Trap Update Feedback

[Tathkar Eisgrim]

From Danger Dolphin
===================

- Trap damage now based on d4s to reduce the spike variability (Suggestion by Joe)
- Player set trap damage now scales with the character's invested Set Trap skill points. Bonuses from items and abilities do not count.
- Traps are still not triggered by party members, but the effects can now hurt them if they are too close to an AoE
- The Set Trap skill can now used for crafting traps if it is higher than the craft trap skill (Temporary, intended to be moved eventually)
- Minor, Average and strong traps set by players have had their damage significantly increased
- If you have detected a trap, the save DC is reduced by 5
- For each 5 levels in Rogue, Assassin, Zhentarim Operative or Harper Scout, the saving throw DC on traps they set is increased by 1
- Traps now show the saving throw of the victim to the player that set the trap in the same way a spell would to a caster
- Traps now report damage and successful stunning effects to the trapper
- Player set tangle traps now entangle instead of slow (You cannot walk/run, but can take other actions)
- Holy traps damage is doubled vs undead
- Holy traps are now AoE in a 10ft radius
- Holy traps now have a reflex save attached
- Spike traps now hobble for 5 rounds on failing the reflex save, similar to a called shot: leg (-4 Dexterity, -10% Movement speed)
- Sonic traps now only stun for 2 rounds on all tiers, but leave a lingering deafen effect
- Negative traps now have a reflex save to avoid all effects
- Increased scaling for strength drain on negative traps (Suggestion by Jack Oat)
- Acid splash traps now blind for 2 rounds (Suggestion by Jack Oat)
- Acid blob traps no long paralyse, but have a lingering damage over time effect (Suggestion by Sockss)
- Trap Stacking: Characters immune to all traps for 2 seconds after stepping on one. Applies only to player set traps.

First off, as a huge fan of traps from my pen and paper days, an equally huge kudos and thank you to all involved in creating, suggesting and testing this update.

Player set trap damage now scales with the character's invested Set Trap skill points. Bonuses from items and abilities do not count.

and Minor, Average and strong traps set by players have had their damage significantly increased

Note 1 - Set Trap Damage Scaling - Scales how? It is not stated, to what degree?

My immediate concern here is from an RP perspective and a control of damage / lethality perspective.

Case 1 - A mid to high level PC Trap Setter places traps to test / train lower levels PC's. Because of his own skill point investment, does this make the d4's of damage irrelevant - and push the damage of his meekest traps towards lethality? i.e. Set Trap damage bonus cannot be turned off?

(A comparison of trap damage to class HP's by level is required I think).

Case 2 - A DM with crazy amounts of Set Trap skill points on their DM avatar "accidentally" Sets a Trap -- and wonders why the PC party just got vaporized. i.e. It is definitively a PLAYER only change? That said, has DM placement of Traps been looked over to ensure, they reflect the changes in a positive way?

Traps in the Game World:

- Have traps in the game world been changed, as yet, to reflect the new trap effectiveness?
- Is it intended that their lethality / effectiveness will change to reflect a Trap Setter with a specific skill level?
(this could be quite fun! Kobolds might have tricksy DC's and trap types reflecting the skill of the trap setter - whereas Orc trappers might be crude and more obvious. Having NPC / enemy Trapper Lieutenants and Bosses in the game world -- yes please!)

- If traps are intended to be changed in the game world will players need to report "old" traps somehow? Could new traps maybe flash a yellow text message to say they use the new game system?

Player made traps & NPC bought traps:

- Will traps in a player's possession be automatically changed to the new type?
- Will NPC trap-sellers be changed to correctly sell correct traps only?

[Opustus]

In vanilla, traps with an effect don't allow for evasion on the damage roll. This made investment of 1 rank in Set strong for Dex builds and bards to access deadly acid blobs. It was also the functionality that made deadly blobs and epic sonic extremely strong (people seldom have silence on hand). Has this functionality for trap damage save been fixed? If not, could it be?

[Frailman]

Why does ranger not also scale the trap DC?

