Ancient lore unearthed! Self-resetting 'traps'?

[Powerdork]

One of my friends was searching through the old "X & Y" books, on a lark, and found a fun sidebar on page 31 of Song & Silence.


You can use the rules for magic device traps to construct items that help you rather than hurt you. Build such a device just as you would a magic trap, but use a helpful spell rather than a harmful one.

The sidebar then goes on to lay an example of the iconic wizard producing a location-trigger automatic-reset endurance bed to help sick people recover with the benefit of a higher Constitution (demanding only 3000 gp in raw materials, and 240 XP).

Self-resetting harmless spell traps aren't cheese, they're wholly intended, per a player-facing book. Did you, personally, know this already? I didn't.

[JoshuaZ]

One of my friends was searching through the old "X & Y" books, on a lark, and found a fun sidebar on page 31 of Song & Silence.



The sidebar then goes on to lay an example of the iconic wizard producing a location-trigger automatic-reset endurance bed to help sick people recover with the benefit of a higher Constitution (demanding only 3000 gp in raw materials, and 240 XP).

Self-resetting harmless spell traps aren't cheese, they're wholly intended, per a player-facing book. Did you, personally, know this already? I didn't.

Huh. That's a very interesting point. Which means that all the instability of the pseudo-feudal standard settings is built into office material.

[animewatcha]

Slight problem if overdone. Automatic reset trap of Wish.

[Jack_Simth]

Slight problem if overdone. Automatic reset trap of Wish.

There's a lot of helpful spells that make the game go boom when done that way. Wish, while the poster boy, is super-expensive to make without getting a free (usually spell-like) Wish to start it up. In which case, you can already get free Wishes with ease after the first anyway.

[JoshuaZ]

There's a lot of helpful spells that make the game go boom when done that way. Wish, while the poster boy, is super-expensive to make without getting a free (usually spell-like) Wish to start it up. In which case, you can already get free Wishes with ease after the first anyway.

There are two different issues. One is what-can-the-PCs-abuse and the other is what-would-plausibly-happen-in-setting. For example, a resetting trap of healing isn't an incredibly big deal for PCs at the cost it takes, but the long-term impact on a setting where this is a thing would be pretty big.

[Kalkra]

There are two different issues. One is what-can-the-PCs-abuse and the other is what-would-plausibly-happen-in-setting. For example, a resetting trap of healing isn't an incredibly big deal for PCs at the cost it takes, but the long-term impact on a setting where this is a thing would be pretty big.

Yeah, either you go full Tippyverse, or you say that everyone else is an idiot, and only the PCs can work out the math involved with multiplying a spell effect by infinity and seeng how powerful the end result is.

[unseenmage]

I did. I did know about this.

[Cosi]

Adding a cooldown to the trap is a reasonable balancing mechanism. Going off once per hour makes them much less problematic.


Self-resetting harmless spell traps aren't cheese, they're wholly intended, per a player-facing book. Did you, personally, know this already? I didn't.

That's not really relevant to whether or not something is cheese. Consider, for example, the changes made to wish between 3.0 and 3.5. In 3.0, wish cannot produce items over 15k GP in value. In 3.5, it can. The logical conclusion is that it was intended that you do that, but when combined with SLA wish not costing XP (which is not at all ambiguous from a rules perspective), it breaks the entire game into small pieces. Cheese is complicated to define, but it doesn't just mean "shaky rules interpretation".

[Jack_Simth]

There are two different issues. One is what-can-the-PCs-abuse and the other is what-would-plausibly-happen-in-setting. For example, a resetting trap of healing isn't an incredibly big deal for PCs at the cost it takes, but the long-term impact on a setting where this is a thing would be pretty big.

Oh yes. Most of the ones that do that are on the Cleric list, and are core. If a self-resetting trap can go off once per round:
Endure Elements means folks don't die of exposure.
Create Food and Water means folks don't starve (combines well with Prestidigitation, although that's not required).
Remove Disease means folks don't perish from a plague.
Delay Poison - if at a high enough caster level and/or extended - means nobody notices getting poisoned (they never feel it). (Neutralize Poison is mostly better, but doesn't stop the initial problems unless it comes very close to the initial contact with the "trap").

Note that Fabricate also gets rid of most material goods problems, but is a 5th level spell, generally, and also Arcane (generally).

