)3.5( Yo Dawg, I Herd U Liek Trapz...

[Deth Muncher]

So, I'm not really familiar with the 3.5 trapmaking rules, but I was wondering: Is it possible to trap traps?

For example, Bob the Rogue spots an axe-pendulum trap, ready to be sprung. A quick search reveals a trigger and the disabler tiles. Smart adventurer that he is, he pulls out his 10ft pole and taps the disabler tile. Smart trapmaker that they were, the one who laid the trap made it so that if it were to be disabled, that square would get zapped, and thus Bob gets smacked with some electricity.

Not a perfect example, but I hope you see what I'm asking.

EDIT: Also, apologies for the horrid spelling in the title, but one must preserve the meme, you know.

[Tinydwarfman]

Well yea, but the rogue would get another check to spot the second trap.

[Iferus]

Yes, that is possible. You just have to be precise when determining the trigger of your second trap.

[dspeyer]

I recently DMed a dungeon crawl where some pit traps contained secret passages in their bottoms. Eventual statement from our rogue: "I check the trap for traps."

[The Tygre]

That's disturbingly brilliant.

[Lapak]

The defunct webcomic Absurd Notions did a riff on this kind of thing once, where a trap consisted of an all-too-obvious tripwire linked to a hidden crossbow aimed at where someone would be if there were fiddling with the tripwire 'from a safe distance' with a long pole or such.

[Greenish]

Smart adventurer that he is, he pulls out his 10ft pole and taps the disabler tile.

Smart adventurers have 12ft pole and a hired/summoned/dominated chump to operate it.

[Khatoblepas]

Smart adventurers have 12ft pole and a hired/summoned/dominated chimp to operate it.

Celestial Monkeys: The Summoned Simian Trapfinder for the Discerning wizard.

I imagine this is very possible, and you could probably make an entire encounter out of trapped traps trapped by trapped traps trapping traps. Epic kobold trapmaker, paranoid about everything to the point of insanity, and the party must evade a few dozen traps set off like a rube goldberg machine. Maybe even fighting a few of the traps as they come down, round by round.

That's if the rogue doesn't get canny about trapfinding.

[Kaiyanwang]

That's disturbingly brilliant.

Seconded. Just be sure that your players have a good sense of humor and sportmanship..

[JeminiZero]

Smart adventurers have 12ft pole and a hired/summoned/dominated chump to operate it.

Or Summon Elemental Reserve feat. Or Warlocks with BoH full of corpses.

[faceroll]

I trapped a trap once, but it made the rogue sad, so I stopped doing it.

[Jack_Simth]

So, I'm not really familiar with the 3.5 trapmaking rules, but I was wondering: Is it possible to trap traps?

For example, Bob the Rogue spots an axe-pendulum trap, ready to be sprung. A quick search reveals a trigger and the disabler tiles. Smart adventurer that he is, he pulls out his 10ft pole and taps the disabler tile. Smart trapmaker that they were, the one who laid the trap made it so that if it were to be disabled, that square would get zapped, and thus Bob gets smacked with some electricity.

Yes it is possible to trap traps. HOWEVER:

Searching for traps is done by map square, not by what's trapped. So if Bob the Rogue is traveling down the hallway, searching for traps, as he goes, and the electrical trap is targetting the square two down from the button for the axe-pendulum trap (to get the rogue who pushes the button), the Bob's first Search check targets the electrical trap, not the pendulum trap - with no complicated actions on Bob's part required. A simple diagram:

BS   E P

Bob (B) is searching along, checking the square in front of him for triggers and effect zones as he goes (S, right in front of him). As he's traveling down the hallway, the first trap he encounters in his search is the electrical aspect, E - as that's the trap effect zone, even if the trap trigger zone is at the pendulum trap, P. So when Bob gets to E, he doesn't enter it until after he's made his search/disable device on it. Then when he gets to the pendulum trap, he's already dealt with the electrical trap (unless he blew the roll, of course), so it doesn't matter.

