Why Magic Shouldn't Trump Fighting

[Jayabalard]

Why is there a choice to play a timble, and a battleship, at "first level"? The player that picks the timble will feel ripped off. Not so; only certain types of people will feel ripped off. And even if they do, it's not like they got stuck playing a thimble... in D&D everyone can be the battleship if that's what they want.

[Zeful]

Just because they could have chosen something else doesn't justify the imbalances, it just brushes them aside.

The "You could/should play X." argument doesn't hold, because there are people that don't want to play X. There are people that don't want to play wizards, monks, barbarians etc. In light of that, all options presented should be of equal value.

[Jayabalard]

Just because they could have chosen something else doesn't justify the imbalances, it just brushes them aside.No justification is needed for the imbalances; players can pick whatever they want, so if they need to be powerful to have fun they can be.


In light of that, all options presented should be of equal value.Not so; they should all have options that make them playable, but it doesn't hurt a thing if one is stronger or weaker than another.

[Zeful]

But it does hurt when one is so much powerful then the other that it renders the other option obsolete or impotent.

When one entire class cannot contribute meaningfully in the game then the class should be removed or retooled. And in light of Tippy/Batman wizards what other class could contribute in a meaningful matter? The Druids, Clerics and to a lesser extent Sorcerers. Four classes can render seven useless. How is that fair?

[Neon Knight]

Mr. Jayabalard, if I may step in for a moment?

Here is my rendering of the situation: Class/Archetype A has power level X. Class/Archetype B has power level Y.

If one's concern is only power level oriented, or only archetype oriented, then this situation presents no problems.

However, when one desires Class/Archetype B with power level X, or even Class/Archetype A with power level Y (the reason some people take Cloistered Cleric, although some do it for archetype reasons) there is a problem.

Can you see now how problems can arise?

[Aquillion]

But it does hurt when one is so much powerful then the other that it renders the other option obsolete or impotent.

When one entire class cannot contribute meaningfully in the game then the class should be removed or retooled. And in light of Tippy/Batman wizards what other class could contribute in a meaningful matter? The Druids, Clerics and to a lesser extent Sorcerers. Four classes can render seven useless. How is that fair?Honestly? Rogues, bards, and other skill-monkeys can still contribute as long as the casters don't go out of their way to render them obsolete (which rarely happens, really.)

Likewise, archers still get to contribute damage at all times, at least... they have fewer options, but that's getting into the real problem...

It's the purely melee classes that have the real problem. They need to rely on magical items or spells just to reach flying/teleporting/fast-moving opponents, and then when they reach the enemy they have to rely on spellcasters again to keep much larger and more nasty opponents from stomping them into the ground.

The problem isn't casters; the problem is melee. 3e's melee system flatly sucks. Even if you took out all the casters, it would still suck -- you'd just be totally dependent on magic items instead of the wizard casting fly.

[Draco Ignifer]

On the originating question of the thread, my answer is thus:

There is no need, whatsoever, for magic to trump physical power. The problem is confabulating the supernatural with the magical. The two are not necessarily anything close to the same. To use a few examples, the previously-mentioned heroic abilities such as yelling to knock walls down, firing arrows thousands of feet away and hitting tiny targets, and the like, are supernatural. Being so strong that you can create earthquakes with a punch, moving so fast that people cannot see your motion, regenerating from a few cells, and other superheroic abilities, are supernatural. Surviving immersion in molten lava, managing to kill a dragon by cutting at its scales with a longsword, being able to pulverize solid steel with a mere punch, and other feats that the D&D fighter can pull off on a regular basis, are supernatural. But not a one of those is magical in origin.

Fantasy is full of people who perform extraordinary feats, beyond the ken of mortal man, by simply training really hard, by learning secret techniques, or by having a special bloodline. Saying that all of "must be magic," and therefore pidgeonholing all of it into magic just begs the question. "For it to be special, it must be magic. It is special, therefore it is magic." This is a fallacy. Supernatural simply means beyond the natural - something unexplainable by what we consider physics. It does not have to be magical in origin - it can be magic, but also well-trained willpower literally battering through laws of physics that are more like guidelines anyway, the ability to hone the body beyond levels that we believed we could bring it to, the Rule of Cool breaking all the other rules, or unknown means that we just do not understand. Why one way should break all the others is beyond me.

