Why buy the tool kit?

[Gomcse]

Teleport trap! I LOVE that! Stealing it. Thanks.

[j_dean80]

Teleport trap! I LOVE that! Stealing it. Thanks.

There's a teleport trap in Wizards of Morcar.

[Gomcse]

I don't have WoM. Now I'm a sad panda. I want... everything. I guess I can download the pdf... But I want the originals! LOL

[mitchiemasha]

Revisiting this as the Tool Kit is causing me much agro on my v9 mods about to drop. Taking the most time in thought, how to play it? So many possible interpretations from the various versions and editions of the rules.

Original UK Card wording

This tool kit enables you to remove any trap that you find.
Roll one combat die. On the roll of a skull the trap goes off and you lose 1 body point.
Once you have rolled the trap is removed.
Cost 250 gold coins

how about adding Treasure deck traps? Seriously increasing the value of the Tool Kit. Adding a reason for the dwarf to buy it too. The card does say "you find".
Theme it. You act quickly to avert the hazard, cutting, weighting what ever is required to not be hurt, unless rolling a skull.
"The click of the latch alerts you to your error”
“Clanging chains can only mean 1 thing”
“A sinking flagstone under foot is clear warning”

Currently Pit traps are played.

If a Hero searches for traps, place the trap facedown on the board. To disarm with a Tool Kit a hero moves on to the tile and rolls the check. Once sprung a trap can't be removed (hence the need for rope)!

I'm considering only placing them face down if a hero has a map or paper and quill from armoury, otherwise it's the US ed, point at the dodgy looking square (which always catches me out, so i don't want to lose this). Perhaps... If a hero has a tool kit, they always get to roll if standing on an unsprung trap, even if not searching, as long as no monsters are present.

Disable traps as a skill works differently. More in tune with Original EU Dwarf Card

Disable Traps: Remove a trap you find during your trap search.

One thing we always overlook when thinking about the Tool kit... If you found the pit trap and failed the roll, it isn't falling in the pit that takes your Body point. The trap is still removed but triggered. It's messing with the mechanics to disarm it, in which ever square you happen to be on or where you were during your search, that loses you the body point.

Now i think about it, the original UK rules were perfect before they changed it. So removing a trap isn't an action. It's part of your search action, if you have the skill or a tool kit.

Disable Traps: Remove a trap you find during your trap search.
Tool Kit: Remove a trap you find during your trap search, roll to check to see if you lose 1 body point.

Simples!!!

[wallydubbs]

I've read it said on here that nobody really buys a toolkit, as the Dwarf has the inherent ability to disarm it. At least in the North American version there's the possibility of failure. Even so, his ability surpasses that of any hero with a tool kit.

In one of my groups the Wizard actually bought a Toolkit because he very rarely engages in combat and wants to be more useful to the team. From there, the Wizard would attempt to disarm Spear traps if he's around, because the hero still has to roll another skull if they fail to disarm, while the Dwarf takes the pit traps and falling block traps.

I'm also implementing the mod, for Wizards of Morcar (and in particular the Fire Mage quest), instead of Fireburst traps going off as soon as the hero enters the room, the hero must either step on the space it is in in the quest map, or search the room for Treasure. However, if the Wizard searches for traps, he will be able to sense the magic at work and warn the other heroes, so they can set it off and clear out before it explodes.

Also, in regards to the Dwarf. Though he has a superior disarming ability, if he buys a Tool Kit, he can automatically disarm the trap without rolling... but it still costs an action.

[The Admiral]

I play my own house rules for trap disarming and the tool kit. Every Hero has an inherent trap disarming ability. They must roll that number or above to disarm a trap. Generally it is Barbarian 6+, Wizard 5+, Elf 4+, and Dwarf 3+. Humans are 5+, but specialists such as Rangers and Rogues would be 4+ and 3+ respectively.

A tool kit gives the Hero a -1 modifier to the dice roll, so that even a Dwarf with the tool kit has a chance to fail, although I allow my Dwarf to train to become a 'Trap Master' which gives him 1 re-roll per quest for a failed attempt.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I too play my own house rules for trap disarming and the tool kit. Every Hero has an inherent trap disarming ability. They must roll that number or above to disarm a trap. With all the Heroes getting the base 4+ roll to disarm and the Dwarf getting 3+, a toolkit used by anyone adds 1 to their roll.

