Possible rogue based quest

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One of the reasons we have traps that require a super high skill to beat the DC, is to offer a reward to people who do stick with the rogue class, pump a lot of points into their skills, and keep around items that aid them in their pursuit of treasure. There aren't many of these traps in the game, and they tend to be off the beaten path. This is our way of letting those players feel special. They make a sacrifice to attain that level of mastery, so they get the bonus. If we didn't cater to them once in a while, they would feel like it was an absolute waste to dedicate themselves so.

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Unfortunately, this isn't really true. I used to play a straight rogue, primarily for our smallish guild to have a competent trap and door specialist when needed. I rerolled him just before Mod4 went live as a Rogue1/Ranger11(now 13). He has maximum ranks in spot, search, disable and open locks, a +6 Int item and +13 items for all skills. He is quite as capable as almost all pure rogues at finding, disabling and unlocking anything in the game. The Cabal trap is a little different, but that is the only one I haven't been able to handle. Add the Wild Instincts spell, and a multi class with 1 level of rogue gets the warm fuzzy feeling you want the pure dedicated rogues to get.

Three things I'll put down about traps in DDO.

1) Randomize where the traps are, what type they are, and where the box is.

Right now its almost impossible to be a rogue and not have someone start jumping up and down in front of the (hidden) box before you even get in range to search for it. The same goes for people saying "need these buffs here" and "spike trap here" before you even can see where the trap they're describing would be. If the traps are random in location, type, and box location it makes memorizing a quest letter-perfect much less likely. That in turns keeps a little bit of fear (and replayability) in the quest.

This also has the nice effect of making a rogue-heavy build (if not a pure rogue) and combinations of complementary builds (ex. wizard/ rogue for search & disable partnered with a high-spot & sneak ranger to sense the traps without aggroing monsters) more useful. We already see some of this when groups at the proper level (and not twinked to the nines) run through the few quests with random traps (one of the LotD, VoN2, Hiding in Plain Sight, etc).

2) Increase the variety of effects traps have.

Most traps are the lethal/ damage type right now and frankly unless the damage is absolutely insane (ie Cabal chest trap on elite) such that death is 99% assured for the 500 hp barbarian, they're at best minor annoyances to the group. What we need are a greater variety of traps that create real problems for the entire party without necessarily killing (or even directly harming) anyone. The falling-floor trap above is a great example (if the dungeon makes proper use of the trap). Say after the floor falls away, the only way forward is through a maze-like series of interconnected vertical shafts (possibly laced with more traditional traps) that will add a minimum of say an hour to the quest. Also make where the "falling floor" traps are located random to keep people from memorizing the "one true route" through them. Now we have a quest that while a rogue might not be required to finish it, having one (or the mix of skills & spells in the group that can duplicate a rogue) sure makes the quest more viable.

Another thing would be traps that instead of doing any damage, have effects like the rooms in Prison of the Planes, or that trigger other effects. Traps that trigger a room/ corridor-wide effects that suppress (or dispel) characters buffs, negate or severely reduce the effectiveness of the "flavor of the month" spell or weapon effect, and traps that dump additional monster onto the party (ex. a trap that unleashes a horde of rust monsters when the group is fighting a large group of flesh renders). The idea being not as much that groups can't "brute force" their way through the quests, as that the choice is either give a few minutes thought to traps (ie bring a rogue or people who have some rogue-ish abilities) or suffer serious delays, costs, and terror when your 500hp barbarian has no haste, no blur, the heals are coming at 25% effectiveness, and you don't have the option to use a Power 5 weapon on the monster.

3) Greater diversity in how and when traps trigger, and where the area they affect is.

One thing I've noticed with all the current traps, is that they can be defeated by the simple method of sending someone with excessive reflex saves & evasion, or massive hit points, through first. The reason is because all traps currently activate right after the first person hits the trigger. One way to bring back a little fear about running down a corridor you don't know is to add the element of (random) trigger types, differing delays to the trigger, and not always having the trap affecting the trigger area.

