D&D General Is this a fair trap?

[Reynard]

Then you cannot have skilled play. Anything can be anything, and any action can result any outcome. You need coherence in order to be able to make informed and meaningful decisions.

No, you just need established rules. Those rules can be as gonzo as you want so long as the players know what they are.

Or are you saying you can't include poison dart traps or skeletons in a dungeon? Because neither one of those things are realistic or plausible.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My favorite trap I ever employed was an elevator deathtrap. The PCs get into the elevator and pull the lever. The elevator drops just 10 feet into the shift, cutting off escape.. That action also breaks the glass holding the gelatinous cube above the elevator which proceeds to burn through the ceiling. The cube then drops into the elevator, engulfing everyone, before burning through the floor, causing everyone to fall 40 feet onto spikes.

The Aristocrats!

Now THAT is a total gotcha! trap. It is almost on par with some of the ones in ToH.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No, you just need established rules. Those rules can be as gonzo as you want so long as the players know what they are.

Or are you saying you can't include poison dart traps or skeletons in a dungeon? Because neither one of those things are realistic or plausible.

They are plausible in context of a fantasy setting. The trap in OP is not. As noted, it could not function as the writer of the trap thinks it would, nor such a trap has a reason to exist in the setting; no one would ever build this.

 

[Laurefindel]

No, you just need established rules. Those rules can be as gonzo as you want so long as the players know what they are.

Or are you saying you can't include poison dart traps or skeletons in a dungeon? Because neither one of those things are realistic or plausible.

They just need to be plausible in the context of the game, to what we think our characters would find relatable.

The game goes a long way to codify what characters can and cannot do. As a player, I'm turned off by blatant disregard or handwaving for what can or cannot be done in a coherent game world.

It's an old school trap that works well for old-school conventions. In a "modern" game, I'd expect more.

 

[iserith]

They just need to be plausible in the context of the game, to what we think our characters would find relatable.

The game goes a long way to codify what characters can and cannot do. As a player, I'm turned off by blatant disregard or handwaving for what can or cannot be done in a coherent game world.

It's an old school trap that works well for old-school conventions. In a "modern" game, I'd expect more.

I think this trap works fine in a D&D 5e game. I use traps on par with it regularly. The PCs have a lot of options and tools to deal with such things.

 

[Imaro]

I think it's a fair and appropriate trap if one is playing under the assumptions of the mythic underworld that many old school games are predicated on... but in a more naturalistic model it would strain verisimilitude and be unfair because it doesn't make sense due to many of the reasons others have stated,

 

[Laurefindel]

I think this trap works fine in a D&D 5e game. I use traps on par with it regularly. The PCs have a lot of options and tools to deal with such things.

I agree that the trap does work fine for 5e (except maybe for the yellow mold falling in fire part).

What I mean is that in a modern game, the "puzzle" of the trap also includes why and how it exists in a first place. Before, they'd be received as "ingenious". Now, they'd be plot holes. At least they would for me, in 2021

 

[Maxperson]

I voted no because that trap is nonsensical. What purpose does it serve?

To kill or mess with intruders.

How does the legitimate owner reach the treasure?

He doesn't. He has accepted the loss as part of the cost of the trap.

How is the trap even reset once triggered?

The same way it was built.

Who goes through all this trouble of lifting a stone block weighting tons up just to maybe poison intruders and that only when they cut the rope themselves?

Someone who has a lot of money and is bored with ordinary traps and wants to see his enemies die or be inconvenienced in interesting ways. The kind of man who would become a Bond villain.

These kinds of traps can be very fun if used sparingly.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I voted "No", but for clarity that's because I don't find the trap remotely plausible on a number of levels.

It's one of those deeply meta traps that only exists in the mind of a DM, and couldn't like, sit around for years/decades/centuries. The rope would either rot from age (regardless of anti-Cube chemicals) or be obviously weird, and is positioned in such a way that you couldn't even reach it from the edge of the pit! Dust and so on would build up on the upper surface of the unmoving Cube (which apparently can't climb out? You'd think it could), so it would look weird-as-hell. The block falling on the Cube would not reliably spray it everywhere in the way described, that's a particularly dubious and physics-ignorant idea - it only has what, 10 feet to fall? Even free-falling, in 1g, it's going to get up to less than 10mph. Probably about 6-8mph. So it would be like the cube was hit by a block of stone moving at a jog or very slow run. I'm sure that would penetrate into the cube, and make it bulge outwards, but splatter it wildly? Absolutely not. It's not a swimming pool, for god's sake, which seems to be what he's thinking. It's called a Gelatinous Cube for a reason. At worst people standing immediately next to the pit (most of any splatter would likely hit the ceiling, given the constriction around the pit) might get some on them, but what are they, naked? It's probably going to hit clothes/armour. So you'd want the splatter to roll to hit and the save to be far easier than a normal "oops I walked into it" GC save.

