D&D 5E Traps etc... in 5th Edition

[Reynard]

Reading through both Phandelver and HotDQ, I realized how few traps, tricks and other non-combat obstacles were in the adventures, and how boring the ones that are there were. It even inspired this week and nexts' Wicked Wednesday blog post. But before I whip up a batch for next week, i thought I would start a discussion here to see how other folks feel about 5e traps and such (at least so far as we have seen).

I remember traps being quite contentious during that last edition transition, with questions about fairness, utility and just plain fun turning troublesome. i certainly don't want to repeat that here. Also, DM trickery has always been a contentious issue -- how much is too much, what constitutes "gotcha!" versus "aha!" moments, and so on. I tend to see traps and tricks as embedded in the fun of the game, especially when those things hinge more on players than their character sheets. I know that not everyone feels the same, of course.

So how do you feel about traps and tricks and how they should be handled in 5E? Are there new-to-5E mechanics you would like to see integrated into traps/tricks, or older mechanics you would like to see brought forward to 5E for that purpose? How important (or detrimental) are traps and tricks to your enjoyment of the game? Finally, do you have a favorite trap or trick you have sprung on your players or have had sprung on you in 5E so far, whether homebrewed or in a module?

 

[Fion]

I'm personally a fan of trap design from 4th edition where traps are built into encounters, granting the same xp as a monster would and had a similar stat-design. This makes traps easy to set up while still giving them as much or as little complexity as you want and because they have initiative and 'powers' that work as reactions, triggered or timed events, even multiple actions.

For the simple things that I would categorize as 'obstacles' including pit traps, falling logs, flooding rooms the classic design works fine, but I'll almost certainly stick with the 4e design when making complex traps and mechanisms.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah, pits and things should work like any dangerous terrain hazard (which there should be far more of. I love running encounters that are just things like avalanches or the road being washed out over a cliff, or getting to the top of a crumbling pyramid.)

Whereas complex things like shifting crushing walls and swinging axe-blades and auto-firing darts should be run as combat encounters and stated similar to monsters.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As a DM, I really like using traps as a means of providing interesting choices to the players. If something is trapped, then I usually make it pretty obvious, and I also make it pretty obvious about how difficult the trap would be to disarm. Then, the players decide whether to try and disarm the trap, or whether to just ignore it. There's probably something valuable or useful if you can get past the trap. Failure to disarm the trap may have a terrible cost.

I've never been a fan of auto-magically reloading traps, or hidden traps that nobody has a chance to notice until they suddenly go off.

 

[Keldryn]

The most important thing to me is to use traps in such a way that you don't have players doing this:

P: I listen at the door.
DM: You don't hear anything.
P: I check the door for traps.
DM: You don't find any traps.
P: Hmm. Suspicious. I check the doorknob. Is it trapped?
DM: No. You are pretty certain that the door is not trapped.
P: How about the keyhole? I check inside the keyhole.
DM: The door is not trapped.
P: You'd like us to think so, wouldn't you?
DM: The door is not trapped.
P: I check the ceiling above us. Does it look like there could be any opening directly above the door.
DM: There is no opening above the door.
P: Wait, do you mean on the wall or the ceiling?
DM: Neither one. You can safely open the door.
P: How much space is between the floor and the bottom of the door? Enough space to slide the blade of my sword underneath?
DM: *sigh* Yeah, sure. Your sword doesn't trigger anything.
P: Hey, I didn't say that I put my sword through the gap yet!
DM: *bangs the DMG against his head* THE DOOR IS NOT TRAPPED. JUST OPEN IT ALREADY.
P: Which direction does the door open?
DM: Into the room.
P: The room behind the door, or into the hallway that we're standing in?
DM: *glares* ...
P: Okay, so that means the hinges are on our side. I'll examine the hinges carefully...

This is not an exaggeration. This was also a simple door in a hallway.

I like the 4e approach with set-piece traps as part of an encounter. Traps should be placed where they make sense, considering how expensive the trap might be and how they affect inhabitants of the area as they move about.

No traps that feel like they came out of an old Sierra graphic adventure game.

 

[Authweight]

I don't think there's a single correct way of handling traps. The answer will always depend on what you're trying to achieve with the trap as a matter of adventure design.


If you want a trap to serve as something to break up combat and draw players into interacting with the world beyond hitting the squishy bits, you want to use puzzle-style traps. A puzzle trap should involve a relatively easy DC to recognize that something is up, but the task of figuring out how it works shouldn't just be abstracted to a single roll. The trap should work in a particular way, and should have particular countermeasures to disable it or nullify its effects. Successful rolls should give the PCs hints, but will not solve the problem without the players describing their actions in more detail. There should be real consequences to failure (possibly story-altering) in order to match the expenditure of effort and time by the players.


If you want a trap to be part of general attrition against the party's resources, it is best to handle it quickly and efficiently. A few rolls, then bad things do or don't happen. If you don't want to spend a lot of precious time on the trap, abstracting it is good. This approach is also good if the enemies would logically have a trap, but you don't really want it to be a big focus of your adventure.


