Finding Traps

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Finding Traps

Postby TASchwitters » Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:06 pm

I noticed that the Thief's "Find Traps" percentile at first level is 14%, but anyone can find traps by rolling a 1 using 1d6, which is 17%. Why wouldn't a 1st-level Thief just roll the same way as everyone else?
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Re: Finding Traps

Postby kipper » Thu Aug 20, 2015 5:20 pm

1) Thief skill is "Find or Remove Traps"

2) The interpretation is often that the non-thief skill only covers large scale dungeon traps (such as a pit trap), whereas the Thief skill also covers small traps (such as a poison needle on a chest), magical traps, etc.

So in the case where there is an overlap (ie detecting large scale dungeon traps) the thief would use the 1d6 roll if it were better, in all other cases he would use his percentage on the thief table.
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Re: Finding Traps

Postby TASchwitters » Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:46 pm

Thanks for the clarification.
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Re: Finding Traps

Postby hogscape » Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:57 am

Low level thief skills are a bit of a joke. If I'm using percentiles I boost all level one skills to a minimum of 25%.
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Re: Finding Traps

Postby YHWH » Sat Jun 04, 2016 6:50 am

This issue comes up with a few of the Thief skills. I think the best way to handle these situations is to give the Thief both rolls at once: the percentile roll AND the 1 in 6 that everyone else is entitled to.

(I like this because it puts Thieves a cut above in this area, like they're clearly meant to be, while being more of a rules interpretation than a blatant house rule.)

On the other hand, there could be some other difference between the two rolls. Like the time it takes or maybe active vs passive. It specifies that the search everyone gets takes 1 turn, which is 10 minutes in game, which is not fast. (It's 1/6 the life of a torch and half of a wandering monster check.) I don't think it specifies how much time the thief skill is supposed to take. If it's faster that would be an advantage.
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Re: Finding Traps

Postby Gnarri » Tue Dec 13, 2016 10:26 pm

YHWH wrote:This issue comes up with a few of the Thief skills. I think the best way to handle these situations is to give the Thief both rolls at once: the percentile roll AND the 1 in 6 that everyone else is entitled to.

(I like this because it puts Thieves a cut above in this area, like they're clearly meant to be, while being more of a rules interpretation than a blatant house rule.)

On the other hand, there could be some other difference between the two rolls. Like the time it takes or maybe active vs passive. It specifies that the search everyone gets takes 1 turn, which is 10 minutes in game, which is not fast. (It's 1/6 the life of a torch and half of a wandering monster check.) I don't think it specifies how much time the thief skill is supposed to take. If it's faster that would be an advantage.


Some rpg-archeology-thread I found about B/X said that this was the correct interpretation in the sense of original intent, and also something about that the thief skills were supposed to be very quick compared to the ordinary trap-search that everyone can do. Thief skills were supposed to be almost magical in nature ("Hide in shadows" would mean that the thief could litterally hide in a shadow in plain sight, "Move silently" would mean that the thief did make no sound at all - being impossible to hear even for dragons etc).

OT: Thiefs "Climb Steep Surfaces"-skill is gravely under-used if you choose to play like this. It does not specify speed of climbing, but probably exploration speed at least? Even a lvl 1 thief would have a decent chance of climbing laterally on the walls of the labytinth instead of walking, avoiding all pit traps and stuff on the floor. If the walls are high, the thief could probably avoid a lot of encounters as well.
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