It's been said by the DMs before that you are not meant to deal with combat random events by sneaking past and looting the end boxes.
However, I've seen evidence the opposite case occuring. People with no trap or lock skills going for the non-combat random areas where the only problem is traps and locks. I'd consider using summons to remove all the traps when you have no Disable as lame as sneaking past an army to beat the combat ones.
This could be mechanically prevented by just making the majority of them into persistent traps that won't vanish when triggered. People could still get a small reward for discovering the event, but would actually need skills to beat the intended challenge.
I would say that there's a difference between intentionally springing a trap and sneaking past an army. A trap is one sort of challenge, an army another. There's also a difference between skill points and skills. Problem solving is a skill.
I've found a fair number of the Abandoned Hideout areas myself. I didn't bother using a summon to trigger the traps because I didn't have that many summon spells prepared. Instead, I just triggered the trap myself, took the damage, and then healed myself with bandages. Even if the traps are made persistent, one would just have to make sure not to open that same crate more than once.
If the DMs only intend for these Abandoned Hideouts to be completely accessed by rogues with skills in open lock, they'd make all of the crates locked instead of just the chest.
We even have summon items called Trap Springer-something-or-others (I forget the exact name). It's an RPG convention as old as time.
2000.
Quote from: ScottyB;163426We even have summon items called Trap Springer-something-or-others (I forget the exact name). It's an RPG convention as old as time.
Yeah, this. This kind of falls back to an old topic on archery and luring but you can't expect people not to use logic (in most cases). If you spot a trap and have no means to disable it but have a magical summon that can, why not?
Unlike the AI for archers though, this can be covered by simply having traps that don't go away. The trap triggering interrupts box opening, so a persistent trap effectively "locks" the box until it is removed. Make the majority of random area traps work like this and "Shit, I need a burglar here" for a traps random becomes as important as "shit, I need warriors" for a combat one. This would promote using teamwork or having the skills to be an explorer, rather than "Whoops, looks like yet another random emptied by a Druid with summons".
I am pretty sure they have the ability to tell who lamed the area, if they hear about it. So if you notice it has been done just mention it to a DM and if they are so inclined they can check the logs.
I personally would be pretty sour if I found a random exploration area, fought my way through it and then some stupid trap meant I could never take the reward because nobody in my merry band of explorers has disable trap.
A druid that throws summons at traps is going to get spellfailure the moment we see it.*
Wizards get delicious evil points.
* Probably. I dunno. I don't log in, anyways. But you better have a good reason!
I actually haven't seen anyone utilize a summon for traps in a long time. Most people are willing to take the damage (which is a big risk in the first place) and I don't see why you would want to make all the randoms rogue only? Sounds silly as there are enough of them that you can only get the good stuff by having a true sneak. The only issue I've ever had is recently when someone decided to sneak pass an extremely difficult undead and its minions and after using enormous supplies to defeat them, finding out that such had been done.
Anything openable by open lock skill should be openable by the knock spell too.
There's really no need to make party forming any more difficult on a small server such as this. You can "promote" teamwork and versatile parties all you want, but it won't happen if there aren't people around.
Not having the right people for the job is no excuse to lame something.
To be clear though, my only view of 'laming' these is if all the loot is gone and none of the monsters are dead.
If you just can't do it right, don't do it at all.
Quote from: Box;163689I personally would be pretty sour if I found a random exploration area, fought my way through it and then some stupid trap meant I could never take the reward because nobody in my merry band of explorers has disable trap.
Totally had this problem. Thankfully a DM was helpful since really... we were lucky to survive the fight to begin with. Traps are one thing. Locks on non-bash-able (non-"Knock-able") items means you either have a rogue in your team (which isn't always possible) or you simply get nothing.
perma locks make me sad and want to multiclass rogue with everything. :(
Quote from: "FleetingHeart"If you just can't do it right, don't do it at all.
You cant tell until the end of some of these. But yeah, kill them shits, or the group that comes in after thinking they're going to get some fun, gets robbed. This is also not cool.
Just make it so druids can't do random areas. Problem solved!
This has gone off from my original topic, so i'll restate. i wasn't talking about combat encounters but the non-combat ones that are literally a room of trapped chests. I'd say that for those, getting a trapper (which need not be a rogue, lots of my pcs have had crossclass lock or traps or a familiar) should be as necessary as having a goon for combat ones. If you can bash anything, and just soak any random trap, why would anyone bother with open lock or disable? Also having locked chests has led to interesting stuff on combat encounters like trying to dig up a lockpicker without revealing the location to a looter.
Make the loot spawn on boss death rather than before and there wouldn't be a need to rely on traps and locks that are getting lamed.
Actually Gnome, your OP clearly stated combat random events, but VP has a really great suggestion, if it is possible.
As far as non combat events go, well, if there is nothing guarding the chests, there probably shouldn't be too much there in the first place.
