Baldur's Gate Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Cryomancer]

The skeleton summon indeed passes through the trap without harm. But then the party has to pass through, and the trap is still there. And why do you assume this is a lich trap and the party has death wards for everyone? It could easily be part of, say, a lord's treasury defences.

Nigga, no one says it will kill your skellington. I'm saying exactly opposite - you wouldn't know if there are death or mindfuck traps in corridor he "disarmed" exactly because he would be unaffected.

Is the trap loud? wail has a verbal component. Unless this tier 9 spell is somehow "silent spell", the party would hear the trap triggering. And as I've said, any party should have deathward in that situation. And I assume that death ward is available to everyone since it is a 4th level spell available in many wands and we are talking about a high level dungeon which tier 9 spells on traps.

Vordakai's Tomb on Kingmaker has only tier 5/6/7 magic on their traps and is a pretty nasty dungeon in therms of traps.

 

[Xamenos]

The skeleton summon indeed passes through the trap without harm. But then the party has to pass through, and the trap is still there. And why do you assume this is a lich trap and the party has death wards for everyone? It could easily be part of, say, a lord's treasury defences.

Nigga, no one says it will kill your skellington. I'm saying exactly opposite - you wouldn't know if there are death or mindfuck traps in corridor he "disarmed" exactly because he would be unaffected.

Is the trap loud? wail has a verbal component. Unless this tier 9 spell is somehow "silent spell", the party would hear the trap triggering. And as I've said, any party should have deathward in that situation. And I assume that death ward is available to everyone since it is a 4th level spell available in many wands and we are talking about a high level dungeon which tier 9 spells on traps.

Vordakai's Tomb on Kingmaker has only tier 5/6/7 magic on their traps and is a pretty nasty dungeon in therms of traps.

You're missing the forest for the trees, again. Let's say you do have the death wards to get past this. Will you be able to get past the Meteor Swarm trap? The Forcecage trap? The collapse-the-tunnel-and-block-the-path trap? And how many resources will you spend to get past them before you finally admit that a rogue is indeed better than a summon at high-level trap clearing?

 

[Cryomancer]

You're missing the forest for the trees, again. Let's say you do have the death wards to get past this. Will you be able to get past the Meteor Swarm trap? The Forcecage trap? The collapse-the-tunnel-and-block-the-path trap? And how many resources will you spend to get past them before you finally admit that a rogue is indeed better than a summon at high-level trap clearing?

I an not saying that spells are better than a rogue, only that if the group needs it(ie - on my S&W group, we have 3 magic users, one cleric and av druid), is possible to use spells to counter a trap. Just like you can use control undead and other stuff to deal with a undead infestation as a caster, but you would't be better than a paladin specialized on dealing with undeads.

PS : All of this traps would only be placed to protect a lich phylactery for eg. Auto arm traps that casts tier 9 spells aren't a mundane thing that they sell in every small town shop.

 

[Cael]

The skeleton summon indeed passes through the trap without harm. But then the party has to pass through, and the trap is still there. And why do you assume this is a lich trap and the party has death wards for everyone? It could easily be part of, say, a lord's treasury defences.

Nigga, no one says it will kill your skellington. I'm saying exactly opposite - you wouldn't know if there are death or mindfuck traps in corridor he "disarmed" exactly because he would be unaffected.

Is the trap loud? wail has a verbal component. Unless this tier 9 spell is somehow "silent spell", the party would hear the trap triggering. And as I've said, any party should have deathward in that situation. And I assume that death ward is available to everyone since it is a 4th level spell available in many wands and we are talking about a high level dungeon which tier 9 spells on traps.

Vordakai's Tomb on Kingmaker has only tier 5/6/7 magic on their traps and is a pretty nasty dungeon in therms of traps.

Wail is a sonic, mind-affecting spell. Silent Spell doesn't work on it (or rather it will, but will neutralise the effects), nor will it work in a Silenced zone.

That is how you get past it. With a level 2 spell.

