Disarming Magical Traps

[Goober4473]

I'm sure this has come up before but... How does a rogue disarm a fireball trap that's set off by an alarm spell? Wave his hands in the air and wish it gone?

[Doc_Outlands]

With a good roll on a Disable Device check...?

With a charmed Halfling...?

With a tied-up Kobold...?

With a Fighter...?
(looks clear! *BLAM!*)

[Funkyodor]

Step 1: Rogue gets 'a funny feeling about this', and searches an area for traps.

Step 2: Rogue pulls out his handy dandy MasterWork brand disarm kit.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: The party can proceed along the path / through the door / open the treasure chest safely due to the Rogues hard work at ???. Or in other words, Profit!

[MrNexx]

Step 1: Rogue gets 'a funny feeling about this', and searches an area for traps.

Step 2: Rogue pulls out his handy dandy MasterWork brand disarm kit.

Step 3: ???

Step 4: The party can proceed along the path / through the door / open the treasure chest safely due to the Rogues hard work at ???. Or in other words, Profit!

Actually, some of the Last Mythal books included a good description of this. I basically involves very carefully messing up any physical components so as to disrupt the magic.

[Zincorium]

Well, magic may be rather vague and general from our perspective, as gamers, but in character it probably has a very specific system of how things work and how they can be linked together.

That, and it's very difficult for a wizard to wave his hands and go "okay, there's a fireball trap here" when there's no system to attach it to, no focus. A fireball trap as described in the DMG is 12,000 gold, that means there are probably materials and such that make up a large portion of the cost and remain there as a way for the spell to retain the needed magical energy.

Now, rogues have very special training, seeing as how if you don't have trap sense there's a 0% chance of finding or disabling a magical trap, and even then it's really darn hard. But these same people can make a magic item work just by screwing around with it. They're talented. Some of that same quasi-magical knack probably carries over to knowing how to mess up a trap just enough so it won't go off right now when the rogue is standing over it.

[Peregrine]

How? The same way they can Search for a symbol or explosive runes trap without setting it off. I've thought about how to actually describe the trapfinding class feature a few times. (Partly 'cause I'm playing a rogue right now.)

I think it's incumbent on the DM to say, 'Okay, the rules say you're capable of doing this, so you make the rolls and I'll tell you how it works.' (It can work the other way around too, but I think there's a temptation to up the DC if you don't like their explanation. And even if there's not, the rogue will be afraid of you doing so.) So make up something that sounds cool and makes the rogue look good (this is his or her moment in the sun, after all). Don't worry about realism. 'You get a prickling feeling and see something out of the corner of your eye' (explosive runes)... 'You scratch up one side of the crystal, "blinding" the trap on that side' (alarm-based proximity trap)... that sort of thing.

The alternative is saying 'you can't do that [unless you can explain to me exactly what you do]'. Which both screws up game balance (impossible traps suck), and makes the rogue feel shafted. I speak from experience. There was a tripwire on the other side of a glass door, set off by the door opening (it rang a bell elsewhere). The DM said I couldn't get my tools through the gap to fiddle with it. I just rolled with it (opened the door and did what I came to do as best I could before the guards arrived); firstly because it just seemed like good form; secondly because my Disable Device checks weren't crash hot anyway. But I did feel a bit miffed about having no chance at all to pull it off.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Simple enough, jack up the trigger mechanisim. Without a trigger, the trap doesn't work. Presto!

With the example the OP gave, mess up one component for the alarm to go off and the fireball sits there, waiting for its cue. Traps have an INT score of zero.

[leperkhaun]

I agree with the others, this is one of those things where the character has the knowledge not the player.

On the other hand i had a rogue who would disarm traps with a monster summoning wand.

[Curmudgeon]

Do you make a player explain how they throw their entire body above their normal height with a Jump check? Because I've seen this done by high jumpers and can't explain it. It's got to be even harder to elaborate details for a skill that's purely a fantasy gaming creation.

[Seffbasilisk]

I had a DM who had me describe HOW my Rogue/Warmage was disarming traps. I kept a Handy Haversack FULL of 'useless' junk just to disarm traps, flour + blanket + Illiterate Barbarian friend + Hammer = Sepia Snake Sigil inscribed part of wall is now mine!