Creative ways to place traps in dungeon?

[Jon_Dahl]

The problem that I'm having is that my players are constantly taking 20 with every step they take in dungeons.

This really gives me a headache:
If the party rogue has a sufficient search-modifier, the trap will be found with 100% certainty.
If the party rogue doesn't have a sufficient search-modifier, the trap will not be found and I gave them no chance at all. This will create bad blood for sure.

So what I'm looking for is a way (or two) to place traps in a dungeon in a way that they are immune to constant "take 20" and require a little bit more thinking/effort from the players part.

 

[xigbar]

Hide them magically. Illusions are good for this, because if the rogue doesn't actually know what it's looking at, no search check is going to help. It's a sign of an engaged player to be that cautious, by the way.

 

[anest1s]

1. Time limit: If your players have all the time in the world obviously they are gonna find every trap. If the treasure door at the end of the dungeon will be open only for one hour, the players won't spend a day searching (but they will still use a 10-ft pole to find traps)

2. Maybe you use too many traps, in places there shouldn't be. By that I mean places where the players couldn't possibly expect. The second time you walk down a corridor and you fall at a random trap, you start taking 20 at every step. If the DM uses traps only on doors etc you aren't on your guard for traps at every step, thus sometimes forgetting to check for them.

But yes, if the player remembers to think that maybe there is a trap he will find it.

_____
Also, explosive runes.

Still, its possible to fail to disarm it (you can't take 20 this one)

 

[Sekhmet]

Great suggestions above. Consider both of them.
You need to get your players to stop thinking about traps to make them effective. Give them a reason to move quickly, don't put traps in nonstandard locations for a while, don't put a single trap in your next dungeon until the BBEG - and when they're rushing at them, have the bottom of his staircase trapped.

 

[HoboGod]

Your players can't take 20 on traps, the SRD explicitly says that "[taking 20] can't be used if failure carries negative consequences." Not noticing a trap until it's too late is a negative consequence. Your players can take 20 to find Waldo, but not if Waldo is gunna pop out of the book and shove a fork in their eyes.

 

[kitcik]

1. Time limit: If your players have all the time in the world obviously they are gonna find every trap. If the treasure door at the end of the dungeon will be open only for one hour, the players won't spend a day searching (but they will still use a 10-ft pole to find traps)

I take this idea in a different direction. While you are taking 20's on your search rolls, the bad guys are planning an ambush. The longer you take, the better prepared they are. Cover/concealment/terrain/crossfire can easily decide a battle.

 

[xigbar]

Your players can't take 20 on traps, the SRD explicitly says that "[taking 20] can't be used if failure carries negative consequences." Not noticing a trap until it's too late is a negative consequence. Your players can take 20 to find Waldo, but not if Waldo is gunna pop out of the book and shove a fork in your eye.

It only carries a negative consequence when they try to disarm. Taking 20 to inspect an area means they looked long and hard until they were sure they could go forward. There's no negative penalty for something you technically haven't done yet.

 

[Greenfield]

General ideas on traps: If you own a copy of Grimtooth's (and volume), lock it away and never reference it.

As noted, "Take 20" can be applied to picking a lock. It can't be used when searching for or disabling traps. The risk inherent in failure makes it impossible.

I've seen some clever uses of traps in dungeons. I've also seen them suck the fun out of a game and leave its dessicated corpse to rot on the battlemat.

Presume that any building, cave or set of ruins that has any residents will have a sane number of traps, traps that can be avoided by the residents without having to perform a limbo dance or yoga exercise routine. If a walk to the john involves a game of hopscotch, you've included too many traps.

Also, consider the cost of traps, be they magical or mechanical. I've seen places with a billion gp worth of traps to protect a thousand gp worth of loot. (Admitted, the cost of a pit trap is ridiculous, but keep it sane.)

I ran a tournament module at a convention one time. There were monsters locked in cells that lined a corridor. A pressure plate at the entrance to the corridor would open the cells and force a combat. The PCs were expected to find that one. There was also a pressure plate at the far end that triggered the same trap. A lot of player groups missed that one and ended up in the combat anyway.

That one was clever.

In another convention game, the characters had to travel by boat from once section to another. Touching the water, at all, killed the PC instantly, no saving throw.

That one was idiotic. (Note, convention tournaments out here involved eight to twelve groups going through the same game module at the same time, three times a day. I wasn't the author of either of those modules.)

Avoid the kind of trap that goes off and hits the party hiding around the corner. Avoid the kind of traps that don't go off until someone tries to disarm them.

In short, don't get too cute.

The purpose of traps is to spice up the game, to add an element of paranoid and an air of danger. If all anyone can taste is the spice, you've over seasoned.

 

[Greenfield]

It only carries a negative consequence when they try to disarm. Taking 20 to inspect an area means they looked long and hard until they were sure they could go forward. There's no negative penalty for something you technically haven't done yet.

Searching for traps often involves more than just eyeballing the area. It involves probing and poking, checking to see of that stone rocks when stepped upon, or if that lock has an odd resistance when you try to move it.

In short, you need to search with your hands as well as your eyes, or else you just aren't doing a thorough job. You aren't really taking 20.

 

[Grogg of the North]

Remember that with searching you're looking at a 5x5 area within 10 feet of you. So the evil GM thing to do is ask "Where are you searching?" Traps on the ceiling are just as viable as the floor and wall. So while your rogue is poking the floor with his pole or using a shuffleboard kit to check for pits, he won't get a chance to notice the spikes slamming down from above.

Second, just because the trigger is in one place doesn't the trap is there. One of my favorite things is a pressure plate that activates the trap farther down the hall.

Third, traps can have mechanical trigger that can be activated by monsters. So if a monster lures the PCs down the hall, his buddies can throw a switch causing The Horrible Hall of Rotating Knives to activate.

Fourth, just because you find the trap doesn't mean you can deactivate it. And if you fail by 5 or more bad things happen. For my games that usually means you activate the trap and it goes off in your face.

Finally, magical sensors and automatic reset. Having the trap go off when an arcane eye or some other sensor detects people entering the room/hall/whatever may be cruel or unfair but it adds some extra tension and excitement if your rogue is now frantically trying to disable the trap before it goes off again!