For example: what if instead of triggering right after the 30+ reflex & evasion melee goes past, a trap triggers 10 seconds after they're past and it affects the area 20 feet behind the trigger (which is at a door). Why this becomes more dangerous is that this way after the group is told "no traps" by the spot-less bait, as they move forward the combination of time-delay and set-back distance mean Tail-End Charlie (usually the low-reflex cleric or a caster) is the one having to face the DC 30+ "save or become sliced squishy" trap and not the 300 hp "I only fail on a 1" trap bait. This way the group has to either be sure to bring someone along with the ability to sense (if not find) the traps, move forward very slowly, or risk the losing "random" group members to traps.

I think traps that have nasty effects that aren't normal everyday things, like curses and such that can be removed would be awesome.

Imagine a trap that sprays the party with an oily substance that doesn't wipe off so easily. It could be magical in nature. If a melee class gets hit, it causes monsters to avoid them and switch targets. If a caster class gets hit, it attracks monsters to them.

Sure in time the oil would wear off. But imagine the fun while it's on the people.

Traps that people don't want to get hit by would really make people let the rogue do their job.

As a rogue, I wince everytime it takes me 15 seconds to make a search and disable animation. Some people complain they have to stand still for 10 seconds to get thier crack, err haste, let alone waste 15seconds to avoid 40 damage.

I agree that traps in this game need to be rethought. I understand the dev reasons for not having truely random traps. 1. If they were truely random, you could potentially enter a dungeon only to die from a trap exploding in your face. 2. With most people screaming for new content and higher level content ALL the time, when do they have the time to go back and retro-fit all the existing content. I'm sure there are others, but I would guess those are the main two.

However, even though this is not PnP, it is supposed to be based off of PnP. In that game, it is the common goal of a group of adventurers with differing but complimentary skills to seek out loot and achieve goals. Admittedly, it is easier in PnP as a truely turn based game to wait for the rogue to find and disable a trap because it takes that same time to roll the dice for that as it does for the Barbarian to roll the dice to kill the next obstacle in the party's way. While in DDO, the melee players are swinging away in real time and get anxious if they have to stop mouse clicking for 10 seconds.

The fact in DDO remains that the majority of players in the game have run all the quests 100s of times and know everything inside and out. I know I do. Rogues are barely needed as most people just take the damage and heal up. People are sooo into the zerging routine that they do complain if the rogue doesn't have everything down before front people are there. Everything has become go faster, go faster, get to the next quest because there is no reason for them to slow down.

As for the arguement that there are a few traps that "reward" pure or nearly pure rogues, it has already been stated that a 1 rogue/13 ranger can get his/her skills very close to a pure rogue. At that point, all a rogue can do to be better is spend ALL his action points on WotM, DD, OL, Search, and Spot enhancements. Unfortunately, this is character suicide. WotM is a good goal to shoot for, but anything past that and there is a good chance that all you are is a one trick pony. "Hey guys, I can get the Cabal Trap!" "Great, but can you help us fight to get there?" "Umm... I can swing my weapons, but I'm really squishy, and I don't hit a lot..." I know that is kind of an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Since traps are, at this point in time, not the major focus of most quests, you need to be able to hold your own as a pure rogue and have the player skills and build setup to survive your 4-7d6 sneak attack output.

Most groups won't pick up a rogue unless they can significately contribute to DPS, and a well build rogue can excel at that. However, they aren't shooting for the Cabal trap on that build either. I don't think making traps that a rogue has to spend everything on to get is the answer. At the same time, there isn't much game reason to stay pure rogue these day. Crippling Strike is nice for rogues who stay rogueish, but in truth, the 7d6 sneak attack is the better goal/advantage to be shooting for.

I like the idea of traps that have alternate bad side effects other than raw damage that would make a party less likely to blow through quests. Random trap trigger points would be nice too. Would be fun to not know if you were standing in the save spot if people were going to set off a trap. I think as a community, we need to keep circulating ideas as to want can be done to help the rogue class more needed without making them absolutely necessary in every quest.

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Originally Posted by Snike

As a rogue, I wince everytime it takes me 15 seconds to make a search and disable animation. Some people complain they have to stand still for 10 seconds to get thier crack, err haste, let alone waste 15seconds to avoid 40 damage.

