Nail 'em!!!

[Wolffenjugend]

I just came up with a good trap idea. Picture a fairly large room in which the floor is covered in thousands of loose nails (not affixed to the floor).

The adventurers enter and are probably a little disturbed the nails. Perhaps they prod them with a pole to make sure the floor is solid. When they reach the centre of the room, the door(s) close and seal shut (wizard lock, portcullis, whatever). At the same time, a magical ward on the floor summons an Air Elemental which immediately takes its vortex form. Blender anyone? Thousands of nails flying through the air should be something akin to a sand blaster. To make things even more deadly, add in some incorporeal-type creatures or something unaffected by normal weapons (i.e. nails).

My dilemma? How much damage would this cause?

 

[trentonjoe]

My dilemma? How much damage would this cause?

Short answer: As much as you want.

Long Answer: Make it variable to party level. Maybe it should have an effect equal to the elemental's HD times 1 ft? IT could do 1d4 damage times elemental's HD. Reflex for half?

Sooooo, a 4HD air elemental would effect all creatures that are within 4' (I would round this up to 5 for simplicity) and do 4d4 damage?

If you like working with multiples of 5, try 5' per 5 HD with a minimum of 5?

This would seem like an appropriate CL 4 trap.

You might also want to give the elemental a bonus to its AC because the nails act like armor. Maybe +2?

 

[RigaMortus]

Wouldn't this be similiar to the spell "Telekinesis" when you use it to throw a lot of small objects at someone? I forget what it's called, but it has a specific name, just look under the spell (Project Object maybe?).

Anyway, that seems like a reasonable way to measure the damage.

 

[Deset Gled]

By "vortex", do you mean the whirlwind special ability? If so, then by the rules, only characters caught inside the whirlwind would take damage from this (not the entire room). I would probably model this by simply adding damage dice to the elementals whirlwind damage.

Alternatively, if you did want this to be more a huge wind storm that throws the nails all over the room, I would model it simply by making everyone make a reflex save (half damage on a successfull save) for Xd6 damage, X depending on how powerful you want this to be, probably a combination of the size of the elemental, the number of nails in the room, and how mean you want to be.

No matter how you decide to do it, I think that the damage should count as piercing damage, and should be completely negated by damage reduction (because each individual nail would only 1 point of damage or so).

 

[Darklone]

No matter how you decide to do it, I think that the damage should count as piercing damage, and should be completely negated by damage reduction (because each individual nail would only 1 point of damage or so).

I already see the barbarian in loinclothes leave the room without a scratch, carrying his buddy the fighter in fullplate who nearly bled to death...

 

[HeavyG]

I already see the barbarian in loinclothes leave the room without a scratch, carrying his buddy the fighter in fullplate who nearly bled to death...

Oh, come on man. Barbarian DR shouldn't negate heroic scratches. Heroic scratches are their schtick.