And you will know it is there because the skeleton triggered it while you watched.

 

[Xamenos]

I an not saying that spells are better than a rogue, only that if the group needs it(ie - on my S&W group, we have 3 magic users, one cleric and av druid), is possible to use spells to counter a trap. Just like you can use control undead and other stuff to deal with a undead infestation as a caster, but you would't be better than a paladin specialized on dealing with undeads.

PS : All of this traps would only be placed to protect a lich phylactery for eg. Auto arm traps that casts tier 9 spells aren't a mundane thing that they sell in every small town shop.

You can do anything with magic if you are prepared, no arguments there. But you cannot do everything. Not enough slots and consumables for that. Your limited resources are much, much better spent doing something more useful than replacing the party rogue. Unless your DM does not restrict rest, which changes things significantly.

And any 17th level Wizard would be able to make these traps with enough money. Liches are far from the only ones around.

 

[Cael]

I an not saying that spells are better than a rogue, only that if the group needs it(ie - on my S&W group, we have 3 magic users, one cleric and av druid), is possible to use spells to counter a trap. Just like you can use control undead and other stuff to deal with a undead infestation as a caster, but you would't be better than a paladin specialized on dealing with undeads.

PS : All of this traps would only be placed to protect a lich phylactery for eg. Auto arm traps that casts tier 9 spells aren't a mundane thing that they sell in every small town shop.

You can do anything with magic if you are prepared, no arguments there. But you cannot do everything. Not enough slots and consumables for that. Your limited resources are much, much better spent doing something more useful than replacing the party rogue. Unless your DM does not restrict rest, which changes things significantly.

And any 17th level Wizard would be able to make these traps with enough money. Liches are far from the only ones around.

It is the XP component that will stop you doing that, unless your wizard is somehow getting free XP in large quantities all the time.

And 76k gold is not an insignificant investment, being the equivalent of 1.5 +5 weapons.

 

[Cryomancer]

I an not saying that spells are better than a rogue, only that if the group needs it(ie - on my S&W group, we have 3 magic users, one cleric and av druid), is possible to use spells to counter a trap. Just like you can use control undead and other stuff to deal with a undead infestation as a caster, but you would't be better than a paladin specialized on dealing with undeads.

PS : All of this traps would only be placed to protect a lich phylactery for eg. Auto arm traps that casts tier 9 spells aren't a mundane thing that they sell in every small town shop.

You can do anything with magic if you are prepared, no arguments there. But you cannot do everything. Not enough slots and consumables for that. Your limited resources are much, much better spent doing something more useful than replacing the party rogue. Unless your DM does not restrict rest, which changes things significantly.

And any 17th level Wizard would be able to make these traps with enough money. Liches are far from the only ones around.

It is the XP component that will stop you doing that, unless your wizard is somehow getting free XP in large quantities all the time.

And 76k gold is not an insignificant investment, being the equivalent of 1.5 +5 weapons.

XP and gold. According to his own attachment, it costs 76,500 gold coins and 6120 XP to make that trap. 10 traps like that can cost enough XP to make a lv 20 wizard into a lv 16 wizard( 190,000-61,200 ). A scroll of wail of the banshee costs 3,825 gp. +5 weapons aren't common either. Most nobles private guard on Glantri, a very high magical kingdom, has +1/+2/+3 weapons.

Not mentioning that even a high level rogue is not grantee to detect a trap with DC 34 to search and 34 to disable unless he has ridiculous high stats, picked feats to give skill focus on this skills and so on. I just said that summons can do all types of jobs on AD&D, that they are the 2e "CodZillas" and somehow, we are talking about 3e in a thread about a 5e game... Sorry for bringing 2e stuff here and derailing the topic.

 

[Cael]

I an not saying that spells are better than a rogue, only that if the group needs it(ie - on my S&W group, we have 3 magic users, one cleric and av druid), is possible to use spells to counter a trap. Just like you can use control undead and other stuff to deal with a undead infestation as a caster, but you would't be better than a paladin specialized on dealing with undeads.