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I remember doing VoN4 a few weeks back where everyone just ran full speed through the whole thing. LFM didn't say speed run, but even so watching a Cleric run through a blade trap healing himself up as he went was disturbing. I finally said, "So basically I'm here for the 10% XP?" Silence.

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Originally Posted by The Rocking Dead

One of the reasons we have traps that require a super high skill to beat the DC, is to offer a reward to people who do stick with the Rogue class, pump a lot of points into their skills, and keep around items that aid them in their pursuit of treasure.

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It is great to hear this is the intention but, from someone who's had a rogue from day one, I have to say the rogue is dead IMHO. I love my Rogue but I see no reason to play it, no reason to wait around for someone who's trying to get favor to pull me into a quest I've done 100 times already. The reality is a Rogue is virtually worthless in every other quest so we do not get to do anything except what you have mentioned in your post.

This is really the issue for the Rogue. STK was a great thing but once people got used to going around it, no one cared about a Rogue.

While you are focusing on making rewards for Rogue's, there is no benefit for parties to use one. Here's what most parties are looking for in a player benefit, Damage, Damage, Healing, Crowd Control, Damage. What is a Rogue, one round of Damage, Spell Point Sponge, Res, one round of damage, repeat.

Matter of fact is the Rogue does not have enough DPS advantage to be a party member. AC of monsters at lvl 10 quests makes them virtually useless. Worse than Rangers, don't see a lot of those anymore either.

In a few days very few melee classes will be able to supply enough damage to be very effective, not just rogues. The days of melees at end game are dead unless you have an extra trick to help the caster-gods behind you. (see intimidate)

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Originally Posted by Snike

Whoot! Can Perform/Bluff/Diplomacy/Tumble/Jump/Spot/Listen/Swim/Repair/Heal at 60+ mean something too?

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A couple of those already are pretty useful. Jump can be used in a good number of spots to avoid different fights and traps. Id say its one of the more useful skills in the game right now.

As far as spot goes, true porfessionals dont need to spring traps to know theyre there.;) Also with the new mod, it will be extremely useful in finding stealthed enemies.

Would love to see tumble work more like PnP tumble though, there was just a thread the other day talking about possible changes that would make this an awesome skill.

Alot of those skills can be very nice if you take them into account when making a character. You just have to plan. Making it a point to use them can add much enjoyment to the game as well as set you apart from the rogues that dont.

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Originally Posted by The Rocking Dead

We're exploring some options for making trapsmiths a little more useful. We want rogues to feel wanted, afterall. I agree, traps which waste a significant amount of time or resources ultimately do a better job of exhibiting a rogue's usefulness than one which poses a minor inconvenience.


I've got plenty of nasty little traps lined up for you in Module 5. I hope you'll enjoy running into them!

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Great to hear. My main is a Rogue and I love playing dungeons where he gets to ply his trade. I'd love to see more rogue dungeons and looking forward to trying some of the MOD5 runs.

Of course, you can't please all of the people all of the time. The Cabal chest is a great example. One side says everyone should be able to get it, even rogues with 1 level, otherwise what's the point. The other side says only specialized trap smiths should get it and keep it like it is. Seems like everyone has an opinion on this single chest. I say put some content in that requires specializes builds and rewards those players - even some dungeons should require some stealth or rogue work (Rogues aren't the only classes that can sneak/etc)

Would be nice if people understood this concept and accepted the fact that some characters will fail or be unable to perform in some situations/dungeons - The simple solution is to build a character that fills that role or put up a LFM if you intend to try to run that.

Generalizing in the design of every dungeon sets DDO on par with the lesser MMO's that are more generalized in nature and don't allow for specialized characters or builds. I think a balanced design here is the best design.

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Originally Posted by llevenbaxx

A couple of those already are pretty useful. Jump can be used in a good number of spots to avoid different fights and traps. Id say its one of the more useful skills in the game right now.

