Faster search/disable?

[mobrien316]

I can see why, for flavor, you might not want these to be instantaneous. But a bit faster would be appreciated.

Yesterday I was doing Relic of a Sovereign Past with my cleric. In a lot of quests (I solo a lot) I will buy a rogue hireling for the trap bonus. For Relic, even though I got 31,000+ XP and the trap bonus would have been fairly large, I didn't bother with a rogue.

My usual strategy in a group, with a PC rogue or arty, is to run through all the poison traps on the way to the last room. By the time you're done killing everything in the corridor and done killing the last two blackguards and talking to the boss, the party's trapper is done disabling all the traps in the corridor.

With a hireling rogue, I would have had to spend a LOT of time in the last corridor, pausing to search and then pausing to disable all of those traps.


When I'm on my rogue, I always think it would make sense if at epic levels, even with more difficult (i.e. - higher DC) locks and traps, he would be a bit faster than a level 1 rogue. Epic rogues who kept Spot, Search, DD, and Open Lock maxed should be absolute masters of their craft. Perhaps after a certain skill level the trap box automatically appears once you Spot it, and the DD animation gets reduced incrementally until, at level 20, it is just a hair longer than instantaneous.

Just an idea...

[Jay203]

they should make it so that if your spot is x-amount higher than the dc, you automatically find the box/trap

[Musouka]

It's not just for flavor. It keeps you from being able to do it while being attacked. I mean, how many people will have the option to just look around while being hit?

[Jay203]

It's not just for flavor. It keeps you from being able to do it while being attacked. I mean, how many people will have the option to just look around while being hit?

i think auto search is harmless
seeing how disabling still takes time and can be interrupted and all....

[Aliss7]

Make the speed of searching/opening/disabling scale with how much over the DC you rolled.

[pyntsized]

It's not just for flavor. Realistically, you couldn't just search for 1 second and POOF! find what you are looking for. That doesn't happen in real life, it shouldn't happen in-game. Same thing with disable device. You try dis-arming a bomb near instantly. Ten-to-one, you couldn't do it. So why could you disable a highly complicated hair-trigger trap instantly?

Plus they do it so you can't do it while fighting, but that isn't the main reason.

[psykopeta]

in pnp search detects the trap, immediately

when you spend X time, you get +10 or +20, depending the time you spend

in fact it's not odd than a trapper (who's supposed to "see things where others don't" find a box & trap almost automatically)

but if you remove the animation won't be the same, traps are something dangerous so we have to respect them xD

[azrael4h]

It's not just for flavor. Realistically, you couldn't just search for 1 second and POOF! find what you are looking for. That doesn't happen in real life, it shouldn't happen in-game. Same thing with disable device. You try dis-arming a bomb near instantly. Ten-to-one, you couldn't do it. So why could you disable a highly complicated hair-trigger trap instantly?

Plus they do it so you can't do it while fighting, but that isn't the main reason.

Realistically, a large metal box bolted to a stone or wooden wall or floor wouldn't require searching for any time to find, as it's a friggin' metal box randomly placed in the open on a wall.

They do it solely because you can be interrupted, which makes you, theoretically, kill the mobs. We all know that most true zergers ignore the trash AND the traps. So it doesn't do nothing.

[Musouka]

Realistically, a large metal box bolted to a stone or wooden wall or floor wouldn't require searching for any time to find, as it's a friggin' metal box randomly placed in the open on a wall.

They do it solely because you can be interrupted, which makes you, theoretically, kill the mobs. We all know that most true zergers ignore the trash AND the traps. So it doesn't do nothing.

Rationally, the devs don't have the tech to show how disable boxes are camouflaged. It's easier to just leave them invisible and appear when found.

[HastyPudding]

There are definitely some things we can do to improve this. I, for one, think that rogue mechanics should be able to search and disable faster, simply because traps is their speciality. At least give them an uninteruptable search/disable.

But that's just my two coppers.

[kierg10]

It's not just for flavor. Realistically, you couldn't just search for 1 second and POOF! find what you are looking for. That doesn't happen in real life, it shouldn't happen in-game. Same thing with disable device. You try dis-arming a bomb near instantly. Ten-to-one, you couldn't do it. So why could you disable a highly complicated hair-trigger trap instantly?

Plus they do it so you can't do it while fighting, but that isn't the main reason.

Did you just say realistic?

OKAY WIZARDS! stop firing your spells and start being just plain ol' nerds, 'cause this guys wants realism

[mobrien316]

Realistically, it would make sense if a level 25 rogue who has maxed Spot, Search, and DD would be able to find and disarm a 17 DC trap much faster than a level 1 rogue. That is not currently the case.


I like the idea someone already posted, that your roll and how much you beat the DC by should affect how fast you find and disable. If it's a DC 35 trap and you roll a modified 70, you should be able to do instantaneously. If you roll a modified 36, maybe it will take you a few seconds.