PS : All of this traps would only be placed to protect a lich phylactery for eg. Auto arm traps that casts tier 9 spells aren't a mundane thing that they sell in every small town shop.

You can do anything with magic if you are prepared, no arguments there. But you cannot do everything. Not enough slots and consumables for that. Your limited resources are much, much better spent doing something more useful than replacing the party rogue. Unless your DM does not restrict rest, which changes things significantly.

And any 17th level Wizard would be able to make these traps with enough money. Liches are far from the only ones around.

It is the XP component that will stop you doing that, unless your wizard is somehow getting free XP in large quantities all the time.

And 76k gold is not an insignificant investment, being the equivalent of 1.5 +5 weapons.

XP and gold. According to his own attachment, it costs 76,500 gold coins and 6120 XP to make that trap. 10 traps like that can cost enough XP to make a lv 20 wizard into a lv 16 wizard( 190,000-61,200 ). A scroll of wail of the banshee costs 3,825 gp. +5 weapons aren't common either. Most nobles private guard on Glantri, a very high magical kingdom, has +1/+2/+3 weapons.

Not mentioning that even a high level rogue is not grantee to detect a trap with DC 34 to search and 34 to disable unless he has ridiculous high stats, picked feats to give skill focus on this skills and so on. I just said that summons can do all types of jobs on AD&D, that they are the 2e "CodZillas" and somehow, we are talking about 3e in a thread about a 5e game... Sorry for bringing 2e stuff here and derailing the topic.

You can't actually spend XP that will bring you down a level, so he will have to be level 17 and stay at level 17 for at least 3 levels in order to make that many traps of that nature.

Oh, and each trap will take 77 (well, 76.5 to be precise) days to make.

 

[Xamenos]

Not mentioning that even a high level rogue is not grantee to detect a trap with DC 34 to search and 34 to disable unless he has ridiculous high stats, picked feats to give skill focus on this skills and so on. I just said that summons can do all types of jobs on AD&D, that they are the 2e "CodZillas" and somehow, we are talking about 3e in a thread about a 5e game... Sorry for bringing 2e stuff here and derailing the topic.

Let's say it's a 16lvl rogue, perfectly reasonable for a CR10 trap, and you did specify high-level. He'll have +19 from ranks, +8 Dex (17 at chargen, 21 with the raises, 27 with gloves), +2 from masterwork tools, so he passes on a 5. I'm not even counting any spell buffs you might give him. And he could even have a custom skill-increasing magic item and make the check an auto-pass, but I'm not assuming that at all.

And your big plan to beat the traps without a rogue is to assume you won't encounter traps because they're too expensive and difficult to make. How droll. I miss the days of the older edition murderdungeons.

 

[Cael]

Not mentioning that even a high level rogue is not grantee to detect a trap with DC 34 to search and 34 to disable unless he has ridiculous high stats, picked feats to give skill focus on this skills and so on. I just said that summons can do all types of jobs on AD&D, that they are the 2e "CodZillas" and somehow, we are talking about 3e in a thread about a 5e game... Sorry for bringing 2e stuff here and derailing the topic.

Let's say it's a 16lvl rogue, perfectly reasonable for a CR10 trap, and you did specify high-level. He'll have +19 from ranks, +8 Dex (17 at chargen, 21 with the raises, 27 with gloves), +2 from masterwork tools, so he passes on a 5. I'm not even counting any spell buffs you might give him. And he could even have a custom skill-increasing magic item and make the check an auto-pass, but I'm not assuming that at all.

And your big plan to beat the traps without a rogue is to assume you won't encounter traps because they're too expensive and difficult to make. How droll. I miss the days of the older edition murderdungeons.

A CR10 anything is aimed at a level 8-12 party. That is how 3.x was designed.

 

[Xamenos]

A CR10 anything is aimed at a level 8-12 party. That is how 3.x was designed.