As further proof, look at the monsters that you deal with. A troll, for example, can regenerate from any wound which is not made by fire or acid. It is of the giant-type, and its regeneration is extraordinary - it is an entirely mundane creature which exhibits an amazing power. The werewolf is similar - a human infected by a virus that literally transforms the creature's body into a new form, ignoring conservation of mass, pretty much the whole of biology, and the nagging feeling that this CAN'T be healthy for its internal organs. Supernatural, as it says on the package, but not magical. Heck, look at an shambling mound - sentient, carnivorous mounds of plant matter who devour lightning, yet are completely natural developments (nothing not EX, even the lightning-eating). Or, even better, your typical ghost - spectral remnants of beings who rise from their graves, not due to magical influence, but simply because something in their life means that they cannot rest. Pure will, in other words, rather than divine providence or wizardry, bringing them back from the dead, and giving them supernatural power. Or look at monsters from throughout mythology and legends - giants, invincible lions, and dragons (not the super-magic d20 types, but just the giant lumps of scale and flame). Why should a hero be able to fight these things that clearly violate physics as we know them, without having any magical reason for doing so, and yet not be able to do so himself?

[Kompera]

The real issue with 3.X fighter/wizard balance is not that wizards get special abilities fighters lack. It's the lack of any real effort to put limitations on what wizards can do with magic. Fighters were confined, more or less, by the physical laws of the real world. Wizards were not confined by any laws at all. Nobody ever sat down and said, "Okay, the following are things that magic just cannot do."
Agreed. Worse, as more and more spells were published, the creators of these new spells needed to look for things which the current spells didn't or couldn't do. So they not only were not limited by any sort of magical rule set, they actually looked hard for things which magic couldn't do presently and then made up a new spell to supply that missing utility.

After all, there's not going to be much wow factor for "It's just like Magic Missile, but it does fire damage rather than force", but there's a huge amount of wow factor for a completely new spell which is unlike any in the published rule set up to this point.

This eventually led to the current state of spells in 3.5, where there really is a spell for every conceivable challenge, a spell to counter any given defense, a means for the spell caster to duplicate in effect if not in kind any of the abilities of any non-casting class.

[Kompera]

No justification is needed for the imbalances; players can pick whatever they want, so if they need to be powerful to have fun they can be.
Unless a person is playing with their little brother and still gets to beat him up and dominate over him in anything they do together, D&D is played by a group of peers.

While a person might freely choose to play a lesser character, one with little impact on the game, this should be a choice they opt for consciously. But unless the player knows in advance that by writing "Fighter" on their character sheet that this will, after months of play and many invested hours, result in them being far less capable compared to the other players sitting around the table with them, this is not their choice. It is an end result thrust upon them by a horribly unbalanced game system.

If the game were balanced, the player who wanted to play an ineffective character still could do so just fine, just by selecting ineffective actions.


Not so; they should all have options that make them playable, but it doesn't hurt a thing if one is stronger or weaker than another.Incorrect. Balance is hurt.

Also, you are wrongly assuming that the players know of this imbalance. I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the rules. So unless all of the players are experienced, the game becomes a land mine. Will a player who wanted to play an equally effective character find, after months of play sessions have passed, that she is stuck with a character who is ineffective but whom she has invested much time and effort into developing, simply because she didn't realize that writing "Fighter" on her character sheet would have this result?

[Prophaniti]

it can be magic, but also well-trained willpower literally battering through laws of physics that are more like guidelines anyway, the ability to hone the body beyond levels that we believed we could bring it to, the Rule of Cool breaking all the other rules, or unknown means that we just do not understand. Why one way should break all the others is beyond me.
This perspective is a problem for people who want to play in a fantasy world that is NOT governed by the Rule of Cool. They are not necessarily linked.


