D&D 5E Brainstorming Traps

[Lusksinger]

After a very prolonged first section of my campaign, the group is finally nearing the end and ready to move on to the next part. However, I still have a bit of work to do. Rather than be heavily combat based for leveling up, I wanted them to gain experience for disarming traps.

However, there's a specific type of trap I'm looking for. The world I'm using is a homebrew fairy tale setting I've made. This section will involve a combination of Jack and the Beanstalk and also The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe. The giant is a Cloud Giant who has, to put it simply, gotten quite tired of dealing with pests coming in for his loot.

He routinely sprays poison into his walls. He's set up sticky glue traps dangling from the ceiling for characters who can fly (literally fly traps). A giant mouse trap rigged with a bag of gold instead of a wedge of cheese. Rather than a mouse hotel, you have a fake room that looks incredibly comfortable and inviting. Once inside, the pressure plate shuts the door behind you and traps you within. I've also got a really basic bucket trap -- characters walking over something like a ruler that slips and falls into a bucket, taking them with it. They'd take fall damage but also bludgeoning damage from the very large ruler.

So far this is all I have, but I'm in need of more unless I want to design more monsters for encounters (which would probably just be spiders or something). As it is, the only planned fights I have are for the giant himself and a stray winged cat that he's taken a liking to if only because it helps keep adventurers away.

Feel free to drop some ideas on other traps to keep out pesky wanna-be heroes!

 

[jayoungr]

Does this giant have any spellcasting abilities? If so, that opens up further options, such as teleportation traps or wards that just keep the PCs out of some places.

 

[Eltab]

A poisoned fruit that is big enough for a meal, in the PCs' eyes. (Watermelon-sized grapes?). You get a level of Exhaustion if you partake, CON Save to avoid another level of Exhaustion. Let's see how the PCs do with Disadvantage on a bunch of rolls and moving at half speed, instead of suffering HP damage.

 

[aco175]

Just a caution, that dealing with traps tends to favor certain classes and may not involve some of the PCs/ players. I like to combine the trap with a combat. You could have spiders that can walk along the sticky traps along with pressure plates in the floor that shoot the PC towards the sticky trap. You can have a few constructs keep appearing every round to push the PCs along the trapped hallway. They may be too heavy to set off the floor trap, but the PCs can. A couple PCs may be fighting these constructs off while some are checking for traps or burning the sticky traps to not get caught.

 

[MarkB]

The mousetrap seems a little simplistic and obvious as an adventurer deterrent. Even if they're comparatively tiny, the giant must realise they're intelligent.

Maybe make it an animated object, set to activate if the gold is removed. A huge animated mousetrap chasing after the PCs while snapping at them with its guillotine should make for a memorable encounter.

 

[Tonguez]

Don’t forget the giants pet cat who might also knock the pile of stuff off the shelf so that it becomes a falling object trap for those below.

Theres also the Bug Zapper - a room that lures PCs in to a treasure and then zaps them with lightning bolts.

 

[Eltab]

Grimtooth's Traps had some over-the-top traps and some large-scale traps.

If a giant sets up a crossbow trap to fire down a hallway, does it launch a telephone pole?

Along with the giant-size mousetrap baited with a Mimic ... err, treasure chest ... you might have the XL cat which plays with the XL 'mice'. A dire sabre-toothed tiger (with perma-Enlarge cast on it), which the giant refers to as "Here little kitty kitty kitty".

 

[Tonguez]

A poisoned fruit that is big enough for a meal, in the PCs' eyes. (Watermelon-sized grapes?). You get a level of Exhaustion if you partake, CON Save to avoid another level of Exhaustion. Let's see how the PCs do with Disadvantage on a bunch of rolls and moving at half speed, instead of suffering HP damage.

It would be funny if the fruit is otherwise good but due to the size causes intoxication . So to a giant its not a trap.