Honoring Pit Traps

[Janx]

"There's a pit around here somewhere" is also interesting play, IMO, provided the somewhere is a reasonably constrainted space.

That's what i'm talking about. Its fun when the party is actually thinking about the trap.

Not fun when they are paralitically paranoid about the potential for traps and it impedes any kind of fun gameplay.

 

[MINI]

I think every gamer should encounter pit traps but used too frequently they become cheese damage much like the big monster in a video game, who, no matter how many times you shoot is going to hose you for a certain amount of mass damage.

 

[Celebrim]

A short guide to pit traps

Construction

• Intentional: Deliberately constructed to be a trap, this is the most common and obvious types.
• Unintentional: An unintentional hazard of the environment, effectively becoming a pit trap. Subtypes include:
  1. Shaft: These include elevators, lifts and stairwells which have deteriorated to the point they are unsafe. If too much weight is applied, they collapse, effectively becoming a pit trap.
  2. Well: These are literal wells or shafts of other sorts which have been concealed or covered by debris and vegetation. If concealed, they can be a hazard to the unwary. If covered, they may not be able to support significant weight. Often doesn't require search to detect. Spot DC is usually under 20. Survival may be a more appropriate skill to detect.
  3. Undermined: This is a normal room which has had its supports eroded away so that the floor is unstable. The undermining mechanism can be anything from an underground stream, to a colony of giant ants. One of the more dangerous varieties. Unless the floor has begun to sag, this problem may be undetectable. Fortunately, the sinkhole may develop slowly enough when triggered to allow the wary to jump free. Unfortunately a slow developing sink hole is likely to completely bury anyone who doesn't.
  4. Deteriorated Floor: The floors in multistoried buildings or some dungeons are often the ceilings of rooms below. If the load bearing members weaken or collapse, the floor can remain in whole or in part but may collapse under stress. Knowledge of architecture or craft skill related to the building material may allow problem to be detected without search check. Previous partial collapse may provide obvious clue.
  5. Mineral Shelf: Under certain conditions mineral deposits can build up over time, creating a shelf which may appear to the untrained eye to be stable. Examples include certain cave formations, salt deposits in areas with hydrothermal features, and ice shelves formed when water tables were higher. Survival skill may allow the problem to be detected without a search, as might appropriate knowledge.
  6. Hidden Pool: Some pools are completely filled with water or other fluid. While a buoyant character may find these of little threat, a character in armor may wish he'd just free fallen through relatively friendly air. While some pools are easily detectable, many are only observed by probing are careful observation. Examples include rooms containing shafts where the water is higher than the level of the floor, quicksand, pools with surfaces completely covered by algae, driftwood or other floating debris so that it might not be immediately apparent especially in context that a pool lies beneath, rooms filled with mud where the mud may appear more solid than it is, and virtually any combination thereof.

Covering

• Uncovered: Uncovered pits are the least dangerous, although especially in the case of unintentional traps it may not be immediately obvious that a pit is present and it may be blundered into if PC's are hasty. They can also serve as diversions from other more serious threats, as well as battlefield hazards in the event of a monster that bullrushes and/or grapples.
• Covered: Covered traps are the usual type. They have some sort of concealment, varying from something simple like thin sticks covered with a thin layer of dirt to a hinged lid crafted by some clever dwarven artisan. The most important elements of a cover is how much weight it can bear before triggering, and how far from the pit edge you are before the cover gives. Of course, a pit covered by an illusion can bear no weight at all, but is usually only dangerous to those heedless of danger and careless in their steps.
• Covered and Reclosing: Closing pits take the covered concept one step further, and are arguably the most dangerous type. They operate with either a cover which recloses itself a short interval after opening, or by having a second device with slides across the shaft or closes over it. The chief danger here is that they magnify the problem of providing assistance to the unlucky tomb raider that fell in. This is a particularly bad problem in some of the nastier trap varieties. "Don't split the party is almost always sound advice.", so any trap that splits the party is nastier than one that doesn't.
• Uncovered and closing: The rarest type, these appear to be uncovered pits, but the unwary person that climbs down one finds that when they put weight in the floor, they trigger the cover to close. In this case, the fall itself is probably not the feature attraction but a diversion from the true threat. As this involves reverse psychology, care should be exercised with this sort of trap as those that fall into it are probably not at fault for doing so.

