Trap DCs

[Thrudh]

Kay... so I go into VON 5 on hard (not elite)... just to test out these traps...

My trapsmith is a drow bard/rogue... 12/3... but pretty dedicated to the roguely arts... I started with an 18 Int and I have Disable, Spot, and Search all maxed out (Open Lock nearly maxed), along with Rogue I Spot and Search enhancements, and Drow II Spot and Search enhancements...

So I'm fairly serious about my role as the trapsmith....

My Dex is 24 (+7)
My Reflex saves are +8 from bard, +3 from Rogue = +11
I get +1 Trap Sense from 3rd level of Rogue
I have +3 Resistance Item
I have +4 Greater Heroism
I have +2 Head of Good Fortune
I have +1 from parrying weapon
I have +1 from Haste

Total Reflex save: 30

After several deaths running through the hallway with the lightning traps and the spinning blades, I have narrowed down the DCs... I failed on a 9 and saved on a 12... so figure around a 40 DC for a level 10 quest on hard....

Now, I plan on re-arranging my enhancements after I make 16th level... I'll probably be able to gain two points of Dex... I'll spend an Action Point for Trap Sense I.... I'll scour the Auction House for a +5 resistance item.... and maybe I'll get to the point where I only need a 6 or higher to save... which in that room... probably means death... Failing 1 out of 3 rolls for 80-100 points of damage a shot means I'm worthless as a rogue in that quest... even at 16th level with the best gear possible.

Now for those of you who say, "Well hey!, you're not a pure rogue!"... Let's take a hypothetical 11th level rogue into this room... (Pretty reasonable for a 11th level pure rogue to try VON 5 on hard don't you think?)

30 Dex (28 more likely, but let's be generous) +10
7 Reflex saves from 11 levels of Rogue
+3 Trap Sense from 11 levels of Rogue
+4 Trap Blast Goggles
+4 GH
+1 parrying weapon
+1 Haste
+3 Trap Sense enhancements

Total Reflex save: 33

Again, failing on a 6, maybe a 7 or lower... 80-100 points of damage per missed save.... Yeah, that rogue (who is FOCUSED on being on a trapsmith) won't be of much use in there.... You have to make a dozen saves while disarming those traps... Maybe with a dedicated healer... Maybe using up all of your Improved Uncanny Dodges (11th level rogue gets 3 or 4 of those for 20 seconds each?)

And that 30 Dex is almost required... Forget ever making a strength based rogue who can do traps... Cookie-cutter class suddenly...

I'm usually a big cheerleader for the devs... I believe the traps that you have to run through (or stand in!!) are too hard... please review your DCs...

Roll up a test 11th level Rogue, take him into VON5, and see if you feel like a master of traps... The one time you get to shine in full public view... and you die 2-3 times.... yeah that gives you a good reputation, and makes you feel proud of your character.

[ThrasherGT]

In your second example You conveniently left out any resistance item. Even a +4 would give You a 37 and cut Your failure rate in half...........I do agree, However, that the trap DC's are a bit high at the moment....................

[Thrudh]

In your second example You conveniently left out any resistance item. Even a +4 would give You a 37 and cut Your failure rate in half...........I do agree, However, that the trap DC's are a bit high at the moment....................

No, the Trap Blast Goggles are a +4 Reflex save (resistance item), so that was included (but I didn't make it clear... sorry)

[Oran_Lathor]

+4 Trap Blast Goggles


Those are a +4 resistance bonus to reflex.

[llevenbaxx]

Yeah, it seems the game has shifted focus as far as traps are concerned. Skill ranks in w/e skill mean little to nothing, its all about "save or die". Also, Im sure someone will point out that you dont even really have to get hit by any of the traps. You can jump over the lightning(wearing prot jus in case) and sit in the sweet spots while disabling.

I personnally think it is rather bad design/direction in a D&D game but years upon years of FPS/NHL200X/madden/RL sports etc etc has given me freakish hand eye coordination, now its just a matter of figuring the new sweet spots and tricks... also poor game design imo(makes tricks and sweet spots more important than build). You just kind of have to "research" the traps you dont know, get them down on norm, having to make a minimal amount of saves in the process. Its possible, just a little more annoying imo. Overall I would say this has made playing my rogues a little less fun. Traps were never the main focus of any of my rogues builds though,they were just something I did along the way. After all the hubbub I guess its just a new sort of challenge to my type of rogue(must be a glass is half full day).