Jump 40 is awsome. Nothing great about 40+ Jump, even if you scrafice to get it. That was the point of the post. None of those skills matter to "scarafice to get 60+"

As far as spot goes, true porfessionals dont need to spring traps to know theyre there.;) Also with the new mod, it will be extremely useful in finding stealthed enemies.

Same... no benefit for 60+

Would love to see tumble work more like PnP tumble though, there was just a thread the other day talking about possible changes that would make this an awesome skill.

Maybe I was wrong with tumble vs. fall damage, but I figured there was a cap like jump.

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Originally Posted by kailus

It is great to hear this is the intention but, from someone who's had a rogue from day one, I have to say the rogue is dead IMHO. I love my Rogue but I see no reason to play it, no reason to wait around for someone who's trying to get favor to pull me into a quest I've done 100 times already. The reality is a Rogue is virtually worthless in every other quest so we do not get to do anything except what you have mentioned in your post.

This is really the issue for the Rogue. STK was a great thing but once people got used to going around it, no one cared about a Rogue.

While you are focusing on making rewards for Rogue's, there is no benefit for parties to use one. Here's what most parties are looking for in a player benefit, Damage, Damage, Healing, Crowd Control, Damage. What is a Rogue, one round of Damage, Spell Point Sponge, Res, one round of damage, repeat.

Matter of fact is the Rogue does not have enough DPS advantage to be a party member. AC of monsters at lvl 10 quests makes them virtually useless. Worse than Rangers, don't see a lot of those anymore either.

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Wow, I think you are mistakedly using the term rogue, when you really mean trapsmith. If all you set you rogue up to do is traps then of course there will be limited applications for him. This is a limitation you put on yourself though, with all the equipment/enhancements/feats/skills currently in the game, there is nothing in your list of what a group is looking for a rogue cant be good at.

Also, I dont understand why people feel it is a near traiterous offense to take any number of levels of another class to become a little more affective in the areas they may find themselves lacking. Its all in the planning. Sorry, I just hate to see blatantly false posts like the above about my second favorite class to play. Hell, it might be the best class in the game. That is all.

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Originally Posted by kailus

It is great to hear this is the intention but, from someone who's had a rogue from day one, I have to say the rogue is dead IMHO. I love my Rogue but I see no reason to play it, no reason to wait around for someone who's trying to get favor to pull me into a quest I've done 100 times already. The reality is a Rogue is virtually worthless in every other quest so we do not get to do anything except what you have mentioned in your post.

This is really the issue for the Rogue. STK was a great thing but once people got used to going around it, no one cared about a Rogue.

While you are focusing on making rewards for Rogue's, there is no benefit for parties to use one. Here's what most parties are looking for in a player benefit, Damage, Damage, Healing, Crowd Control, Damage. What is a Rogue, one round of Damage, Spell Point Sponge, Res, one round of damage, repeat.

Matter of fact is the Rogue does not have enough DPS advantage to be a party member. AC of monsters at lvl 10 quests makes them virtually useless. Worse than Rangers, don't see a lot of those anymore either.

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WOW! While I have had problems from time to time getting groups with my Rogue, this is because of other players perceptions, not reality. They tend to see things your way and unless they NEED a Rogue they would rather have something else.

"What is a Rogue, one round of Damage, Spell Point Sponge, Res, one round of damage, repeat." Um... not if you learn how to play one. I do NOT use the damage enhancements for Sneak Attack. Instead I use ones that give me more accuracy such as the Dwarven one to help with hitting with axes. I also am weird enough to use Cleave with a Rogue. I can Cleave, Great Cleave, and still not have agro if I am following up a 2hander melee. Diplomacy and bluff can clear your agro so you start getting sneak attacks again. A Deception weapon can give you sneak attacks even if you are the ONLY target for agro.

As for AC at level 10+ quests. Yes, my level 12 Rogue has issues hitting level 14 Elite quest mobs. Part of that is that I use a strength based weapon instead of being a maxed out Dex Rogue with weapon finesse. However, a maxed out Dex Rogue with Weapon Finesse and Precision along with a few good "utility" weapons can be a great addition to a group. In my case I can dish out DPS because I am doing Sneak Attacks on nearly every hit I make.

