric from turning the shadesteel golem (he thought it was a wraith)
Mikal 10-03-06, 01:39 PM	a trap is just like any other encounter... would they whine if they were all wizards with no combat spells who go into a dungeon and get smacked by monsters? (extreme example but it works). i mean hell, they get xp for surviving the trap as if they disarmed it, so as long as they're careful and dont charge in with 3 hp they should be fine.
sunsilverdragon 10-03-06, 02:11 PM	A couple ideas that came to my mind: 1) Allow the PC's to hire an NPC rogue. 2) Make it apparent that there are traps along one path. Then, offer an alternate route that involves more monsters and puzzles, less traps. 3) Tone down your traps. Trade a few traps here and there for a few monsters here and there. 4) Design a custom spell that grants the Trapfinding ability to the wizard or sorc. (Shouldn't be that powerful, considering search isn't a class skill.)
Exquisite_Flopilidopilies 10-03-06, 02:13 PM	Count this as another vote for putting traps where they make sense to be and only there. But more importantly, it is the character's responsibility for deciding how they will meet the challenges of adventuring. This issue comes up all the time on the board, usually with trapfinding, social skills or healing: if the party lacks these capabilities, what do I do? Just remind the players that there might be traps, there might be people they need to talk to, and they might get hurt. Their characters know this, and if they are adventurers, they will have a way to deal with these eventualities. Investing more money in healing potions, being very circumspect about engaging in combat and committing yourself to a slow pace (ensuring sufficient time to rest and secure places to do so) are all ways of dealing with the possibility of getting hurt if you don't have a healer. The characters will reasonably take these measures, it's reasonable to remind the players of that fact but it's not reasonable to stock dungeons with healing potions monsters don't use because invaders might need them. When a party is limited in this way, might there be some challenges they need to skip? Maybe. But part of the fun of D&D is figuring out how to overcome challenges with what you've got, whether you're a classic four-person party or not. A game would be really boring if every challenge was a lock that demanded a key of the exact shape of one of the party members' abilities--so make your opponents and dungeons and world make sense, and let the party address it in the way they choose.
FeceMan 10-03-06, 02:41 PM	Assuming you have at least 4 players and they chose not to have a rouge let them sleep in the bed which they made. From what I've heard, most women prefer to remove their makeup prior to retiring to their bedchambers.
DarkNick 10-03-06, 03:37 PM	From what I've heard, most women prefer to remove their makeup prior to retiring to their bedchambers. Yep, most men do too - otherwise your pillows can get messy and you look like crap in the morning There is not much fun in creating obsticals a party simply can't cope with. I agree that you should still have traps. But not the kind that the party can't deal with or avoid of minimise by being cautious i.e. nothing that is unsurvivable without a trapfinder. For example, for a party without a mage, you would not put a door in an adventure that the party has to go through where it can only be opened by a mage. Thats not fair. Instead you might put a door that would be easier to open if they had a mage but there are other harder ways around it.
Archangel62 10-03-06, 03:40 PM	The best way I can reccomend for them that would be cost effective and feasable is purchasing a large number of chickens and sending them down the corridor to see what happens.
Red12 10-03-06, 03:40 PM	If you were hardcore about wanting traps in, I believe that there is a lower level priest spell (2-4) "Find Traps". Not gonna disable anything, but it helps. It does however, reduce overall party effectiveness, as the cleric has to waste slots on something other than buffs/healing.
Thubby 10-03-06, 03:45 PM	if you have traps already, let them figure how to deal with it. a large, heavy stick can set off pressure plates (if their lucky). players can be stunningly inteligent/ clever when their character is on the line, they'll come up with something.
Aeromus 10-03-06, 03:56 PM	If the find DC is always 20, they can use search to find it. If they want to disarm them, let them cross-class disable device. Seriously, it's not that hard.