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Kornaki
2009-06-15, 06:28 AM
Ok, so imagine the setup: You just finished raiding the lair of the BBEG, and in his library is the Book of Ultimate Power. From what you've heard, it contains a dozen foolproof plans for taking over the world that he'd been trying to enact. Or maybe it lists the location of every artifact in existence. Whatever. You really want to read it, so you open it up and the first page reads:
"The first page is a trap"

BOOM! Explosive runes. Ok, you probably shake it off and go to the next page

"Did you really think there was only one trap?"

BOOM! Explosive runes. You decide to be clever and open up to a random page in the book instead

"I knew you'd open to this page"

BOOM! Explosive runes

In reality, the whole book is just pages of explosive runes. How many pages do you think the average party would read before giving up?

Kol Korran
2009-06-15, 06:38 AM
hhhmmm... first of all, won't the explosive runes destroy the book as well? i'm not that clear on the rules. secondly, the party's rogue would probably sstart checking the book for traps from the get go, finding and magically disamign the book (or at least figuring out it is all traps and then either throwing it away, or keeping it to use on other, more guilible enemies)

if the party does as you say however, i believe they'll stop after the second trap at most, and then start searching it for traps and whatnot...

jseah
2009-06-15, 07:05 AM
This is what my players would say:

Two words: Arcane Sight

Then two more: Antimagic Field

Maerok
2009-06-15, 07:07 AM
I would think that the runes would set off some kind of chain reaction.

Cicciograna
2009-06-15, 07:09 AM
According to SRD:


The object on which the runes were written also takes full damage (no saving throw).

In Magic of Faerun, on page 173 there are HP and hardness for books made of different substances: the canonical 15 gp book has a leather cover (Hardness 2, 0 hp, which means that everything that does more than 2 point of damage destroys it) and parchment pages (Hardness 0, HP 1); so on receiving 3 points of damage, the book is utterly destroyed.
The average damage of Explosive runes is 21 points, so after setting up the first trap, the others are gone.

As a DM I won't rule that a chain reaction ensues, because the runes have to be read to detonate: that's not gunpowder...

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-15, 07:15 AM
Book (spellbook, but it certainly applies to other books) harness, hp, and the like are also found in Complete Arcane (or Complete Mage ?).

Zeta Kai
2009-06-15, 07:18 AM
In Magic of Faerun, on page 173 there are HP and hardness for books made of different substances: the canonical 15 gp book has a leather cover (Hardness 2, 0 hp, which means that everything that does more than 2 point of damage destroys it) and parchment pages (Hardness 0, HP 1); so on receiving 3 points of damage, the book is utterly destroyed.

So, the leather cover has 0HP, but a piece of parchment has 1HP? :smallconfused:

Also, is that 1HP per page? Because a spellbook usually has about 100 pages, so...

tgva8889
2009-06-15, 07:21 AM
So, the leather cover has 0HP, but a piece of parchment has 1HP? :smallconfused:

Also, is that 1HP per page? Because a spellbook usually has about 100 pages, so...

...So, on average, you'd get 4 explosive runes activations per book.

Either way, it would be hilarious.

Jack Zander
2009-06-15, 07:36 AM
But the runes are written on the page, not the book. Each page would detonate individually. Leaving the rest unharmed.







...yeah, I'm making a really big stretch, but I love this idea so much I want it to work.

Cicciograna
2009-06-15, 07:43 AM
So, the leather cover has 0HP, but a piece of parchment has 1HP? :smallconfused:

Also, is that 1HP per page? Because a spellbook usually has about 100 pages, so...

No, not a piece of parchment: the listed value is for 100 pages. Consider for a moment a pile of 100 parchment sheets: while it's easy to rip them one by one, it's harder to perform the same task with all of them; with a weapon it would be a simpler task, so 1 HP seems a good value, at least in game terms.

Radar
2009-06-15, 07:53 AM
There was a metamagic feat somewhere, that made the spell harmless for any objects, so you could trap the book with so modified Explosive Runes.

Question: is an illiterate person immune to triggering Explosive Runes?

