Traps: A discussion of tactics

[Lady Frost]

I'm curious what peoples opinions are in regards to traps, some of the RP behind using them and their tactics. I find that some of the tactics used are in poor taste and border on metagaming. Again its my opinion. I'd like to know what others think or if it's really not a big deal.

Examples:

Leading monsters (especially intelligent ones) through long lines of traps.

Setting traps that the monster (especially intelligent ones) would obviously see being set then leading them across.

Setting a trap knowing you and your own party can cross it without fail but an enemy PC can't without success even if knowing where it is.

[Rane]

Honestly, I like what your saying. But the monsters arent being controlled by another person who can roleplay seeing your trap, and then trying to find a way around it.

I have seen a dm take over a monster and thwart pc lain traps.

But my personal opinion is simple. Most of the dungeons in frc take hours. I do roleplay through dungeons, but when it comes to traps, I usually walk through them and make a snide comment about the "dwarven way."

When it comes to laying them, I usually mention how more concentrated the "bad guys" are getting, and how we should probably prepare ourselves for a real fight. In otherwords, buff and lay traps till you go blind.

Simply put. I like to get through my dungeons, and have time to go do real life things.

[darinder]

The party I usually travels with has two scouts - one looking for and clearing traps, the other uses stealth to spy out the enemy. When the latter spots an apparently tough battle, he reports back to the others. Subsequently our chars might lay traps down a passageway - out of sight - and then drag the nasties across them. After all, the bad guys didn't see our trap setter doing her thing.

As for PCs being immune to their own traps, so too are the nasties immune to their own traps. I use immune here rather loosely as AOE traps can still catch PCs (saw this about 2 weeks ago).

Opinion:
I am very much in favour of making all traps completely neutral. If a PC steps on a party trap, tough luck as the damage will hit home (Evasion anybody?). If a monster dies to a dungeon trap, your party loses out on xp (substantial amount maybe if the monster is a quest-item giver). This would prevent the tactic of a PC leading a foe back over a line of traps.

A good subject to bring up, Lady Frost.

[Thrym]

Personally, I equal using more than 2-3 traps in one spot on a foe that isn't mindless to be borderline cheating.

Either people stack traps. Have you ever noticed how when you placed a trap on the ground, you cannot click to place a trap in the green area? You're not intended to put traps on top of each other. Anyone placing a dozen traps in one spot by clicking really, really fast while the first trap isn't finished yet is flat-out exploiting game mechanics. On purpose.

Or people put down a line of 20 traps. This doesn't directly exploit game mechanics, but it most certainly exploits the AI being ... well, crazy stupid. Not only will it keep triggering trap after trap till it's dead, no, the AI isn't even capable of walking around your traps even if it spots them. It'll rush straight over em like a drooling moron. I've seen level ~10 rogues kill demiliches by putting dozens of minor holy traps in front of a door.

But that's PvE. In PvP? Stacking Traps would in my opinion be extremely poor sportsmanship. You are killing another player by exploiting game mechanics. Putting down dozens of traps in a row seems fine to me... if you run over 20 traps in a row, well... do the FR have a Darwin Award?

[Munroe]

Mar 1, 2013 2:08:45 GMT -5 Thrym said:

Personally, I equal using more than 2-3 traps in one spot on a foe that isn't mindless to be borderline cheating.

Either people stack traps. Have you ever noticed how when you placed a trap on the ground, you cannot click to place a trap in the green area? You're not intended to put traps on top of each other. Anyone placing a dozen traps in one spot by clicking really, really fast while the first trap isn't finished yet is flat-out exploiting game mechanics. On purpose.

Or people put down a line of 20 traps. This doesn't directly exploit game mechanics, but it most certainly exploits the AI being ... well, crazy stupid. Not only will it keep triggering trap after trap till it's dead, no, the AI isn't even capable of walking around your traps even if it spots them. It'll rush straight over em like a drooling moron. I've seen level ~10 rogues kill demiliches by putting dozens of minor holy traps in front of a door.

