Make thief traps usable during combat.

Edvin · January 2016

Right now are traps almost useless.

Traps can not be used during combat, and can not be used if are enemies nearby.
Why can not thief hidden in shadows (or with Improved Invisibility) lay trap near to enemy?
It makes no sense!

I suggest allow laying traps during combat, but with increased difficulty.
VERY difficult (almost impossible) at low levels, but simpler at high-level.
Finally, will make sense invest more thieving points into "laying traps" ability.

SmilingSword · January 2016

Edvin said:
Right now are traps almost useless.

I beg to differ, traps are extremely strong. They are actually so strong a lot of people consider them cheese. Dragons, Liches, Flayers, Beholders, any of the big threats can all be handled quite well with traps. You can use traps in combat, your thief has to be a little bit away from the battle and out of line of sight, but it can be done. The Abazigal fight is a good example, you can kite him to the door way and hold him there while your thief runs to the other side of the room to set up a cluster of traps.

Anyway if traps where allowed to be thrown down in combat, then I think they would need a huge nerf because at there current power, every fight would turn into a joke.

Edvin · January 2016

@SmilingSword

Very strong? Are you serious?

Thief lvl 21 - Best possible trap = 8-29 dmg + 20 poison dmg
Mage lvl 20 - Skull Trap = 20-120 dmg (10-60 with successful Saving Throw)

Also, you can lay only few trap but unlimited number of skulls.

Yamcha · January 2016

Spike Traps (can be placed in combat),
20d6 damage 20-120 dmg

Or use Bounty Hunter traps, they can be thrown in combat, you just need to be out of sight.

But the mage is the most powerful class, you got that right. Traps are fine though.

SmilingSword · January 2016

@Edvin you can lay 7 traps, also a thief hits lvl 21 at 2420000 exp, while a mage hits 20 at 3750000. If we are talking about these two being in the same party the mage would be lvl 16 if the thief was at 21 and the thief would be lvl 27 when the mage is 20, thus having access to 4 HLA's "Which in my case would be 'use any item' and 3 traps.". Also skull traps are harder to kite enemies into as you can set them off, so not that useful in small corridors and such, plus they are not really unlimited as they take up spell slots, sure you can have a lot, but not that many more than seven, unless you have multiple mages all stacking skulls. The thief also has access to spike and time traps both of which are hugely powerful in there own ways.

The beauty of the thief trap is it's instant effect, whether that effect be dmg or something else like a timestop or a hold spell.

Why I say traps are very powerful is because of the stacking, if you drop 7 spike traps thats 140 - 840 dmg or if you drop 7 timestop traps that's a 70 second timestop, on a mage/thief, fighter/thief or bard that's game over for whatever you're fighting.

Edvin · January 2016

Yamcha said:
Spike Traps (can be placed in combat),
20d6 damage 20-120 dmg

Spike Traps cant be placed in combat.

SmilingSword said:
You can lay 7 traps, also a thief hits lvl 21 at 2420000 exp, while a mage hits 20 at 3750000. If we are talking about these two being in the same party the mage would be lvl 16 if the thief was at 21 and the thief would be lvl 27 when the mage is 20, thus having access to 4 HLA's "Which in my case would be 'use any item' and 3 traps."

I used lvl 21 as example, because thief gets access to most powerful (basic) traps.
But his traps will never be stronger. Mage spells are more powerful with each level.

SmilingSword said:
Also skull traps are harder to kite enemies into as you can set them off, so not that useful in small corridors and such, plus they are not really unlimited as they take up spell slots, sure you can have a lot, but not that many more than seven, unless you have multiple mages all stacking skulls.

You can easily have 30+ with single mage
Mage have multiple spells, which can create clones able to use magic.

And you cant have more than 7 traps, even with multiple thieves.

SmilingSword said:
Why I say traps are very powerful is because of the stacking, if you drop 7 spike traps thats 42 - 840 dmg or if you drop 7 timestop traps that's a 70 second timestop, on a mage/thief, fighter/thief or bard that's game over for whatever you're fighting.