Floor

• Cushioned: Some traps have soft material at the bottom, usually but not always by accident (for example, the pit might have been designed to catch game animals unharmed for transport to menageries or coliseums). Cushioned floors generally reduce the effective damage of the fall, either by reducing the effective height of the fall itself, or by reducing the damage on the die by one or more per die, or both. Cushioning can very from liquid like water or mud, to loose straw, to literal cushions. If the cushioning is liquid and deep, it might not be very welcome especially if the fall itself was short.
• Flat: Normal flat flooring provides for easily distributing the impact across your whole body, or neatly dispersing the energy by rolling if you are acrobatic enough. A long drop is still very dangerous, but there are no extra problems to face.
• Debris: Hard uneven flooring typically strikes as a club, mace, or morning star with a +1 bonus to damage per 10' fallen, and a +10 bonus to hit +1 additional per 10' past the first (at least in my game, YMMV). Heavy armor can be actually welcome in this case, as it can cushion you somewhat from the otherwise bone breaking projections and angles. The sudden stop still sucks though.
• Spikes: Usually intentionally constructed as part of trap designed to kill, many pits are covered with a layer of spikes. Usually, somewhere between 1d2-1 and 1d4 spikes are randomly hit, though a particularly dense flooring might means as many as 2d4. Spikes normally do 1d4 or 1d6 damage with a x2 critical and have the same bonuses to hit and damage associated with falling onto debris.
• Spikes, Poisoned: As spikes, but victims are also subject to poisoning the DC of which depends on how many spikes injured them. Unless the pit is newly made or regularly maintained, most poison DC's will be fairly low and the poison fairly weak in its effect as few poisons will survive at full strength in the air for a long period. Magical poisons may be an exception.
• Spikes, Barbed: As spikes, but in the event of a critical, the spike impales and becomes difficult to remove without further injury and the unfortunate victim is also bleeding (usually the loss of 1 hit point per round until stabilized). Sufficiently impaled victims may not have the strength to rip themselves free, or may be too wounded to survive the attempt. Barbed spikes may also be poisoned.
• Spears: As spikes, but longer; damage is usually 1d6 or 1d8 with a x3 critical.
• Spears, Poisoned: As spears, but poisoned.
• Spears, Barbed: As spears, but either particularly keen edged or barbed as above. Impaled victims usually can't extricate themselves without assistance unless they can snap the shaft of the spear - which may be wood or metal. In the worst case, these may be made by a master craftsman and have a 19-20/x3 critical range.
• Blades: Sometimes trap designers don't bother having spikes on the floor. Instead, they despense with the floor and instead arrange a grid of sharped wire or rods. This is equivalent to being subject to a melee attack at a +20 bonus +2 per 10' of the fall past the first. Falling onto a grid of razor sharp wire or rods is base 4d10 damage plus 4 damage/10' of the fall in addition to the falling damage, with a crit range of 19-20/x2. This is often immediately fatal, and the neatly cloven peices of adventurer are then deposited some distance below the grid. The only problem with traps of this sort is that they aren't particularly durable, as repeated impacts will dull the blades considerably especially if metal armor is involved, eventually rendering the once lethal death trap mere debris.