As for Yellow Mold being "subject to a violent fall", that also fails - the block only falls 10' (I am assuming "normal dungeon conditions' - 20' isn't much faster though - it takes 16ft to get up to 10mph even, higher than that is getting into suspicious/ludicrous ceiling heights) and it doesn't hit stone or something, it hit jelly, so will slowly halt. This is not a fall that would injure someone were the jelly in questioning not paralytic and acidic. The wording on what activates a Yellow Mold varies, but this is edge-case as best for activating one.

Further hampering the Yellow Mold is the fire factor. The likely reason the block falls is that the rope and GC are on fire. Possibly from burning oil or magic. Either way the Yellow Mold is on top of a block that is interpentrating a burning Gelantious Cube with a burning rope flopping around, likely going pretty deep into it. So it is extremely likely the Yellow Mold itself catches fire. Which as per 2E at least kills it instantly, no questions asked.

On top of that, if the PCs happen to have Continual Light going, arguably that prevents the Yellow Mold doing anything (it's unclear from 2E if it has to be cast directly on it, but it sure doesn't say that, dunno if 1E is clearer).

So in short:

1) The trap is obviously a trap.

2) The GC should be able to escape and would likely be dusty if it couldn't, and/or full of the skeletons of rats and so on, so easy to see.

3) This relies entirely on the PCs going in absolutely face-first without the slightest hesitation to something that is obviously a trap.

4) The physics of the block-drop just do not work. The block will be moving slowly, and displace rather than splatter the GC, and even if it does splatter it, physics dictates that due to the fact that the GC is in a pit, the splatter will mostly go straight or nearly straight up. It certainly won't hit the entire room, and further, any amount that does go out sideways is likely to be small and may well not hit flesh.

5) The Yellow Mold will not necessarily activate drop a drop as gentle as that, given the deceleration provided by the GC.

6) The most likely scenario to drop the block (fire) also insta-kills Yellow Mold.

That's on top of all the issues with it not being possible to reset, not serving a legit purpose (so couldn't exist unless it was in the dungeon of a wizard who was basically running a deadly version of The Crystal Maze or something), not being able to survive the passage of years and so on.


If so that means his understanding of physics is even worse than I thought. That would more or less ensure zero horizontal splatter.

See, this is where we get into the endless debates about GM-adjudicated things. You are correct, up to a point, IMHO. Beyond that... consider, a 10x10x10 block of stone weighs on the order of FIFTY TONS. It is going to the bottom of that pit, and your cube is going to barely present an obstacle, its going to be squirted out of their like nothing (I am going to assume the trap designer was smart enough to insure that the block is somewhat smaller than the pit's dimensions). Honestly, the big problem would be making sure the block falls cleanly into the pit and doesn't get stuck, etc. but that's an 'engineering' problem and could be plausibly solved.

I'd also point out that GCs are very close to invisible as per the writeup in 1e MM, so it is fairly likely that in poor light the PCs don't even notice it is there, until one of them tries to scale the pit or something. Of course dropping a torch in would be my first move, so...

Anyway, it is a highly implausible trap, but so what? DUNGEONS are so utterly implausible, in every respect, that calling out stuff inside them for being implausible is simply a fool's errand. The scenario works at the level of "if you make a few assumptions that are more-or-less supported by the rules, it could work." It is not so outre that the players shouldn't be able to AT LEAST reason out that something bad will happen if they follow the obvious SOP. That's how these things basically all work, they start from "what are the players likely to do, lets make them regret that..." and go on from there. This is fine in Skilled Play. You're simply testing them, giving them a chance to demonstrate some cunning.

The one area that I find a bit dubious is the 'flammable rope' part, you had better describe the rope, on closer examination, as being covered in grease or something like that. This would both explain how it isn't dissolved and should warn the players that fire might be hazardous. They should be able to reason out at least most of the rest of the trap from that. The yellow mold is just 'frosting on top', nasty but really immaterial to solving the thing. It is certainly a very classic trap, and BTW Grimtooth's is LONG predated by this issue of WD, which is one of the earliest ones.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

See, this is where we get into the endless debates about GM-adjudicated things. You are correct, up to a point, IMHO. Beyond that... consider, a 10x10x10 block of stone weighs on the order of FIFTY TONS.

Yet one rope can hold all that weight...