If you want a trap to add spice to a fight, then it should be approached as more of a terrain effect or an immobile monster. Figure out what role it serves in the combat and give it abilities and stats to support that role. Focus on creating interesting choices. A big part of this design can be about interacting with the action economy. DCs should be low, since checks to disable it already cost precious actions in a fight, and you want to encourage interaction rather than punishing it.

 

[dd.stevenson]

No traps that feel like they came out of an old Sierra graphic adventure game.

Yes; a great many people find pixel bitching tiresome regardless of game, medium, or edition. The solution, I think is pretty obvious: whatever your exploration method, don't hold players responsible for pixels.

Personally I run with a rule that players are only responsible for named nouns. If I don't call it out as part of the description, it can't hurt you or hide treasure. And traps are always telegraphed--except in the cases of locks, spellbooks, and chests, which players should assume to be potentially dangerous.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yes; a great many people find pixel bitching tiresome regardless of game, medium, or edition. The solution, I think is pretty obvious: whatever your exploration method, don't hold players responsible for pixels.

Personally I run with a rule that players are only responsible for named nouns. If I don't call it out as part of the description, it can't hurt you or hide treasure. And traps are always telegraphed--except in the cases of locks, spellbooks, and chests, which players should assume to be potentially dangerous.

That sounds like a reasonable approach.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The problem with traps isn't edition-dependent. They've evolved to some extent over time, so they may appear to be edition-dependent, but you can create perfectly good traps in your brand new Gygaxian-themed 5e game if you like.

It's been mentioned above several times, so here's some reinforcement.

Traps shouldn't involve doing something ordinary (touching a doorknob) and getting killed as a result, or maybe mildly annoyed for a round.

Traps need to make sense. Trapped doorknobs rarely make sense; there's always going to be a less-than-bright minion accidentally getting their finger jabbed with the poison needle. Electrified floor plates are a somewhat better bet, because only the dumbest minions won't quickly learn where not to walk. Trapping your personal treasure chest makes a lot more sense, because you don't want your minions in there, much less adventurers!

I don't think attrition traps are particularly fun. In 3e or 4e they didn't even work. Traps should be part of an encounter. Even a simple hidden pit trap is very different depending on where you put it. Even in a game where attrition works, like 5e, putting a pit trap in the middle of a hallway somewhere where a PC might fall into it is just boring. Most likely they take damage, maybe spend a Hit Die, grouse about the lost Hit Die, and move on.

Put that same trap in a room before kobold crossbowmen hunched behind some crates and it becomes much more exciting. An unwary fighter hoping to get into the kobolds' faces before they dish out too much hurt could fall down the trap, which is now restricting movement around the room, and... the fighter is in a pit. Should another PC spend time rescuing them instead of fighting? Leave him there and be a man short? What if the fighter is wearing heavy armor and isn't a skilled climber?

Even a wizard falling down a pit creates its own complexities. The wizard is injured enough they should probably stay in the pit until healed! They probably can't climb, but they might be able to use spider climbing, levitation or dimension door to get out... spending spells. Or maybe they'll point out that they really need their spells and can someone please drop them a rope?

Suppose the trap fails and no one falls in it. Well, you can still shove kobolds into the pit!

 

[Reynard]

Put that same trap in a room before kobold crossbowmen hunched behind some crates and it becomes much more exciting. An unwary fighter hoping to get into the kobolds' faces before they dish out too much hurt could fall down the trap, which is now restricting movement around the room, and... the fighter is in a pit. Should another PC spend time rescuing them instead of fighting? Leave him there and be a man short? What if the fighter is wearing heavy armor and isn't a skilled climber?

Even a wizard falling down a pit creates its own complexities. The wizard is injured enough they should probably stay in the pit until healed! They probably can't climb, but they might be able to use spider climbing, levitation or dimension door to get out... spending spells. Or maybe they'll point out that they really need their spells and can someone please drop them a rope?

Suppose the trap fails and no one falls in it. Well, you can still shove kobolds into the pit!

Traps as part of the battlefield terrain are definitely a good use. For pit traps especially, they can be used to divide and conquer. I like to use pits under a lever floor-- i.e. the floor dumps the victim in when stepped on and then shuts again. Forcing the party to use actions to save their companions means you have created a scenario of meaningful choices and consequences around the trap. One problem with using traps as terrain, though, is it is a little more difficult if you are trying to avoid battlemats and the like (which 5E is pretty good at out of the box). In my experience, if a space has a negative consequence, the players like to know where that space is (even if they can't argue against having stepped on it).

But sometimes it is an abandoned temple or long-buried spaceship. Traps in these environments serve a different purpose and are, I think, harder to make engaging for the whole party. One thing I want to avoid, that I think is both boring and unfair, is turning traps into rolls for one character (the rogue/thief) with consequences for the whole party. How is that best avoided? I think the answer is to go against tradition and not hide those sorts of traps so much. Let everyone know there is something weird about that statue, but damn if those eyes don't glitter like rubies. What do (all of) you do now?