But that's PvE. In PvP? Stacking Traps would in my opinion be extremely poor sportsmanship. You are killing another player by exploiting game mechanics. Putting down dozens of traps in a row seems fine to me... if you run over 20 traps in a row, well... do the FR have a Darwin Award?

Don't stack traps. Don't do it. If I see it as a DM, at the very least there's a good chance your nice neat stack of traps vanishes right off the ground. (After I wait until you were finished putting them all down, of course.)

You're not supposed to be able to do it in NWN but there's a flaw of the NWN game mechanics that allows it. While it's not spelled out anywhere explicitly not to do "that," we do have general rules about exploiting game mechanics.

Yeah, 20 traps in a row doesn't make a lot of sense either, but it's not a napalm trap exploit, requires a lot more room to work, and there's a chance that any random monster just won't hit them all.

[holyredeemer]

Just my two cents on this, but I feel that any discussion that opens up by identifying a key class benefit as metagaming is just asking for trouble.

Rogues usually have to win their battles by stealth and cunning. If that means they have a team member draw a foe around a corner so they can backstab them or lay down a row of traps it is only because if they fought head on against most enemies they would be in trouble.

To the point of monsters running through a long line of traps, I know of dungeons with humanoids that actually stop when they run through a few traps and use their bows instead.

In many dungeons the end bosses are usually 3-5 times more dangerous and in some cases even the parties fighters can't do much against them. If you want to make it so only spell casters can fight the bosses go ahead and make rules around traps, but they are the one way to even things out for rogues to make a difference. I also know of many enemies that can ignore the damage from different trap types as well.

Do I think it is metagaming when a mage casts hold monster and then proceeds to let loose with their arsenal of spells? No

Do I think it is metagaming when a fighter uses knock down or improved expertise? No

Do I think it is metagaming when a monk stuns enemies for easy kills? No

Do I think it is metagaming when a cleric buffs themselves to the high heavens and casts implosion on enemies? No

These are all the benefits they get for those classes and they have weaknesses as well. To complain about their use of their strength doesn't seem productive to me.

[Razgriz]

I know that some rogues soloers that tried to kill bosses using a large line of traps were the targets of the Dms.

[holyredeemer]

Mar 1, 2013 9:50:32 GMT -5 Razgriz said:

I know that some rogues soloers that tried to kill bosses using a large line of traps were the targets of the Dms.

I would hope that this wasn't punitive but rather making the dungeon more immersive. I always find it more enjoyable when the enemies I fight use intelligent tactics (if that would be in character for them to do). If a dumb brute became a tactical genius then that would be off putting but for most enemies to use smart tactics makes the game more challenging and fun.

What did you mean by targets of dms?

[Razgriz]

The DMs took control of the Boss in that dungeon.

[erratic1]

I think all traps should be neutral, yes. That actually confused me at first when I started playing here. (My old server had traps that harmed everybody,l so you had to keep clear of them once set- only the actual trap setter could move through them).

Stacked traps being an exploit though? If a DM took traps off of me for something that has never been picked up in over 10 years of online NWN playing, I'd be very upset to say the least. It's something rogues can do that others cant, and expected of them as well... changing that or calling that an exploit is just plain wrong.

Some of the bosses here require traps stakced to even have a chance of defeating them if you dont have a mage in the party. So changing this is going to seriously swing the nerfbat at people who don't have access to such.

[Thrym]

Traps are not the same as simply using your class abilities. If you have a single rank in set trap, regardless of anything else, you can still slap down dozens of minor traps that don't allow a save against the damage and lure the completely defenseless AI over the things, killing even monsters you couldn't possibly defeat otherwise.

It's not like getting a crapton of components is hard or expensive either. There's dungeons that can net you dozens of skeleton knuckles in one go, each doing a yummy 2d6 damage no save at the cost of... not selling/trash canning em for 1 gold a piece.

Imagine wizards could do low level dungeons which handed out unsellable no-SR greater missile storm scrolls. It's the exact same thing. If you find 8 knuckles, you're already doing more damage than that scroll at the measly cost of 8 gold. Traps in this game are implemented so BADLY they completly dismantle the challenge rating system. A low level rogue who just came from the catacombs can effortlessly and without any risk involved kill an epic monster just by slapping down a bunch of no-save traps. The AI is too dumb to do anything but die.