Zeta Kai
2009-06-15, 08:04 AM
Question: is an illiterate person immune to triggering Explosive Runes?

Yes. This is the main reason why my last barbarian character never learned to read; he saw his friends get blasted in the face everytime they were left a taunting note from a BBEG who loved the ER a little too much.

Jack Zander
2009-06-15, 08:06 AM
There was a metamagic feat somewhere, that made the spell harmless for any objects, so you could trap the book with so modified Explosive Runes.

Question: is an illiterate person immune to triggering Explosive Runes?

I'm not by my books right now, but I do recall that the various "Symbol" spells do not require understanding of the rune, but that the creature simply studies the rune (read: gives it a look).

I'm assuming these work the same way, though I'm not 100% positive.

MickJay
2009-06-15, 08:44 AM
Make the "pages" very thin adamantine plates if you're worried about toughness of paper, but then the players might simply want to melt it down or sell it as is once they get tired of getting hit with runes in the face.

You can also protect it from divination and/or dispelling so that the players would actually have to check it page by page.

Cicciograna
2009-06-15, 08:45 AM
Question: is an illiterate person immune to triggering Explosive Runes?
IMHO, no. SRD describes the triggering of the spell in terms of "read", but there are two points that lead me to think that the spell is triggered when the runes are simply gazed.

First, if they had to be actually "read", with "reading" meaning "linking the visual sign to its physical representation" or in other words, "understanding what is read", then this spell would lose a lot of its potential. Not everybody can read runes, so not only illiterates would be immune, but anybody who can't discern the meaning of the runes, which is a bit lame.

Second, on Stronghold Bulder's Guidebook, page 53, when explaining the uses of such a spell in a stronghold the author says:


One neat trick to do with Explosive runes is to suspend a load of heavy rocks above a secret area by means of a net or wooden props. Then place a note that reads "Look up" in the area. If the intruder looks up, she sees the rune. When it detonates...
Emphasys added. But it's clear that the rune needs only to be glanced to explode.

AmberVael
2009-06-15, 08:54 AM
It's either in complete mage or complete arcane (I think the latter), but there is a way to make spellbooks more resistant to damage- specifically energy type damage. I think it involves dragonhide.
That could be useful for this situation.

Zeta Kai
2009-06-15, 09:10 AM
It is becoming obvious that some people glanced at the spell explosive runes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/explosiveRunes.htm), but either didn't really read it, or don't understand its meaning. :smallamused:

1) The spell says 3 times that you trigger the spell by reading. Not "looking". Not "glancing". READING. The game designers assumed (perhaps optimistically) that by the time you got to that spell in the PHB, you understood the meaning of the word "read", knew how to do it, & could understand what you read. Ergo, if you can read, you can set off the spell. It is not unreasonable to assume that if you cannot read, you cannot set off the spell.

2) The Stronghold Bulder's Guidebook was written two years after the PHB 3.0 by different people. The 3.5 edition PHB did not change the way the spell worked, which leads me to believe that the folks at WotC still meant what they said about explosive runes. And one could interpret the excerpt from the SBG to mean that reading is involved there, too.

3) If you don't want explosive runes to involve actual reading, then fine. The DM is free to change what he wants, if he wants it bad enough. But RAW, it is what it is.

Cicciograna
2009-06-15, 09:11 AM
It's either in complete mage or complete arcane (I think the latter), but there is a way to make spellbooks more resistant to damage- specifically energy type damage. I think it involves dragonhide.
That could be useful for this situation.

On Magic of Faerun and Complete Arcanethere is the option to give the book minor (5 points of damage absorbed) or major (12 points) resistance to some elements, paynig respectively +1000 gp and +3000 gp for the book. Unofrunately, this resistance applies only to acid, cold, electricity and fire damage, whereas Explosive runes deals force damage...

Justyn
2009-06-15, 09:16 AM
This idea is just made of http://i40.tinypic.com/2cx6s1t.jpg. At this point, anyone who looks through posts made by me could probably find out that I really like this smiley.