As further proof, look at the monsters that you deal with. A troll, for example, can regenerate from any wound which is not made by fire or acid. It is of the giant-type, and its regeneration is extraordinary - it is an entirely mundane creature which exhibits an amazing power. The werewolf is similar - a human infected by a virus that literally transforms the creature's body into a new form, ignoring conservation of mass, pretty much the whole of biology, and the nagging feeling that this CAN'T be healthy for its internal organs.
Werewolves are nearly always magical in nature, their transformation tied to lunar cycles for mystical reasons. Only oddball sci-fi wannabe 'verses (Blade) have that "It's a virus" psuedoscience explanation. Lycanthropy, if it's covered, is almost always classified as a magical disease.


Supernatural, as it says on the package, but not magical. Heck, look at an shambling mound - sentient, carnivorous mounds of plant matter who devour lightning, yet are completely natural developments (nothing not EX, even the lightning-eating).
Likewise, recall the standard explanation for all those wierd monsters out there... A wizard did it. That's right.


Or, even better, your typical ghost - spectral remnants of beings who rise from their graves, not due to magical influence, but simply because something in their life means that they cannot rest. Pure will, in other words, rather than divine providence or wizardry, bringing them back from the dead, and giving them supernatural power.
Ghosts may indeed rise through pure thwarted will, depending on the setting, but it is always a mystical thing. These are not ectoplasmic abberations like on Ghost Busters, these are angry spirits of the dead, and it almost always takes the mystical to defeat/banish them. Or you can go kill whoever pissed them off so much and they'll lay back down to rest. In any case, swinging a sword at them will never work, unless it is the Sword of Balan, god of the dead, or you are his chosen, or some similar mystical reason.


Or look at monsters from throughout mythology and legends - giants, invincible lions, and dragons (not the super-magic d20 types, but just the giant lumps of scale and flame). Why should a hero be able to fight these things that clearly violate physics as we know them, without having any magical reason for doing so, and yet not be able to do so himself?
How many of those monsters from myth and legend are the children of demons or gods? 80%? 90%? All? These are not creatures that just 'evolved' that way, they were created that way, by someone who had the power to bypass the physical, or were not natural themselves in the first place.

You do have some good points, but one thing you're forgetting is this: Many, myself included, consider the Supernatural and the Magical to be one and the same. If it cannot be accomplished (even remotely or improbably) via our current understanding of what is possible, then it's Magic. Call it Supernatural if you prefer, it means the same thing to me. In this light, of course the magical can trump the physical, it's basically a catch-all category for anything that cannot be done/made physically. If you do attempt to explain things without resorting to 'magic' per se, recall the maxim "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

That said, in my games and books and fantasy settings, magic has a definite (though mutable) place. Different, with its own weaknessess, limitations, and consequences.

Bottom line: It's either physically possible, and thus explainable, or it's not. It's either supernatural/magical or it's not.

[Zeful]

Honestly? Rogues, bards, and other skill-monkeys can still contribute as long as the casters don't go out of their way to render them obsolete (which rarely happens, really.) But they can. The full casters can make any class other class obsolete. Why play a rouge when you can play an evocation banning Illusionist who can also not just do trapfinding, but can alo pull of social intrigue better than a rouge focusing on it, and you can make contributions to the Tippy society. What's the downside?

[Flickerdart]

What's the downside?
That you're a big fat jerk and make the Rogue cry.

[chiasaur11]

That you're a big fat jerk and make the Rogue cry.

And therefore the rogue uses bluff checks to take 90% or so of the treasure.

[Orzel]

To me there's no reason magic should trump fighting. If there is limits on the natural, there should be limits on the the supernatural. If your magician can do aeverything, then my human should not be bound to "A human can't jump like Superman" rules. If you allow your magic to have near limitless power then my elf regenerating cells like a troll if his consitution is very very high is not to farfetched.