[Barbarian MD]

Ah, but what if the trap is actually a long distance away? If there's a really tall shaft with a giant boulder 50' up, the rogue's not going to spot that trap at the very top of the shaft unless he makes an effort. In the meantime, there's an obvious trap less than 10' away.

[JeminiZero]

Ah, but what if the trap is actually a long distance away? If there's a really tall shaft with a giant boulder 50' up, the rogue's not going to spot that trap at the very top of the shaft unless he makes an effort. In the meantime, there's an obvious trap less than 10' away.

Btu what is the boulder's trigger? It should be something on the ground level to be triggerable by the rogue.

[Greenish]

Btu what is the boulder's trigger? It should be something on the ground level to be triggerable by the rogue.

It would be the obvious tripwire that also triggers the (decoy) pendulum blade.

[Barbarian MD]

It would be the obvious tripwire that also triggers the (decoy) pendulum blade.

Exactly.

Or, you could get more complicated. The boulder is released when you disable the pendulum. Behind the boulder is a lake. That's right, a lake. You just disabled the pendulum? Congratulations, you just flooded the tunnel.

[JeminiZero]

Exactly.

Or, you could get more complicated. The boulder is released when you disable the pendulum. Behind the boulder is a lake. That's right, a lake. You just disabled the pendulum? Congratulations, you just flooded the tunnel.

It doesn't quite work like that. The Disable Device skill abstracts away the complex mechanics of how trap triggers are disabled. Having a complex multi-trigger trap like that will make the DC higher, but a rogue of sufficient skill should still be able to render the entire setup ineffective.

(Perhaps he jammed the pendulum trigger so that it still appears to be working to the rest of the system, and hence won't trigger the boulder-lake, but the pendulum also no longer triggers when the party dances on the trip wire. )

[Jack_Simth]

It doesn't quite work like that. The Disable Device skill abstracts away the complex mechanics of how trap triggers are disabled. Having a complex multi-trigger trap like that will make the DC higher, but a rogue of sufficient skill should still be able to render the entire setup ineffective.

(Perhaps he jammed the pendulum trigger so that it still appears to be working to the rest of the system, and hence won't trigger the boulder-lake, but the pendulum also no longer triggers when the party dances on the trip wire. )

Alternately, it's multiple checks, rather than a higher DC. Still the same mechanism, though.

Besides:
If you did have a trap that couldn't be disabled by a rogue, the trap maker would soon be assassinated by the Guild, and you wouldn't have traps that can't be disabled by a rogue anymore.

[Barbarian MD]

So there's no way to make the act of disabling a trap a trigger? That takes all the fun out of it.

What about setting a trap with a low DC and a high DC? Would it be possible for the rogue to miss the higher DC trap after finding the lower DC one for lack of looking? Or does a rogue automatically know there're two traps with a single spot check or whatever it is they use?

[Greenish]

It doesn't quite work like that. The Disable Device skill abstracts away the complex mechanics of how trap triggers are disabled. Having a complex multi-trigger trap like that will make the DC higher, but a rogue of sufficient skill should still be able to render the entire setup ineffective.

The real trap would be that the decoy trap is so obvious and simple that PCs rather stand in "safe" place and trigger it than waste time disarming it.

[Edit]:

What about setting a trap with a low DC and a high DC? Would it be possible for the rogue to miss the higher DC trap after finding the lower DC one for lack of looking? Or does a rogue automatically know there're two traps with a single spot check or whatever it is they use?

Search. Rogue will know of all the traps whose DC he beats. If there's a harder trap there that he fails to find, he can't even attempt to disarm.

Anyhow, there's bound to be a clever way to use the fact that disable device check is secret.

[Jack_Simth]

So there's no way to make the act of disabling a trap a trigger? That takes all the fun out of it.

What about setting a trap with a low DC and a high DC? Would it be possible for the rogue to miss the higher DC trap after finding the lower DC one for lack of looking? Or does a rogue automatically know there're two traps with a single spot check or whatever it is they use?