MickJay
2009-06-15, 09:19 AM
One of the definitions of "read" or "reading" is "to study" something. Looking at something can fit under "studying" it. It's not much of a stretch and with this reading (:smalltongue:) you can argue that it's enough for even an illiterate barbarian to trigger the runes by looking at them while keeping it RAW.

Plus, if we're to argue that the runes need to be understood to work, then just merely being literate wouldn't trigger them (i.e. not every literate person can read actual runes).

Kylarra
2009-06-15, 09:41 AM
Clearly the answer is a dispel magic trap on the cover that targets the remaining pages when opened.

MickJay
2009-06-15, 11:21 AM
On a different note, would looking at/reading runes (whichever you accept as triggering them) through a, for example, good telescope also trigger the explosion?

Djinn_in_Tonic
2009-06-15, 11:31 AM
Ok, so imagine the setup: You just finished raiding the lair of the BBEG, and in his library is the Book of Ultimate Power. From what you've heard, it contains a dozen foolproof plans for taking over the world that he'd been trying to enact.

Here. I wouldn't actually open said book, as his foolproof plans obviously aren't, so I wouldn't need to know them. After all, if we're looting his lair, something went wrong. :smallbiggrin:

Alternatively, the spell scholar's touch would allow knowledge of the entire contents of the book without actually having to open it, much less read it. My prefered method of dealing with suspicious books. :smallbiggrin:

MickJay
2009-06-15, 11:37 AM
Here. I wouldn't actually open said book, as his foolproof plans obviously aren't, so I wouldn't need to know them. After all, if we're looting his lair, something went wrong. :smallbiggrin:

...or he wants you to think so. :smalltongue:

AmberVael
2009-06-15, 11:47 AM
Alternately, the plans were foolproof, but the people who carried them out weren't. :smallwink:

More on topic- to those talking about the difference between looking and reading and glancing-
If you look at text, and comprehend what it says, you have read it. Your mind has analyzed it, and it should go off. If you are proficient in a language, reading is a reflex that is extremely hard to suppress.
It is also worthwhile to note that attempting to analyze something is also reading it. So if someone looks at the runes and tries to figure out what they mean (or, if a DM is mean, even wonders what they mean), then that also should count.
If you look at the runes, it's going to be hard not to have "read" them in some fashion.

Also- on my earlier suggestion- I forget explosive runes dealt force damage. It always seems kinda silly to me that they do, but oh well. In terms of keeping the book safe then, you're going to have to find some magical method of protecting it, or using the metamagic that someone spoke of earlier. (Incidentally- it is Relicguard, from Dragon Magazine 347. You can find it on Realmshelps as well).

Chronos
2009-06-15, 12:04 PM
Doesn't Scholar's Touch explicitly say that it still triggers reading-based traps? And unlike turning pages, it would trigger every one at once.

SSGoW
2009-06-15, 12:16 PM
yes or the DM just saying it is protected without giving an reason why it is heck the runes could have been modified to only effect living targets (this works well if the BBEG was a necromancer and or a lich)

also something great to do is have a door not trapped or anything and when someone opens it there is a wall on the other side (think old bugs bunny cartoons) with words written on it (with protection spells to keep it from being destroyed) and the only way to go through the wall is to make the rune explode. keep this up untill they get to the treasure room where the treausre is somthing like "Exploding Runes for Dummies.... Gues What Spell I Prepared Today Edition" which then explodes and makes the floor give out and the party falls to their deaths :3

Weimann
2009-06-15, 12:45 PM
Alternately, the plans were foolproof, but the people who carried them out weren't.Sorry, but I'm just itching to point out that if the plans were foolproof, and his minions were fools, the plans would still have succeeded, since the plans were proof to any foolery inflicted on them. Immune to idiocy. They could not fail.

Having foolproof minions is a bit hard to visualize. It could mean that the minions were not affected by the presence or influence of other fools, but this isn't really relevant; even if they were competent and other fools turned them into fools, it would still not have affected a foolproof plan.