The real thing is where does the natural end and the supernatural begin. In more 'verses, Nature and Magic are both created by the same person or grouple of people. If humans were to fly without wings then those people could maybe create a logical reason for them to fly. Humans can shoot lighntning from thier hands in my homebrew world because an archangel pulled some strings to warp physics, chemistry, and biology. My human can jam their fingers in a socket and blast someone to dust and no mage can dispell it.

[Aquillion]

But they can. The full casters can make any class other class obsolete. Why play a rouge when you can play an evocation banning Illusionist who can also not just do trapfinding, but can alo pull of social intrigue better than a rouge focusing on it, and you can make contributions to the Tippy society. What's the downside?
Not this again.

First of all, I disagree with a lot of your premise. Searching every single room and corridor you pass through using magic is not something you can do trivially; it requires a substantial investment of spells on your part.

I'm not just talking about finding dumbfire pit traps, of course (even the big dumb barbarian can find those); I'm talking about finding hidden treasure or clues, secret alarms, intelligent monsters laying in wait, hazardous terrain (like a bridge or walkway that has a chance of collapsing when you walk over it)... things like that. Doing that using magic requires a massive investment of spells (and for finding hidden treasure that you don't know is there, there is basically no spell that will help you. Scrying spells are more limited than most people think; they're only useful if you know what you're looking for or are already aware that a very specific area is dangerous, for the most part.)

Some traps you simply can't afford to set off -- there's alarms, wide-area effects, summoning traps, traps that damage treasure or cut off parts of the dungeon, intelligent traps or rusty ones that won't go off for the first thing that walks over them, subtle traps like items covered with contact poison, traps that aren't obvious even after you've set them off, all sorts of self-resetting traps, and many more.

Dealing with traps can take up a ton of spells. First of all, there's finding the trap. This is harder than you seem to think. Find Traps? It has a duration of 1/min per level, and only provides up to +10 for search. So you'll have to max search cross-class... and even then, you will be wasting a spell every time you want to examine a small area; you can't do it everywhere you go. Other scrying options are even more limited.

But alright, you find the trap. Now what? With no ranks in Disable Device, your character has no understanding of it whatsoever. You could teleport past it, possibly... but that leaves it behind you, and there's nothing saying you're not teleporting into another trap. And you don't understand its triggering mechanism, so you might end up teleporting somewhere that sets it off. You could blast it, but that might set it off, too. And either way, we're talking wasting at least two spells per trapped area here... with a non-trivial chance of failure, or of setting the trap off, or causing some other sort of problem.

While there are slightly more magical options to detect ambushes, they still require wasting spells, and are difficult to keep up 24/7 (Foresight, the best, doesn't become available until level 17, and even then it doesn't give you a warning until much much later than a skill check could have.) Spot, listen, and sense motive, meanwhile, are working all the time, every waking moment (and listen technically even works when you're asleep, at a penalty.) A single sense motive can warn you that the innocent-seeming guide is going to ambush you hours in advance; Foresight will only warn you an instant before it happens, when you've walked into it already.

Yes, yes, we all know about the theoretical wizard who lives in a box and never goes anywhere without spending a month scrying it in advance. But that is a downside, and a friggin huge one for an adventurer, much less an adventurer who wants to work as part of a party. A skillmonkey can do much better than that, without the downsides or limitations.

Magic is even more limited for social situations. Yeah, sure, you can cast Charm Person or Dominate Person on the king, or try to trick him with an illusion. You could also have your Barbarian threaten to take off his head with an axe. All of these things are equally risky. A diplomacy check, meanwhile, carries no risk at all. A sense motive check can tell you what's going on without the danger of a saving throw that could get your entire party into hot water if it messes up. Even a bluff can often be smoothed over if it fails; meanwhile most of the time, when a magical option fails, you're in a combat situation immediately.