However I don't have searching for traps in my rules, you find a trap by either stepping on it during movement, or through searching (generic "search" action) in a room in which case your figure is placed on the trap square, either way you are on the trap at that point and have no option but to attempt a disarm, failure results in the trap springing.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Leaving aside my own custom trap handling rules and returning to the original question...

Why buy the tool kit?

So that you can disarm traps

Why buy the tool kit as can disarm traps already?

Using to disarm traps as his ability is "free" and effective is good strategy but...

1) might be dead
2) The party may have been split up so the cannot get to the trap.
3) The party may have split up, so whilst can get to the trap but it'll take ages for him to get there on those stumpy little legs.
4) might not be playing

However in any of those scenarios players may just take their chances and trigger the trap anyway, after all most of them only cost you

Some suggestions to make buying the tool kit more likely/worthwhile (whilst not ignoring our resident specialist )

a) Make the game slightly harder (loads of ways to do this are available on this forum), this slightly increases the chances of the dying (and other characters), it also makes every matter a little more so less inclination to just suck it up

b) For traps where the penalty is lose upgrade them to to "roll two combat dice, lose for each skull rolled" (so no defence), whilst on average this doesn't make them harder, but it does make them less predictable, choosing to just sucking up the damage from a couple of traps could lose you

c) Quest Creators are encouraged to forcibly split the party up from time to time, introduce "one-off" nastier traps from time to time and always create dungeons with multiple paths that encourage parties to split up and explore

d) Introduce a time-wasting penalty either through Evil Wizard cards or the Dungeon deck or the simpler "Snake Eye Rule" on your movement dice generates a Wandering Monster as if you had drawn a WM treasure card.

Another factor to consider
Another factor in this topic is that even if you were considering buying the Tool Kit, you would soon realise that even having sacrificed your hard-earned 250gc, you still won’t be as good at disarming traps as the Dwarf, so tactically you would still want to use the Dwarf to disarm the traps so why bother?

However, that may not necessarily be the case, at least not in the original 1st edition of the rules, the edition that introduced both the Dwarf’s trap disarming capability and the Tool kit.

The WHAT and the HOW
I’ve read a lot of rulebooks over the years and even written a few and whilst most writers and readers understand the two main parts of a rule, the WHAT and the HOW even if you are confident that you have them nailed, there is still an opportunity for confusion on the part of the reader if you haven’t clearly distinguished which is the WHAT and which is the HOW.

The WHAT – what are the circumstances in which a rule should be applied. These often (not always as wording style varies between games) include words like “when” or “having”.

The HOW – how do I apply the rule, what steps do I follow, what dice and how many do I roll, what are the success and failure criteria and success and failure outcome.

Take Jumping a Pit Trap as an example, whilst the rules are not actually in the rulebook in the 1st edition, they are included in supplemental material, the EW screen, and they describe the WHAT “You may attempt to jump across a pit trap. You must have enough movement left to get across the pit, the square on the other side must also be unoccupied.” and the HOW “Any character or monster who attempts to jump across must roll a combat die. If he rolls a skull he falls into the pit and loses one Body point. If he rolls a shield he is allowed to continue his move. Count the square with the pit as a normal square when counting how far you have moved.”

However in many cases the WHAT and the HOW are not presented together, and for good reason, there are often many different situations in which a given rule should be applied, and these appear in different situations and different places within the rules, but you want to avoid repeating the HOW instructions in numerous places (as this is a waste of space and makes maintenance harder as you have to find and update the same HOW rules in multiple places, miss one and confusion reigns) so it is common for the various WHATs to be presented in the relevant places but for them all to point to a single HOW. For example hand-to-hand attacks and missile attacks are presented in different places in the rulebook each with their respective WHATs (when on an adjacent square versus when you have LOS) but the HOW is the same (roll x combat dice, add up the skulls, defender defends by rolling y combat dice… etc) and they both point to the same HOW, the hand-to-hand combat by virtue of it being in the same section of the rules, the missile attacks by including the statement “the process is the same as attacking”.

Returning to disarming traps
Returning to disarming traps, I think the confusion around this area in the first edition, is a case of failure to clearly differentiate between the WHAT and the HOW.