I also:

• Heal Warforged with wands and enhancements, a task some people grumble about.
• Use wands for DD. You know those High AC mobs even the fighters have issues hitting, Scorching Ray to the face tends to work, or a Searing Light. Yes the casters can do this better, but you know what, sometimes they are lying down on the job because of the return flamestrikes/chain lightnings I laugh at. Why didn't they PK FoD them? Well, often these high AC mobs are red names.
• Use wands/scrolls for healing. I've had numerous Clerics thank me for getting them up off the ground. I also carry Remove Curse/Disease/Poison and Lesser Restoration to help out.
• Get to places others have difficulty going.(pit anyone?)

This is in addition to my normal tasks of:

• Disabling traps
• Providing additional DPS
• Spotting hidden mobs before they slip past the melee crew and agro on the caster/healer.
• Running through dangerous traps to pull levers, grab items, for the group.
• Use Bluff/Diplomacy on those few NPCs in quest you can do that with.

Now, there could be some improvements to the Rogue class and some have been listed here, but overall a Rogue is useful and a good one very useful. It's the "Sorry I don't do anything but hit things." I usually find useless despite them often being the most numerous members of most standard groups.

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Originally Posted by Snike

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I guess I just dont think because its possible to get a +60 to jump there should be content that only a +60 jump character should be able to do. If you are going to specialize to the point you sacrifice a number of other things, you had better have your own designs in utilizing it.

I mean, what are the major benefits in staying generalized?(for example) I have have a +40 to tumble, jump, sneak and open lock. Im not asking for content that only a character who has these "qualifying" stats can tumble fast/far enough before the entrance is sealed to get to the +40 jump ledge then sneak by the bad guy to get to the locked chest to find itemX . That wouldnt make any sense to me in the same respect specialized content for one specialty doesnt. Geuss its just me.

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Originally Posted by llevenbaxx

I mean, what are the major benefits in staying generalized?(for example) I have have a +40 to tumble, jump, sneak and open lock. Im not asking for content that only a character who has these "qualifying" stats can tumble fast/far enough before the entrance is sealed to get to the +40 jump ledge then sneak by the bad guy to get to the locked chest to find itemX . That wouldnt make any sense to me in the same respect specialized content for one specialty doesnt. Geuss its just me.

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Valid point.

IMO, if Turbine really wants rogues to feel special, they have to involve more applications for their OTHER skills (or implement some of the many skills dropped in translation from PnP).

a pure-classed rogue will have FAR more capped skills than any other character. Your example of tasks that require combinations of these skills is better than pretending a pure-class rogue has better trap skills than every possible multiclass.

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Originally Posted by The Rocking Dead

One of the reasons we have traps that require a super high skill to beat the DC, is to offer a reward to people who do stick with the rogue class, pump a lot of points into their skills, and keep around items that aid them in their pursuit of treasure.

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You just described 95% of the rogues that are built in the game. Nearly every pure rogue is a trapsmithing specialist, just like nearly every wizard and sorceror has "Wall of Fire." Taking the trapsmithing speciality away from some rogues to benefit a very small group of non-uber "elites" is actually detrimental to all of them.

Had a halfling rogue disable the Cabal trap on elite, with the help of my bard. First time I had seen that since the release of Mod 4. Then we did Feast or Famine where the caster died because he was in a trap that the same halfling rogue who disabled Cabal couldn't spot.

The math is off.

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Originally Posted by The Rocking Dead

2. To slow you down. When the enemy knows you're coming, they look for a way to give themselves more time to prepare. In the metagame sense, this helps prevent players from merely zerging through content. Good examples include the telekenesis traps in And the Dead Shall Rise, and the mines in Made to Order.

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This is what I knew was happening, and immensely disliked. Building traps because they serve some metagame objective is the very definition of contrived. Most of the fanatical players of this game are fairly intelligent geeks. They know when something has been put in front of them merely because they are being challenged - and they take it on as a personal mission to defeat the challenge themselves.

It's part of the reason rogues are shunned - because they are perceived as taking that challenge away. I'll repeat it again: make the traps seem real, and the rogue's role in the party becomes more real.