[Mavnimo]

just wanted to also note the 11 rogue lvls also gives improved evasion cutting the damage in half. rabbit gloves are also another option for +1 more. I personally love the fact that pure rogues/pure dedicated trapsmiths, will make quests easier.

I laughed really hard when I took my 10/3/3 fighter/pally/rogue thru von3 elite and the door force trap killed me with a +39 reflex. I have nearly 400 hp was a little low from zerging and then POW!! failed what i think is a dc 42-45 trap, I did roll low 2 and 3 I think, took 150 or so damage twice.

Von 5 elite I made sure we had a rogue for the traps. I still tested the traps, around a 40-45 dc on those aswell. I love the new dc and damage of elite traps.

[miceelf88]

I REALLY wish the devs would at least talk briefly about this. Even to say they're thinking about it, or that they're not going to consider changing or whatever. The silence is deafening. People have started numerous threads, and for the most part have been very civil and supportive. But this is really getting annoying. Can't we get some kind of response from teh devs on this issue?

[Aladon]

I REALLY wish the devs would at least talk briefly about this. Even to say they're thinking about it, or that they're not going to consider changing or whatever. The silence is deafening. People have started numerous threads, and for the most part have been very civil and supportive. But this is really getting annoying. Can't we get some kind of response from teh devs on this issue?

QFT.

No one is complaining that trap damage went up. That is a good fix.

Almost everyone agrees that the increase in trap damage shouldn't extend to traps that can't be disabled. This seems self-evidently foolish and more likely to be an unintended consequence of the above than an actual design decision.

There is debate on trap DC's. It seems that the core of the debate is the 'sweet spot' of DC's for a given quest and difficulty level. Yes, there is some advocacy of the benefits of learning 'safe spots', et al but this is exactly the kind of meta-game thinking that already plagues DDO. Based on my experience and the discussions I've read, DC's have been adjusted to be too high. Perhaps there is a middle ground, above the old levels but well below these current ones? I know that my WIZ9/ROG1 won't be taking his second ROG level for evasion until DC's get to a level where evasion will help him. This seems contrary to Turbine's apparent desire to require MORE of trap responsive toons.

In any event, I wholeheartedly agree with MiceElf. Turbine, what was your intent here? Are you satisfied that these are the outcomes you'd intended to create or can you consider that perhaps you've moved the slider too far in the correct direction. This is causing many of us frustration and draining fun from the game. We'd like to hear from you.

With respect,

Aladon

[xanvar]

I could be wrong but I didn't see uncanny dodge or improved uncanny dodge in your break down.

[Angelus_dead]

Von 5 elite I made sure we had a rogue for the traps. I still tested the traps, around a 40-45 dc on those aswell. I love the new dc and damage of elite traps.

Why is it good that a level 8 rogue is more than enough on VON5 normal, but a level 16 rogue can barely manage elite?

Would you also like it if the monsters were improved so it takes more than one single level 14 barb to clear them all?

[ahpook]

Agree with the OP. Making traps require a level of specialization that requires sacrifice to the rest of the build is not the way to make rogues more popular. It might make them neccesary for a few parts of quests but exclude them from fully participating in the other 99% of the game content. Make more rogues useful by utilizing their breadth of skills and not the depth of the trapsmithing. We have already seen that multi class rogues can have that kind of depth.

Disabling traps is NOT the most enjoyable part of playing a rogue and if I have to give up combat capability to acheive it, I will retire him.

[ArkoHighStar]

This is where the multiclass splash rogues are starting to have some difficulty, and while I agree that maybe right now they are too high for everyone, if they come down it should not be to their previous levels.
There is a reaosn why full rogues get improved evasion, and improved uncanny dodge and extra trap sense bonuses. An elite trap should challenge a full rogue but should be regularly beatable if well specced, it should hurt a splash rogue who has the skills to disable the trap but simply does not have enough saves to beat the damage.

So bring on higher dc's if full rogues now have an advantage The simple fact is given equal race and levl and dex, a full rogue can hit a 9 better reflex save than any trapsmith multiclass, add in the enhancement bonuses and you are looking at 12

+5 trap sense at 15
+4 improved uncanny dodge(lvl 8) and uncanny dodge(lvl 4)
+3 trap sense ehancement(max is +4 but anyone who takes 1 lvl of rogue gets accessto the first lvl enhancement)

This is on top of items buffs etc, only a rogue can get these bonuses

[Heladron]

I want the devs coding up new, fun ways to kill our characters. We'll keep figuring out new ways to survive. So far we've always managed to find some way to avoid dying. We outnumber them by a lot.