Yes, spike traps are very powerful, but spike traps are EPIC ability.
They are not associated with normal traps and if you want to lay spike trap, you will be always successful.
This topic is about common traps, not epic abilities.

Yamcha · January 2016

Thats not how skull traps meant to be used, so your talking mostly about exploiting.

Instead of making traps stronger, I would set a limit for skull traps

* more then 2 on top of each other makes them unstable and they will explode.

Edvin · January 2016

Yamcha said:
Thats not how skull traps meant to be used, so your talking mostly about exploiting.

You are right about that.
But everyone is doing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpzDxUN8dWM

Yamcha said:

Instead of making traps stronger, I would set a limit for skull traps

* more then 2 on top of each other makes them unstable and they will explode.

I do not want make traps more powerful, but more practical.
But if you want to talk about epic abilities...

Spike traps (and others epic traps) should also be used during combat.
BUT
You should not be able to use two same epic abilities at same time.
No more stacking 5 epic traps on one place.

BTW: Glyph of Warding and Delayed Blast Fireball are spells with same problem like skull trap.

Gallowglass · January 2016

This is a ridiculous topic.

Traps are very powerful and can kill any enemy in the game - as those who have soloed the game with a Thief have regularly proved. Indeed, many would argue that traps are already over-powered. However, they're intended to be used as part of pre-planning and preparation before combat starts - i.e. craftily and skilfully, as befits a Thief.

A player not having learnt how to use traps is no reason to whine that traps ought to be even more over-powered. It's merely a reason to learn how to play better.

procco · January 2016

I can't see being able to to take the time it would require to set a trap during combat, and hope the enemy doesn't see. Maybe a mod for thieves to be able to make grenades or some such would be more realistic. They'd still need to be prepared ahead of time. So basically like Jan's flashers or whatever they're called. (I've only ever used Jan a little and I don't remember how those things work, exactly).

Edvin · January 2016

Gallowglass said:
This is a ridiculous topic.

Traps are very powerful and can kill any enemy in the game - as those who have soloed the game with a Thief have regularly proved. Indeed, many would argue that traps are already over-powered. However, they're intended to be used as part of pre-planning and preparation before combat starts - i.e. craftily and skilfully, as befits a Thief.

A player not having learnt how to use traps is no reason to whine that traps ought to be even more over-powered. It's merely a reason to learn how to play better.

You are talking about exploiting.
Stacking 7 epic traps on spawn points and one shot all game bosses has nothing to do with tactics or skills.

Edvin · January 2016

procco said:
I can't see being able to to take the time it would require to set a trap during combat, and hope the enemy doesn't see.

Do you think that flying skulls or fireballs are invisible?

Gallowglass · January 2016

Edvin said:
You are talking about exploiting.

Exactly the opposite. I'm talking about NOT exploiting, by instead using traps as they're intended to be used, carefully setting them up before combat in places where your target is likely to step on them (or can be lured to step on them, which is often where a little skill is needed). That's how real-life traps are used too. Not throwing them in combat like bombs, that's not what "trap" means, and it'd be an exploit to do that if the game allowed it (and asking for the game to allow it is merely asking for such exploits to be enabled).

The essence of a trap is that it's prepared in advance and waiting to be triggered. If you're doing it mid-combat, then that's a weapon, not a trap.

Edvin said:
Stacking 7 epic traps on spawn points and one shot all game bosses has nothing to do with tactics or skills.

Epic traps can be used pretty cheesily, that's true, although they can also be used in more subtle and imaginative ways. But mainly I'm talking about the ordinary traps, which are powerful and useful without being cheesy.

Edvin · January 2016

Gallowglass said:
The essence of a trap is that it's prepared in advance and waiting to be triggered. If you're doing it mid-combat, then that's a weapon, not a trap.

In D&D is many kinds of traps that can be used during combat.
Steel hedgehogs, exploding and paralyzing crystals sensitive to movement, actually vast majority magical traps.
Bear trap is not only thing that the thief knows. In fact, bear traps are very unpopular because they are large and heavy.

Make thief traps usable during combat.

Comments