Yeah, I just became That Guy. Sorry :/

MickJay
2009-06-15, 12:51 PM
Actually, I wanted to point that out myself, so you're not alone :smalltongue:

Deth Muncher
2009-06-15, 12:52 PM
Doesn't Scholar's Touch explicitly say that it still triggers reading-based traps? And unlike turning pages, it would trigger every one at once.

Well if that's the case, all a sneaky BBEG would have to do would be to put some sort of blatantly obvious, but very strong, trap on the front, so the PCs can't just muscle it off, and have some "obscure" piece of paper fall out of the book, which happens to be a scroll of Scholar's Touch.

The PCs, assuming that this scroll will allow them to read the book without opening it, rejoice.

Then, hand them new character sheets.

AmberVael
2009-06-15, 12:53 PM
Ah, but here's the catch:
The plans are foolproof. If you follow the plans, the plan is foolproof.
But if you're a fool trying to carry out the plan, you might misunderstand what the plans are in the first place, and carry out non-foolproof plans. :smalltongue:

Hat-Trick
2009-06-15, 01:03 PM
There is no thing as foolproof. Fools are some of the most ingenious people in the world. They can screw anything up.

TheCountAlucard
2009-06-15, 02:19 PM
I just became That Guy.You bested Fruit, Spike, and Moon? :smalleek:

Oh, wait, he said That Guy. Never mind.

EXPLOSIVE RUNES!

Deth Muncher
2009-06-15, 06:51 PM
Ah, but here's the catch:
The plans are foolproof. If you follow the plans, the plan is foolproof.
But if you're a fool trying to carry out the plan, you might misunderstand what the plans are in the first place, and carry out non-foolproof plans. :smalltongue:

Your post gave me 3 points of Wis damage. Thanks for that. :/ :P

littlebottom
2009-06-15, 07:51 PM
i have to admit, if it was me reading the book, i would go through every page, just to find the one with any decent information on it...:smallredface:

but after the first 2 or 3 i would start turning the page over using a 10 foot pole and reading it from as far away as possible...

but thats cus im thick sometimes :smallbiggrin:

JeminiZero
2009-06-15, 08:04 PM
Doesn't Scholar's Touch explicitly say that it still triggers reading-based traps? And unlike turning pages, it would trigger every one at once.


Thats what reach spell is for.

Alternatively, the party could try reading the book through a transparent but indestructable barrier (like a wall of force) so that when it does blow up, they won't be affected (use summoned monkeys to turn the pages).

SSGoW
2009-06-15, 08:37 PM
poor monkeys :( (although i know they dont really die >.< lol )

of course a dm could make it where each time one goes off it delays (blast and dmg) so that when they are finished with the book thats when they get the BOOOM

AmberVael
2009-06-15, 08:38 PM
Your post gave me 3 points of Wis damage. Thanks for that. :/ :P

Haha! Another victory for team fool! :smallwink:

Jastermereel
2009-06-15, 11:15 PM
Tangential question (yeah, I'm going to be that other guy): If you're scrying someone who is near an open BoER, can the scryer read it remotely and thus trigger the effects upon the scryed-upon?

MickJay
2009-06-16, 05:21 AM
Well, it's similar to my previous question about whether reading runes from a safe distance through a telescope would trigger them. Personally, I'd say the runes explode in both cases, since there's nothing in the description that the person reading the runes must be in their vicinity, but that seems like a cheap trick. :smalltongue:

Ridureyu
2009-06-16, 05:28 AM
Remember Head of Vecna?

My guess is 240 pages, minimum.

kamikasei
2009-06-16, 05:46 AM
The plans are foolproof. If you follow the plans, the plan is foolproof.
But if you're a fool trying to carry out the plan, you might misunderstand what the plans are in the first place, and carry out non-foolproof plans. :smalltongue:

Ah, but the foolish minions aren't following the foolproof plan. The BBEG (not a fool, we hope) is. So all the minions are doing is executing the instructions that the BBEG gives them in accordance with the plan. If the plan is truly foolproof, then the orders given to the minions will be carried out correctly* however foolish they may be, because the plan accounts for their foolishness in determining what orders need be given.

* Or, of course, they may be carried out incorrectly but the result be a graceful failure that still achieves the aim of the plan; that's also being foolproof.

