Help Me With Two Traps

[mattcolville]

I want to use a couple of traps to create a kind of Indiana Jones thing.

The first trap I want to be a long corridor that's actually suspended above one massive pit. Think the floor from that one JEHOVAH trap in The Last Crusade. Except it's really long.

For the players to succeed, they have to travel the length of the long corridor while the floor is collapsing beneath them. So it's something of a race. Can they outrun the collapsing floor?

I'm not 100% sure how to do this. I'm not certain this is even a trap, might be a skill check. There are things I know I want, though.

1: I want PCs to be able to help each other out, like have one PC grab another to stop him from falling when the second PC fails, or even throw a rope to a PC.
2: Players should be able to use ingenuity to avoid the trap.
3: If a PC fails, he falls and takes damage and is screwed.

The other trap is a standard "the walls are closing in" trap, which I'm certain I've seen but I can't find the damn thing.

 

[Starfox]

The big problem I see with the first trap is how to get everyone onto it. My group usually has some kind of advance scout; to me, a collapsing corridor without warning would be a party split.

 

[Mesh Hong]

The first trap sounds like a skill challange to me, so that you can run it in abstract. If you tried to run this on a battlemap without any combat going on it wouldn't work very well at all.

 

[mattcolville]

Yeah the more I think about it, the more I think it must be a skill challenge.

The first PC hits the floor and starts the challenge. It's Athletics, Acrobatics, or Endurance as the floor begins to crumble, not only beneath them, but around them.

PCs who hit the floor that round (the corridor is at the bottom of a well), the DC is, let's say 20. These guys are 13th level and they're all assassins, rogues, and rangers so they'll have the right skills for this and frankly DC 20 will be an automatic success for many of them. Might have to up the DC but that's not the issue.

Because the PCs are climbing down a well, some of them may not get to the bottom in the first round. The DC goes up by 5 for every round after the first, so PCs may be incentivized to drop to the bottom of the well and take some damage.

PCs on the ground face a skill challenge of complexity 3: 8 successes before 3 failures.

They can use any of the above skills. A PC who's "ahead" meaning facing a lower DC can make an Acrobatics check to aid one of his partner's who's "Behind." Success means they're both now rolling against the lower DC, failure means they're both now rolling against the higher DC.

Failure by 5 or LESS means the PCs drop one random misc item (i.e. not a weapon or armor, mostly potions) but can keep going.

Failure by more than 5 means the floor has collapsed under the PC and he has to make a skill check to pull himself up or leap to safety. Another PC can throw the guy a rope and help.

Failing this second test means literally plunging to your death.

I know how that sounds, but this is special. These are characters the players will only be playing for one night. They're a "Beta Team" sent in to rescue the main PCs who were captured last week, and I have a contingency for players who die on the way. So they don't sit around all night.

I'm also considering having the ceiling be false, rotted wooden boards that look like sandstone but collapse at a touch revealing handholds in the real ceiling above. Representing the method the workers used to build this trap.

It's my hope the players also consider using some of their teleport powers as well as grappling hooks and ropes to help each other out and be inventive.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I am wondering how to make this a worthwhile and exciting skill challenge, maybe we might want to split it up into areas.

1: climbing down the well
2: first section of collapsing corridor
3: second section of collapsing corridor – with additional hazard
4: third section of collapsing corridor
5: Cinematic leap to safety

One issue I can see is that the environment could possibly be different for each PC as they might get to each section at different times. Maybe we could make this an individual skill challenge for each PC, but have them able to interact with each other.

Area 1 is stable.
Areas 2,3 and 4 have 3 states; intact, collapsing and collapsed.
Area 5 is stable.

Area 1 – Climbing down the well.

Skill challenge:
3 success before 3 failures

Primary skills: Athletics, Acrobatics

Athletics/Acrobatics – (average DC) – climb down well – on success make progress – on fail make no progress

Secondary skills: Dungeoneering, Endurance

Dungeoneering – (easy DC) - grant a +2 bonus to an allies next Athletics or Acrobatics check
Endurance – (easy DC) - can only use once and must have failed an Athletics or Acrobatics check - gain a +1 bonus to all Athletics and Acrobatics checks during this section.

