I posted on the bug board on the high failure rate of knock out traps but have gotten no response, so I'm going to ask here. Is that supposed to be intentional? My failure rate is at somewhere between 80 to 85%. I am using both trap ingredients off 35 to 40th level mobs as well as the best trap ingredient that can be purchased, judged to be level 30. I burn through about 50k or more of trap ingredients in a playing session because of the high failure rate (approx. 2 to 3 hours of playing).

Burst trap, for being the pinnicle of the guild, is little more than directional trap, a skill, that if I could do this over, would never get. I was under the impression it was an area affect, but in the situations it would be used the most, dealing with groups, it only hits one, the first one. Weapon trip lags for about 1 round, maybe 1 and a half, although I have seen individuals flee away from it after hitting it one round later. Isolate is utterly useless and waste of thief points. Because it starts battle when it fails and can only be practiced on pks (or someone really willing) and its inability to use it against anyone who is NOT in a group makes it a waste.

When I finally enter battle I have no unique skills besides weapontrip to do to someone, and if they are protected against it, I have nothing but kick, trip, dirt and disarm. Scrolls are an option, but scrolls are meant to be a boon, not a necessity of a class. Bards and rangers can do fine without scrolls, yet for some reason for a thief it becomes a must, and also requires massive prepping and high copper expense (big - on the fun stick and punishes not as experienced players).

With some preparation time, and an unmoving victim, in 15 hours I can set up a somewhat reliable set of traps that could cause them some damage and maybe put them to sleep, oh and faerie fire them too. In this non-stagnant world of always moving people (and ever growing world), that is close to impossible, and couple that with the large cost of trap ingredients in money if you buy, and massive time sink if you collect, its not worth the time. Add in that if your victim goes the other way, recalls or teleports, you just dropped 15k copper in ingredients that go to utter waste (or a total of 20 minutes of gathering gone to waste). I can collect in 5 minutes maybe two trap ingredients from various places, and yet use said two trap ingredients in 10 real life seconds, and they have a 15% chance of success. The fun of the game is using your skill sets, not spending 80% of your time prepping to use them, and 20% using them. Thats not fun at all, on anyone's list.

Gaining levels with a trap thief is the most boring thing I have done in years of playing. Absolutely boring and my usefulness to the group is an all time low. I'm right in there with a no form shifter as I bring the wrath of my second attack. The only saving grace is I can tank some with shield but low thief hit points makes that viable for about two mobs. If I'm lucky, one at hero levels.

The fun level of trap thieves is about -1 right now.

I understand thieves fill unique, maybe non-combat niches, but they are niches that they are very good at. Binders have incapacitation abilities beyond most classes if given a little time (and they have skills like gag that give them that time). Poisoners not only have knock out, but emetic poison, neurological, mind control, and fear, all unique to the class (with high reliability) as well as a substantial damage skill (with maladicts) when they reach the top of their guild (grenade, which I would die for right now). Stealers are the best at acquiring things, sacrificing much fighting skills, but then are also hard to kill due to their skills. Thug is what it is, more about killing and sealing it with knife, cheap shot, etc. But trappers are far from reliable. When I tell someone I have a trap set up for someone, every time I have to couple that statement with, "It will fail most likely so do not rely on it." If I cannot have some level of reliability on my skills and traps, I think its worse than not having the skill at all. A 15% success rate on knockout cripples the path. Damage traps do not do hardly enough damage, even three or four in a row, to come close to injuring anyone at hero ranks. And once battle is joined what am I going to do, kick them to death?

Every trap can be done better by another class. Blackjack is highly reliable and is well worth the small chance of failure and combat starting. Damage traps don't even come close to comparing with any area affect or damage attack of any other class. Faerie fire traps have some utility, but as a thief I don't venture into the woods much and setting up a trap for someone you can't see is even more impossible than someone you can.

Finally trap thieves have no skill that creates unique affects. Knock out, damage, faerie fire, everyone basically has these in some form. Trappers just deliver it differently (and much less effectively I will add). Other thieves are wholey unique in at least one or two facets, a trap thief just does what everyone else does, but doesn't risk combat on failure. The bonus of that is not worth the trap working 15% of the time. I would rather have it work 80% of the time and chance death than this absolute frustration.

My friend and I used to play Baldur's Gate on the playstation II together and we had this "move" called "elabra-trap" standing for "elaberate (sp) trap". We would move the exploding barrels along with us and try to time it so they kill creatures, it worked 15% of the time, and it was more of the uniqueness of doing it than actual effectiveness which made it fun ("Ha ha, killed it with a barrel!"). I feel like that all the time, where my whole character is one big 15% elabr-trap attempt, and if I had to kill every creature in Baldur's Gate like that, I would have not gotten past the 1st level, even with unlimited barrels. The fun stick is at an all time low.

Immortal and mortal comments are mucho appreciated, thanks.