[Jay203]

It's not just for flavor. Realistically, you couldn't just search for 1 second and POOF! find what you are looking for. That doesn't happen in real life, it shouldn't happen in-game. Same thing with disable device. You try dis-arming a bomb near instantly. Ten-to-one, you couldn't do it. So why could you disable a highly complicated hair-trigger trap instantly?

Plus they do it so you can't do it while fighting, but that isn't the main reason.

so are you saying that someone who's extremely skilled and experienced with something will perform at the same speed as someone who is a novice?

obviously the more skillful you are at something, the better your performance
would it not make sense for a skilled trapper to know where to look for or what to look for better than a novice? would not that translate into less time looking for traps?
would an expert mechanic not understand mechanical things better than a novice, hence knowing how to disable one more efficiently and quicker?

[bartharok]

Whilelooking for trap boxes can be a slow and boring job at times, i think that the time used should not be reduced by much. If this idea aws implemented it would be silly to make it more than 1% per skill above dc. No roll calculated into it. Yeah it would be fun to do everything faster, but if every idea that aims for it was implemented wed soon have complete quest button.

[Buggss]

in pnp search detects the trap, immediately....

No they don't.

Page 81 of the PHB in the search skill description:

"Action: It takes a full-round action to search a 5-foot-by-5-foot area or a volume of goods 5 feet on a side"

So searching isn't instantaneous, in a combat situation or even whilst checking for random encounters a full round can make a big difference.

[Niv-mizzet]

I run into tons of people that don't understand the concept that, in 3.5 dnd, 5th or 6th level is pretty much at the top-end of realistic human skill. At that point, anyone who has kept up with their jump is AN OLYMPIC LEVEL JUMPER, and anyone who kept up with the stealth skills can now move DIRECTLY BY a taking-10 1st level guard, with a natural 1 as his roll, as long as there's concealment relative to the guard at the start and end of the move.

In addition, there's the rarity-factor. (You'll have to forgive my lack of a source here, I forget which WOTC book I got it from, but I'm pretty sure it was in fact in an official WOTC book.) In a "standard" power setting, only 1% of the population are adventurers. If we take 5 guys out of that 1%, only 1 of them, by odds, is supposed to make 2nd level, while the others die or retire. This figure supposedly continues each level. (ie 5 2nd levels = 1 makes it to 3rd etc.)

Using this data, 1 level 25 character is the result of 59,604,644,775,390,625 adventurers attempting to reach that level.

And...let me get this straight. There are people...who think...that THAT ONE DEMI-GOD OF A MAN...should take AS LONG AS A COMPLETE NEWBIE TO FIND A TRAP?!?!?!

I...don't even....what?

[Memnir]

Search/Disable has taken too long for way too long.
Speed it up already.


No need to monkey around with new mechanics that may or may not goof up some other game system someplace else. Just cut the animation for both in half. Boom. Done. The only side effect of this would be faster gameplay and happier players. There is literally no downside to speeding it up.

[nibel]

in pnp search detects the trap, immediately

when you spend X time, you get +10 or +20, depending the time you spend

It is not instantaneous, as already said. And there is no extra bonus if you take your time. What we have is that if you are NOT in a life-threatening situation, you can choose 10 (so you can avoid randomness of the die), or if you take 20x the time, you can choose 20 (so you absolutelly get the best result you can).

There are definitely some things we can do to improve this. I, for one, think that rogue mechanics should be able to search and disable faster, simply because traps is their speciality. At least give them an uninteruptable search/disable.

But that's just my two coppers.

Rogue mechanic already have skill with faster trapping. They can set traps/explosives faster than any other character, and their DCs are higher. I have no problems at all if on the new enhancement system an autogrant of Mechanic tree will cut down the Search/Disable time.

Unfortunatelly, any suggestions regarding enhancements will not be worked out until the enhancement revamp shows up.

[Cauthey]

Beginning at rogue level 15, incorporate a % chance to proc to automatically discover traps and control panels within your Search range. Say, 1% for every rogue class level. So, you get a 20% proc max. Maybe that's too high...

That way it 1) does not completely remove the danger in disabling the trap under fire, 2) it doesn't happen all the time, every time, and 3) it is a reward for a straight rogue class trapper.

[Meetch1972]

There have been threads about this before. Tying speed to skill level means the INT maxed wizard with rogue splash who took all the ranks and has the best gear will get the job done quicker than most pure rogues. However, how good you are (or should be) should make a difference if the trap is particularly easy.

The logical conclusion involves speeding up detection/disabling based on the DC of the trap, the skill to search/disable it and the number of rogue levels accomplished (or possibly an enhancement available to rogues that is relatively cheap).

But yes, a better trapper should be capable of getting the job done faster. "Oh look, a standard cantilever trigger. Nothing I ain't seen before. All I have to do is... *click*. Done. Let's go!"