Contents
Trap builders may put various things in the bottom of their trap in order to improve its efficiency as a trap or killing device. Alternately, these things may fall into the trap on their own

• Liquid: Pits naturally accumulate fluid. Any pit in a wet clime that is abandoned for a while may become damp and many may have a small amount of water at the bottom. Some contain a larger amount. If its more than a few inches deep, its significant both because it gives some cushioning against the fall and because most PC's can't breathe underwater. Not all liquid is water, and not all water is cool. A pit in a hydrothermal region may have become filled with boiling water. Colder climes risk quick hypothermia. In other regions, it might naturally have become filled with a weak sulferic acid. A trap builder with access to high level magic may have confined strong acid to the trap. In any case, the presense of the fluid below may tend to give the pit away either from odors, vapors or steams so the greater lethality is often more than offset by easier detection.
• Trap: Trap designers often use the fact that the pit is an involuntary means of transportation, to transport their unwilling victims to a second trap. Triggers be placed on the floor or walls of the pit as appropriate to set off a further iteration of the trap. Any other trap which can be used in a confined place can be placed at the bottom of the pit, including another pit trap. Walls can close and crush the victim. Blocks may fall into the pit, or slide across the shaft. The pit may flood with water, gas, or burning oil. The floor may slide away to dump the unfortunate into a deeper pit. Gouts of flame may go off, or a hail of darts launched at anyone who stands up and grabs a conveinently placed handhold.
• Grease: A thick layer of gel or oil at the bottom of a pit provides an effective means of preventing the victim from climbing out. Newly made or regularly maintained pits may have greased sides as well, but eventually such grease - if its not edible or prone to decay - will tend to slide off the walls and accumulate on the bottom anyway. The greased victim will not find this of any help, as he'll immediately spread grease to the walls if he tries to climb.
• Gas: Many poisonous gaseous are heavier than the air and will tend to sink to the lowest level of an environment. Such gases can be maintained by magic, or by continual low level renewal in the environment (off-gassing from minerals, vegetative decay.) In hypoxic environments, often the worst air is located in the bottom of pits, meaning that anyone that survives the fall risks asphyxiation as well.
• Disease: Pits are often natural incubators of disease. They are microclimates. Many are damp and unhealthy. If the pit is uncovered, its not unusual for it to be used as a latrine or refuse pit and for every sort of garbage to be thrown into it. They may contain dangerous mold or worse. If covered, it may be a refuge for diseases that prefer dark low oxygen environments. Anyone that survives falling into a spiked pit, now likely faces long term challenges like tetanus.
• Lava: It's not easy to arrange, but the ultimate in sheer villainous style is have your pit plunge the hero into a pool of lava. Lava is sufficiently dense that heroes don't sink into it. It's like hitting rock. It's sufficiently hot that they incinerate in mere seconds. It's just not easy to create or transport, which is probably why villains with the large budgets like to lair in volcanos despite the risk of property loss. Lava pits usually have to covered, as uncovered they tend rapidly heat the environment and may be lethal hot a 100' from the surface. A newly opened covered pit will likely vent hot air into the environment, and a falling character can quite possibly die from fire damage before they even hit the surface of the lava.

Welcoming Committee

• Vermin: Vermin often congregate at the bottom of a pit, especially an uncovered one, to feast on the refuse thrown down into the pit or the occasional hapless victim. These may be everything from scavenger beetles to rot grubs. Some large vermin - such as certain spiders - may have in fact constructed the pit in the first place.
• Slimes: The top order predator in the fantasy scavenger chain of feeding is often a slime or mold of some sort. They are capable of digesting pretty much any living matter, and once one finds its way into a pit it pretty much stays there and claims dominion over it. Many humanoid communities take advantage of this and use a slime to digest waste products and reduce odors and disease vectors to a minimum. Such slimes can usually be pruned back by apply fire to them if they become too large. So its not unusual at all to find puddings and jellies at the bottom of a pit.
• Undead: Purpose built traps by evil overlords often have undead in them or in an adjoining alcove to finish off any one who survives the fall. This is either a deliberate act of creation or the 'lucky' side effect of having killed enough victims in the trap to make it an effective haunt.
• Elementals: Elementals are another fairly low maintenance option. They are particularly useful when the trap itself would be otherwise hostile to life, but comfortable to an elemental.
• Outsiders: On rare occassions, an outsider may be bound at the bottom of a pit to act as executioner for anyone tresspassing. Normally, this would be a waste, as it would be better to have them protect a more well travelled location but some trap builders have wealth to waste and want to flaunt it.
• Constructs: Constructs are of course also useful as low maintanence minions, and they also don't complain about accomodations.
• Beasts: Occasionally, the bottom of a pit will adjoin the lair of some beast. Sometimes this is cunning on the part of the beast, but its rare that a pit is so well travelled that a creature can profit by its accidents. More usually this is because the pit is used as a formal place of execution, and the beast ensures that anyone thrown into the pit is finished off. Sometimes feeding the beast is an act of worship, and sometimes it is only a means of black entertainment. The best thing about pits of this sort is that they usually have another exit at the bottom whereby the lair can be accessed on the rare occasion it becomes necessary to tend to the beast or its environs.

