D&D 5E Mage Hand and Trap Avoidance

SkidAce said:

I hear yah, but feel its more like that.s reason for the roll, its uncertain. Indianna Jones had the right idea, but failed his roll.

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Piperken said:

No, I contend this scene is at root of many decades of awful designed traps placed in awkward places in written adventures for decades.

Was it exciting to see as a young person in the theater? Yes!

But Mage Hand was always that bag of sand.

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The only problem with that scene is that the pedestal should have RISEN when the trap went off. There is no way that bag of sand was heavier than the golden idol.

Reynard said:

After the Big Fight, the PCs needed a long rest and so they locked themselves in a room. They thought the whole dungeon was cleared except the one room marked DANGER and locked from the outside. They forgot about one goblin they had seen lock himself in the pantry and did not know about another.

While they rested, one goblin slipped out of the dungeon, after opening the DANGER door and letting the zombie out (which the PCs had to fight after their rest). The other goblin tried to get to the (now dead by PC) boss' treasure chest -- which was trapped. That is how they found the treasure chest, with a dead goblin twisted by rigor in front of it.

The finding the trap and examining the corpse was all fun and engaging. But the climax of popping off the trap from across the room was boring and, like I said, since mage hand is a cantrip it did not even cost the PCs anything to do it. Boring.

If I were to rewrite that trap and wanted it to matter, I think I would make opening the chest drawer caused the door to the room to slam closed and lock, and the poison gas would be enough to fill the room (rather than just the immediate space of the chest). But then, like I said, I like big complex traps that present REAL danger.

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More specifically to your grumbling; I wonder occasionally what the thinking process was for a trap of this kind like this.

Like, are these treasures the boss wishes to have available for all posterity, so that proof of their greatness exists long after they died?

...My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!...

Does the boss consider these treasures valuable to them? Does the boss expect to be returning to this chest regularly and adding stuff to it? Do they like to occasionally spend some time accounting for what it is in the chest, because doing that pleases them?

The possible answers to these basic questions would make myself (as the boss) very uncomfortable having an armed trap like this!

Reynard said:

I think it is a distinction without a difference.

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And I think the distinction is why your example trap fell flat for you. You presented a trap that was already 80-90% solved, because the "know that the trap exists" and "identify the trap's mechanism" parts of the problem were pre-solved by the goblin who triggered it, and then you were disappointed that solving the last tiny portion of the problem was a trivial exercise.

If you take away the parts of a trap that make it a trap, you are likely to be disappointed with the results.

Reynard said:

The only problem with that scene is that the pedestal should have RISEN when the trap went off. There is no way that bag of sand was heavier than the golden idol.

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Yes! Exactly!

MarkB said:

And I think the distinction is why your example trap fell flat for you. You presented a trap that was already 80-90% solved, because the "know that the trap exists" and "identify the trap's mechanism" parts of the problem were pre-solved by the goblin who triggered it, and then you were disappointed that solving the last tiny portion of the problem was a trivial exercise.

If you take away the parts of a trap that make it a trap, you are likely to be disappointed with the results.

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No. I explained this twice already in this thread: the investigation part was fun. The solution was boring.

Reynard said:

No. I explained this twice already in this thread: the investigation part was fun. The solution was boring.

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Exactly. The investigation part is fun. A trap that's just out there in the open with its triggering mechanism and effect on full display doesn't require any investigation - and doesn't really qualify as being a trap.

It just seems silly to apply things like common sense and real world physics to things that happen in a fantasy setting.
I'm sure now all of the "simulationists" will berate me.

KYRON45 said:

It just seems silly to apply things like common sense and real world physics to things that happen in a fantasy setting.
I'm sure now all of the "simulationists" will berate me.

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It depends on how removed a specific thing is from the expected laws of physics. For example, we generally expect fire to work like it does in the real world unless explicitly magical. We expect bouyancy to be a thing.

MarkB said:

A deterrent, or a hazard. Just like a barbed-wire fence is a deterrent. Cover it with leaves or vines so that you can't see the barbs and it turns into a trap.

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But deterrents are kind of useless. In fact, they are worse than useless, because if they work, the party is deterred from continuing forward.

I think, really, "traps" and "puzzles" need to be thought of first and foremost as challenges. Sure, you can have the occasional set-dressing of a trip-wire with a crossbow bolt, or an exploding rune, but those are truly in my opinion, set dressing. They only exist to make the place FEEL correct. Whether or not they affect the party is entirely separate from that goal.

What is a more engaging challenge though? A hallway with a hidden plate that shoots you with a needle? Or a hallway littered with mosiacs and art, which slowly constricts and crushes the party unless they can find the hidden lever that resets the hall and opens the door? Both are "overcome" by the finding of the hidden trigger, but one of them is just boring. Because success and failure are nearly indistinguishable in it. 1d10+2 damage isn't going to make something memorable. And some people try and fix this by simply making it more damage, but that doesn't solve the problem. The problem is the flow of the challenge. A trap like a tripwire crossbow is over and done with the moment you learn of its existence. Either you failed and got shot, or you successfully spotted it and it is no longer a threat.

Make the flow different, by making the noticing of the trap completely separate from the defeat of the trap, and you know have a far superior challenge.

KYRON45 said:

It just seems silly to apply things like common sense and real world physics to things that happen in a fantasy setting.
I'm sure now all of the "simulationists" will berate me.

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Why would you not apply those things to your game? You're playing in a setting. Your players are real humans who live in the real world. How is it "silly" to apply common sense and physics to that setting? I really don't understand what you're trying do here.