Trap Handling

[Ethernil]

Any suggestions or links to handbooks about dealing with traps in dnd 3.5 without having to play a rogue, or generally subpar character to fill the skillmonkey role?
The rest of the team is high tier low optimization (wizard, cleric, paladin or some other bsf most likely).
From my experience, detect magic shows you magic traps which you can spring with summons or ranged attacks, or even dispell. And pits can be crossed with magic, climbing, ropes/rope bridges or colapsible poles. What do you do about arrow traps, pendulum blades, alarm traps and traps that blockoff passages? Also opening locked chests, doors and manacles, can that be substituted with strength checks or some other way? Preferably not magic.

[Telok]

Sir Bacon. A pig trained to fetch gold coins.

A wand of Mage Hand, Summon Whatever I, or Detect Traps.

Bag of Tricks, pet monkeys, skeletal rats, Summon Swarm, a incorporeal ally, some reserve feats, the party barbarian, a dominated or enslaved troll, an animated adamantine bowling ball, a sphere of annihilation.

[BowStreetRunner]

There are so many options to be the trap expert for a party that I hardly know where to begin.

Sure, the primary classes that give you trapfinding are Rogue, Beguiler, Ninja, Scout, Spellthief, and Factotum. But you can also pick it up with the 1st level Ranger ACF from Dungeonscape. Or you can pick up Trapkiller with the 3rd level Barbarian ACF from Dungeonscape. Artificer gets a Disable Trap ability. Incarnates can use the Theft Gloves soulmeld (which can be picked up through feats by other characters as well). Clerics with the Kobold Domain get it too. Dwarves (and Stoneblessed) also get Stonecunning for stone traps.

It's also available (in some form or other) to the following PrCs: Nightsong Infiltrator, Geometer, Temple Raider of Olidammara, Stonedeath Assassin, Silverkey, Disciple of Dispater, and Hoardstealer.

[inuyasha]

Pretty much any time my group's been in this situation, we just buy a couple goats and make them go down a hallway...

[OldTrees1]

This depends a lot on the kind of traps your DM uses. For example, can you describe a pit trap that would catch anyone in the party but would not catch Sir Bacon the pig?

At some point the Traps are hard enough that you either need IC trap knowledge or OOC trap knowledge.

[Fizban]

No matter how many workarounds you come up with, nothing will be as effective as simply having a Trapfinder because that is what the game is designed to expect. Since Trapfinding is a 1st level ability on multiple classes, you can get it on almost any build without trouble. There are also many ACFs which trade around feats and Trapfinding, so you could simply ask for it as a feat.

Locked doors/chests/manacles have always been smash-able through strength checks or damage, easy enough with a big weapon and/or Power Attack and even easier with the Mountain Hammer maneuver. There's also a very simple counter to that tactic, putting something fragile inside which breaks if you smash it. Otherwise magic is in fact the correct answer, the Wizard can Knock his way through anything the party doesn't want to smash.

For a class that can do all of the above, see Artificer.

[Telok]

You know you hsve a trap happy DM when you're on Sir Bacon VII and are bringing an actual bacon recipie to the game with you.

[ManicOppressive]

Scouts are always an option if you're just avoiding Rogue, and they're much better in combat most of the time. They're also immensely fun to play.

You can also always go for something that has a Rogue or Scout dip in the build without actually committing to them.

[LTwerewolf]

Have the entire party pitch in to get a persistent item.

[Matticussama]

I'm not sure what level you're starting at, but if your DM allows Leadership then Cohorts are great for filling "neccesary" roles that no one in the party actually want to play. It can be cheesy when taken too far, but Leadership when used sparingly - and to fill vital roles that no PC actually wants to play - can be a great contribution to the party.

[LudicSavant]

Hirelings such as Sir Bacon, master foiler of traps, is good for a lot of the standard stuff, but they also set off alarms.

There's also items like collapsible poles, bouncing balls, marbles, whatever. And you open doorknobs without touching them just because one of the standard traps is "contact poison on a doorknob." An expensive trap foiled by a handkerchief.

