Crowdsourcing Trap Searching

So, I finally started running ACKS again, and on the very first dungeon, the party wanted to search a particular door for traps. They reasoned that since everyone else would have to sit around anyway, they might as well all look for traps, since all characters succeed on 18+

Six PCs, plus two-three henchmen each… the door wasn’t even trapped, but throwing 20 dice at something seems absurd. I feel like this can’t be the intended system, but I didn’t see any rule against multiple PCs searching for traps, or a system like with strength checks where the crowd adds a bonus instead of rolling separately.

Not an Autarch, but I would rule that only one character each turn can search a specific item for traps.

THus, to have 20 people check a door for traps, it would take 20 turns. Don’t forget to check for wandering monsters while they stand there spending 3 hours checking a door.

Aww. I thought this thread was announcing a new kickstarter made entirely of traps.

Also, if my party had 20 people prodding a potentially trapped door, I think I would just start rolling the trigger condition.

Great question! I didn’t say so explicitly, but the implicit mechanic restraining the “20 person search” behavior is that traps can be triggered by searches or failed searches.

In ACKS, “traps have specific triggers, whether it is opening a door or walking over a particular area. Every time an adventurer takes an action that could trigger a trap, the Judge should roll 1d6. A result of 1-2 indicates that the trap springs.”

The exact nature of the trap will determine whether even attempting a search risks triggering it; your party could very well trigger 20d6 rolls! And certainly a natural roll of 1 on a failed search could trigger almost any trap. “Oops! I just tripped and shoved on the door knob!”

Also, a typical 10’ x 10’ area can be filled by no more than 9 adventurers, one of whom would be in the middle of the other 8, so I wouldn’t let more than 8 people search a 10’ x 10’ area in 1 turn in any case.

That’s pretty much how I’d rule it, yeah.

Although I have to say that I’m really enjoying the mental image of 20 people attempting to search a door for traps simultaneously…