The Honest Gentleman's Practical Guide to Mechanical Devices

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FrankManic

Artisan
I am not an honest gentleman. I am not interested in a practical guide to mechanical devices. I am a liar, a cheat, a thief, a swindler, and I may or may not have taken money to incite civil unrest that culminated in the collapse of one or more kingdoms. And I want to talk about traps.

Neat tricks:

I found out about Field's Metal on Wikipedia when I was poking around looking for easy to use solders. It is a non-toxic metal that melt's at 144 degrees. I suggest that it could readily put to a number of devious uses, like creating hidden catches and releases that can only be opened by using heat to melt the metal.

These guys sell it -> https://www.scitoyscatalog.com/Merchant ... ory_Code=H

Kind of expensive, but it makes use of rare earth elements.

Check the site out. They also talk about the useful properties of Gallium, another non-toxic, low melting point metal that can be used to paint a mirror onto any glass surface!



Neat Stuff:

Think Geek, in addition to having the best price ever, anywhere, for rivetted maille, sells a bunch of nifty gizmos that could be used for nefarious deeds in the darkness. The Annoy-o-Tron has definite potential when slipped deep into someone's pack or fixed on the bottom of a bunk.

Likewise, this thing

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/8a0f/

Just screams "Hack me into an evil motion tracking dart spitting idol". Imagine coming into a cabin and having a tiny wooden Idol open glowing red eyes and start shooting little nerf arrows at you! Game legal? I couldn't begin to guess, but I think it would be awesome, even if you just used it to scare the cat at home.

Throwies are another neat toy

http://www.instructables.com/id/LED-Throwies/

Basically nothing more than an LED light, a 3 volt battery, and a magnet, a throwy makes you a cheap, reusable light spell with some interesting potential applications. If you're trying to keep your group together on a dark night, you could use one to attach a Light spell to the back of the party leader's helmet. Or maybe you could use a red throwy surreptitiously deposited on your rival's armor to mark him as the target for the kidnapping. And if you're with plot you could add a pair of them to the big bad's helmet for that great 'Evil glowing eyes' look.


What sorts of things have you folks come up with in the whiz bang crack boom front towards enemy department?
 
The first bit's going to be a no-go, as melting metal is way outside the standard allowable methods of disarming a trap, not to mention being a fire hazard. A lot of sites won't even let us have candles, much less molten metal around.
 
Fields metal wouldn't be an issue actually as i has a very low melting point, lower than boiling water in fact. (though cleanup should be taken into consideration) It is however a requirement that a trap be able to be disarmable by reasonable means so some marshals may rule that melting the metal is too complex a trigger/disarm.

Same basic issue with alot of hte other traps mentioned. They need to be able to be disarmed wihtout overly specialized tools/skills.
 
Besides -- disarming a trap has to be done in such a way that a Marshal can fix the "damage" in 10 minutes and without needing any tools... (RB page 144). So if you melt some metal how is a Marshal going to fix that in under 10 minutes or with no tools? lol :p
 
Quinn said:
Besides -- disarming a trap has to be done in such a way that a Marshal can fix the "damage" in 10 minutes and without needing any tools... (RB page 144). So if you melt some metal how is a Marshal going to fix that in under 10 minutes or with no tools? lol :p
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You could make the trigger in such a way that it is held in place by an S shape of the metal and then have extra shapes on hand for the marshal to use (have them near/in the trap box).
 
I still would not be comfortable with it from a safety perspective. Most of us don't carry a battery powered soldering iron in our trap kits, and open flame in a most likely enclosed area is still a hazard.
 
Wraith said:
I still would not be comfortable with it from a safety perspective. Most of us don't carry a battery powered soldering iron in our trap kits, and open flame in a most likely enclosed area is still a hazard.
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Fields metal is interesting because it melts at 144 degrees. You could literally melt it with a thermos of coffee.
 
Also not a part of my traps kit.

The hangover kit, on the other hand...


Really, the general intent (as I read it) of the traps rules is that they have to be able to be disarmed without destroying the trap by a resonably prepared adventurer. As melting the metal bits of a trap is a destructive method, most considerate (and rules abiding) players would not even try it.
 
It'd be really cool used as a mod trick, if it was forshadowed enough that the players knew they could do it. But as a general trap, do we really want people trying to melt anything metal they find?
 
True. It might not work for a player trap.

Field's Metal supposedly casts very well. You could, say, cast a small locket with an important key hidden inside, then create a riddle suggesting it be placed in warm water.



What colors work well in a sneaking suit? I've always found that black stands out from the shadows on all but the very darkest nights.
 
FrankManic said:
What colors work well in a sneaking suit? I've always found that black stands out from the shadows on all but the very darkest nights.
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I've had good luck with purples and crimsons.
 
Always easiest to stick with shades that match your terrain. If you're cammied in the light, you're cammied in the dark.

Failing that, you can really go with most any color, so long as its in the dark end of shading.
 
More important than collor is not having all the same color. layered drappy cloth (especially if its mottled in 2 colors) helps break up the bodyline especialy in the dark where edges are better cues.

Some of the better sneaking gear I've seen has actually been a layered sort of dress and tabard set up in blacks and purples that my wife used to wear. layerd skirts of differing length split in the front for mobility, puffed sleeves that actually draped at the wrist. altogether her silouete didn't look like a person shape so most peoples eyes wouldn't settle on it in the dark. Her headscarf was longenough that she could wrap a portion over her face if she needed to to stop any telltale white of her face but was quickly released to look normal in the light. As a bonus in the light of the tavern she didn't look like some kinda ninja. Theres alot to be said for being able to go in public and out without it being obvious that you are a rogue about nefarious buisiness.
 
as wraith said above. red and purple

Surprisingly the color red is the hardest color to see when there is little light. It has to do with its wave length being lowest on the spectrum. Unfortunately its pretty damn vibrant in the day time. The same is true about Purples as they are on the other end of the visible spectrum. I like purples better myself as they tend to be darker. if you go for a very red rich purple its kind of a half way point and works well.

red actually takes a large part of the light spectrum on the bottom end and is about as wide as both blue/indigo and purple/violet combined if i remember correctly. I would think blue ranks around 3rd for least visible in the dark.

essentially take your color spectrum

red - orange - yellow - green - blue - indigo - violet

the closer to the center you are the more it will stand out at night. The center is roughly between yellow and green. I think green has the second widest spectrum.

colors to stay away from are yellow and green. (in their true or lighter/tint forms). If you use any shades of colors it obviously makes them harder to see in the dark. To clarify when you tint something it becomes lighter as white is added to it. Making a shade of a color means you are removing color drawing it closer to black.

Mixing two complementary colors will give 3 varieties of brown depending on the mixture

red-green - the most common... the color of dark wood
blue-orange - a richer brown looks like light wood, ply wood
yellow-purple - my favorite brown. it is very rich from the yellow but very earth toned kinda like clay

I would guess that a shade of the blue orange brown is probably hard to see at night, especially around earth tones.

YAY color theory 101
 
as a side note mixed complements (colors moving toward brown) are less likely to stand out to the eye, as the human eye is built to be attracted to things that reflect more light. Browned muddy colors of any color will attract far less attention and will also be harder to be seen in peripheral vision.

I remember reading back in art school that the closer to the center of your vision the more colors can be seen. the reverse is true about peripheral vision. In fact most of are peripheral vision is just read in very dull color and black in white. Residual memory just adds color to it. Obviously this changes from person to person. But try having someone hold multi colored items out in your peripheral, and guess the color. Its actually pretty hard, for some people.
 
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