The Character Boards are the holders of WHAT information, they tell you WHAT the characters are good at, and indeed bad at, the Barbarian is “the greatest warrior of all” but vulnerable to magic “Bit beware of magic for your sword is no defence against it”, the Wizard on the other hand is great at magic and has “many spells that can aid you” but is a crap warrior “However in combat you are weak”, but it doesn’t tell you HOW combat or spellcasting works, it leaves that to the rulebook.

Note: The Barbarian is great at combat because he gets three combat dice in attack straight “out of the box” whereas the Dwarf only gets two, however once the Dwarf has bought the 250gc upgrade in the form of the Broadsword, he is as good as the Barbarian, as he also gets three combat dice in attack. The Barbarian is only better because he gets the effects of the 250gc upgrade included for free and from the start. This is the same situation in reverse between the Dwarf and the Barbarian in terms of disarming trap, the Dwarf is great at disarming, however once the Barbarian buys the 250gc upgrade in the form of the Tool Kit, he is as good as the Dwarf in this respect. The Dwarf is only better because he gets the 250gc upgrade included for free and from the start. (you probably don’t agree with this statement yet…but bear with me for a little longer)

If I were to ask you, under the 1st edition rules, to explain to a newcomer to the game, in WHAT situation a trap could be disarmed, not “HOW” but “WHAT”, you might state something along the lines of…

“You can attempt to disarm a trap once it is on the board. You can’t attempt to disarm it before it is placed on the board as it is hidden at that point, you don’t know it exists, first you have to be in the same room or passage as the trap and search for it, then you’ll find it and it is put on the board, at that point you can attempt to disarm it. You can’t attempt to disarm it once it has already been triggered or has already been disarmed as that is too late.”

Both the WHATs, the situations in which you can attempt to disarm a trap, are included in their respective places, the Dwarf Character Board and the Tool Kit card, using words to that effect (although due to the space limitations they are perhaps a little brief, but sum up the spirit of your description above)

You are the Dwarf. You are a good warrior and can always disarm traps that you find. You may remove any visible trap in the same room or passage.

The tool kit enables you to remove any trap that you find.

Note: that both pieces of text are consistent with each other, in that they both use the same word “remove” rather than “disarm” or more accurately “attempt to disarm” and they both specify, using different words, that the trap first has to have been found, has to be visible, has to be represented on the board before you can attempt to disarm (or “remove”) it.

However, this is just the WHAT, the HOW as expected isn’t repeated in both places, to avoid unnecessary repetition, but where is it located? You can search the rulebook and related documentation, cards, boards and screens but there is only ONE place in all this text where it tells you HOW to disarm a trap and that is on the Tool Kit card, so this must be the process that you follow when attempting to disarm a trap, irrespective to whether you are the Dwarf or equipped with the Tool kit, the only difference between the two is that if you are a character that isn’t the Dwarf then you can ONLY attempt to disarm a trap if you have the Tool kit, whereas the Dwarf can ALWAYS attempt to disarm a trap because he, uniquely, does not need the Tool kit to do this.

Roll one combat die. On the roll of a skull the trap goes off and you lose one Body point. Once you have rolled the die the trap is removed.

How do I attempt to disarm a trap?
Therefore, contrary to many expectations the Dwarf and a character equipped with the Tool Kit follow exactly the same process when attempting to disarm a trap and for clarity that process is as follows:

WHAT
A trap must first have been found, by performing a search (for secret doors and traps) action in the same room or passage as the trap, making the trap visible i.e. marker placed on the board.

HOW
The Dwarf, always, and any other character only if they have the Tool kit card, must move onto the marked square, and roll one combat die.

Success: If the die shows anything other than skull then the attempt has been successful, and the trap and its marker are removed from the board and the character may continue with their movement, if they have any remaining, and the square now counts as a normal square.

Failure: If the die shows a skull, then the attempt has failed, the trap is triggered. The marker now represents the pit (in the case of a pit trap) located on the same square or (in the case of a falling block trap) the marker must be moved to the adjacent square marked with an arrow and now represents the blocked square caused by the falling block trap being triggered. Follow the respective rules in the traps section for the effects of triggering these traps, including the fact that triggering a trap ends your turn and the effects of falling into a pit includes you losing a Body point.