Two traps with different DC's would work quite well... but then, the higher DC trap has to be missed, which means the rogue has to botch the roll for it to matter, and you're pretty much back to square one.

Rather, it works well if PC's normally just take ten when they see a suspicious area, and only take 20 if they don't find anything taking ten. But then you're metagaming rather heavily to hurt the rogue....

[JeminiZero]

What about setting a trap with a low DC and a high DC? Would it be possible for the rogue to miss the higher DC trap after finding the lower DC one for lack of looking? Or does a rogue automatically know there're two traps with a single spot check or whatever it is they use?

If both traps are in the same tile so to speak, then if simply walking along, the rogue should get 2 search checks, one for each trap. If the rogue is being paranoid and takes 20 every step of the way, then so long as his take 20 check meets the DCs, he should notice both traps with a single take 20 check.

Whether it is possible for a rogue to notice one and miss the other, depends entirely on high the DCs are relative to his search check. Certainly, it is possible for both traps to be so well hidden, that he can't find them even if he takes 20. But thats just being cruel.

[Greenish]

If both traps are in the same tile so to speak, then if simply walking along, the rogue should get 2 search checks, one for each trap.

Rogue won't notice any traps by just strolling along: searching 5x5 square is a full round action. It'd be a pretty paranoid rogue (or Tomb of Horrors) that take 20 and spent two minutes for 5ft.

Anyhow, during said full round action (or two minutes), rogue would find all the traps whose DC he beat. No need for several search checks.

[Lycanthromancer]

The best traps are those designed so that there technically is no trap.

Take my explanations on Tucker's Kobolds. Most of the traps require the intervention of one or more creatures to even be considered 'traps.'

Imagine a hallway, sloping down at a 30 degree angle, toward a pit with a wide wooden plank across it. There are wooden boards running the width of the ceiling, transverse to the hallway itself. It's not really that dangerous, and the characters can move freely in the hall with no real trouble. The encounter starts when kobolds, in the ceiling, pry up boards and toss down handfuls of marbles, while some others pry up boards and drop a makeshift portcullis behind the PCs, while others, farther on past the pit, pull the plank bridge back, while still others start firing arrows from murder holes and from across the pit. A sorcerer casts silent image to cloak the hallway in darkness (through which the archers fire blindly, hoping for some lucky hits).

If one of the PCs falls into the pit, they find a 15' wide shaft a couple of hundred feet long, with spikes and/or acid and/or piranha in the bottom, with sleep-poisoned razor wire crisscrossing the pit, and a couple of 1st level sorcerers with actions readied to counterspell attempts at casting feather fall. Any ledges that could be used to catch oneself are covered in spikes and/or lard and/or poison, and are designed to break away if someone tries to catch themselves.

Thing is, this can be a lethal encounter for even high-level PCs, and requires nothing more than 1st level resources. Furthermore, aside from the pit (which there's a plank bridging over), there's nothing that indicates that there's an actual trap there (and there isn't, if the kobolds aren't around).

[JeminiZero]

Technically, thats not a trap, thats an ambush.

[Greenish]

Technically, thats not a trap, thats an ambush.

[Lycanthromancer]

http://swg.stratics.com/content/lore/personas/images/ackbar.gif

What, you have Ackbar on standby?

Also, technically, the kobold ambush above won't even give any XP for higher level groups, since they're a bunch of CR 1s and a pit trap.

[magic9mushroom]

Way to make a trap unavoidable:

Have a vertical passage (10 ft.) in the dungeon. AMF prevents flying down, sharp edges cut ropes. So no checking for traps before going down.

Entire landing area triggers an Apocalypse From The Sky trap as well as turning off the AMF.

[faceroll]

Way to make a trap unavoidable:

Have a vertical passage (10 ft.) in the dungeon. AMF prevents flying down, sharp edges cut ropes. So no checking for traps before going down.

Entire landing area triggers an Apocalypse From The Sky trap as well as turning off the AMF.

Is there an overkill macro?

[magic9mushroom]

Is there an overkill macro?

There are several.