Remember how in Baldur's Gate 2 you couldn't set more than 7 traps in one area? I wished there was a way to implement that in NWN to avoid killing crap you have no business defeating by spamming dozens of low level traps. Personally I think 7 is too many, but at least it'd mean if you want to blow up a boss in one go, you need to use level appropiate traps.

[The Flying Ve]

In theory, this sounds nice and all. In practise, though, I've seen hundreds of players behave dumber than the AI on a repeated basis. It's nice to say "a player will see your trap and run around it", but IG experience has shown me "a player will see your stacked 20 traps and run right through them because WM > rogue, durr."

[Kiyohime 🐍]

Mar 1, 2013 10:39:18 GMT -5 Thrym said:

It's not like getting a crapton of components is hard or expensive either. There's dungeons that can net you dozens of skeleton knuckles in one go, each doing a yummy 2d6 damage no save at the cost of... not selling/trash canning em for 1 gold a piece.

Hm. According to the NWN Wiki (I don't know if they changed things here), monsters (and us) roll a fortitude save against negative traps.

The only save-free kind are the holy ones.

Besides, it isn't like monsters here have "normal" saves (grunt orcs with high will save, anyone?).

I am not saying I don't what agree with what is said about people abusing the trap system and metagaming things. I just think they aren't that overpowered.....

(I also think it is silly placing 20 traps on a corridor. I usually place about 5, 2 of them being either tangle of acid blob, so I can finish the job myself. Also, I only carry strong/deadly/epic traps. The weaker ones are either given away or sold or dismantled so I can craft better ones.)

In theory, this sounds nice and all. In practise, though, I've seen hundreds of players behave dumber than the AI on a repeated basis. It's nice to say "a player will see your trap and run around it", but IG experience has shown me "a player will see your stacked 20 traps and run right through them because WM > rogue, durr."

Haha. This would be funny to watch.

When I am with a party and place a few traps to lure enemies to them, I especificaly ask my party mates to stand back so they won't trigger one by accident.

What I am saying is........... Yeah, it can be abused like pretty much everything on NWN, but not everyone does so.

[quelunia]

Ok, so here is a topic that could get inflamatory quickly... Not everyone that can set traps is setting 20 traps. Lets use my Pew for example.. I carry materials to make traps, and dont make them till I have used all I have been able to collect. I dont use traps on everything I run across, but a major spawn I sneak up on is going to get the rope a dope tactic. It is a tested and time honored military tradition. Hell, even the Terrorists use this set off a bomb, have more set when rescuers come they set off more..

Yes, setting with a 1 rank a ton of traps is cheating and abuse of the system. But, some of us are playing characters that specialize in this type of tactic. I can agree to 7 trap limit, as I dont often lay so many unless I am laying them behind to cover my tracks. Settign traps at major avenues of approach to funnel people is also another tactic of the military.. ever heard of mine fields? Crap there are hundreds of mines in those...

[Kiyohime 🐍]

Mar 1, 2013 11:10:53 GMT -5 quelunia said:

Ok, so here is a topic that could get inflamatory quickly... Not everyone that can set traps is setting 20 traps. Lets use my Pew for example.. I carry materials to make traps, and dont make them till I have used all I have been able to collect. I dont use traps on everything I run across, but a major spawn I sneak up on is going to get the rope a dope tactic. It is a tested and time honored military tradition. Hell, even the Terrorists use this set off a bomb, have more set when rescuers come they set off more..

<3

[quelunia]

My tactics. ....


1) Set rear traps to have a retreat route if needed.
2) Set traps for PVP to funnel to a major trap they might not see and I can pounce..
3) Set a string of traps to weaken many opponents while using a bow to minimize damage to my character.
4) Setting a patch work of traps to get the jump on an enemy that is powerful, not one I couldnt take down alone, but one that is going to hit hard.
5) Set patch work of traps in one spot to globe many at once for a mage to fireball.
6) Scouting and setting traps ahead of the party to lure and glob groups
7) Solo trapping to minimize my damage. Making the rewards within a dungeon profittable.