I don't have the time to respond point by point at the moment, but
I wanted to let you know that I've been looking trappers over and
I will incorporate your feedback.

If anyone else feels strongly about this too, please submit trapper
thieves as your Santa Zulg item on the Contest Forum. :)

Qaledus

..

n/t

>I posted on the bug board on the high failure rate of knock
>out traps but have gotten no response, so I'm going to ask
>here. Is that supposed to be intentional? My failure rate is
>at somewhere between 80 to 85%.

Yep. Mine was high too.

> I am using both trap
>ingredients off 35 to 40th level mobs as well as the best trap
>ingredient that can be purchased, judged to be level 30. I
>burn through about 50k or more of trap ingredients in a
>playing session because of the high failure rate (approx. 2 to
>3 hours of playing).
>
>Burst trap, for being the pinnicle of the guild, is little
>more than directional trap, a skill, that if I could do this
>over, would never get.

It is a lot more than a directional trap. Maybe where you lay the trap matters though. For example, maybe a busy crossroads just outside the east gate of Galadon is not a good place. (I'm speculating here, since I think I've walked through one of your traps there.)

> I was under the impression it was an
>area affect, but in the situations it would be used the most,
>dealing with groups, it only hits one, the first one. Weapon
>trip lags for about 1 round, maybe 1 and a half, although I
>have seen individuals flee away from it after hitting it one
>round later.

Hmm, for me, it worked just like trip, only less often. However, it has other perks, if I recall. It isn't defended against in the same way that trip is, for starters. Also, I seem to recall it drained moves of an enemy.

> Isolate is utterly useless and waste of thief
>points.

Nope.

> Because it starts battle when it fails and can only be
> practiced on pks (or someone really willing) and its inability
>to use it against anyone who is NOT in a group makes it a
>waste.
>

It's whole point is to get people out of groups. And who says it needs to be at 100% to achieve that? I remember using it on a groupmate to save his life once. Think outside the box.

>When I finally enter battle I have no unique skills besides
>weapontrip to do to someone, and if they are protected against
>it, I have nothing but kick, trip, dirt and disarm.

Disengage is pretty useful if you are not tanking. I used this skill more than any other whilst ranking. (Trappers didn't get circle back in my day.)

> Scrolls are an option, but scrolls are meant to be a boon, not a
>necessity of a class.

That's your opinion. Personally, I believe that if a class has a skill that you could use to make it stronger, and you are not using it, then you can't really complain too much about the class being weak.

> Bards and rangers can do fine without
>scrolls,

Lots of rangers don't do that well at higher level.

> yet for some reason for a thief it becomes a must,

I agree (unless you are a rager)

>and also requires massive prepping and high copper expense
>(big - on the fun stick and punishes not as experienced
>players).
>

Not sure I'd call it massive prepping.

>With some preparation time, and an unmoving victim, in 15
>hours I can set up a somewhat reliable set of traps that could
>cause them some damage and maybe put them to sleep, oh and
>faerie fire them too. In this non-stagnant world of always
>moving people (and ever growing world), that is close to
>impossible,

Praise be to ranking. Something that keeps people in the same place for a long time.

> and couple that with the large cost of trap
>ingredients in money if you buy, and massive time sink if you
>collect, its not worth the time.

There are trap ingredients all over the place. I just found some newly added ones today, in fact, and almost every time I explore a new area I find a trap ingredient in it (higher level areas here, btw).

> Add in that if your victim
>goes the other way, recalls or teleports, you just dropped 15k
>copper in ingredients that go to utter waste (or a total of 20
>minutes of gathering gone to waste).

Yep. I think the idea is that you either set traps where he will blunder through a pile of them before he can stop, or you use isolate to get them into a trap, or you set traps so that they can't get back out without setting off more traps, or you attempt to steal the potions (my trapper didn't do too well at this) before they walk into the traps.

> I can collect in 5
>minutes maybe two trap ingredients from various places, and
>yet use said two trap ingredients in 10 real life seconds, and
>they have a 15% chance of success. The fun of the game is
>using your skill sets, not spending 80% of your time prepping
>to use them, and 20% using them. Thats not fun at all, on
>anyone's list.
>

I would say that trapper and poisoner probably isn't for you then.

>Gaining levels with a trap thief is the most boring thing I
>have done in years of playing. Absolutely boring and my
>usefulness to the group is an all time low. I'm right in there
>with a no form shifter as I bring the wrath of my second
>attack.

Disengage. Experiment with it. It can be your ranking friend.

> The only saving grace is I can tank some with shield
>but low thief hit points makes that viable for about two mobs.
>If I'm lucky, one at hero levels.
>

Thieves actually have pretty decent hp relative to a lot of classes.

>The fun level of trap thieves is about -1 right now.
>

Well, I know when I played mine, trap ingredients weighed about 10lbs each, so I didn't use traps much. I mainly used scrolls, and I had quite a lot of fun. The nice thing about scrolls is it lets you go after rangers in the forests etc, which traps alone often won't.