CR10 traps are literally as high as it gets in the 3.5 DMG. A party is supposed to be able to deal with four same-CR encounters per day before needing to rest. It's going to be a very unsatisfying dungeon if those encounters are all traps. That's why you use lots of them with lower CRs. And how would you expect a level 10 party to survive even a couple meteor swarm traps anyway?

Also, I had forgotten, but regarding trap cost:

Which leaves only the XP cost. I will admit I had completely disregarded that, as I ended up houseruling away the assinine xp costs even before I moved to Pathfinder that doesn't have something as stupid.

 

[Cryomancer]

Yep. Was a mistake to talk about traps and rogue stuff. I never played as one, nor even readed about rogues. My knowledge aobuti t is like Reinhardt knowledge about D&D magic users... Anyway, back to BG3, I still think that BG3 could at least implement a way to speed up animations. Believe or not, I killed 2 jabberwock in less than 2 minutes on turn based mode. While on BG3, I spended 1h 13m killing goblins.

I will admit I had completely disregarded that, as I ended up houseruling away the assinine xp costs even before I moved to Pathfinder that doesn't have something as stupid.

This I agree. Lets suppose that a archwizard goal is to replace the instituition of slavery with constructs. If he spends years studding and making constructs and seeling he somehow becomes WEAKER on 3.5e.

 

[Yosharian]

Lmao, surely players don't think that DMs will give two fucks about 'costs' associated with a trap? That trap is going into at least one of my dungeons and I don't care how much it costs haha

 

[Yosharian]

I must say though, I do tend to avoid having traps for which the solution is merely 'Rogue uses Disable Device and hopes he rolls high enough'.

I just feel that's kinda boring and prefer traps where the players must think about what the solution is.

 

[Cryomancer]

'costs' associated with a trap? That trap is going into at least one of my dungeons and I don't care how much it costs haha

Well, the player is playing "Test of Warlods" and decided to build a stronghold and place traps in his stronghold to defend a artifact for eg, I would manage the costs as a DM. But obviously, a Villain Lich would have every time in the world to prepare really nasty traps. Think on Tomb of Horrors level of "nasty traps".

 

[Harthwain]

Lmao, surely players don't think that DMs will give two fucks about 'costs' associated with a trap? That trap is going into at least one of my dungeons and I don't care how much it costs haha

In my opinion it depends on what kind of dungeon we're talking about. For some places anything can go, because the place can be old or rich enough to have anything. Even moderately powerful magic users should be able to put down a bunch of spell traps. For more mundane places though, it doesn't make sense to have over-the-top sophisticated traps.

I must say though, I do tend to avoid having traps for which the solution is merely 'Rogue uses Disable Device and hopes he rolls high enough'.

I just feel that's kinda boring and prefer traps where the players must think about what the solution is.

You can give players subtle hints for traps when they don't have a rogue with them. And make sure the trap is something nasty. Not necessarily damage-wise, just to make the lasting effect of the trap is hinderance enough for the players to think twice before they decide to "tank" a trap again in their dungeoneering career.

Here is an interesting article on traps from GM's perspective.

 

[Yosharian]

Angry GM should basically be required reading for anyone who wants to DM a PnP RPG

 

[Larianshill]

How George Ziets would make BG3

Why am I not surprised you want an RPG where you play a literal, actual god.

traps

I almost don't use traps in my games, because they're so binary. Either you have a rogue in your party, and they don't do anything, or you don't, and they fuck you up. There's nothing interesting and interactive about them, unless the DM has some engineering knowledge and asks "Well, how do you disable this trap?". I don't have any such engineering knowledge.
Last time I used traps, it was to ward off specific areas from the players, to make sure they don't immediately beeline to the boss and kill him, bypassing the dungeon. There was supposed to be a key somewhere in the dungeon that would disable the traps. They bruteforced the traps, taking fingers of death to the face knowingly, and killed the boss.
I actually should have killed one PC there by rules, but I didn't - to my shame - because creating a new character with this player would be a far bigger pain in the ass than letting him evade consequences of his dumb decisions.