Now, my characters class is ranger, he is an avid Orc Hunter... And mercenary. He hails from the Dales. So, trapping was one of the things I thought he would be good at doing. I have cross classed into Disarm traps to flag them for the group, and someone to collect if able. These type of topics are all the same.. Honestly. I cant do that so no one else should be able to...These are the topics that ruin the game for people.

But, I like before I agree that yes someoine takes 1 rank into set trap and spams a ton of traps eyah.. that is metagaming, abusing the system, and cheating. But, those that have valid reasons and the ranks to back it up.. I am not saying lay a million traps, but laying alot of traps is something not above reason. I could even agree to 7 trap limit in an area.

[Kiyohime 🐍]

Also, the idea of making traps neutral to everyone but the trapper is neat too.

[perspicacity]

Mar 1, 2013 11:10:53 GMT -5 quelunia said:

Ok, so here is a topic that could get inflamatory quickly... Not everyone that can set traps is setting 20 traps. Lets use my Pew for example.. I carry materials to make traps, and dont make them till I have used all I have been able to collect. I dont use traps on everything I run across, but a major spawn I sneak up on is going to get the rope a dope tactic. It is a tested and time honored military tradition. Hell, even the Terrorists use this set off a bomb, have more set when rescuers come they set off more..

Yes, setting with a 1 rank a ton of traps is cheating and abuse of the system. But, some of us are playing characters that specialize in this type of tactic. I can agree to 7 trap limit, as I dont often lay so many unless I am laying them behind to cover my tracks. Settign traps at major avenues of approach to funnel people is also another tactic of the military.. ever heard of mine fields? Crap there are hundreds of mines in those...

Precisely, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I've seen numerous instances of 'luring' that smacked of meta-gaming, should we disallow all tactics and insist spawn groups should never be broken up? No, of course not, address, instead, the instances of abuse, particularly systematic abuses, and please, let's avoid false equivalencies.

[megascorpion]

Ehh, rogues don't exactly have it super easy as it is imho, and there are already many many metagamey things about adventuring in general in NWN, so I don't see the need to pick on this one when we already have to suspend our disbelief a lot as it is. I'll give some examples:

Firstly, the "laying traps where the enemies would clearly see" ...well if they could see you, wouldn't they do something about you lot standing there? Also wouldn't they call in all other monsters in the dungeon instead of standing around in neat packs of 5? In other words, unless we can change the line of sight mechanic, laying traps in line of sight(but not aggro range or whatever it's called) should not really be different than standing in line of sight in the first place.

Secondly, the issue of players 'knowing what is in the next room' and having their characters act like it, such as buffing up before going into the boss room or a particularly tough monster, personally, I try not to do this unless someone in my party has already started buffing up(As then it would be rather IC), but I see this done in basically every adventure I'm in that doesn't have a scout to RP it out with(and this ususally only happens in parties used to travelling with eachother).

Thirdly, there are several places in the mod where creatures will spawn right on top of your party, this is especially true if you have a scout going ahead of the party, and well the last time that I remember my party getting a death from one o these, they called in a DM(don't remember who) who argued that basically we should metagame the dungeons as in the above example because it cannot be avoided that plaeyrs do that, amongst other arguments I should say. Anyhow, the point here is that the dungeons may well be built and balanced with some metagaming in mind.

(I should also note that I have never played a char who uses traps on FRC, neither have I seen them used to entirely take down something really fierce, usually the boss survives the traps wounded, and ehhh, if we're talking about overpowered stuff making bosses easy(or for PvP) I honestly think bigbies are much more of a problem here )

EDIT: Also setting traps to neutral may be a good idea, but would likely hurt the ai more than the players considering some of the static traps that are around in FRC And well since the trap layer has no way of deciding how big a trap is, that would make traps useless in a lot of places.

EDIT2: And none of this was about stacking traps, that's rather obviously an exploit I'd say heh.

[Thrym]

Mar 1, 2013 11:01:06 GMT -5 Kiyohime 🐍 said:

Mar 1, 2013 10:39:18 GMT -5 Thrym said:

It's not like getting a crapton of components is hard or expensive either. There's dungeons that can net you dozens of skeleton knuckles in one go, each doing a yummy 2d6 damage no save at the cost of... not selling/trash canning em for 1 gold a piece.