Charge folks a silver to go through the food line, have all four of those traps in there at some point, and you'll make your investment back relatively quickly. Anyone who goes through is warm, fed, and healthy. They don't have any other expenses for the day. You can add others to taste, but this does mean a basic untrained hireling can successfully make a living, even if the master doesn't provide room & board (which you're supposed to).


Edit:

Yeah, either you go full Tippyverse, or you say that everyone else is an idiot, and only the PCs can work out the math involved with multiplying a spell effect by infinity and seeng how powerful the end result is.
There is another option: Various forms of homebrew consequences.

Suppose:
Things originally created by the deities have some leftover "spark of creation" (replace with whatever term you like) in them, which is necessary for many different things. Items created or meaningfully altered via magic do not have this "spark of creation". How much there is (and how easily it can be extracted) varies. With trade goods in particular, it's easy to extract - prices of these are where they are due to the amount of "spark of creation" that can be easily extracted... and it's generally used in magic item creation. When the supply of one sort of trade good goes up relative to the others... crafters all over flock to the area to buy up that item. Demand goes up (relative to all other trade goods) sufficient to balance the supply. Likewise, when the supply of one sort of trade good goes down relative to the others... all the crafters purchase other items in preference, and the demand goes down to match supply. As the metal in coins is included in the list of trade goods, prices for all these items become essentially "fixed", because the reference used is subject to the exact same effect. So you can cast Wall of Salt and break it up... but the inkeeper won't take it as payment, because he can tell he won't be able trade it in turn for when he needs to pay the local cleric for a Remove Disease at some point (the Cleric can't use it for crafting). An item without the "spark of creation" can't be properly enchanted, isn't useful as a spell component, and will give people an uneasy feeling... which allows anyone trained in such things (Spellcraft or Appraise) to identify it. Additionally, that "spark of creation" is not just needed for magic item creation. It's also necessary for growth and breeding. An adult can survive on magically-created food just fine... but won't have any children unless most of the adult's diet is real food. A child fed on the stuff will survive, but won't grow up - and is still subject to aging with time. This also extends to anyone who's surrounded by too many "void" items, although it's not clear to anyone exactly where the line is for these effects.

People have tried it before. Civilizations have built "traps" of beneficial spells to keep the population fed, warm, and healthy... and all such civilizations failed within a few generations due to lack of kids. Goods produced by Fabricate are perfectly useful for mundane purposes... but make people feel a little uneasy so end up not getting purchased even when the prospective buyer isn't personally aware of the source. It's fine for personal use once you're grown, and you can probably convince your own soldiers to wear such armor and wield such weapons for a short time... but nobody else is interested.

[Kalkra]

Note that Fabricate also gets rid of most material goods problems, but is a 5th level spell, generally, and also Arcane (generally).

Fabricate is also a 3rd level spell, because what's a discussion about boon traps without Trapsmith?

[Troacctid]

Resetting magic traps are essentially half the price of at-will spell items in the custom magic item guidelines, which to me seems like a pretty reasonable modifier for being stationary. As long as you treat them with the same DM discretion as you would any custom magic item, I don't see them being too problematic.

[RedWarlock]

The one stipulation I usually consider is that the trap is effectively the caster of the spell, as dictated by the original crafter. Complex spells, or ones with selections to be made in the course of casting (that aren't just range and target) don't really have facility to be selected by the trap itself. That puts out Wish, Fabricate, and a host of other 'break the setting' spells, unless they only perform one preset effect.

[Ramza00]

Yes this is the one main things inside the Tippyverse.

And the Tippyverse if actually implemented in your world quickly degrades to Utopianism, or Benevolent Communism, or Unbenvolent, and blah blah blah (can't say more due to forum rules) for all basic material needs are produce in a sustainable way due to the perpetual motion machine of the item crafting rules and how something that is infinite can be produced. Thus you get machines making all material things that you need and even in the 1800s they could foresee a future where material wants will no longer be a problem in some future (decades or centuries away) due to the Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914 ) / Age of Machines (1880 to 1945) being so much more efficient than manual labor for many tasks that used to be the most important things in the economy only decades prior.

You can get a sci-fi world or dystopia world or a steam punk world with a system that was designed to be middle age fantasy but also had rules for crafting magic items that can mechanically break the assumptions that were built into the system flavor wise.