>I understand thieves fill unique, maybe non-combat niches, but
>they are niches that they are very good at. Binders have
>incapacitation abilities beyond most classes if given a little
>time (and they have skills like gag that give them that time).

I wonder if you've played these other thief paths. Why? Well, I've not played a binder, but I haven't missed people complaining about out-of-pk's unbinding their victims, and bindings failing a lot.

My own experience with a thug was that they are fun, but not that lethal, if you don't plan on cheapshotting people a lot. But then, I was a thug fighting people that could make unlimited weapons etc.

>Poisoners not only have knock out, but emetic poison,
>neurological, mind control, and fear, all unique to the class
>(with high reliability) as well as a substantial damage skill
>(with maladicts) when they reach the top of their guild
>(grenade, which I would die for right now).

Have you ever died to a poisoner? I never have. If a poisoner knocks me out, I replace all my food and water. I've been fully poisoned up and whilst it caused me to lose all moves and suffer periods of forgetfulness, I didn't die to it.

> Stealers are the
>best at acquiring things, sacrificing much fighting skills,
>but then are also hard to kill due to their skills.

Stealers are annoying, imho. But I don't deny that they are effective.

> Thug is
>what it is, more about killing and sealing it with knife,
>cheap shot, etc.

I didn't use cheapshot much, and I can tell you, without it, thugs are not that lethal. I racked up killed at low to mid level, but at high level, I found the thug skillset let me be an annoyance, but little more. (Although I didn't bother spamming cheapshot so maybe that is why.)


> But trappers are far from reliable. When I
>tell someone I have a trap set up for someone, every time I
>have to couple that statement with, "It will fail most likely
>so do not rely on it." If I cannot have some level of
>reliability on my skills and traps, I think its worse than not
>having the skill at all.

How is it worse? You still have the option of not practicing the skills.

> A 15% success rate on knockout
>cripples the path.

Huh? I think 15% is damn good, considering you don't need to expose yourself to risk in the process (yes, I know you can fall victim to your own trap, but there are ways around this).

> Damage traps do not do hardly enough
>damage, even three or four in a row, to come close to injuring
>anyone at hero ranks.

Not an unhurt person, but those forced to flee a cabal defense on foot? Those running from the temple just after recalling barely alive?


> And once battle is joined what am I
>going to do, kick them to death?
>

Here's where I'd say that you are wasting your thief abilities if you don't use scrolls. By the time battle is joined, they should be messed up, either by some scrolls, or by your allies, or by you picking a time when they are hurt.

>Every trap can be done better by another class. Blackjack is
>highly reliable and is well worth the small chance of failure
>and combat starting.

Except you can get bashed to death. Trappers don't have to get bashed to death in order to ko people.

> Damage traps don't even come close to
>comparing with any area affect or damage attack of any other
>class.

But then, trappers don't have to expose themselves.

> Faerie fire traps have some utility, but as a thief I
>don't venture into the woods much and setting up a trap for
>someone you can't see is even more impossible than someone you
>can.
>

What? This trap was great?! You can assume that if they are hostile, there is every chance they are going to run right at you from the entrance to an area, particularly if they can see you from the entrace.

Damage traps are also useful to tell when someone steps in and out of an area very quickly to scout it (so quickly that WHERE would miss them).

>Finally trap thieves have no skill that creates unique
>affects. Knock out, damage, faerie fire, everyone basically
>has these in some form. Trappers just deliver it differently
>(and much less effectively I will add).

No. Less reliably. Not less effectively. For example, duergar that see other thieves won't see your trapper before you ko them.

> Other thieves are
>wholey unique in at least one or two facets, a trap thief just
>does what everyone else does, but doesn't risk combat on
>failure. The bonus of that is not worth the trap working 15%
>of the time. I would rather have it work 80% of the time and
>chance death than this absolute frustration.
>

Ahh, ok, I see you already get my main point then. Maybe a trapper is not for you. But it does have a different style of play to other thieves and classes.

>My friend and I used to play Baldur's Gate on the playstation
>II together and we had this "move" called "elabra-trap"
>standing for "elaberate (sp) trap". We would move the
>exploding barrels along with us and try to time it so they
>kill creatures, it worked 15% of the time, and it was more of
>the uniqueness of doing it than actual effectiveness which
>made it fun ("Ha ha, killed it with a barrel!"). I feel like
>that all the time, where my whole character is one big 15%
>elabr-trap attempt, and if I had to kill every creature in
>Baldur's Gate like that, I would have not gotten past the 1st
>level, even with unlimited barrels. The fun stick is at an all
>time low.
>
>Immortal and mortal comments are mucho appreciated, thanks.

A question for you. Do you not think it would be sort of cheap if you could stick a trap outside galadon's east gate and ko people with a 1 in 3 chance of success?