Hm. According to the NWN Wiki (I don't know if they changed things here), monsters (and us) roll a fortitude save against negative traps.

The only save-free kind are the holy ones.

Don't have much time to read anything, but just to clear this up:

NWN said:

´The default traps are listed in the following tables. For traps with a special effect, a successful saving throw (of the listed type against the listed DC) negates the effect, but does not reduce the damage. For other traps, a successful saving throw reduces the damage by half.

Negative Energy Traps do not have a save for half damage. The Save merely negates the extra effect, in this case strength damage. Similiarily for Sonic, Acid Blob et cetera.

[Kiyohime 🐍]

Mar 1, 2013 12:19:27 GMT -5 Thrym said:

Mar 1, 2013 11:01:06 GMT -5 Kiyohime 🐍 said:

Hm. According to the NWN Wiki (I don't know if they changed things here), monsters (and us) roll a fortitude save against negative traps.

The only save-free kind are the holy ones.

Don't have much time to read anything, but just to clear this up:

NWN said:

´The default traps are listed in the following tables. For traps with a special effect, a successful saving throw (of the listed type against the listed DC) negates the effect, but does not reduce the damage. For other traps, a successful saving throw reduces the damage by half.

Negative Energy Traps do not have a save for half damage. The Save merely negates the extra effect, in this case strength damage. Similiarily for Sonic, Acid Blob et cetera.

Heh. I didn't know about that....... Haha. Thanks for the clarification, Thrym.

[Lady Frost]

Relax relax....

This wasn't to get anything changed or implemented game-wise. It was to open peoples minds to others opinions. Some people will say that they are going to do whatever they want and others are going to see something in a new light and change; to each their own. To be honest, I've stacked traps before and haven't thought much of it. I've seen DM PC's do it forever. Until Thrym made a point of explaining his view on it, it never was in the front of my mind. Now, having thought about it, I can change the way I do what I do. At least I know the thread helped one person!

Stop taking things as attacks and just explain your side and opinion. There doesn't have to be a winner.

[holyredeemer]

Mar 1, 2013 16:00:29 GMT -5 Lady Frost said:

Relax relax....

This wasn't to get anything changed or implemented game-wise. It was to open peoples minds to others opinions. Some people will say that they are going to do whatever they want and others are going to see something in a new light and change; to each their own. To be honest, I've stacked traps before and haven't thought much of it. I've seen DM PC's do it forever. Until Thrym made a point of explaining his view on it, it never was in the front of my mind. Now, having thought about it, I can change the way I do what I do. At least I know the thread helped one person!

Stop taking things as attacks and just explain your side and opinion. There doesn't have to be a winner.

I suppose the key word used in your original post was stating that the use of traps in a particular way was metagaming. Metagaming is explicitly impermissible on FRC so by stating something is metagaming as a tactic you are stating you think it shouldn't be allowed.

There are ways for monsters to fight smarter - custom AIs that address all of the ways adventurers fight them. On some servers I've played monsters know what your classes are and use their most effective strategy against you specifically.

Maybe just getting better AI would suit you? I know that when a group of adventurers encounters a gang of weaker monster that should know better - like a group of kobolds. There is no way that the last kobold standing would still rush well armed larger numbers but the AI will always have that kobold attack.

[Manshin]

I think when you exploit AI, you are metagaming, wether it be traps or whatever; innocent as it seems. I get frustrated when I go out with group who blatantly exploit AI and will usually try encourage them to treat enemies if they have eyes and ears.

A great example is when you lure enemies 1 at a time, kill them within 50' of their buddies who somehow do not hear or see a battle going on right under their noses, and never seem to question why their pals keep wandering off one after the other outside of their ridiculous perception range and not coming back.

Generally I try to send tells to the archers to shoot at the main group to draw them, or call the warriors wussys, sometimes Ill run out and the the group spot Abby, then hide behind my suprised warriors as the crowd comes running (I get heat for this!).