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Originally Posted by Raithe

This is what I knew was happening, and immensely disliked. Building traps because they serve some metagame objective is the very definition of contrived.

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Umm, so why is it metagame for the badguys to leave traps with the objective to slow down invaders?

Not every trap will be of high enough quality to kill an opponent. Think Home Alone: the glass under the windowsill wasn't gonna kill the theif, but it was sure to slow him down if he used that point of entry (which was uncertain enough not to devote more effort to).

The swinging paint cans on the other hand...

edit: yes, he stated a metagame reason, but that doesn't negate the RP explanation of the trap.

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Originally Posted by The Rocking Dead

Lastly, I hear your concerns over the search and disable actions, especially in regards to the fact that people are willing to suck up the damage to save a little time. All I can say is that I'll bring it up for discussion and we'll see if anything comes of it.

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Thanks for your feedback on this thread Rocking.

On this particular point I think would could look to PnP as supporting some of the suggested ideas. For example one person brought up the fact that a good spot should reveal the trap. After all, you "spotted" something. In the dungeons designed by Wizards almost all traps in 3.x have both a spot and search DC so that if they hit the rather high spot check they reveal the trap. If they miss that spot by a bit then just "something seems wrong" (basically what happens now in DDO) and if they blow the spot completely they get no warning.

Only if they don't outright reveal the trap in the spot do you have to search and try to hit that DC.

The same BTW would apply to hidden doors.

A change to add a "spot that reveals" DC to doors and traps would not only improve playability but would be truer to D&D.

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Originally Posted by The Rocking Dead

I agree, traps which waste a significant amount of time or resources ultimately do a better job of exhibiting a rogue's usefulness than one which poses a minor inconvenience.

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A suggestion - a de-buffing trap. You run through an anti-magic field or a break enchantment spell is triggered, stripping you of your buffs. That would slow zergers down for certain, if only to avoid party caster aggro. Also, why wouldn't high level dungeons in particular have debuff zones, especially if they know you are coming?

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Originally Posted by Lorien the First One

And there should be some optionals that NEED a rogue. No rogue? Fine, you just lost that optional mob and the associated xp & chest.

Fluffy is right. If you made the search animiation faster (it is PAINFULLY slow) it would be huge. A slight increase in the disable animation also wouldn't hurt but it isn't as bad.

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Yes, yes, yes.

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Originally Posted by barecm

The unfortunate reality is that Turbine will not develop quests for a single class.

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OK -

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Originally Posted by Hence

What about other things Rogues and other classes can do? Like sneak and hide? ... All classess should be allowed an alternative way to complete quests then just hack-n-slash. Or alternative ways of helping a party complete a quest faster and easier besides just "trap-monkey".

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Helped you out Hence. I completely agree with your premise. I would like to see less quests with "kill everything" to win and more "alternative" ending solutions that make insidious bonus worth trying for. Why do you always have to kill the named at the end rather than sneak and steal? And not only rogues sneak and steal.

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Originally Posted by The Rocking Dead

Lastly, I hear your concerns over the search and disable actions, especially in regards to the fact that people are willing to suck up the damage to save a little time. All I can say is that I'll bring it up for discussion and we'll see if anything comes of it.

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Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Laith

Umm, so why is it metagame for the badguys to leave traps with the objective to slow down invaders?

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There are at least 2 problems with what is actually happening during game design processes:

1) Dungeons are made too linear. When it's obvious to everyone in the group that the path they are on is the only one available, traps along that route necessarily feel contrived. It appears more like someone knew when you were coming and set up the main thoroughfare accordingly. On the other hand, a side corridor filled with traps that opens up behind or at the flank of guards feels like a defense against a possibility.

Strangely, the traps mentioned in my quote (Made to Order and And the Dead Shall Rise) are actually some of the better traps in the game. Its kind of sad.

2) The AI can't deal with it. Once a trap has been set off, denizens are not necessarily alerted to the party's presence, and they are extremely likely to go running through the trap themselves, taking damage. The mystical nature of this behavior actually just adds to the feeling of things being contrived.