Beyond that, there's a plethora of spells (heck, your Cleric doesn't even need to be creative about it, he can just cast Find Traps or take the Kobold domain power). If you must, Search will do for the lower DC (20 or less) traps even without Trapfinding. There's also a ton of ways to get Trapfinding on a character if you really want it, but pretty much all of them require class levels in Artificer or Barbarian or something.

[Ethernil]

I played rogue once with the group, the dm has houseruled flanking sneak attacks out and has made it really hard to trigger sneak attack by surprise. He also makes hiding hard so i gave up on being sneaky, not to mention the guy who plays cleric(or fighter thats all he plays really) keeps ruining my move silently. I have enjoyed playing a swift hunter but i want to play other builds, not the same over and over.

Wildshaper ranger with trapfinding acf 5 into master of many forms 10 and topping it with nature's warrior 5 is one of the builds i feel like trying. Maybe with vow of poverty as we play with lower wbl and no magic marts.

I ve tried factotum into chameleon but it is heavy on bookkeeping for the return it offers (and the gm is really allergic to any kind of cheese).I 'd rather make an artificer. I believe beguiler would work better but we already have a wizard and i want to reduce overlaping abilities.

Two other classes i keep wanting to play but i haven't had the chance are binder and incarnate but either of them would require crazy optimization to perform as a skillmonkey.

[weckar]

How my mage deals with traps:

Summon Elemental reserve feat + Speak Terran

[Ethernil]

Would taking 1 or 2 levels of sandshaper on a beguiler justify ditching disable traps and using summon desert ally to spring them instead?

[Fizban]

I played rogue once with the group, the dm has houseruled flanking sneak attacks out and has made it really hard to trigger sneak attack by surprise.

It's fairly easy to trigger sneak attack by hiding in combat, a corner will get you every other round and a pillar or fog can get you every round. The trick is that hiding is part of movement and you only need to break line of sight to trigger the check, so one move action past a pillar or in and out of the fog means they have to roll spot or get shanked (use a ranged weapon to make this all easier and avoid the penalty for crossing open ground). That said, your DM sounds like a bad time.

Wildshaper ranger with trapfinding acf 5 into master of many forms 10 and topping it with nature's warrior 5 is one of the builds i feel like trying. Maybe with vow of poverty as we play with lower wbl and no magic marts.

Yeah, your DM definitely sounds like a bad time.

I ve tried factotum into chameleon but it is heavy on bookkeeping for the return it offers (and the gm is really allergic to any kind of cheese).I 'd rather make an artificer. I believe beguiler would work better but we already have a wizard and i want to reduce overlaping abilities.

If your DM thinks Factotum/Chameleon is cheesy then they either don't know what they're talking about, or you'll never get a Master of Many Forms in. Funny thing is, these hardcore low-magic (item) types always seem to be fine with Vow of Poverty, because they don't know what they're talking about. So be vindictive and take the gamble: VoP Master of Many Forms, and if he allows it crush the game under your pinky.

Two other classes i keep wanting to play but i haven't had the chance are binder and incarnate but either of them would require crazy optimization to perform as a skillmonkey.

There's an Incarnate handbook that says skillmonkey is actually their best role, but I don't buy it. I don't know if I'd call it optimization, but way too much effort to pull off, Factotum would be easier.

Would taking 1 or 2 levels of sandshaper on a beguiler justify ditching disable traps and using summon desert ally to spring them instead?

Heck, take the whole class. In a "low-magic (item)" world the ability to eventually heal and even return from death is great. Take the Arcane Familiar feat so you've always got someone to grab a biteful of your corpse and run it back to the desert, you still lose a level but that's better than everyone else who stays dead or pays 10,000gp for the same level loss. And by desert I mean any sandbox, beach, or gravel pit. You also get free metamagic up there, and as early as 4th you can trade exorbitant amounts of time for free trap sniffers with Improved Sand Shape. A bunch of the class is a mess, but the stuff that does work still makes it worth taking. I've dumped on Summon Desert Ally for being a terrible combat spell, but this post actually shows that a few of them are decent enough to use, at least up to mid levels.