[msterswrdsmn]

So, as far as the npc/random traps go, the update goes from "Ha, what was that?" to "holy crap what the hell was that?!"

The short version of this is going to be that persistant traps are going to need to be rexamined on the entire server.

MOST of the random traps that spawn on doors have a laughably low dc/damage output now. Though I've only really been inside lower level dungeons. The random door traps in the Cordor crypts, for example, typically have a DC of about 5.

HOWEVER.
The permanent, always triggering traps that can fire off multiple times? Those will roast you alive. Example: the negative energy trap by the chest in the upper troll cave just shot me with 108 damage on a failed 25 DC fort save while having boulders thrown at me by a giant. My poor level 10 character didn't stand a chance. It also fired off twice in a row; the first shot killed me immediately, but if it didn't? That second immediate activation would have. Having traps fire multiple times at once is a long-known issue, and is definitely not friendly with the new trap update.

For context, default nwn deadly negative energy traps used to do a max damage of 48. 108 is over twice as much damage. Even if I was a barbarian with 26 Con, this would have sapped like half my health.

I haven't had much luck with the traps set by NPC's but i'd consider removing that feature. Especially since npcs have a tendancy to wander, then set a trap that will stick around indefinitely until someone steps on it. This can/has lead to 3-4 traps in an area around an npc spawn point.

[White_935]

Why does ranger not also scale the trap DC?

I'd say ranger got alot going for them already, but i'd say if you put down traps in a forest area, they should get the same bonus.

Snip

I think traps in general should be dangerous, but i agree, NPC traps should only trigger once as well, never understood why they would be repeated.. but they should be replaced when stuff respawns too, rather than now where once disarmed they are gone until reset.

[Tathkar Eisgrim]

The permanent, always triggering traps that can fire off multiple times? Those will roast you alive. Example: the negative energy trap by the chest in the upper troll cave just shot me with 108 damage on a failed 25 DC fort save while having boulders thrown at me by a giant. My poor level 10 character didn't stand a chance. It also fired off twice in a row; the first shot killed me immediately, but if it didn't? That second immediate activation would have.

Could this double trigger bug not be fixed by adding a saving bonus or 1 round immunity to the PC further to saving the first failed save? Or is the double-trigger too quick?

Also:

I would suggest their might be a need for two "classes" of trap lethality.

Tier I - The lowest level strength traps are purposefully intended to be low damage-dealing, to make the PC go ouch, to teach good RP preparedness and care in exploring a trapped environment. The RP tier. The Keep-Out sign.

Tier II - Above Tier I, the kid-gloves come off. These traps are at full effectiveness with full intent to cripple, surprise, hinder and defeat PCs. These traps are placed within dungeons to represent the fullest skill of the NPC denizens placing them -- as represented by the Dev creating the dungeon or a DM operating under a Dungeon Trap-Layers Brief.

With this in mind, was upping the damage on the weakest traps required or necessary? Do low level Rogue or Ranger PC's, for example, need full effectiveness traps? Or would it be more preferrable to have say -- Ranger & Rogue NPC's giving quests that teach good Player-Player trap etiquette?

[White_935]

The permanent, always triggering traps that can fire off multiple times? Those will roast you alive. Example: the negative energy trap by the chest in the upper troll cave just shot me with 108 damage on a failed 25 DC fort save while having boulders thrown at me by a giant. My poor level 10 character didn't stand a chance. It also fired off twice in a row; the first shot killed me immediately, but if it didn't? That second immediate activation would have.

Could this double trigger bug not be fixed by adding a saving bonus or 1 round immunity to the PC further to saving the first failed save? Or is the double-trigger too quick?

Also:

I would suggest their might be a need for two "classes" of trap lethality.

Tier I - The lowest level strength traps are purposefully intended to be low damage-dealing, to make the PC go ouch, to teach good RP preparedness and care in exploring a trapped environment. The RP tier. The Keep-Out sign.

