House Rules - Fantasy 1e - Traps & Locating them

 

As anyone knows who reads my blog, listens to my YouTube videos and actual plays for the Palladium Megaverse Podcast, I tend to run the earlier systems for Palladium games. That's because I grew up playing these games and I felt I really didn't need to update things. I felt the games were good enough on their own and if there was an issue, I can always house rule it to my liking. That's the type of game/system I enjoy and as a GM, I love the challenge of figuring out how to make things work.

Here is one of those situations I've come across many times, over and over again. Fantasy 1e, has no real mechanic in place for a character to find a trap or really search for traps. There is also no way for a character to actually save for a trap unless its a magic/spell/Ward/Circle. What about dart traps? Pit fall traps? Basically the traditional avoidance traps.

Sure, I can look forward to later editions and grab the Perception check mechanic, but then I'd have to come up with some way characters gain bonuses based on another skill or an attribute and then have them roll dodge.

BUT... I didn't like that and I wanted my own thing. So I decided to make up a d6 rolling system.

IF characters are aimlessly wandering around not looking for traps, oh well, guess what, they trigger a trap, they get a chance to flat dodge (no bonuses) because they weren't expecting a dodge move like in combat.

IF characters are ACTIVELY looking and searching for traps while moving this is how I handle it:

• For each trap the GM can either roll on the fly or pre-roll a d6 and notate that number. 
• When a character gets near said trap, the player rolls a d6
• Now the GM compares the numbers:
• IF the player rolls the exact number the character avoids or finds the trap, no roll.
• IF the player rolls 1 number off his character will get a chance to dodge or strike roll to grab the side of a pit when falling, getting half their strike or dodge since they weren't ready for what's happening.
  
• IF the player rolls beyond that 1 off, they completely fail and get hit by the trap, taking whatever damage, no roll, too bad.
  
• Note: should a GM roll a 1 and the player rolls 6 or 2, that will is considered 1 off or if a GM rolls a 6, a player can roll a 1 or 5. 

Now looking towards how a character can disarm a trap, well we can look at Pick Locks skill:

The Pick Locks Skill, does mention "Trigger/Trap: 12 Melees", which is about 12 minutes time frame, give or take. Does this mean what it says? I am not sure, does a door have a trigger/trap mechanism in it? I am not sure, nor do I really care, so I am going with it as a way for a character to disarm a trap should he find it.

Now should a character have time to search around for a trap and not actively walking down a hall and looking we can apply the Locate Secret Compartments/Doors skill (should he have it):

Okay, great so now we have a way to search for traps in a room or area, if a character has stopped and examining the 10ft area. Great, but if you look at the percentage progression chart, its awful to start.

So we can clearly see the progression is +6% per level. Let's make it Locate Secret Compartments/doors & Traps like this:

Locate Secret Compartments/doors & Traps
6%	24%
12%	30%
18%	36%
24%	42%
30%	48%
36%	54%
42%	60%
48%	66%
54%	72%
60%	78%
66%	84%
72%	90%
78%	92%
84%	93%
90%	94%

 Now of course as a GM, you can add to or subtract from that number to make it easier or more difficult depending on the situation at hand, like bad lighting, its raining, its very cold, its bright and sunny..etc. taking off or adding 5% to 15% depending, GM call here.

Let me know what you think?