I mentioned them yes, but to compare the fact that they have "Don't do them without fighting" instructions whereas noncombat ones don't have "Don't do this without disabling stuff properly" restrictions.
I haven't noticed laming of the combat ones, only the noncombat ones. In fact, you could deal with sneak looting the combat ones by ensuring there's always a barrier you have to bash, or a boss key, or whatever.
I'm not sure if this is off topic or not but what's the difference between summoning a creature to die in a fight or summoning it to die to a trap? I've seen people (guilty myself) summon creatures as silly as rats to fight ogres. Druids putting the summoned creature into a no win fight situation should be just as punishable as summoning them to fall on a trap. Not to mention I thought summoned creatures didn't really die, that they were pseudo-real and simply went back to wherever they came from after they "died" or time expired in the summoned area.
QuoteNot to mention I thought summoned creatures didn't really die, that they were pseudo-real and simply went back to wherever they came from after they "died" or time expired in the summoned area.
They don't die, but they do feel the pain and such that goes with being beaten half to death or melted by that 98 damage acid trap.
As a druid, purposefully throwing creatures into harms way knowing it will 'die' should/will get you spellfailure as soon as a DM sees it.
I don't remember seeing that in any of the books I've read. It also goes against the basic logic of D&D and Summoning spells, which is to get you help in combat. Combat sort of implies somebody's going to get hurt. Intentional sadism is one thing, I suppose, but that depends on the kind of creature you summon. All in all, I think it's safe to assume that the creatures you summon aren't actually real beings whose welfare you have to consider; otherwise every summoner would be evil for forcing the creatures to fight for them.
According to d20SRD, this is true for Summoning spells:
"A summoned creature also goes away if it is killed or if its hit points drop to 0 or lower. It is not really dead. It takes 24 hours for the creature to reform, during which time it can’t be summoned again."
There is no mention of pain, or the summoned creature getting angry about its fate on the next summoning.
So, that claim sounds rather arbitrary and dubious. It is almost certainly not the intention of the game designers. But this is off-topic, sorry about that!
Quote from: TheBeggarWhat we are getting at is Gods that love little furry animals won't like you sending in little furry animals to trap spring, even though said animal doesn't die and yes, does go back to it's plane of existance or wherever it came from.
These Gods dislike this because:
*Poof*
*the pretty little celestial squirrel chitters at you, it's big bushy tail bobbing up and down as it looks at you with big brown eyes*
OK little cute thing, um...You want a nut? *you toss the nut onto a trap you have found, a Deadly Spike Trap in the middle of the forest path. The little creature licks it's lips and sniffs after the nut, and then pounces on it. It looks so happy and in love with the nut that you really feel for it as sharp jagged spikes of death and destruction rip into it's flesh, impaling it, causing it to squeel in pain and anguish as blood sprays into the air and portions of it's bowel strike you in the face.*
*It's mangled form though is not dead, and in the instant before death comes for it like a welcome release from it's suffering you caused it a tear rolls down it's furry cheek and it disappears back to it's home. Safe and whole perhaps, but emotionally scarred.*
*No longer will this furry forest friend ever, ever reach for another nut. The emotional scars run too deep. Never again will it trust a -insert PC race here, or any humanoid for that matter. Unfortunately, celestial nuts are all it can eat...so it dies a slow agonizing death from starvation.*
And Eldath cries for the next 1000 years because that particular one you happened to summon was His favorite. He used to hand feed it nuts daily, and now it's emaciated little form lies forever on his celestial window stoop.
Do you really want to make Eldath cry?
//and yes, I know it should have no recollection, but I used it to over-emphasize the fact that even though the animal is whole that you still -did- cause an animal creature to suffer. In fact, you tricked it into suffering, because it has a crappy Int score and really just responds. It's that aspect that rubs those Gods the wrong way.
There was this AD&D summoning spell that would summon something like a dozen miniature animals, and they'd file around the dungeon floors covering as many paths as possible, with the express purpose of tripping traps. It was one of my friends' favorite spells.
Then again, he also used domination to convince NPC apprentices to cast Permanency spells - this was back when the spell would permanently reduce CON as one of the costs.
I guess my point is: it's not always quite so straightforward. You can't categorically state, "Druids will fall if they use summons to trigger traps." That's completely different from saying "A Druid of Lurue will fall if he tricks a unicorn into a lake of acid to use it as a stepping stone." The latter is a no-brainer, the former not so much.
Quote from: Relinquish;164030(Stuff)
Short addition to that. The PnP summon spells pull celestial/infernal creatures from their planes. Said templates bump their INT score up to 3, the minimum for player race intelligence (normal animals have 1-2, and mostly function off of WIS). So by running it over traps, you'd kill an aligned animal of humanlike intelligence, and chances are it
knows exactly what you did to it, but probably can't understand the complexities of why. I'm not sure how much the summons in NwN altered that, but if EFU is set in the same lore, it should, RP-wise, function the same way, which makes for some fun.