Variants
Most variants are designed to catch high level characters that would normally scoff at mere gravity or a mere pit trap, being normally prepared by this point with flight ability, feather falling, and careful prodding of wherever they plan to step.

• Flushing: A covered pit trap is covered by a layer of fluid. When the trap is sprung the fluid rushes to fill in the void, forcing any PC's in the fluid to go with it. This is especially effective if the PC's can't swim, or if the fluid has a layer of floating debris that victim is now buried under. For added lethality, this can be a solid fluid like sand.
• Sucking: Taking it up another notch, the most potent sort of pit trap is one that insists you fall into it. This can be arranged in a number of ways. For example, you can have a covered pit that opens to a vacuum, which then sucks the air out of the room and blows anything not firmly attached into the pit. Or you can have powerful winds suck or blow the victim toward the pit. If the action is powerful enough, the pit need not be vertical, but can be in basically any direction. Powerful wind tunnels that blow the victims down the corridor are an example.
• Fishing: If the victim won't fall into the pit, then you can have the pit make them fall into it. Harpoon or hook traps with a reeling mechanism can be used to pull victims forcefully in almost any direction, even causing a player to fall upwards. Or a player can be pulled sideways over a pit trap by the reel, causing them to fall in, leaving them suspended by a hook or possibly ripping them free (or for hilarious levels of complications, reclosing pit traps can cut ropes and lines). Mesmerizing illusions and suggestions can serve much the same purpose, and speaking of consider the appropriateness of placing different sorts of lures to encourage reckless movement - from illusionary foes that provoke charges, to illusionary doors and treasure that provoke investigation, to puzzles or riddles that serve no purpose to but to encourage someone to come close to read them (often with a serious punch line).
• Shoving: Shoving or bashing or tilting traps can work in combination to move PC's into otherwise innocuous pits. Magical fear traps that provoke panic can work on the same principle, by inducing victims to shove themselves into the trap in their blind headway.
• Reverse: What counts as a pit is subjective. Reverse gravity traps turn tall chimneys into pits. Reverse gravity traps that toggle, one or more times, can repeatedly hurl the unwary to their doom. Catapolt traps that launch victims into the air also count as this sort.
• Shape Shifting: If the victim won't come to the pit, then the pit can come to them. Rooms capable of changing their shape, particularly with floors that change shape can turn entire rooms into chute and pits. Floors that begin to tilt toward the center or sink, or which have floors that retract into the walls, make for interesting variations on the normal covered pit trap. Note that its possible to amp this up a notch by combining it with the flushing concept. For example, a room filled with sand that house a small hole at the bottom acts very much like a shape shifting room, that soon begins to flush its contents. Floors can also be polymorphed into fluids, or floors made of ice can be melted, making what was a stable surface now flow into a pit.
• Living: What could be more frightening that discovering that the floor of the room is actually a mouth that can open into an immense gullet.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

That's what i'm talking about. Its fun when the party is actually thinking about the trap.

When I run, I encourage one or more of the players to take Knowledge (Dungeoneering) or its equivalent. When the characters come upon an area that is likely to be trapped, I tell them of it via that skill.