Stop whining and get to playing. Just think of how much uber your rogue would be if you weren't in here complaining about trap DCs.

I have a trap monkey rogue up and coming to live/die in the traps. Don't tell anybody though because I always jump into the melee just to pretend so that people don't go, "Oh, you're on of those rogues that put all your skill points in rogue skills. You should have made a wannabe fighter or cleric rogue that can raise the party if you haven't already died by getting hit by the 45DC trap." Sometimes I get lucky enough and out damage the melees and have to run for help to the casters.

[Avonwey]

Why is Turbine taking the *little* resources it has for DDO, and spending them re-visiting stuff like Trap DCs?

This is a waste of time... move on to new content please.

[Turial]

This is where the multiclass splash rogues are starting to have some difficulty, and while I agree that maybe right now they are too high for everyone, if they come down it should not be to their previous levels.
There is a reaosn why full rogues get improved evasion, and improved uncanny dodge and extra trap sense bonuses. An elite trap should challenge a full rogue but should be regularly beatable if well specced, it should hurt a splash rogue who has the skills to disable the trap but simply does not have enough saves to beat the damage.

So bring on higher dc's if full rogues now have an advantage The simple fact is given equal race and levl and dex, a full rogue can hit a 9 better reflex save than any trapsmith multiclass, add in the enhancement bonuses and you are looking at 12

+5 trap sense at 15
+4 improved uncanny dodge(lvl 8) and uncanny dodge(lvl 4)
+3 trap sense ehancement(max is +4 but anyone who takes 1 lvl of rogue gets accessto the first lvl enhancement)

This is on top of items buffs etc, only a rogue can get these bonuses

The question really is are the multi-trap smiths having more issues with these new DC's then pure rogues?

My thoughts are a multi-trap smith should have to have everything trap related to be able to do something that a normally speced full class rogue can do. With the game the way it is, it wont happen because the only way to cut off the multi-trapsmiths is to make things so hard that full rogues have to specialize almost fully in traps, which in some cases removes the rogue from most of the game content because people say "oh you can only do traps.....yeah you see there arent any traps in this quest and classes X, Y, and Z want to join."

Honestly if they wanted to make it so people cant multi-class a few levels of rogue to get the same trap skills as a full rogue they should tie the rogue items to rogue level i.e. Open lock 10 gloves would require you to have 13 rogue levels to equip rather then just being level 13.

[ArkoHighStar]

The question really is are the multi-trap smiths having more issues with these new DC's then pure rogues?

My thoughts are a multi-trap smith should have to have everything trap related to be able to do something that a normally speced full class rogue can do. With the game the way it is, it wont happen because the only way to cut off the multi-trapsmiths is to make things so hard that full rogues have to specialize almost fully in traps, which in some cases removes the rogue from most of the game content because people say "oh you can only do traps.....yeah you see there arent any traps in this quest and classes X, Y, and Z want to join."

Honestly if they wanted to make it so people cant multi-class a few levels of rogue to get the same trap skills as a full rogue they should tie the rogue items to rogue level i.e. Open lock 10 gloves would require you to have 13 rogue levels to equip rather then just being level 13.

You are mistaking disabling a trap with surviving it. Sure a trapsmith can keep his disable device as high as a pure rogue, but as I said previously given equal dex and race, and feat selection they will always be trailing behind a full lvl 15 rogue by 9-12 points, and that should matter, because on normal, both should be doing fine, but as you climb into elite those 9 points should make the difference. On elite a rogue should not have to sacrifice everything to make it though, a M/C splash rogue should, they should have to spend feats to get reflex save bonuses high enough to even come close to a full rogue who has equal dex.

[ViVid7th]

Wait a minute, you are comparing a level 13 trapsmith MC to a level 11 pure rogue? You are lowballing your number here, for starters. Arko's right, you are forgetting UC and you are forgetting Improved Evasion. And 30 dex is a bit low for a dex based TWF build (I had over 20 at level 3 without gimping any of my stats. Add in enhancements and 3 stat boosts, and you are looking at a 26 before Stat item and tomes.).

Once you add in those 2 missing levels in your comparison and add UC, the pure rogue comes far out on top. And it is common for Non UMD builds to spend a feat on Lightning Reflexes if they are going trap based. It is much more likely for a Pure Rogue at level 11-13 to fail only on a 3 or less, and considering it is a "Hard" trap and that 'rogue skills' like tumble and jump reduce the number of likely trap tags, so less saves.

