[3.5] Finding and Disarming Traps

[Duke of Urrel]

According to the SRD, when you use Search skill, "You generally must be within 10 feet of the object or surface to be searched." The Rules Compendium is more emphatic, stating (on page 114): "A searcher must be within 10 feet of the object or surface to be searched."

Yet the SRD also states that a rogue can find a Symbol with a successful Search check and then try to disarm it. Can a rogue manage this even if the Symbol can be activated from farther than 10 feet away?

The SRD also lists numerous traps, both magical and mechanical, whose triggering mechanisms (such as sound triggers or proximity triggers) make them activatable from farther than 10 feet away. Can a rogue find traps like these from a safe distance, without triggering them?

I am a friend of skill monkeys and have customarily made an exception to the 10-foot rule when it comes to detecting traps while searching. However, if one chooses to do this, then what happens with Disable Device skill? If a trap can be detected from farther than 10 feet away, then can it also be disarmed from farther than 10 feet away? With what kind of fluff can we justify this possibility? In other words, how the heck do we imagine a rogue does that? For example, how does a rogue disarm a sight-activated Symbol from, say, 60 feet away?

Or should we make two exceptions to the rules? Suppose we argue that if you are a rogue who has just detected a trap from a safe distance (farther than 10 feet away) and you have Disable Device skill, you can approach the trap closely enough to touch it without activating it – regardless of how the trap normally functions – so that you can disarm it, provided that your Disable Device check does not fail by five or more. This makes the actual disarming of the trap easier to imagine, but at the same time, it becomes much harder to imagine how the rogue approaches close enough to touch a sensitive magical trap without activating it.

Are these proposals way off base, or have others adapted the rules in a similar way, with similar house rules? Are there some important published rules that I'm missing here?

[Slipperychicken]

Maybe a successful Disable Device skill check indicates moving quickly enough to disable it before the trigger gets him, or somehow disabling or evading the trigger first.

He can stop magic traps and dodge fireballs, so you could say he either disables the trigger-magic entirely or "holds" it long enough to get over and knock the trap out. Perhaps he mimics the caster's command to dismiss the spell, or tricks the magic into thinking he's the caster so it doesn't hit him.

Remember, a Rogue isn't an ordinary person. He can interact with magic items and effects in ways most could never hope to.

[BowStreetRunner]

In order to be fair, I would probably rule that, for the purposes of detecting a trap, the space 'occupied' by the trap includes all spaces from which the trap could be triggered. Likewise, disarming could be done from a space adjacent to one of these squares. Although the actual act of disarming might involve somehow moving close to the actual physical trap (or symbol) without setting it off, the action would be initiated by the rogue beginning in the space where he first detected the trap. Exactly how the rogue manages to get in close without setting it off is up to the DM in terms of fluff - mechanically, if he succeeds on his disarm attempt he is able to manage it.

[Chronos]

Yeah, maybe there's some sort of magical runes tracing out the boundary of the trigger area, and the trap is triggered by crossing that line of runes. So you disable the trap by interfering with those runes somehow so that it can't trigger any more.

[BowStreetRunner]

Yeah, maybe there's some sort of magical runes tracing out the boundary of the trigger area, and the trap is triggered by crossing that line of runes. So you disable the trap by interfering with those runes somehow so that it can't trigger any more.

Even if there is no such obvious evidence, it could still be possible to detect the presence of a trap indirectly. For instance, there could be a subtle 'feel' to the area that is different enough to cause the hairs on the back of the rogue's hairs to stand on end, giving him enough insight to check line-of-sight around the area for a rune. He spots it a short distance away - although covered in dust there is a subtle pattern to the distribution of the dust and even a slight shimmer in the air above the rune itself that is recognizable to a highly skilled rogue. Taking precautions to avoid creating a disturbance in the invisible magical fields emanating from the rune, the rogue cautiously makes his way inside the area of effect, realizing that he has only the briefest of an instant to quickly and decisively neutralize the magic before it springs forth and immolates him. His muscles tense and at that precise moment before the magical trap is sprung, he launches himself in a violent but highly controlled movement that brings the tools in his hands in contact with the precise points of the symbol necessary to stay his impending doom. The trap disarmed, he rolls back to his feet and signals the party forward - the danger has been averted once more.

All of this is of course merely fluff to explain a pair of skill rolls - Search and Disable Device - that aren't always going to be easy to explain in real world concepts. Sometimes, it's just a game mechanic and you have to make the rule fair, even if it doesn't always make sense. But if you can make the fluff sound believable, it will be a bit easier to encourage good roleplaying from the players in return.

[Duke of Urrel]

I like your suggestions, BowStreetRunner, and I also appreciate the good fluffy prose! Thanks.

So far, there seems to be broad agreement that there are ways around the 10-foot rule for Search checks when you're looking for traps. That's comforting, since I've always thought there should be.

I also like Slipperychicken's advice (particularly because it can be used to preserve the 10-foot rule down to the letter). A trap should always be considered to be present everywhere it can be activated, particularly if it has a location trigger. Even if the trap has another kind of trigger, perhaps the trap should be assumed to occupy the entire area that it can attack or affect with a spell when it is activated. Maybe the entire area that may be flooded, or the entire area where a wall may crush you or a ceiling may fall on you, should be considered occupied by the trap.

And where there are runes, it makes sense that they should function as Chronos has described. I wouldn't imagine that runes appear around mechanical traps as well as magical ones. But could it be that magical traps are always surrounded by runes, but of such a nature as to be visible only to creatures with the rogue's Trapfinding ability or its equivalent? I'm willing to consider that this explanation is not too farfetched to be good fluff.

[Slipperychicken]

And where there are runes, it makes sense that they should function as Chronos has described. I wouldn't imagine that runes appear around mechanical traps as well as magical ones. But could it be that magical traps are always surrounded by runes, but of such a nature as to be visible only to creatures with the rogue's Trapfinding ability or its equivalent? I'm willing to consider that this explanation is not too farfetched to be good fluff.

Or they can just faintly feel the magic aura emitted by a trap. A sixth sense of sorts, like the one they use for Uncanny Dodge.


@Realism Concerns: A Rogue isn't a normal guy, he has perceptive skills far beyond any mortal. His senses literally defy causality as he responds to attacks before they even happen, yet no-one questions Uncanny Dodge.