Without sense motive, you miss important subtleties (sure, you can Detect Thoughts... but you have to know to cast it. And you have to still and silence it, if you don't want to be absurdly insulting by casting random spells at people. And you have to hope they don't make their saving throw (which will offend your targets, if you didn't still and silence it, and could offend them anyway if they figure it out.) Sense motive is active whenever anyone says anything, and carries no risk or cost whatsoever. Listen, spot, and search can also reveal things in a social situation that could easily be missed without them, maybe when you don't even realize you're in a delicate social situation. The nervous innkeeper's daughter at the inn where they're planning to attack you in your sleep (or where there's just going to be something going down soon, unrelated to you?) A sense motive check can notice it. The revolutionaries plotting in the back room? A listen check to overhear, a search check to find the secret entrance a sense motive check to see through it when they try to give excuses.

Wisdom-based skill checks let you know what's going on, even when you wouldn't know that there's anything going on without them (until it explodes in your face, sometimes.) Magic can only answer the questions you actually know to ask, and isn't always perfect even then. A player with high social skills can easily pick up on the fact that the town you're in is actually a nest of rebellion that's about to explode into social violence.

And even when they succeed, the magical solution to a social problem is often suboptimal. Your charm or dominate effect will wear off. Your illusions may not be exposed immediately, but with people thinking it over and looking around the area an hour after you've left, it's often going to be hard for the story you constructed with them to hold up. (Oh, and don't forget: If you try to say anything about your illusions -- to threaten with them in speech, for instance, or to use them in a larger narrative? That's a bluff check.)

Magical solutions are also vulnerable to magical detection and resistance; good luck pulling a magical trick over on a higher-level wizard. That same unsuspecting high-level wizard, though, can be fooled with a simple bluff check, under some circumstances... yes, they could read your mind, but spell slots are limited, and they're not going to do that with every single person they meet. In a real-world setting (ie not one where they live in a box), they need a sense motive check just to tell them to be suspicious, first, and if you're good enough at bluffing they'll never get that.

One of the best things about skill monkeys is that they work well with spellcasters. Invisibility and move silently were made for each other. Your rogue's keen search, spot, listen, or sense motive checks can tell you when a more detailed magical search is called for. Most of the spells aimed at disguising you simply provide a bonus to disguise (and not enough to make the skill useless) -- you could impersonate a random guard with either Alter Self or a decent disguise check, but with both and some good bluffs you can impersonate the Duke himself. In general, a good bluff check can massively augment the effectiveness of an illusion... and so on.

(This ignores beguilers; but beguilers are basically just another skill-monkey option, with some limited magic instead of backstabs and so forth. That's something different... by being a beguiler, you're making a huge investment into skill-monkey abilities at the cost of magic. We're talking about whether casters can replace skill-monkeys without that kind of exertion, and most of the time, they actually can't... at least, it's a lot harder than it looks.)

Fighters are pathetic and eventually become obsolete all on their own. Skill monkeys don't.

[OneFamiliarFace]

It will never...never happen. Someone will take something and run with it to gain an advantage over someone else. It's the DM's job to make up the story, and keep everyone havening fun. Some people like suck azz characters, others have to have +20 to hit at 1st level, and do 1000 points of damage by 10th or they can't have fun.

While I'm glad you mentioned the DM is hard working, I think you made a slight misattribution here. I think that in the best campaigns, it is EVERYONE'S job to make up the story and keep everyone having fun. You are right that some people are okay with playing sub-optimal characters and some people like playing mega-giants of doom. But it isn't only the DM's role to reconcile these two, it is also the players' job.

I have been arguing for the lack of balance up until this point (in this thread), because I don't need it. I like playing the underdog, as it makes me feel better whenever I do anything worthwhile. But the reason why balance in a roleplaying game is good is that it better ensures that one player who doesn't want to be isn't overshadowed.

And, I think, it is far better to have someone not be able to make their Doomlord than for another player to have to watch Doomlord laugh at his character for using one of those metal stick things that doesn't ever seem to cut anyone. If the players can handle it, then all well and good. But if they can't, then balance is helpful. And, I've even found that even some very experienced players prefer having balance and a concise ruleset so as to get to the game quicker with less rules checking and book-reading.

So gamewise, magic shouldn't trump fighting for those reasons.

