Traps with CR 10-15 anyone?
- Thread starter Jolly Giant
- Start date
Jolly Giant
First Post
Mmh! Just back from a PC-free weekend in the country and lots of cool replies to my post! Life is good... 
I see I should have given out some more info on the party before going away. Sorry 'bout that. Let me remedy...
The Players: 5 very experienced RPG-ers. They include 3 engineers and one cybernetics wizz who dream up ways for airplanes to land/take off vertically in his speare time. Highly intelligent people, Sir Whiskers...
The characters: An elven wiz11 vampire (often polymorphes to a hill giant), a dwarven clr11, a gnome druid5/shifter7 (likes to wild shape to girallon form before putting on his Belt of Giant Strength), a human barbarian5/rogue2/ravager5 (STR 22) and a human sor6/dragon disciple5 (STR 30). To these guys the average minotaur is total whimp. Though the stats here include magic items, heavy doors are not going to be a problem, s/LASH...
Lela: I want to prove to myself and the players that clichê dungeon crawling can still be a real challenge (and fun!), even if the PCs are in twodigit levels. I don't wanna do that by taking away their coolest abilities.
I really like your Wall of Force-maze idea. Gotta look into that...
Lord Zardos: Totally agree about making the environs fiendish. And some very creative use of pit traps there, by the way! Just what I'm looking for... Grapplig undeads on the other hand, just wouldn't be challenging enough for these guys I'm afraid.
Thanx for your input, everybody. Please come again! Our next session is still two weeks away (the cybernetics guy is out of town)...
I see I should have given out some more info on the party before going away. Sorry 'bout that. Let me remedy...
The Players: 5 very experienced RPG-ers. They include 3 engineers and one cybernetics wizz who dream up ways for airplanes to land/take off vertically in his speare time. Highly intelligent people, Sir Whiskers...
The characters: An elven wiz11 vampire (often polymorphes to a hill giant), a dwarven clr11, a gnome druid5/shifter7 (likes to wild shape to girallon form before putting on his Belt of Giant Strength), a human barbarian5/rogue2/ravager5 (STR 22) and a human sor6/dragon disciple5 (STR 30). To these guys the average minotaur is total whimp. Though the stats here include magic items, heavy doors are not going to be a problem, s/LASH...
Lela: I want to prove to myself and the players that clichê dungeon crawling can still be a real challenge (and fun!), even if the PCs are in twodigit levels. I don't wanna do that by taking away their coolest abilities.
I really like your Wall of Force-maze idea. Gotta look into that...
Lord Zardos: Totally agree about making the environs fiendish. And some very creative use of pit traps there, by the way! Just what I'm looking for...
Grapplig undeads on the other hand, just wouldn't be challenging enough for these guys I'm afraid.Thanx for your input, everybody. Please come again! Our next session is still two weeks away (the cybernetics guy is out of town)...
Jolly Giant
First Post
d20Dwarf said:
What is it and where can I get it?
jdavis
First Post
The best trap I ever got caught in was in COC but it probably could be adjusted for D&D quite nicely.
My character walked into a room and the gamemaster told me that my character was getting real hot, then he pulled out a stop watch, he asked me what I was going to do. 5 seconds in he told me my clothes were smouldering, it took me about 15 to 20 seconds to gather mysef up to say I was going to run. The shock of being on the clock and having to think in real time took me by suprise, I took damage by how long I stayed in the room. Anytime you only give the players as much time as the characters would actually have to make a decision it really gets the blood pumping. You got 20 seconds before the lava floods the room, what do you do, tick tick tick.
A good riddle trap would also work nicely, I designed one where the characters had to flip switches in a certain order, the switches corresponded to the Devils who ruled each of the nine planes of hell, flipping any switch out of order caused a effect linked to that certain switch, and the switches reset every three rounds regardless of how many had been flipped. The characters had to figure out what to do and in what order to do them in and work as a team to get them all flipped in time. The Devil part wouldn't work in your situation but the general idea might work.