Success: you get to the bottom of the well safely.
Fail: you fall down the well, lose a healing surge and take 3 -n (number of successes achieved in skill challenge) d10 damage. (eg had 1 success before 3 fails = 3-1 = 2d10 damage)

Automatic on getting to bottom:-
Perception (hard DC) or Dungeoneering (average DC) check to notice that the corridor ahead looks unstable.
On success:
Thievery (average DC) the floor and walls look like they will start to collapse as soon as any weight is applied to them.

Area 2 – First section of collapsing corridor

OK lets make the assumption that this section is 30 foot long, then lets subdivide it into 3x 10 foot sections. For the sake of the skill challenge each success will result in the PC moving 10 foot, so 3 successes are required to get through the section.

Each Section has 3 states – intact, collapsing, and collapsed.

When disturbed each section will degrade at the start of the next round. So in the first round each section is intact, until everyone has had their turn, then any section travelled over will start to collapse (making it more difficult for anyone following a round behind), then at the start of the next turn will collapse (meaning that anyone following will have to jump).

Skill Challenge
3 success’s required to pass

Primary Skills: Athletics, Acrobatics

Athletics
Intact – (easy DC) – move along corridor
Collapsing – (average DC) – move along corridor
Collapsed – Jump Check required to jump the entire collapsed distance (athletics divided check divided by 10 to jump number of squares, 2 squares for each collapsed subsection)

Acrobatics
Allow same as Athletics, maybe even allow use of acrobatics in lieu of athletics for jumping? (an example of style over rules in skill challenge)

Secondary Skills: Dungeoneering, endurance

Dungeoneering – (easy DC) – grant a +4 bonus to an allies next athletic or acrobatics check
Endurance – (average DC) – gain a +2 bonus to all Athletics and Acrobatics check for this section.

Success: move along sections until complete (3 success’s)
Fail: either make no progress or if jumping and fail by less than 5 then no progress, or fail by 5 or more fall (you will need to determine just how far that is and the consequences) (note: potential flaw in entire premise of skill challenge here, but I will get back to that)

Area 3 – Second section of collapsing corridor with additional hazard

This is set up like Area 2 but the centre 10 foot section of the corridor is solid ground and contains an additional hazard to be negotiated quickly. Run the first and the third subsections as Area 2.

The second subsection contains the Masher: a heavy stone section of ceiling pounds down on the platform in relentless rhythm (this activates when a PC successful clears Area 2).

Primary Skill: Acrobatics, Thievery

Acrobatics – (average DC) – you dive through avoiding the block – on fail by less than 5 you make it through but lose a healing surge and take 2d10+10 damage; on fail by more than 5 you make no progress and lose a healing surge and take 2d10+10 damage.

Thievery – (hard / very hard DC) – you disable the Masher – on fail you do not disable the Masher and lose a healing surge

Secondary Skill:

Endurance – (hard DC) – you try and hold the masher to let your allies through – on success you take 2d10+10 damage and grant all allies a +5 bonus to their acrobatics check this turn for passing through the Masher – on fail you lose a healing surge and take 2d10+10 damage and grant all allies a +1 bonus to their acrobatics check this turn for passing through the Masher.

Area 4 – Third section of collapsing corridor

Run like area 2

Area 5 – Cinematic leap to safety

One final athletics jump check to span maybe a 15 foot gap (athletics divided check divided by 10 to jump number of squares, in this case 3).

For this final jump allow generous bonuses for the player describing truly cinematic exploits that finish off the sequence in a cool way.


Potential flaw in entire premise of skill challenge

The premise of the skill challenge is that all the PCs will make a mad dash down the corridor, running, jumping, diving and looking like cool and action adventurers. The problem is what happens if they realise that they can just active the collapsing floor, then climb down, walk across the bottom of the pit and climb up the other side? In fact is not unforeseeable that at least one PC may be forced to do this if they are a couple of rounds back (still climbing down the well) when the collapsing floor is activated.

Anyway that is my initial idea for approaching the skill challenge. It is far from perfect but it is a start. I am not overly happy with everything running off the same skills, but if they are the skills that your party is strong in then it shouldn’t really be a problem.

The main thing is to understand each PC’s position along the entire challenge track, and the state of each section of floor, (this could be done on the battlemap).

Something like:-
(sorry the formatting doesn't like this bit but I hope it is still easy to understand)
:
:
:....... / _ _ _ ../ _ M _ ./ _ _ _ ./ _
area 1 / area 2 / area 3 / area 4 / area 5

Anyway I hope this helps or gives you an idea.