Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 3024158" data-attributes="member: 3586">One of my favourite death traps is in Grasp of the Emerald Claw. There's a door. Around it, are a lot of recently dead Emerald Claw soldiers, glowing green. If you open the door, you set off the trap. You can detect the trap magically, or by Search (although the Search is quite difficult, IIRC).You have the clues that something is up, and so you're empowered to make an interesting decision. (In fact, past the door is something good to get, so the decision is significant as well).There's another one in Cradle of Madness (Dungeon #87). A archway with a strange purple mist. Detect magic reveals a strong transmutation aura (actually a disintegration field that works only on living matter, although it's unlikely the PCs will discover that in advance). If you search around the room, you find a secret closet with the robes that allow you to pass through the field. Or, you can say, "I'm a dwarf! I have a high Fort save" and roll a 2 and get disintegrated. (After that, the PCs actually dismantled the arch, which also works. Didn't stop the TPK in the next encounter, though).Both of those traps share something in common: they're gateway traps. Passing through them enables you to continue on with the adventure (or get to a secret). They have a purpose, which is really important. I'm not fond of random "I kill you now" traps. Sure, they're lethal, but they exist in context.When I place "random" traps, I prefer confining or hazard traps. For instance, as my players attacked a Dragon's lair last Sunday, the approach they used contained a pit trap; due to the fact they were in combat, they couldn't detect it in advance, and thus one of them set it off and was suddenly out of the combat... until he found a way to overcome it. The rest of the party found their approach to the dragon suddenly blocked by a 30' wide pit, requiring more tactical thinking to overcome. (The solutions they came up with surprised me).The context of Q's example trap is somewhat obscure; as written, I don't like it very much. I'm fond of traps that force the PCs into making decisions, but if the only decision is between pulling the lever and ignoring the lever, that's not very interesting.Far more interesting was the trapped throne in my version of Castle Greyhawk that caused those sitting in it to become dominated by a Knight of Hell, thus changing the aspect of the campaign...Cheers!</blockquote>

Verification