My character walked into a room and the gamemaster told me that my character was getting real hot, then he pulled out a stop watch, he asked me what I was going to do. 5 seconds in he told me my clothes were smouldering, it took me about 15 to 20 seconds to gather mysef up to say I was going to run. The shock of being on the clock and having to think in real time took me by suprise, I took damage by how long I stayed in the room. Anytime you only give the players as much time as the characters would actually have to make a decision it really gets the blood pumping. You got 20 seconds before the lava floods the room, what do you do, tick tick tick.
A good riddle trap would also work nicely, I designed one where the characters had to flip switches in a certain order, the switches corresponded to the Devils who ruled each of the nine planes of hell, flipping any switch out of order caused a effect linked to that certain switch, and the switches reset every three rounds regardless of how many had been flipped. The characters had to figure out what to do and in what order to do them in and work as a team to get them all flipped in time. The Devil part wouldn't work in your situation but the general idea might work.
Lord Zardoz
Explorer
Lets take a look at the chars...
Elven wiz11 vampire (often polymorphes to a hill giant),
a dwarven clr11,
a gnome druid5/shifter7 (likes to wild shape),
a human barbarian5/rogue2/ravager5 (STR 22) and a
sor6/dragon disciple5 (STR 30).
It seems that you have alot of magical firepower in that group. The melee capabilities seem to be dependant mostly on shape shifting with the exception of the Barbarian. I can see why your asking about traps though. Your players will use area spells to wipe low hp creatures and can buff up to wipe out tanks. A few well used traps can inflict the bulk of your damage for you.
First, if you dont have it already, get either Traps and Treachery or Traps and Treachery 2. I own the first book, and some of the traps in there are exaclty what you need. (Like the stone acid cylinder that drops on a player, trapping him inside, and then fills with acid (full immersion in acid is 10d6 per round).
Have you done that? Good, now use these suggestions.
Here are some combat suggestions:
Make Pin Cushions:
You have two mage types (the wizard and the Sor / Dragon Diciple). Such characters generally have low AC. Missile weapons are nice in that you can have 20 or 30 Kobolds with Crossbows focus fire on one target.
Also, once someone is identified as a spell caster, have those who are gunning for him ready their actions until he begins to either attack or cast a spell.
Take or Destroy their stuff:
It is quite likely that you will be able to deplete their equipment without having to take it all at once. There are a few ways to do this.
1) The Minotaurs might not have the necessary endurance to go toe to toe with the players in melee, but you might get off a few successful Sunders.
2) When in melee, have 3 or 4 sorcerers use Mage Hand or Telekenisis to remove magic items (identified by way of Detect Magic before hand). When a sorcerer gets some gear, he will then run away with it. Target all such efforts against ONE player. Take the Wands, Rods, Staffs, and weapons first.
3) If you can successuflly disarm someone, have another combatant who used a delayed action to pick up the disarmed weapon.
4) Disintigrage or Shatter items where possible.
5) Environment damage from say, heat, could damage weapons and armor.
No rest:
Many Dm's will often fall into the trap of only running one fight per game day. This means that the players will usually be fully healed and have a full compliment of spells available for every fight. Unless the players take some very reasonable steps to insure otherwise, you can keep them from resting and recovering between fights. Your players can probably handle most big fights easily enough, but try hitting them with that young adult dragon when they have burned about 60% of their spells and are at minimal HP.
If your dungeon lords have the resources, you should assume that someone is always scrying or trying to scry on the players. With that in place, you can even go ahead and pull a dispel on their magic shelters once in a while.
Now, back to the 'tactical' traps.
Trolls Bull Rush:
If you want to get some nasty use out of yoru trolls, have them bull rush weaker casters into deep holes with lots of spikes at the bottom. This works very well if you have a small chasm with spikes at the bottom. A Troll will heal. Go for the Wizard / Sorcerer with this. He probably does not have such a great Str score.