[Ossian]

Seems like often whenever discussing why people dislike 4e, they bring up the point that magic, and specifically magical PCs, are no longer more powerful than non-magical PCs. This seems to break a cardinal rule for them that Magic must, being magic and all, be more powerful/mysterious/special than all mundane arts. While this sort of rule makes sense in the context of fantasy literature and occassionally makes for interesting plot structure, it's absolutely horrible as game design.

Why? For two good reasons.

1. Let's frame it slightly differently. What if someone said that you MUST make the battleship more powerful than the thimble in Monopoly simply because it's bigger? It wouldn't make sense, would it? Why should a choice of which tool you pick to represent your avatar have such a detrimental impact on your gameplay? Obviously, Monopoly and D&D aren't exactly the same, so any analogy would fall flat, but I hope my central point is clear.

2. Again, let's frame it slightly differently. What "magic should be more powerful" means to the person who wants to play a fighter (or other martial character) is "your character should suck". (There really can't be any argument about this since it's a binary proposition; either all classes are equally powerful, or one class is better and the other sucks) This is, quite frankly, mean and entirely unfair. Nobody should be forced to play a character that sucks unless they actually want to.

The fighter isn't designed to be, nor should it be designed to be a class that sucks. Some people are fine with playing characters that suck and see no problem with this. Fine for them. They can go play NPC classes that are designed for this purpose. There's no reason why that should impact on the gameplay of other people who don't want to suck and want to play a fighter for a roleplaying reason. Now, what IS a valid thing to say is that Magic should be special and mysterious in the setting. This is a personal preference, since some people like low-magic, some like high-magic, and some like ubiqitous[sic] magic. Handling the way magic is viewed in the setting is up to the DM to adjudicate, but has absolutely zero bearing on the relative power of PCs.

Apologies for potential plot duplication. Been out all weekend and I have missed most of the kicking here. I am in a slight disagreement with the op. Can't say I know 4e, but in general the principles the OP stated don't hold true to me.

The first thing is, it is a game. There are all sorts of games, some magic oriented, some more kungfu heavy. It all really depends on the flavor you want to experience in a gaming session. In an old 2d6 game you could play the Kenshiro setting. 99% of the players, of coruse, had martial artists. The best gaming moments though, were given to me as a GM by the former mercenary and the survival expert. There was the Nanto Shuiken guy, sure, but I have only vague memories of him slicing guys and things.

I think he wizards rule hnce the fighters suck does not hold. Conan lives in a world were there are 5 wizards and maybe 10 priests. They kick his cimmerian butt left and right. Still, he is the outstanding champion of kickasserie and no one dares to think the contrary.

It is a game, though, and a game designed for parties. Parties with wizards and fighters, which calls for some kind of balance. You don't want to leave all the awesome moments to one guy in the group. This said, I am perfectly fine with exponentially uncontrollable and world ruling magicians. Fighters rely on force, skill, dexterity, stamina, instinct. But they age, and their wounds heal worse and worse every time, and they might die sudden and violents deaths, and pain and bleeding is a constant of their lives. Thy live their prime to the fullest, and embody the vigor and the prowess of their races.

Wizards, on the other hand, tap into resources which are dangerous, primal, not to be trifled with. That gives them power, and the ability to defy what s not defiable with some chances of success. They shall master the elements, fire, water, wind, stone, metal and wood and eventually even the void. At the cost of loneliness, of losing sanity, of provoking the very spirit of the world they live in with their curiosity and lust for power. A power that is doomed to vanish or increase, not to stay.

Long story short? Easy: I still don't know much about 4e. Don't know how much and if fighters can do fancy stuff or whathaveyou. What I know is that this is a game, a role-play-game. If you play your role and fit it into a plot, there won't b such thing as an imbalance between classes (unless the designers were utter morons, but that seems hardly the case with WOTC).

On the other hand, if you (as in the 3.5) had a bunch of teenagers that level every 13.3 Level Appropriate Encounters, chances are you will be level 18 before you start going bald or gaining bodyfat. Which is a big killer for roleplay...