In other words, a foolproof plan must necessarily be proof against the foolishness of the people implementing it, otherwise it's hardly foolproof. Sounds hard to achieve? Well obviously that's why you haven't conquered the world.

J.Gellert
2009-06-16, 05:57 AM
Well if that's the case, all a sneaky BBEG would have to do would be to put some sort of blatantly obvious, but very strong, trap on the front, so the PCs can't just muscle it off, and have some "obscure" piece of paper fall out of the book, which happens to be a scroll of Scholar's Touch.

The PCs, assuming that this scroll will allow them to read the book without opening it, rejoice.

Then, hand them new character sheets.

Going to have to try it once. Priceless. Reminds me of the hilarity of placing a very obvious spike pit right behind a very well-hidden one.

ImmortalAer
2009-06-16, 06:05 AM
Going to have to try it once. Priceless. Reminds me of the hilarity of placing a very obvious spike pit right behind a very well-hidden one.


I prefer a collapsing cieling with a rope attached above a spike pit.

"I grab the rope and swing across."
*the roof collapses*
"Roof falls, green warrior dies."
"I walk across the rubble to the other side."

Coidzor
2009-06-16, 06:27 AM
Here. I wouldn't actually open said book, as his foolproof plans obviously aren't, so I wouldn't need to know them. After all, if we're looting his lair, something went wrong. :smallbiggrin:

Alternatively, the spell scholar's touch would allow knowledge of the entire contents of the book without actually having to open it, much less read it. My prefered method of dealing with suspicious books. :smallbiggrin:

And then Hastur eats you.


Doesn't Scholar's Touch explicitly say that it still triggers reading-based traps? And unlike turning pages, it would trigger every one at once.

I forsee a "Reach Spell" Scholar's Touch being the ideal way to set off a ER munitions bundle now rather than dispel magic...:smallbiggrin:

There is no thing as foolproof. Fools are some of the most ingenious people in the world. They can screw anything up.
Especially if they're adventurers!

Alternatively, the party could try reading the book through a transparent but indestructable barrier (like a wall of force) so that when it does blow up, they won't be affected (use summoned monkeys to turn the pages).

Mage hand. once you have that cheap trinket that gets it at will, using actual resources on page-turning.... p'shaw.

J.Gellert
2009-06-16, 06:31 AM
I prefer a collapsing cieling with a rope attached above a spike pit.

"I grab the rope and swing across."
*the roof collapses*
"Roof falls, green warrior dies."
"I walk across the rubble to the other side."

I actually wrote that one down now :smalltongue:

Kids, don't try this at home, I'm just that certain that my group's fighter can survive it and won't stab my eyes out.

ImmortalAer
2009-06-16, 06:39 AM
I actually wrote that one down now :smalltongue:

Kids, don't try this at home, I'm just that certain that my group's fighter can survive it and won't stab my eyes out.

The real trick is to spend a long time describing the exact tunnel they're travelling up to that point, and when the rocks cieling falls they snap a tripwire, and fill it with boiling oil (Not the cooking kind). Make sure to mention how the entire thing is at a downward gradient, and how they can hear 'mysterious' clunking, beforehand. (Pumps.) And the door at the 'upper' end of the hallway, since they'll likely be in a rush, and not spending the turn to search for another trap, which will be a doorknob that turns into a ball of fire. Mind you the door does open, but now you've ignited the oil, which was giving you the bouyancy to stay level with the door, dropping the party prone/face-first onto the now-flaming floor.

:smallamused:

(Flame elementals may or may not be added for overkill purposes. Or if it was set by a Lich named Xykon, who wanted to laugh about how many traps the dumb adventurer just set off.)

Edit:: Please note, Party Killing traps are not often appreciated.

JeminiZero
2009-06-16, 06:42 AM
poor monkeys :( (although i know they dont really die >.< lol )


Mind you, the monkeys don't actually have to be around when the runes go off. The adventurers could do something like:
1) Ask monkey to turn page
2) Ask monkey to scamper off
3) Read Page
4) Kaboom
5) Go back to step 1.