Divide and Conquer:
Put some missile combatants with very good cover at the far end of a corridor. Someone will probably close to melee. Once they pass point X, drop a massive stone plug (or a contingency Wall of Stone) between him and his friends. Also bring out the re-enforcements for your combatants.
Golems And Gas:
Set aside a room with some small Kobold sized Stone Golems / Gargoyles, and have the door made of stone. The door slams shut. Since its a "Golem Door", give it lots of hp and a brutal AC. Fill the room with a Cloud Kill or other toxic gas. Since Golems dont breath, the PC's have an intresting problem.
Dispel Dangers:
Have a room or series of rooms that contain magical spells holding back some very dangerous environment or creature hazards. This will allow you to force the players to think twice about carelessly using dispel magic. No player wants to accidently dispel the walls holding back the Magma.
Illusion Fun:
Once in a while, have the PC's enter a room and set of Contingency Illusion spells. Nothing gets the attention of the players like saying "You enter a large caven, its far side lost in shadows. Two green lights suddenly appear about 20 feet in front of you, the glow giving you the vague outline of a black dragon preparing to inhale. Please roll initiative." After initiative is determined, hand notes to those who made their saves. This trick is nice, since you can often have PC's burn a few magical item charges, potions, and spells uselessly.
Bait:
Use something to lure your players into danger. A large empty room with stone statues is going to make your players suspicious. A large room with stone statues and a young paladin fighting a demon and being terribly out matched is another. Your players will assume you want them to resuce the paladin. They will be suprized when they learn that the paladin is called "Render the Bloody Handed", a demonic sorcerer who then disappears when the statues activate, and uses improved invisibility and some well chosen spells to antagonize the players.
END COMMUNICATION
Elven wiz11 vampire (often polymorphes to a hill giant),
a dwarven clr11,
a gnome druid5/shifter7 (likes to wild shape),
a human barbarian5/rogue2/ravager5 (STR 22) and a
sor6/dragon disciple5 (STR 30).
It seems that you have alot of magical firepower in that group. The melee capabilities seem to be dependant mostly on shape shifting with the exception of the Barbarian. I can see why your asking about traps though. Your players will use area spells to wipe low hp creatures and can buff up to wipe out tanks. A few well used traps can inflict the bulk of your damage for you.
First, if you dont have it already, get either Traps and Treachery or Traps and Treachery 2. I own the first book, and some of the traps in there are exaclty what you need. (Like the stone acid cylinder that drops on a player, trapping him inside, and then fills with acid (full immersion in acid is 10d6 per round).
Have you done that? Good, now use these suggestions.
Here are some combat suggestions:
Make Pin Cushions:
You have two mage types (the wizard and the Sor / Dragon Diciple). Such characters generally have low AC. Missile weapons are nice in that you can have 20 or 30 Kobolds with Crossbows focus fire on one target.
Also, once someone is identified as a spell caster, have those who are gunning for him ready their actions until he begins to either attack or cast a spell.
Take or Destroy their stuff:
It is quite likely that you will be able to deplete their equipment without having to take it all at once. There are a few ways to do this.
1) The Minotaurs might not have the necessary endurance to go toe to toe with the players in melee, but you might get off a few successful Sunders.
2) When in melee, have 3 or 4 sorcerers use Mage Hand or Telekenisis to remove magic items (identified by way of Detect Magic before hand). When a sorcerer gets some gear, he will then run away with it. Target all such efforts against ONE player. Take the Wands, Rods, Staffs, and weapons first.
3) If you can successuflly disarm someone, have another combatant who used a delayed action to pick up the disarmed weapon.
4) Disintigrage or Shatter items where possible.
5) Environment damage from say, heat, could damage weapons and armor.