I wish there was a fix for this. I know in NWN2, if one sees you, they ALL come running. One good fix might be to turn all the monster's perception range to "long."

When I played Manshin, my rule of thumb (and depended on the enemy) was I would lure the first guy: If I killed him out of the line of sight of his pals within 1 round (and didnt use loud fireballs, etc), I would consider it a stealth kill, and lure another. I would never lure more than 2, and if I couldn't kill either in the first round, id charge, RPing that the others had been alerted or at least were too suspicious to send off any more loners to investigate.

With traps, I think its perfectly IC against most kinds of enemies. A lot of the monsterous humanoids are so bloodthirsty, they might just get angrier and more berserk with each HP of damage they take, getting more intent on the kill. In some cases, they are just fodder for their chief who they fear more than you or your traps.

Ive seen PCs run across entire lines of traps on numerous occassions, including me! You just don't expect there too be more than 1 or 2, and before long, you're at the point of no return and figure you better kill the target before he finishes you off with a bow.

I would draw the line at more sophisticated enemies like drow, mind flayers... but thats just me.

Of course a long line of traps is always acceptable when you use them for a get-away defense. If the monsters chase you, thats their problem.

In general, I think its just always a good idea to pretend its real, and not do things that a real thinking creature, even a dumb one, wouldn't fall for. If you can't beat a dungeon without luring baddies 1 at a time, then you're not ready to be there yet.

[Lady Frost]

Mar 1, 2013 16:32:35 GMT -5 holyredeemer said:

Mar 1, 2013 16:00:29 GMT -5 Lady Frost said:

Relax relax....

This wasn't to get anything changed or implemented game-wise. It was to open peoples minds to others opinions. Some people will say that they are going to do whatever they want and others are going to see something in a new light and change; to each their own. To be honest, I've stacked traps before and haven't thought much of it. I've seen DM PC's do it forever. Until Thrym made a point of explaining his view on it, it never was in the front of my mind. Now, having thought about it, I can change the way I do what I do. At least I know the thread helped one person!

Stop taking things as attacks and just explain your side and opinion. There doesn't have to be a winner.

I suppose the key word used in your original post was stating that the use of traps in a particular way was metagaming. Metagaming is explicitly impermissible on FRC so by stating something is metagaming as a tactic you are stating you think it shouldn't be allowed.

There are ways for monsters to fight smarter - custom AIs that address all of the ways adventurers fight them. On some servers I've played monsters know what your classes are and use their most effective strategy against you specifically.

Maybe just getting better AI would suit you? I know that when a group of adventurers encounters a gang of weaker monster that should know better - like a group of kobolds. There is no way that the last kobold standing would still rush well armed larger numbers but the AI will always have that kobold attack.

I did use "metagaming" but I said: I find that some of the tactics used are in poor taste and border on metagaming.


Yes, I think setting 30 traps and kiting a demilich or dragon around a room/area is exploiting game mechanics. However, I'm not asking for anything to change game-wise. I'm only asking peoples opinions so that others can change what they want to change (themselves) based on what they think makes sense.

I also think that saying because one thing is broken or works a certain way then everything broken should be disregarded, is not a valid point. I'm sorry that monsters spawned on top of your party or that your group pulls one at a time or the boss you're fighting unrealistically drinks healing potions while you beat on him, that doesn't mean exploiting other areas of the game makes logical sense. In closing, please see the underlined part above.

[megascorpion]

Mar 1, 2013 19:07:03 GMT -5 Lady Frost said:

I also think that saying because one thing is broken or works a certain way then everything broken should be disregarded, is not a valid point. I'm sorry that monsters spawned on top of your party or that your group pulls one at a time or the boss you're fighting unrealistically drinks healing potions while you beat on him, that doesn't mean exploiting other areas of the game makes logical sense. In closing, please see the underlined part above.

As I posted about the other cases where one must suspend disbelief I'm going to reply a little, with that yes, that part of the post was mostly aimed at those wishing for script/rule changes in relation to this.

