The Forgotten Trap Makers

[mrbadexample]

I would like to suggest an improvement to the long forgoten often sold/junk trap makers. The overall feeling I've gotten from players and friends is that the trap kits are useless in LL's and not worth using due to huge amount's of gold needed and the DC on the traps is so low they will hardly ever work.

So I would like to make a couple of suggestions to make the traps kits more economical and attractive to players.

1. Using Skill Focus/Epic Skill Focus/Skill Mastery feats increases the over all save DC on the traps you create I'm not sure what would be a fair DC increase maybe 2/4/6 Also alter the save for half damage instead of no damage. That would simular to a casters DC increases with Spell Focuses.
My reasoning for this type of change is that as a person becomes better and more proficent at work with the trapmakers he is able to create better stronger traps then the orginally possible.

2. The Set Trap skill should infulence the amount of gold needed to create a trap. With Trap Kits costing 175k-250k to create a single trap. They are not very economical, maybe if the cost of the trap was reduced by 2.5k per 2 points in Set trap that would be better this would reduct the cost of the traps to 75k-150k.

3. If suggestion 2 wasn't feasible have the trap kits create multiple traps for the cost.

4. To further the alure of traps kits include a new Set of Legendary Trap kits with an extremely High creation DC simular to maybe Dustbones Locked chests and skill mastery doesn't effect. These Traps have a Huge AoE and are capible of doing large amounts of multiple damage types. Again I'm not sure what would be concidered balanced or feasible for the amounts.

[nohmask]

I loved those trap makers my first wizard build....made a point to take just enough to make them....then realized they really dont do much past a certain level (I tried them in the pyramid....go figure....), while they did about 100 pts each there, and I have a habit of layering multiple traps/types of traps, this just wasnt as feasible as I had found in some single player mods I typically used this trick in. Doubling the damage outpit would do a lot in some areas where you could pull some beasts over them...but its been a while since I used any of these so perhaps the damage output is more than approx. 100 per already? N.

[maudlin27]

I'd favour scaling the power of the traps with the set trap skill as opposed to the feats myself (e.g. +1 DC per 2 skill points, or something more appropriate). Also scale the effect with the set trap skill, that is, provide a damage boost according to the skill level when the trap is set.
The types of trap kits could then affect the magnitude of such boosts, as well as the base damage.

I'd probably favour much more powerful, but expensive traps as opposed to weak but cheap traps myself though.

[Akar]

Or have a trap kit the will disable a creatures sneak attack immune. It would be similar to a mage that needs to overcome SR casting MD and then a spell. The rogue could lay a trap lure the creature and then have a chance at sneak attack.

[Akar]

After seeing the last update and the parry skill gave me an idea. Have the trap skill at certain number of ranks give your attack special properties that can be used a certain times a day. The special properties would be based on creatures that a rogue could trap, study and replicate.
Rational - You trap a giant scorpion and now you have the venom to make your attacks reduce damage resistance. This would allow "set trap skill" to be more useful and not actually using traps that cause lag on the server.

Just my 2 cents.

[unnone]

The way traps stand, the cost is out of whack with the damage provided, combined with thier low DC. A char needs to be around level 25-30 to make the traps reliably. However, even bandits can evade them.

Possible suggestions:
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1) Make them unevadable at a certain trap skill. Evasion and improved evasion ruin their usefulness.

2) Make the damage scale with Trap skill and/or character level

3) Use a delayed blast fireball type script for the traps, instead of the trapping routines. I would think this would give much more flexibility, but I am unsure of the load on the server. If the user transitions, wipe them.

4) Attach effects to the traps at certain skills in addition to their initial blast, based upon spells related to those - (five minute list follows) Word of Faith attached to the divine trap, Mass Blindness/Deafness to the Sonic, Combust for the fire, Enervation for the Negative one, Death to Undeath for the pos one, Thunderclap for the electric one (maybe this could be for the sonic trap, but what else are ya gonna give electric? Chain lightning?), Acid Fog for acid, and perhaps some sort of slowing effect or stonehold effect for the cold one.

5) Another idea would to be have a check after the trap goes off for a Combust type effect specific to each element (No SR check, only save check).

6) I do like the idea of inducing a vulnerability to a certain element/damage type as well.