No rest:
Many Dm's will often fall into the trap of only running one fight per game day. This means that the players will usually be fully healed and have a full compliment of spells available for every fight. Unless the players take some very reasonable steps to insure otherwise, you can keep them from resting and recovering between fights. Your players can probably handle most big fights easily enough, but try hitting them with that young adult dragon when they have burned about 60% of their spells and are at minimal HP.
If your dungeon lords have the resources, you should assume that someone is always scrying or trying to scry on the players. With that in place, you can even go ahead and pull a dispel on their magic shelters once in a while.
Now, back to the 'tactical' traps.
Trolls Bull Rush:
If you want to get some nasty use out of yoru trolls, have them bull rush weaker casters into deep holes with lots of spikes at the bottom. This works very well if you have a small chasm with spikes at the bottom. A Troll will heal. Go for the Wizard / Sorcerer with this. He probably does not have such a great Str score.
Divide and Conquer:
Put some missile combatants with very good cover at the far end of a corridor. Someone will probably close to melee. Once they pass point X, drop a massive stone plug (or a contingency Wall of Stone) between him and his friends. Also bring out the re-enforcements for your combatants.
Golems And Gas:
Set aside a room with some small Kobold sized Stone Golems / Gargoyles, and have the door made of stone. The door slams shut. Since its a "Golem Door", give it lots of hp and a brutal AC. Fill the room with a Cloud Kill or other toxic gas. Since Golems dont breath, the PC's have an intresting problem.
Dispel Dangers:
Have a room or series of rooms that contain magical spells holding back some very dangerous environment or creature hazards. This will allow you to force the players to think twice about carelessly using dispel magic. No player wants to accidently dispel the walls holding back the Magma.
Illusion Fun:
Once in a while, have the PC's enter a room and set of Contingency Illusion spells. Nothing gets the attention of the players like saying "You enter a large caven, its far side lost in shadows. Two green lights suddenly appear about 20 feet in front of you, the glow giving you the vague outline of a black dragon preparing to inhale. Please roll initiative." After initiative is determined, hand notes to those who made their saves. This trick is nice, since you can often have PC's burn a few magical item charges, potions, and spells uselessly.
Bait:
Use something to lure your players into danger. A large empty room with stone statues is going to make your players suspicious. A large room with stone statues and a young paladin fighting a demon and being terribly out matched is another. Your players will assume you want them to resuce the paladin. They will be suprized when they learn that the paladin is called "Render the Bloody Handed", a demonic sorcerer who then disappears when the statues activate, and uses improved invisibility and some well chosen spells to antagonize the players.
END COMMUNICATION
s/LaSH
First Post
You have a vampire in your party? EVIL CLERICS! OK, so turning a level 11 vamp isn't easy in the first place; something like a level 15 cleric is needed merely to rebuke them, and commanding is nigh impossible unless you go Epic-level. So you need to amp up an evil cleric, but a couple of magic items and maybe some added demonic blood abilities can easily boost your turning abilities to the point where that vamp is your plaything. (Come on, Orcus is a demon lord of the undead; half-fiends are sure to have undead-controlling abilities.)
OK, if strength isn't a problem, make it one. There are doors that nobody else in the dungeon has opened, but the PCs can... but should they? (My idea about a flooded section of mine stands.) Or you can just start throwing around ray of enfeeblement spells and watch as the PCs try to get out through doors they thought were child's play... it makes sense that kobolds would try to weaken their enemies, because they're not exactly the strongest critters in the woods.
Now, if your players are nice and smart, fooling them is always going to be tricky. With reference to Lord Zardoz's bait idea: A paladin fighting a demon in the middle of the evil dungeon is a fairly obvious trap if you're on the ball. So twist things around, and have the paladin actually be a paladin set up to look like a trap. Or heck - you're the DM, you can keep the paladin in a state of quantum flux until the PCs commit to a course of action, wherupon you decide whether he's good or evil in such a manner as to, ahem, screw the players over. Superstating is a mean trick, but it's within the rights of the (evil) DM.
