A Land Far Away

Hi
Was wondering if somebody can please explain the absence of traps, whether they are being implemented in the future, and if it is possible to reassign skill points spent on settrap skill if not.
Thanks

The absence of traps is documented in the changes thread, although this may need greater prominence.

When we get pre-creation hak loading, we will be able to adjust the skills available at creation so that Set Trap does not show (and all the new ones we add do).

Thanks for moving this over to GD mishmash.

I think a few people have been asking about the rationale behind the decision. I'll have to try and dig up the old thread.

Thanks to both of you for the replies

I did read the thread about changes in Alfa 2 before posting Rusty, what I was hoping for was a little more information about how traps were broken and if there were any plans to implement them, something I didn't find in the thread. Do you think there is much point in putting more points in the set traps skill in case of future implementation? I suppose without trap items the only time the skill would be useful at the moment is during rping with a dm.

Sorry; forgot to add, yes, you should seek a DM for a rebuild, reallocating your skill points elsewhere. Please note the rules regarding PC names (i.e. they can't be identical) when rebuilding. Thanks.

I'm not 100% sure where rationale's collected, though we've had a few trap discussions over the last year, sometimes in connection with NWN1.

Some of the points / factors can include:

- D&D has no portable trap kits. There are huge long lists of the kinds of traps one can craft, found in the SRD, Song & Silence, and other sources, but they are (1) all stationary, (2) take weeks to craft/construct, (3) cost usually in the thousands of gold pieces. There's nothing like the "bomb in a suitcase" concept which the NWN1 / NWN2 implementation seems to focus on.

- AI melee critters in NWN1 & NWN2 are good at one thing: taking the absolute, most direct route possible to their target. Doesn't matter if the creatures have godlike intelligence, 20 ranks of search, or even if they saw you deploying a trap during their charge, they do not alter course if they "see a minefield" right in front of them, they will be charging through it. I'm much less concerned about this with PCs, as PCs can either sink ranks into Search or not, and use their heads about tactics and bottlenecks, wondering if they ought to just charge a sneaky opponent or not.

- D&D seems to draw lines between normal, masterwork, alchemical, and magical items. "Bomb in a suitcase" items we're pretty sure aren't meant to be magical, as non-spellcasters seem to cobble them together and be their most frequent users. Pretty sure they're not normal or masterwork items either, because normal/MW things don't... well... explode and kill a dozen people. That leaves alchemical items. There's a pretty good, tight list of things to consider when asking "so how good is an alchemical item compared to a magical one?", on page 35 of the Arms & Equipment guide. Alchemical items can be interesting, but they're really boiled down to "poor man's magic." If you want a "Delayed Blast Fireball" for instance, get a mage, not a 2000gp bomb. Alternately, get a scroll or other device and invest in UMD ranks.

...

It's on this last point of alchemy vs. magic that I personally think a couple of the "minor" traps, possibly with altered effects, probably could have a role in the game. That page 35 A&E list mentions things including "temporary shaken or dazzled" may be possible, "small amount of damage to a single creature, or modestly more to a small subset of critters (like a racial type)", "shouldn't duplicate a spell effect / affect a large area."

NWN2 traps listed here: http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Trap

Again, you'll find that the damage effects even for minor spike are higher than found with any published alchemical items out there, and the "slow" effect of a minor tangle trap is something you'd normally need a 3rd level arcane spell to achieve. Other end of the spectrum, even a minor electrical scripted to effect 4 creatures, 8d6 apiece, again, something normally a Lightning Bolt by an 8th level caster who got lucky with AoE grouping would be needed for.

Note again, my view is a personal one, not speaking on behalf of DMA, the whole standards team, or anyone else. But if the scripts for NWN2 traps are anything like the scripts for NWN1 traps (example: take the short, simple nw_t1_spikeminoc.nss script as how Minor Spikes work in NWN1, maybe the same used in NWN2), they're definitely changeable as custom content, i.e., alternate damage dice, altered "extra" effects one might inflict on failed save, etc. Again, if you want to BLAST the pants off opponents, buy appropriate items, like wands (high cost). If you want to INCONVENIENCE opponents, existing alchemical items like tanglefoot bags, alchemist's fire, or maybe some facelifted minor traps would be the route to go (low to moderate cost).

