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TFWoods3
July 5th, 2009, 18:24
I do not frequent the Wizards boards so I hope it's fine to ask this here.

If a player triggers a trap on his turn (his initiative order during his action phase) and the effect hits, would he, or would he not get a saving throw against that effect at the end of his current turn (in the End Turn Phase)? or would he have to wait till the end of his next turn to save?

Looking at the rules in the players handbook it would seem the effect is on him during the action phase, but in his end turn phase he makes saving throws against all effects he has on him. But this seems unfair compared to effects applied during other turns where the player would have to endure the effect at least one round before getting a saving throw.

EDIT: Try to think of an example here:

1. The player does his move action and steps on a trapped floor panel triggering a Close Burst 3 Poison gas. This hits him and player2 in the blast area.

2. Damage is applied and player1 is "Immobilized". Player still has a standard action and attacks Enemy 1 (While affected by the trap).

3. End of Turn saving throw time. Does he roll vs immobilized now or not?

4. Player2 is also immobilized but cannot save until his turn, and 'after' his action phase even, enduring the effect through an entire turn. Several enemies could move before him also. Is it fair that Player 1 is already free (if he got to roll already)?

Griogre
July 6th, 2009, 05:42
He gets a save at the end of his turn.

It works the same way if a character is hit by an opportunity attack that has a save ends effect. At the end of a turn characters get a save vs. anything that allows it.

TFWoods3
July 7th, 2009, 19:17
Yep, seems right. Thanks.

Just a bit odd that the guy triggering the trap gets a head start on recovering from it. Almost seems he would be the MOST affected by it in some cases.

Griogre
July 7th, 2009, 20:31
True. This plus the ability of characters to give each other saving throws, means that effects that have a duration of "ends after the next turn" are more sometimes more dangerous. You might keep that in mind if you are designing your own traps, though I've seen plenty of fights where some poor character can't make a save for like 4-6 rounds.

TFWoods3
July 7th, 2009, 21:10
I'm thinking in my game it will be a house rule that triggered traps can not be saved against till the end of your next turn, since the save is almost instant. The down side would be if you triggerd it before your standard action you would be affected through 2 standard action turns before a save. But if you trigger it with your last action, you could save and not be affected at all with the current rules.

But this seems more correct to me since, even if the worst case happens, the player who triggered the trap gets the worst end of the deal.

TFWoods3
July 8th, 2009, 01:53
Looking over the traps added to the DDI Compendium, some mention a save cannot be successful until leaving the area of the cloud. I will use that on my trap.