And it appears you've got a couple of short party members (gnome and dwarf)... why don't you have plenty of corridors filled with four feet of water? It slows the party down, and the shorties either have to swim (possibly shucking armour), or be carried (or drown). Then the underwater monsters come to life... giant octopi, zombie minotaurs, anything that can cause a bit of an upset. Especially nasty would be the idea of kobolds with lassoos underwater, waiting to snare the dwarf and gnome and haul them into the kobold tunnels, away from the rest of the party (a gang of kobolds can exert quite a pull). If the kobolds have water-breathing offspring (quite a stretch, I know), they could fill the kobold tunnels with water and just let their victims drown.
Any of that useful?
OK, if strength isn't a problem, make it one. There are doors that nobody else in the dungeon has opened, but the PCs can... but should they? (My idea about a flooded section of mine stands.) Or you can just start throwing around ray of enfeeblement spells and watch as the PCs try to get out through doors they thought were child's play... it makes sense that kobolds would try to weaken their enemies, because they're not exactly the strongest critters in the woods.
Now, if your players are nice and smart, fooling them is always going to be tricky. With reference to Lord Zardoz's bait idea: A paladin fighting a demon in the middle of the evil dungeon is a fairly obvious trap if you're on the ball. So twist things around, and have the paladin actually be a paladin set up to look like a trap. Or heck - you're the DM, you can keep the paladin in a state of quantum flux until the PCs commit to a course of action, wherupon you decide whether he's good or evil in such a manner as to, ahem, screw the players over. Superstating is a mean trick, but it's within the rights of the (evil) DM.
And it appears you've got a couple of short party members (gnome and dwarf)... why don't you have plenty of corridors filled with four feet of water? It slows the party down, and the shorties either have to swim (possibly shucking armour), or be carried (or drown). Then the underwater monsters come to life... giant octopi, zombie minotaurs, anything that can cause a bit of an upset. Especially nasty would be the idea of kobolds with lassoos underwater, waiting to snare the dwarf and gnome and haul them into the kobold tunnels, away from the rest of the party (a gang of kobolds can exert quite a pull). If the kobolds have water-breathing offspring (quite a stretch, I know), they could fill the kobold tunnels with water and just let their victims drown.
Any of that useful?
Jolly Giant
First Post
Illusion Fun... Now, there's a fun idea!
Lot's of good stuff here, but still room for more I believe..?
Lot's of good stuff here, but still room for more I believe..?
MerakSpielman
First Post
To prevent over-use of teleporting out of danger to rest, etc, but without eliminating the practice completely, put the characters on a time limit. Nothing extreme, but say, one week. If they don't do something about the kobold leader in one week, something Horrible will happen. That translates (in player terms) to: we can only rest seven times.
Then try HARD to use up all of their spells with resistences, defenses, divinations, etc...
Also, have the kobolds reset their traps if the characters leave for more than a few hours...
Illusions are great, yes, especially when spellcasters waste their area-effect spells blasting hordes of illusionary kobolds.
This isn't a trap idea, but try giving each kobold a level of rogue instead of warrior (the MM default). Those extra d6 of sneak attack add up over time. Also, that leader of theirs has been stockpiling them with potions over the years, right? Such as invisibility, hiding, true strike (heh heh!), fire breath, etc...
Also, have the kobolds reset their traps if the characters leave for more than a few hours...
Then try HARD to use up all of their spells with resistences, defenses, divinations, etc...
Also, have the kobolds reset their traps if the characters leave for more than a few hours...
Illusions are great, yes, especially when spellcasters waste their area-effect spells blasting hordes of illusionary kobolds.
This isn't a trap idea, but try giving each kobold a level of rogue instead of warrior (the MM default). Those extra d6 of sneak attack add up over time. Also, that leader of theirs has been stockpiling them with potions over the years, right? Such as invisibility, hiding, true strike (heh heh!), fire breath, etc...
Also, have the kobolds reset their traps if the characters leave for more than a few hours...
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