Ravenloft: Prisoners of the Mist

Public (OOC) => Tech discussion => Topic started by: foxtale on June 28, 2018, 03:32:54 PM

Title: Player crafted traps can't be retrieved by their owners
Post by: foxtale on June 28, 2018, 03:32:54 PM
At least not by rangers.

The issue is that player crafted traps have no standard retrieval option, so per command, they have to be disarmed. Disarming them appears to always count as retrieval because the trap will get added to the inventory of the disarming person - which is a nice boon - however, the owner of the trap will not get an automatic success as they would get with the retrieval of a store-bought trap.

This leads to rangers running into a problem, because disarm trap isn't a class skill for them. Usually, one point in it was enough to retrieve your own traps because it will not only be taken 20, but effectively auto-successed. With the player crafted traps, however, they will need to meet the standard DC, which they likely can't.

I understand why rangers don't get disarm trap as a class skill. Logically, I think they should - as set trap and disarm trap must be deeply tied to each other as far as real-life skills go - but it makes for better game balancing if rogues are allowed to keep it as their thing.
However. It is disheartening that I now need to find a rogue to re-collect my own traps. I would like to see the standard retrieval option enabled for them, or get an auto-success on disarming them as their owner - whatever is more easily done.
Title: Re: Player crafted traps can't be retrieved by their owners
Post by: mappinger on September 27, 2021, 02:24:29 PM
While a bit of an old thread, I saw this excerpt bumped under another page as a still active question.

I'm not sure how I feel about this issue. On one hand it strikes me as unpleasant that someone who invests heavily in trap setting is unable to remove their own traps - especially with the precedent in the core game that one can always pick up their own traps. (And further combined with the fact this realization might not come for newer players who invest in Set Trap and discover several levels later the problem).

On the other hand, it might otherwise be a tad too easy to engage in laying/claiming traps (if my understanding of the DC for setting them is correct combined with the generous take-20 rule) for any Dex build with minimal investment and a couple pieces of not hard to find gear. In this way the "you can set 'em but you can't pick 'em up" aspect of the rather nasty, exclusionary Disable Device part serves as a gatekeeper.

The previous poster is correct, though, that this goes the other way from what might be a 'tad too easy' and cuts Rangers with a 'hunting & trapping' theme out. 1/2 ranks in Disable and probably a meager INT on a multi-stat reliant class make for a poor Disable Devicer. This skill also strikes me as the realm of solo/2-players play. Groups would rebel furiously if someone wanted to stop and take the time to regularly put down traps in a normal dungeon run.

If I understand things correctly, the crafting code is what is at play here. Is there a reason that crafting a solid trap (say a Strong Fire trap with a Smoldering Fire Essence) doesn't just give the player the built-into-NWN Strong Fire Trap? I imagine the base item would work as in the core game, i.e., if you set it, you can pick it up.






 
Title: Re: Player crafted traps can't be retrieved by their owners
Post by: zDark Shadowz on September 27, 2021, 03:52:32 PM
Traps would be better for defense style areas rather than extermination, its not necessarily something for solo or small parties but the strength of traps lends it as pretty useful for low level play where people may fall back & advance repeatedly for better ground.

Hopefully the ability to recover these player crafted traps as auto-successes is fixed, feel like it should be under bug reports rather than tech discussion if a trap isn't working as intended.