Tier II - Above Tier I, the kid-gloves come off. These traps are at full effectiveness with full intent to cripple, surprise, hinder and defeat PCs. These traps are placed within dungeons to represent the fullest skill of the NPC denizens placing them -- as represented by the Dev creating the dungeon or a DM operating under a Dungeon Trap-Layers Brief.

With this in mind, was upping the damage on the weakest traps required or necessary? Do low level Rogue or Ranger PC's, for example, need full effectiveness traps? Or would it be more preferable to have say -- Ranger & Rogue NPC's giving quests that teach good Player-Player trap etiquette?

For PvE, traps was generally extremely weak for the effort it takes to trigger them, the update should have made it somewhat better, thou i still need to test this myself.

But in general traps placed by the tilset editor can be customized completely, and doesn't have to be a actual player trap placed down in general.

[msterswrdsmn]

To clarify, the problem isn't just supercharged explosive death. The traps go from being completely, utterly insignificant annoyances (random spawning doors traps, most traps set by npcs at low levels) to supercharged death traps with very little middle ground from what i've seen.

Also; sonic traps seem to deafen you even if you make your saving throw. Is this intentional? Deafen is 100% ignorable to melee builds, and potentially devestating to casters as they add in spell failure while afflicated with the status. I thought, based on the update log, guarenteed-effects regardless of saves were something that was to be avoided?

[DangerDolphin]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. Next update will include fixes to some of these reported issues.

Ranger trap setting I am still deliberating.

[Archnon]

Is there any chance that the wiki will be updated with all the trap stats including damage calculations and DC's?

[Floral Shoppe]

I'm curious about rangers too, I have one with set trap and I am wondering if those are going to be wasted skill points?

If ranger traps aren't going to be useful then maybe it should be disabled as a ranger skill.

[DangerDolphin]

I'm curious about rangers too, I have one with set trap and I am wondering if those are going to be wasted skill points?

If ranger traps aren't going to be useful then maybe it should be disabled as a ranger skill.

Given traps were largely buffed in general, the lack of the +4/5 to DCs won't be the end of the world for rangers. You will be better off now than before in many cases.

[dallion43]

If you add the bonus to rangers please at least limit it to outdoors areas. Taking the bear of hate into account, the spike is real as is.

Traps report save, etc, only in LOS?

Sonic trap stun is still considered a mind effect avoidable by lesser MB/Clara? This does worry me, since SC and bonuses vs spells is not taken into account, DC now can be increased by 4/5 and 2 rounds stun usually means you are dead if you fail.
Maybe increase the damage and change to 1 round stun?

Tangle is now ~40DC(~35DC crafted) root flat-foot for 5 rounds vs base refl?

The Set Trap skill can now used for crafting traps if it is higher than the craft trap skill (Temporary, intended to be moved eventually)

This means that one will still need the set trap, eventually?

Thank you for your hard work as always ).

[Gouge Away]

I think... It would be nice if rangers could have that bonus with the tangle and spike traps, the ones that hobble and disable but don't do tremendous damage and seem in line with what a bounty hunter and/ or animal trapper would use. Leave the acid/sonic/electric etc to the rogues and assassins. Of course any bonus could also be limited to their favored enemies.

[White_935]

I think... It would be nice if rangers could have that bonus with the tangle and spike traps, the ones that hobble and disable but don't do tremendous damage and seem in line with what a bounty hunter and/ or animal trapper would use. Leave the acid/sonic/electric etc to the rogues and assassins. Of course any bonus could also be limited to their favored enemies.

That seems a fair question, but rather than favoured enemies, it should be outdoor wilderness areas.
I'd think it more as rangers making "natural" traps using the terrain, rather than actually creating mechanical contraptions.

[Gouge Away]

I don't argue that the DC bonus in wilderness only makes sense and if anything happens for them that seems most likely, but I'm speaking selfishly as were I to play a ranger trapper I'd would rather see the DC bonus on fewer traps but be able to use them everywhere.

Also I think "box with stick, string you pull and an enticing pie inside" should be a trap added to the crafting system.