OOTS #1220 - The Discussion Thread

[Worldsong]

Why would an evil team not have a rogue smart enough to bypass a trap? It would seem strange that this skill is the key to finding the gate.

Unless it requires a particular method of trap disabling, and Serini’s method of key- design and Hayley’s method of trap disabling just coincidentally match?

The simple answer to this is the question "Who would be the rogue?"

It's not Redcloak. It's not Xykon. I really doubt it's MitD. Oona might have some tracking skills but she's some kind of beastmaster class, probably better at setting traps than finding them.

Logically speaking a high-level party should have a rogue but if they don't have one they don't have one.

Redcloak has excellent Wisdom as a cleric, but probably not enough better than Roy to see the runes if Roy couldn't even with the advantage of someone telling him about them.

Also Redcloak only has one eye. Might affect his ability to spot things.

Since the rat head is clearly scorched, I don't see any reason to think that Haley didn't just trigger the trap, to disarm it.
A trap that makes damage after being properly disabled without triggering makes little sense to me.
Anyway less than a trap that hides itself as a damaging trap, can be easily seen and disarmed by triggering, and instead -aside the damage- is really a portal trap.

Random team with a rogue: "Oh, look, triggering it with a rat was enough to disable it, no worries"
Serini: "Yeah, sure!"

My theory would be that if you trigger the trap unintentionally you don't notice it. It's supposed to be an invisible portal.

Haley didn't activate the trap, she used a method of disarming that resulted in the magic trap misfiring and exploding. It's like when Blackwing intentionally miscast Vaarsuvius's scroll to cause an explosion (#1020).

Of course this trap is significantly higher level than Vaarsuvius's scroll and would require more effort to blow up, which is why it requires Haley carefully working on it while the rest of the party discusses how to proceed (she wouldn't have to say that she 'figured it out' if it was as straightforward as triggering it with an inanimate object).

Roy is looking right at the line in the comic you cited after its pointed out. Plus everyone could see the magical glyphs in Draketooth's Dungeon. Just because it's a trap doesn't mean the symbols aren't visible. The comic plays fast and loose with the rules sometimes. It looks like Roy can see the line well enough to know where he would have to step to cross it. Just because RC can't disarm traps doesn't mean he wouldn't expect the line to be a trap. Especially since it's universal to every tunnel.

Plus given how much Oona likes to talk, if she did spot the lines in the dozens, if not hundreds of times she went into the Dungeon, she would mention it at least once.

He's looking right at the line and when asked by Haley if he can see it he answers "No." He has a rough idea where it is because Haley pointed at it. Also just because everyone could see the magical glyphs in Draketooth's Dungeon doesn't mean all magic traps are visible.

I dunno. If using the rat skull gives them a few seconds like this, then unless Team Evil went in exactly abreast, whoever was in the back should have seen it hit whoever was I'm front. Though I don't know if we're seeing the usual function. I forget the exact rules around traps, so I don't know if she just tripped the trap or did some weird Rogue thing to it.

Basically everything Hyoi said.

I feel like y'all are all dancing around the most likely explanation of the trap's mechanics: it's not a trap at all, just an always-on portal that links the door to its associated dungeon crawl, which is located somewhere else. Disarming the trap temporarily turns off the portal, so the different-colored floor behind it is just what is actually there behind the portal. Team evil hasn't noticed the trap because simply walking in doesn't trigger any detectable change. The OOTS might have made the same mistake if Haley hadn't stopped Roy before he could step over the trap. After the 20 seconds are up, the portal will turn back on, so anyone following the OOTS will end up on the standard path.

Bonus points if the runes don't actually create the portal, just provide a means to turn it off, so the dungeon fails safe if someone just destroys the runes. That would mean that without a rogue team evil has no way to bypass the trap even if they know it is there.

I like that last part. It would also explain why Redcloak and Xykon couldn't bypass it even if they used Truesight or whatever to detect the runes. Might have tried dispelling it and dismissed it when it didn't seem to change anything.