PS / Self Disclosure: playing a successful rogue in NWN1, and trap stockpiling gives a very, very dangerous edge that I'd daresay a similarly leveled pure-caster (even an evoker) would have a tough time equalling, if we both had time to prepare for the same encounter, or an encounter with each other (ie, talking about human controlled, not AI). Something not right about that, but the horse is well out of the barn in NWN1.

Why not change the scripts so they take very long amounts of time to place and cost a decent chunk of GP to buy?

Then a rogue or ranger would need to prepare them well in advance and be damn sure they are placing the trap in the right spot. Seems win/win to me. They would also be a target during the placement time. A decent place time would be 2 in-game hours and increase by an hour for each step up in base trap strength.

Brokenbone thank you very much for taking the time to type that reply, it was exactly the kind of explanation I was looking for. I had no idea that traps in NWN were so overpowered; judging by your description it makes perfect sense not to implement them as they are.

I would like to see traps of some sort added at some point (I'm not a number cruncher of any sort but rogues feel somewhat weak in NWN combat without the edge something like traps gives them) but if the decision has already been made then I'm sure the point has already been argued, so as I probably can't add anything new to the discussion I'll leave it at that.

As for the rebuild, I'm not quite sure how to go about this - do I pm one of the DMs on TSM or just wait until i notice them online? And am I just to remake my character myself and then ask a dm for the xp, belongings etc?

Many thanks
Misha

I'm sure if you PMd darren, he'll get something fixed up for you.

I've voiced an opinion before that simple traps such as tangle and lower-end spike traps might still be IC to include in ALFA's gameworld, perhaps tied to the Survival skill or otherwise- increasing the time it takes to set them would be a plus as well, but not as necessary if only low-end snares and such are included. While it makes sense to be able to set up a rope/tangle snare, given time, it makes a lot less sense to be able to set up a Strong Electrical Trap, a Negative Energy field... or a blast of Holy energy that rivals a flamestrike or a Hammer of the Gods spell.

I realize this removes a fundamental piece of the NWN2-rogue- it was intended to coincide with addition of all the PnP skills (balance, climb, use rope, swim, sense motive, disguise, forgery, ride, gather information, etc)- to which rogues have unparalleled access through their high number of skill points, and the fact that pretty much everything on the list is a class skill for them- allowing the rogue to be king of the "skilled" archetype (instead of just master of the sneak/scout arena). We will get the rest of the skills in, and when they're in, rogues will get the change to reallocate their points into many of the new, useful skills. It's just a matter of waiting for one or two bugs to get patched in the NWN2 code.

what about traps encountered in game? are they all non-recoverable? or is overlooked that traps do have recover option?

my char did come across an average entangle trap, which he could have theoretically recovered (least roll wise)

More importantly, who sets these mystical things called traps and how?

My instinct would be that traps encounted ingame (DM placed) are meant to represent PnP-style traps (built over days or weeks by goblin slave labor, etc), so any recovery of said traps would be OOC, and the resultant trap kit turned in to a DM or trashbinned. It'd be a DMA or HDM call how to treat them in the interim, though. Safest bet as a player is to disable traps encountered rather than attempting recovery.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/traps.htm

Traps aren't exactly set, they are crafted.

Some, the mechanical ones, are capable of being "reset" though.

The link above isn't the start and end of any D&D trap discussion, but it will lead readers back into the general Craft skill, DCs for various traps, how much weekly progress is made by a single or team of trap crafters over the course of a week, etc.

There are also magical traps described in the SRD. Some will take weeks to put together, others are nearly instant (Glyph of Warding & Sepia Snake Sigil are examples).

...

If instead asking "who puts them together", I guess you could say "NPCs with a great deal of time, resources, and incentive on their hands", such as a kobold band who's been living in a cave complex for the last fifty years. I.e., it's a dungeon ecology issue, AKA complete nonsense except that "the DM says this tribe has the following defenses."

AcadiusLost wrote:I've voiced an opinion before that simple traps such as tangle and lower-end spike traps might still be IC to include in ALFA's gameworld, perhaps tied to the Survival skill or otherwise-

Do you mean here to say that you're going to be scrapping set traps in its entirety? If you go by munmun's good advice and nerf traps a little, I don't see what the problem with them would be. Of course, I don't know how hard doing these things would be, but it certainly seems much preferable to ditching the skill entirely. Or moving it to survival, which just seems strange... (it would be a class skill for rangers, etc., but not for rogues).