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The Tippyverse itself is not good or bad, it merely is its own thing. But also remember the DM can skip the layers of system knowledge needed to create the Tippyverse or the DM can Rule 0 and say no when the PCs try to create the Tippy Verse via unearthing "Arcane Lore" and bringing it to the game.

It is purely a thought experiment.

[Jack_Simth]

The one stipulation I usually consider is that the trap is effectively the caster of the spell, as dictated by the original crafter. Complex spells, or ones with selections to be made in the course of casting (that aren't just range and target) don't really have facility to be selected by the trap itself. That puts out Wish, Fabricate, and a host of other 'break the setting' spells, unless they only perform one preset effect.

Doesn't matter. Self-resetting periodic trap of Ice Assassin, producing copies of a Solar at a rate of 1/round. All details are set by the "trap" maker. The "trap" maker wanted all such Solars to be loyal to himself and his heirs. Now he can simply Wish up whatever he wants, and hand out similar wish-machines to whomever he likes.


It is purely a thought experiment.
There's actually been some indication that Tippy plays in a Tippyverse-based setting... so no, not purely a though experiment.


Fabricate is also a 3rd level spell, because what's a discussion about boon traps without Trapsmith?

Hence the repeating "Generally" yes.

[Mechalich]

It is purely a thought experiment.

It is not merely a thought experiment to consider what sort of world the rules, as actually implemented from the perspective of someone in the setting, would produce. It is a fundamental consideration of verisimilitude. If the mechanics don't fit the world, then playing in the world is going to feel mismatched and will ultimately prohibit high-immersion games, and if the game has freestanding narrative material like novel line it creates a critical mismatch between the experience offered by the novels and the experience provided by the game.

D&D is supposed to be a game that can be utilized to emulate a sort of generalized fantasy experience, and its publishers have spent decades offering novels that support what that experience would look like and what kind of stories it can tell. Yet when you look at what the rules - at least the rules for 3.X - output, you get some kind of insane post-scarcity cross-dimensional multiversal insanity where only a tiny group of cosmic level overgods (20th level or above Tier I casters) matter and countless mortals scramble for their piteous amusement. This is a massive disconnect and it creates a huge burden on GMs because in order to make the rules produce the type of game world they and their players want to adventure in massive modifications, for example E6, are necessary.

[Ramza00]

There's actually been some indication that Tippy plays in a Tippyverse-based setting... so no, not purely a though experiment.

It is a thought experiment in much the realm Plato's Republic was a thought experiment when Plato thought it up, yet it no longer remain a thought experiment as soon as people idea of what a just society should be was shaped by Plato's narrative verisimilitude.

Likewise Tippy's Tippyverse became real as soon as people were influenced by his thought experiment. :smalltongue:

That is the nature of social communications, ideas leave the original storyteller as soon as he speaks it and others repeat it either directly or others repeat it via the thoughts shaping their future choices, beliefs, and decisions.

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Nods at what Mechalich said. Note when I called Tippy's Tippyverse a thought experiment I see that more of a descriptive term instead of prosecriptive or prescriptive(aka telling you what to do, or what to do not. I was not trying to do this.)

I see Tippy contribution to the lore much in the same way I see those D&D books that are just narratives help influence the setting, the modules, etc. Lore for the sake of lore, and lore that makes people feel more comfortable on how to tell a story and thus the DM breathes their own meaning and lore into their own play setting.

But whatever my idea of D&D is much like this vox video.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PEt5RdNHNw

D&D is all about co-creation between the players at a setting.

[Kalkra]

Resetting magic traps are essentially half the price of at-will spell items in the custom magic item guidelines, which to me seems like a pretty reasonable modifier for being stationary. As long as you treat them with the same DM discretion as you would any custom magic item, I don't see them being too problematic.

Who said they're stationary? Are there any rules stopping you from trapping a moveable object? Heck, even the bed mentioned in the OP is moveable with a bag of holding or the like (or a really high strength score).

[Deophaun]

As long as you treat them with the same DM discretion as you would any custom magic item, I don't see them being too problematic.
That's true of anything, really.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Resetting, on-use magic traps are a great way to make new and interesting magic weapons, especially for low-tier martials that really need a boost.