In more general terms however I do not think using massive rows of traps against a lich breaks my immersion any more than it already is broken, basically I see the actual adventuring as something rather abstract, and while this does indeed not prevent trying to bring what is done in the game as close to what is realistic as possible, this is such a slight issue for me that I just don't care. For example, I think pulling single mobs is a much more serious issue, one that I see done almost every time that I go adventuring in some place that is at least minorly difficult, and something I've even done myself at times when I didn't want a venture to cost more than what I earned from it, or was afraid of dying to the mob, point being with these things going on, 3 or 8 traps in a row doesn't make any difference at all to me.
...Anyhow as I said my previous post was therefore mostly aimed at those calling for script or rule changes.

[Munroe]

Mar 1, 2013 10:35:25 GMT -5 erratic1 said:

I think all traps should be neutral, yes. That actually confused me at first when I started playing here. (My old server had traps that harmed everybody,l so you had to keep clear of them once set- only the actual trap setter could move through them).

Stacked traps being an exploit though? If a DM took traps off of me for something that has never been picked up in over 10 years of online NWN playing, I'd be very upset to say the least. It's something rogues can do that others cant, and expected of them as well... changing that or calling that an exploit is just plain wrong.

Some of the bosses here require traps stakced to even have a chance of defeating them if you dont have a mage in the party. So changing this is going to seriously swing the nerfbat at people who don't have access to such.

On the issue of stacked traps, I am expressly NOT talking about overlapping traps. You can set traps so their trigger zones overlap without exploiting the game mechanics, and that is fine. You just set the trap at the edge of the trigger of the other trap. Wherever you set the trap becomes the middle of the trigger, so if it's just off the edge of the other trigger, their zones will overlap (about halfway).

But you can't set a new trap in the center of a trap that is already set (or anywhere in its trigger zone). If you are "fast enough" Neverwinter Nights will allow you to queue setting a trap in the exact same location as another trap that hasn't finished setting though, and your PC will set all the traps there that you managed to queue before the first trap finished setting. So all your traps are literally in the same spot. This is stacking traps. You're literally queuing actions that you would not be able to do if the first action you are undertaking were already completed. So don't do it. You already put a trap there.

[Syd's Blue Sky]

I just pretend I'm Solid Snake whenever I pull mobs. Is it reasonable to think that they're always in neat little clusters of six and eight? I dunno, what are you RPing at the moment, a spawn of eight or four pairs of two?

Line up eight traps in a row and have a dragon chase you through it? Sure. Maybe I want to RP that I killed and hollowed out a lizardfolk shaman and wore its skin as a disguise so I could sneak through the lair setting traps when I wasn't being watched. This having been accomplished, I walked up to the dragon, knowing full well it's expecting me to bow down and worship it like a god... but instead I threw a rock at it and called it a smelly lizard. Maybe the dragon decided to chase me through the cave to kill what it believed to be an insolent little lizardfolk, and in doing so wasn't being very mindful of possible traps because why would the lizardfolk who worship this dragon set a bunch of epic traps in their home?

We're stuck with the mechanics when they work against us, at least let us use those very same mechanics to work for us. I think it's even less reasonable to have a re-setting fire trap on an unlocked door barring passage to an RDD with 36 str and really mean looking boots than it is to lead a highly intelligent creature through a line of traps.

I guess my point is I don't really see any problems with this stuff. It comes down to "is the person RPing doing that?" If so, sure, cool, game on. The game engine only lets us set traps and lure things through them in so many ways. In a perfect world things would be different, but this is a 12something year old game we're playing on the internet for fun.

That's my opinion.


EDIT: Btw, I've never really hunted with a decent trapper with any consistency on my time on FRC. I've never even seen traps used to kill anything more dangerous than an Ogre with what seemed like At Will Heal spells.

[Razgriz]

Mar 2, 2013 5:16:11 GMT -5 Syd's Blue Sky said:

I just pretend I'm Solid Snake whenever I pull mobs. Is it reasonable to think that they're always in neat little clusters of six and eight? I dunno, what are you RPing at the moment, a spawn of eight or four pairs of two?.

We need crates of hidding +10. Oh and bolts of sleeping.

[quelunia]

Heh ya Solid Snake... that is a good comparison for a solo trapper.