[Prophaniti]

It's the DM's job to make up the story, and keep everyone havening fun.I'm going to have to disagree with this, at least partly. Sure, it's the DM's job to make the story, the outline of it at least. But keep everyone having fun? Definitely not. I've been DMing for a few years now, and I know that no matter what I do at the table, no matter how hard I work, someone is not going to like something I do. I am not their to keep everyone happy, I am there because the group decided to let me be the arbitrator for this particular campaign. It certainly behooves me to attempt to make the game interesting for as many as possible as often as possible, but I am not there to babysit. I am not sitting up there to make sure no one's feelings get hurt, or to give them a new shiny toy when they get fussy.

*Post of Truth and Awesome*
A big QFT, friend.

[Starbuck_II]

Some traps you simply can't afford to set off -- there's alarms, wide-area effects, summoning traps, traps that damage treasure or cut off parts of the dungeon, intelligent traps or rusty ones that won't go off for the first thing that walks over them, subtle traps like items covered with contact poison, traps that aren't obvious even after you've set them off, all sorts of self-resetting traps, and many more.

Dealing with traps can take up a ton of spells. First of all, there's finding the trap. This is harder than you seem to think. Find Traps? It has a duration of 1/min per level, and only provides up to +10 for search. So you'll have to max search cross-class... and even then, you will be wasting a spell every time you want to examine a small area; you can't do it everywhere you go. Other scrying options are even more limited.

But alright, you find the trap. Now what? With no ranks in Disable Device, your character has no understanding of it whatsoever. You could teleport past it, possibly... but that leaves it behind you, and there's nothing saying you're not teleporting into another trap. And you don't understand its triggering mechanism, so you might end up teleporting somewhere that sets it off. You could blast it, but that might set it off, too. And either way, we're talking wasting at least two spells per trapped area here... with a non-trivial chance of failure, or of setting the trap off, or causing some other sort of problem.


Can't you justy use Dispel magic on any traps? magical ones are disarmed and non-magical ones are possibkle to break easy with Power attacking (if Gish)or polymorphing into a good form.

Just buy an adamantine weapon solves Hardness of trap.

[Aquillion]

Can't you justy use Dispel magic on any traps? magical ones are disarmed and non-magical ones are possibkle to break easy with Power attacking (if Gish)or polymorphing into a good form.

Just buy an adamantine weapon solves Hardness of trap.
Not per RAW:

Magic traps may be disarmed by a rogue (and only a rogue) with a successful Disable Device check (DC 25 + spell level).
Normally, trying to dispel it would just be another way of making that roll (possibly from a distance, which could be nice.) Now, when it comes down to what happens when you try to dispel a trap or hit it with a weapon without making that Disable Device roll, we're entering DM fiat territory (there are no rules provided for trying to ad-hoc disarm or detect the default traps without skillchecks, and what happens is really a 'per-trap' thing, so custom traps will be DM fiat anyway.)

But it's hardly unlikely that most quality traps will be set to go off if you 'cut the wrong wire' -- casting a dispel magic or hitting the wrong part could cause them to go off. Remember, having no ranks in Disable Device means you don't know a trap from a doorknob; you won't have the slightest idea of where to hit it or (in the case of a trap consisting of multiple magical-looking objects) what part to dispel.

Additionally, dispelling an object (which a trap would count as, if you think it can be done) requires that you target the object specifically. But this might not be possible; the cursed gem that powers a magical trap might be hidden behind the wall, for instance, and doing anything to reach it would set it off (not that you'd even know you have to reach it, of course, without a disable device roll.)

Even just using RAW, a clairvoyance trap can actually trigger from the other side of the dungeon, then teleport in something nasty, set off an alarm, or send a sending to the Big Bad letting him know his fortress is being invaded; a rogue would be able to (somehow) detect and disarm it, but nobody else would.

If you want to be really nasty, the trap itself could have Detect Magic or Arcane Sight incorporated into its trigger (possibly with Enlarge Spell applied) to sense someone using one of those spells (or to just go off if there's certain schools of magic nearby, if it's in a place where there's not supposed to be any.) It's a perfectly reasonable precaution, and in that case even trying to detect it magically could set it off.