Edit: Not saying that there isn't a problem with the DCs, but unlike Arko, I don't think the DCs on hard are that bad. Rather it is the elite ones that are insane. What irks me most about this is you are skewing your numbers to get the results you want, which is to show that a pure rogue doesn't have much over a MC trap build, which isn't true.

[unionyes]

I have a rogue 10 with way of the mechanic enhancement and handled those traps quite nicely. Died twice the first time but thats because I (not my character) didn't know where the boxes are. Have all the standard level 10 rogue feats, improved evasion, etc. In most cases you can throw on a resist, hit your ac/save boost, and stand there until you roll a 1, actually would have to roll two 1's because I have enough hp to survive the first save fail, even without a resist. More of a hassle if I am interrupted in the middle of disabling a box than a fear of dying the first time.

IMO, it is nice to see the traps do some serious damage, rather than being a mere inconvenience. Of course I do agree with all those who say that traps that cannot be disabled shouldn't be death traps but more inconvenience traps, designed to drain party resources more than to cause a party wipe.

BTW, my rogue is also a huge asset to the party in combat, dual wielding stat damaging weapons and doing massive damage with sneak attack, so it isn't like I can't pull my weight in quests without traps. Also have pretty decent umd, have been known to rez the cleric and fire off the odd wand heal from time to time. Of course, I do need an actual tank to draw aggro. Toe to toe and I quickly end up watching my stone spin lazily in a circle like a top.

[llevenbaxx]

What do you all feel that the elite trap save DCs should be figuring in. Is it assumed that every rogue out there is going to be UMD specced and be carrying around every buff scroll in the game? Or should they be based around what the rogue class feats, enhancements and equipment add up to?

My very first character at launch was(eventually) an Elf wiz9/rog1, I used my spells to get me past most traps and up my saves and checks. These days it seems the traps are figuring everything a pure rogue character has to offer plus every buff in the game ta boot. Is this what elite should be? Or do you all think it should be based off only the things the rogue class has to offer. Would really like to know what you all think on this. I know a rogue with UMD has access to most of the buffs but UMD is a choice not a necessity, keep in mind.

[ArkoHighStar]

Wait a minute, you are comparing a level 13 trapsmith MC to a level 11 pure rogue? You are lowballing your number here, for starters. Arko's right, you are forgetting UC and you are forgetting Improved Evasion. And 30 dex is a bit low for a dex based TWF build (I had over 20 at level 3 without gimping any of my stats. Add in enhancements and 3 stat boosts, and you are looking at a 26 before Stat item and tomes.).

Once you add in those 2 missing levels in your comparison and add UC, the pure rogue comes far out on top. And it is common for Non UMD builds to spend a feat on Lightning Reflexes if they are going trap based. It is much more likely for a Pure Rogue at level 11-13 to fail only on a 3 or less, and considering it is a "Hard" trap and that 'rogue skills' like tumble and jump reduce the number of likely trap tags, so less saves.

Edit: Not saying that there isn't a problem with the DCs, but unlike Arko, I don't think the DCs on hard are that bad. Rather it is the elite ones that are insane. What irks me most about this is you are skewing your numbers to get the results you want, which is to show that a pure rogue doesn't have much over a MC trap build, which isn't true.

To be honest I haven't played around with hard so they may be ok, but yes elite is too much for everyone right now. Lets

look at that lvl 11 rogue again properly
+7 from 11 rogue lvls
+10 from 30 dex
+4 from trap blast goggles
+3 from trap sense feats
+1 rabbit gloves (from threnal and level appropriate)
+1 haste
+1 parrying weapon
+3 trap sense enhancements
+4 improved uncanny dodge
+4 GH

so 38 is the number that a lvl 11 rogue will be hitting, he would fail on a 3 or less

Now lets compare 2 same lvl chars

+9 from 15 rogue lvls
+10 from 30 dex
+4 from trap blast goggles
+3 from trap sense feats
+2 head of good fortune
+1 haste
+1 parrying weapon
+4 trap sense enhancements
+4 improved uncanny dodge
+4 GH

42 almost a 10 point difference and in von 5 on hard you will never fail a save

So your trap disabler can no longer survive the trap on hard, even if they drop elite and hard you will still be failing way more than a lower level rogue, who even when they do fail takes half the damage you do, so he is taking 40-50 damage sounds reasonable to me