I did kill him a few sessions later.

 

[Reinhardt]

Thing is - you DON'T NEED wail of banshee. Simple confusion or something like that can do wonders for example.

 

[Cryomancer]

Why am I not surprised you want an RPG where you play a literal, actual god.

Would be cool and unique. Would not only be the first CRPG D&D adaptation where the Limbo appears but also the first CRPG where you can play as a deity. And there are rules to play as a deity on FR or as a Immortal on Mystara. I like when RPG's tries to do unique things. For eg, the Dark Sun games(Shattered Lands & Wake of the Ravager) has a very different world, with unique races and classes, Arcanum, where you have the fantasy world under industrial revolution and can craft steampunk stuff. Mask of the Betrayer is unique and one of the reasons is that you play as a "soul eater".

Either you have a rogue in your party, and they don't do anything, or you don't, and they fuck you up.

Yep. Traps on 5E are very lackluster. But you don't need to have a "engineers degree" to come up with really nasty traps like a pressure plate that triggers a ballista which fires a poisoned spear or if there is gunpowder in your world, you can do really nasty traps with it. Just imagine being a trap that activates a cannon which fires a large caliber canister shell or a poisoned flechette rounds.

Or even, just trigger a alarm and make the entire "dungeon/city/fortress/whatever" into alert mode.

 

[deuxhero]

The only fun traps are
1: Ones where bypassing them happens after they trigger, like the flooding room (both water and sand variations), the crushing walls/ceiling, ect.,
2: The trap is triggered by an incorrect puzzle solution
3: The "trap" is just a noisemaker to alert monsters of food
4: The trap is part of a combat encounter.
5: The "trap" is an environmental hazard and ideally one that can be used against enemies with repositioning abilities.

 

[Reinhardt]

fun traps

You know, they are placed to kill you, not for your entertainment. Respect trapmaker's work, dammit!

 

[Xamenos]

I must say though, I do tend to avoid having traps for which the solution is merely 'Rogue uses Disable Device and hopes he rolls high enough'.

I just feel that's kinda boring and prefer traps where the players must think about what the solution is.

I don't mind those traps at all. I have no problem with monsters for which the solution is merely "Fighter hits them until they die". The poor rogue should get his chance to shine in one of his specialties. Otherwise people start thinking they can replace him with a Wand of Summon Monster. More elaborate traps should be used on special occasions only.

Angry GM should basically be required reading for anyone who wants to DM a PnP RPG

Meh. There are some occasional good nuggets in his long-winded rants, but his style is not for everyone.

 

[Cael]

How George Ziets would make BG3

Why am I not surprised you want an RPG where you play a literal, actual god.

traps

I almost don't use traps in my games, because they're so binary. Either you have a rogue in your party, and they don't do anything, or you don't, and they fuck you up. There's nothing interesting and interactive about them, unless the DM has some engineering knowledge and asks "Well, how do you disable this trap?". I don't have any such engineering knowledge.
Last time I used traps, it was to ward off specific areas from the players, to make sure they don't immediately beeline to the boss and kill him, bypassing the dungeon. There was supposed to be a key somewhere in the dungeon that would disable the traps. They bruteforced the traps, taking fingers of death to the face knowingly, and killed the boss.
I actually should have killed one PC there by rules, but I didn't - to my shame - because creating a new character with this player would be a far bigger pain in the ass than letting him evade consequences of his dumb decisions.

I did kill him a few sessions later.

You use fun traps like Bestow Curse, Feeblemind, Ray of Stupidity, Shivering Touch attached to a Spectral Hand, that kind of thing. They can tank hp losses because of spells like Heal. Can they tank a bunch of stat lowering maluses with the BBEG about to rampage through their ranks?

 

[Reinhardt]

Ray of Stupidity

It won't work on someone who already affected.