No rules for traps?

[jux]

On OQ2 book, there are several mentions of traps. Skill for creating them. Skill for disarming them. But I cannot find rules for what is a trap? How the GM should use traps?

[Newt]

No formal "This is how you do Traps section", probably because I don't really play OQ as a dungeon bashing game. There's examples of the more living/dynamic traps I use in my games in the example adventure "The Road Less Travelled".

[Skunkape]

Good to know that you've got something written up Newt, I'll need to take a look at it, but I have to say, the PCs could run into traps outside of a dungeon and if there's no rules written, how does a GM handle that scenario. So I'm glad that jux asked the question as I never thought about handling traps.

[nclarke]

I'm sure that many GM's could stat up things like those shown in this link.

http://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/survival/2013/03/how-build-trap-15-best-survival-traps

For bait one could use an item of loot, say a silver platter, and when that is picked up it trigger the trap with a net and a spring loaded branch. You could always watch Predator for Arnie's method of setting a trap :-)

[jux]

What I would look from the trap mechanics would be:

1. Making traps

Based on the use of skills (mechanisms, craft, lore) and descriptions one could make a trap of different quality: how difficult it is to notice, how difficult it is to evade, how difficult it is to disarm, how efficient will be the effect (damage, attack roll, etc).

2. Mechanic of the trap itself

Like I mentioned, one could be able to: notice trap, evade trap, disarm trap, suffer by trap.

Based on that, I would think the qualities of the trap could be skill values for opposed rolls. The levels could be broad like for general skills: Novice, Apprentice, Veteran, Expert, Master.

So from top of my head, a trap would have the following properties:

Property | Creating skill | Avoiding skill

Stealth | Craft | Perception

Trigger | Mechanism | Evade or when discovered Mechanism for disarming it

Effect | Craft | Armor/HP

Success of applicable lore skill or good description will give bonus for crafting. And the trap's property value is based on the highest success level: Novice, Apprentice, Veteran, Expert, Master.

Just a thought. May be too complex for OQ?

Edited June 20, 2014 by jux

[nclarke]

You should find a huge part of this in RQ6 Essentials (p75) available as Pay What you Want from Design Mechanism's site.

It's almost directly portable across to OQ.

[Newt]

Here's a very simple tripwire trap described, straight out of Life and Death one of the published adventures.

The three metre wide stairs that lead down into a dusty room which is five metre wide by ten metre long and two metres high.

Tripwire trap. Tarken’s men have trapped the stairs with tripwires.

Difficulty to detect: Perception -25%.

Difficulty to avoid: Normal Athletics.

Result: Fall of 2D6 metres down the stairs.

[filbanto]

Here's a very simple tripwire trap described, straight out of Life and Death one of the published adventures.

Traps from d101 dungeon crawls are excellent. Really concise and easy to adjudicate. I think what folks are asking about is "how can player characters make their own traps?". Here's an idea:

Describe what you are making to the GM. He'll give a penalty to something that is ill-conceived or a bonus to something really clever. If you can make use of existing terrain/material (example: you camouflage an existing hole in the ground) it'll take less time to build the trap.

- Difficulty to detect: Roll Deception skill to camouflage the trap. Success means it requires a Perception check to find it. You can voluntarily take a penalty to your Deception check to make it harder to find. For example the tripwire builder took a -25% penalty to make it harder to see.

- Difficulty to avoid: This is your Traps skill (or whatever they call it in OpenQuest). The GM and player should figure out what is the correct skill to avoid the trap. The builder can take a penalty to their Traps skill to make it more difficult to avoid.

- Result: This is how much damage (or other effect) and determines how long it will take to make the trap. A nuisance like a trip wire would take minutes to setup and only slow down the victim, but do no damage. A rule of thumb might be 1 or 2 hours per D6 damage the trap causes. If the player can cleverly use existing terrain (example: a trip wire at the head of a flight of stairs) the GM should set the appropriate level of damage.

[Newt]

I would make it more a conversation between the player setting the trap and the referee. Then the modifiers to detect/avoid and result from that and the Skill of the Character.  This is because in OpenQuest the rules explicity state that given time the character can easily perform that skill to the best of their ability.

 

For example

 

Nick the Novice (Mechanism 10%) can easily set up a basic trip wire, which is Easy (+25%) to detect and avoid and merely trips up any creature that falls foul of it. However adding a bell for an alarm is bit beyond him, so requires Mechanism roll to succeed. If he fails the trap merely falls appart as he's puttng it togeter or fails to work when triggered.

 

Meanwhile Melanine the Mistress (Mechanism 120%) can set up with ease a whole fiendish (difficult -50% to detect and avoid) set of alarm bells, slashing blades and tripwires without breakng a sweat or more importanly for the player wthout having to roll.

 

I suspose I should really give examples of what each ability level of skill can achive, Stormbringer 1-3rd edition does this, but its really one of those areas where the Ref earns their keep.

[soltakss]

The three metre wide stairs that lead down into a dusty room which is five metre wide by ten metre long and two metres high. 

Tripwire trap. Tarken’s men have trapped the stairs with tripwires. 

 

 

Three metre wide stairs? They must have had to move a lot of pianos.

[Newt]

Its part of  a big epic ruin... doncha know they built big in antiquity