Booby Traps

As hunters who spend much of their time in wilderness areas, rangers are experts in setting traps. However, the core rulebook lists only one example: the hunting trap. Temporary and quick to set up, traps are useful not just for catching dinner, but for offering a measure of battlefield control normally reserved for druids or wizards. While dungeon traps usually require extensive construction, time, and expense, Booby Traps can be laid quickly for almost no cost.

Making Booby Traps

While some traps, like a hunting trap, can be purchased, others must be built. Constructing a trap takes 10 minutes using appropriate tools and raw materials. Tools are contained in an appropriate tool kit, as specified by the trap. Raw materials can be found in any general supply store. If you spend 1 minute dismantling an existing trap, you can recover materials for reuse.

You can add improvements to the basic version of each trap by spending an additional 10 minutes in its construction and using additional materials. Some booby traps have more than one option for improvement. You may only add one improvement to a trap unless a class feature allows you to add more than one.

Setting Booby Traps

You can quickly deploy preconstructed booby traps (that you built or bought ahead of time) by making a Wisdom (Survival) check. The total of your check becomes both the DC for another creature’s attempt to discover the trap and the DC to disable it. Placing and hiding a preconstructed trap requires an action. The Dexterity saving throw for your traps is DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier. Using Booby Traps in Combat

If a creature sees you deploy a trap, the creature does not need to make a check to locate it. That generally makes the trap less useful, but not useless. Traps can be used to deny ground to an enemy or delay pursuit. An enemy that witnesses a path being trapped must likely spend time disabling the trap or finding a way to bypass it, possibly by a less advantageous route. During combat, a foe can be forced into a trap by using the Shove action or other forms of forced movement.

Rangers are also known for their stealth, so you might be able to set a trap during combat without being observed. A hidden trap requires a Wisdom (Perception) check to spot it.