And you get bonus points for theme: the Sand Shapers are all about magically dominating people, the City of the Dead touchstone required for the class gives Mass Charm Monster as it's higher-order ability. And Beguilers do what now?

[BowStreetRunner]

Would taking 1 or 2 levels of sandshaper on a beguiler justify ditching disable traps and using summon desert ally to spring them instead?

This really depends on your DM. I see people in these forums all the time who use summoned creatures and such to set off traps. I have also played with a DM who will put a trap at the halfway mark of a 180 ft corridor. When sprung, the trap seals off the entire corridor and fills it with acid. So if you are in the corridor then you are hit by the trap as well.

If your DM is cunning like that, you're going to need a trapfinder. Because even if you find a way around one particular tactic, he's got a dozen other ideas to throw at you. If your DM just puts run-of-the mill traps everywhere, all these alternative methods (like using a desert ally) should work just fine for you.

[Fizban]

And even without intelligent trap design there's simply the fact that there's no reason why every trap wouldn't be auto-resetting, magic not even required. You send in the literal trap monkeys to see where the trap is, but that doesn't actually disarm it at all, just lets you know where the edge of the killzone is.

[Ethernil]

It's fairly easy to trigger sneak attack by hiding in combat, a corner will get you every other round and a pillar or fog can get you every round. The trick is that hiding is part of movement and you only need to break line of sight to trigger the check, so one move action past a pillar or in and out of the fog means they have to roll spot or get shanked (use a ranged weapon to make this all easier and avoid the penalty for crossing open ground). That said, your DM sounds like a bad time.

I tried that and the dm said that the monsters(well he mostly uses humanoids with class levels so not often monsters) are still aware of me, i have to leave the room or something and reenter in order to be able to hide without being noticed.He mentioned i can use invisibility but as soon as i got a wand of it most encounters had see invisibility or true seeing. He kinda sucks as a dm but he is the only one we have willing to fill the slot atm, i ve used another thread raging about his playstyle so lets not touch the subject here.

[/QUOTE]If your DM thinks Factotum/Chameleon is cheesy then they either don't know what they're talking about, or you'll never get a Master of Many Forms in. Funny thing is, these hardcore low-magic (item) types always seem to be fine with Vow of Poverty, because they don't know what they're talking about. So be vindictive and take the gamble: VoP Master of Many Forms, and if he allows it crush the game under your pinky.[/QUOTE]

He doesn't think that the classes are cheesy, but he doesn't allow me to use iaijutsu focus or autohypnosis as a factotum as he says they are from a different setting and they don't exist in our game world. By cheesy i mean ways to get higher than 6th level spells with Chameleon etc, i don't like that kind of play either,
especially since the group is low op.

[/QUOTE]There's an Incarnate handbook that says skillmonkey is actually their best role, but I don't buy it. I don't know if I'd call it optimization, but way too much effort to pull off, Factotum would be easier.[/QUOTE]

I believe something along the lines of rogue 1 incarnate 19, or with a sprinkle of 3 levels of umbral disciple could arguably work as a sniping build, but as you said it will take alot of effort for something suboptimal.

On a beguiler basis the strongest prc contenders seem to be shadowcraft mage and earth dreamer with a dip of mindbender for mindsight when it comes to skill monkeying,divine oracle looks cool but 10 lvls of 2 skill points per level are a burden.

With this kind of dm beguiler is kinda risky too, he might decided to use a lot of undead or constructs and render most of my spells useless, something along the lines of spellthief/wizard/unseen seer seems easier to overcome challenges with.

How can i spread the quotes?, i suck at this :)

[Eldariel]

Kobold Domain (through Cleric-levels or Planar Touchstone-feat [Planar Handbook]), Find Traps-spell & Theft Gloves Soulmeld allow anyone to get Trapfinding. Then it's just a matter of figuring out what kind of a trap it is and how to bypass it. Tho you could just houserule Trapfinding away or make it a bonus á la PF and let everyone find all traps with Search and disable them with Disable Device. Probably the most reasonable outcome.