Traps and Scurriers

Discussion on game mastering Earthdawn. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
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Moonwolf
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Traps and Scurriers

Post by Moonwolf » Wed May 01, 2019 9:44 am

Are generic traps meant to have some base attribute values? Because Scurrier's roll step 10 plus karma at 4 to generate trap attributes, which gives them an average of 14 points to spread over 4 attributes, meaning that they make traps that aren't threatening to anyone. Even leaving them with a disarm TN of 1, you end up with them either being blindingly obvious, incapable of hitting anyone (poor initiative) or incapable of breaking even the lightest armour.

Slimcreeper
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Re: Traps and Scurriers

Post by Slimcreeper » Wed May 01, 2019 11:28 am

I’ve put scurriers in an adventure before, and I’m afraid I just stuck in some traps that seemed to make sense. Didn’t even look at the mechanics of the power.

Sharkforce
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Re: Traps and Scurriers

Post by Sharkforce » Wed May 01, 2019 6:55 pm

you're (ab)using their ability wrong. just have them try over and over without spending any karma at all.

so far as i can tell, the traps created (or modified) are permanent. and the power can be used as often as they want. so they can just create a trap, and if they didn't roll well, they just modify the same trap over and over until they do roll well. without using karma, one in 64 attempts will score double 8, which will on average give them mid 20s to work with... and while 1 in 64 would be terrible for someone that takes hours or days to make a trap, that's not a big deal for a creature that can make or change a trap every few seconds. and now we're looking at almost 6 of such traps per hour... a single scurrier that has been hanging out somewhere for a day (assuming they don't need sleep) could have laid or repaired over 100 such traps easily. a mechanical trap where they aim for "typical" ratings, for example, could be detection 5, disarm 7, initiative 8, and damage 6, and would be well within their grasp assuming they retry until they get a good one.

also note that approximately every 4100 attempts, they'll come up with a rating 32 + 2d8 trap (again, without spending karma). actually, more often than that, because there's a chance their bonus die will roll an 8 that i didn't account for... that would be something like 4 such traps per day of solid work (this requires that we presume the scurrier is obsessed with making traps, but that sounds plausible to me :P )

also, they explicitly are making traps that aren't so much deadly as painful, so if the trap is somewhat lacking in the ability to deal lots of damage in order to have decent values in other areas, i'd say that fits rather well :P

so really, i think you'd be *easily* justified in having a very large number of traps (over 100) at around 26 total rating, a large number (20+) at 34 total rating, and a few (7ish?) at around 42 total rating, even for an area that has only had a single scurrier preparing for one day. for an area that has had multiple scurriers, or a single scurrier for longer, you would shift more of the traps to the high end or multiply the number of traps appropriately. i don't know about you, but that sounds more than adequate for a circle 3 enemy to me.

you'd want to grab someone who is better at probability math than me to get more exact numbers, but basically i think scurriers will be doing just fine. particularly when you remember that they can tip the odds in their favour by hanging around and cursing your luck.

Lursi
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Re: Traps and Scurriers

Post by Lursi » Sat May 04, 2019 8:40 am

Anydice says every 1000 attempts it will create a trap with a total of 42, which will solve the hero problem.

(With 2d12)

One question is, do you always realize that it is a super result or do you make over your perfect trap aswell?
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

Sharkforce
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Re: Traps and Scurriers

Post by Sharkforce » Sat May 04, 2019 9:55 am

Lursi wrote:
Sat May 04, 2019 8:40 am
Anydice says every 1000 attempts it will create a trap with a total of 42, which will solve the hero problem.

(With 2d12)

One question is, do you always realize that it is a super result or do you make over your perfect trap aswell?
2d12 is too high. they have a base of 10 (which is a roll of 2d8). the only way they get to 14 is with karma, and they would add their karma die for that rather than making a step 14 roll. but they can't afford to spam out karma like that, they don't have infinite (unless someone is getting repeatedly hurt by a trap nearby i suppose). they can't just infinitely try with karma, so you really need to use their chance when they aren't spending karma.

anyways, did some mucking around with that site, if i've done it right the chance doesn't go low enough to get rounded to zero until after 44. 44 is a 0.01% chance, or one in 10,000, if i'm not mistaken. that would be a rating 44 trap around 1 in every 100 hours (or 4 days, give or take)... but along the way, you'd also wind up (on average) with 42 traps of rating 32 or above (mostly towards the lower end of that range, including that rating 44 one), plus around 231 between rating 24 and 32.

of course, that is somewhat irrelevant... while you technically *could* have an area fortified with close to three hundred traps of pretty decent rating (for the purposes the scurrier will be hoping to achieve, specifically causing pain), i rather suspect your concern as a GM at that point is player mutiny. not to mention i'm not sure how you would even cram so many traps into an area i'd expect a scurrier to be able to reasonably keep watch over. point being, within a few hours of a scurrier setting up shop, it is absolutely reasonable to find a bunch of traps with a rating much better than 14 of the area they've claimed, and within a few days, it is absolutely *possible* (but not recommended) to have hundreds of traps, most of which will be considerably weaker than the ones in the GM's guide. my recommendation is to mainly lower the damage, probably drastically, especially on traps around the outer areas, since again: scurriers don't necessarily want to kill you, they want to make you suffer. not that your death will particularly bother them, provided you suffered enough to feed them well first. (around any area where they actually want to use traps for protection rather than food, i'd expect damage to be higher, but i still don't think they could achieve numbers as high as the traps in the GM's guide, so i wouldn't just grab traps from there without some significant modification).

as to whether or not you can tell that you've gotten a super result... i expect you wouldn't spot the difference between 8 and 9 or 38 and 39. i expect if you are at all remotely competent you would spot the difference between an 8 and a 39 though, or even a 29 and 39. just as you'd expect a competent weaponsmith to be able to recognize a sword that is well-made from one that is poorly made, and to be able to recognize a masterwork from either of those.

Lursi
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Re: Traps and Scurriers

Post by Lursi » Sat May 04, 2019 10:22 am

Oh, am I the only one that sometimes fucks up something I am usually pretty good in and realize only after it is too late?

Of course you mostly find out what you screwed, the question is when...
Of all things I lost, sanity I held dearest.

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