What are your favorite traps?

[Herzog]

My favorites are these:

-already mentioned waterfilled pit with closing grid.
-red line
-supporting columns with goodies.

i'll explain the last two:

the red line is not really a trap. I heard about it from another DM who used it.
The idea is that there is a large complex occupied by a BEBG with it's minions.
The complex is part of an ever larger set of tunnels.
The red line marks the territory edge.
The players spent a lot of time figuring out if there maybe was something nasty on the other side.....

the supporting columns comes from a module i read, although I can't remember which one.
The idea is that the party faces a white dragon in a large hall made completely of ice.
throughout the hall, big columns rise from ground to the (high!) ceiling.
inside the columns are the frozen bodies of earlier encounters the white dragon had with adventuring.

Once the white dragon is defeated, they will probably investigate the columns. The adventurers inside carry interesting magical items etc.
However, for every column destroyed to get at the items, there is a 10% cumulative chance the ceiling will come down.....

herzog

 

[Vrecknidj]

I like traps that could actually, really be built, and that could function and reset on their own. Or, I like traps that require the use of one or more spells, and that can also reset on their own. I do like traps that cleverly utilize illusions. I like non-lethal traps that serve to hinder parties.

I do not like save-or-die traps. I do not like traps that have puzzles when the solution to the puzzle depends upon information that's available in our world or language, but wouldn't necessarily be available in another world or language. I do not like traps that couldn't have been built by the creatures that live in the area unless they could have been built long, long ago, and could somehow still function properly.

Dave

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

Thanks for all the suggestions-I almost feel sorry for my players...

 

[Lordgrae]

One of my favorites is pretty simple. A deep pit, with spikes at the bottem.

Cept like 1 in 4 of the spikes are animated. They don't stop poking.

 

[lukelightning]

Yeah, count me in for the water/spike filled pit with alligators (or whatever). Paricularly one with a self closing lid.

Alligators and man-eating-cows.

 

[MarkB]

Infinite-loop Reverse Gravity trap

There's a nasty trap I came up with a little while ago for a thread on dirty spellcasting tricks. It consists of a room about 20 feet wide by 60 feet tall, in the form of a tall cylinder whose floor and ceiling both slope at around 45 degrees, and are either built of very smooth material such as marble and/or greased.

Characters enter from a corridor at the left, a little above floor level, either voluntarily entering the strange room, or being tricked/forced in by an illusion or slippery slope.

Once one or more characters (depending on taste) come within the range of the alarm trigger on the floor, a Reverse Gravity spell is cast - but only on the left-hand side of the room.

The occupants fall upwards to the ceiling, taking falling damage, tumble up the slick sloped ceiling until they exit the reverse-gravity field, then fall downwards to the floor, taking falling damage, then tumble down the slick sloped floor until they enter the reverse-gravity field, then fall upwards to the ceiling, taking falling damage...

This continues until the spell duration expires, with a fairly arbitrary estimate of one complete revolution through the trap per round. At minimum caster level, that's seven rounds' worth of two sets of 60-foot falling damage, unless the subjects can manage to somehow catch themselves and avoid falling into / out of the reverse-gravity field.

As written that's excessively harsh unless the PCs have some versatile spellcasting options, so I'd probably build in some flaw (such as worn floor or ceiling tiles providing handholds) which they could exploit to save themselves.

EDIT: Actually, it's 13 rounds at minimum caster level, of course - I was mixing up spell level and caster level.

 

[wmasters]

I still love the 'I prepared Explosive Runes this morning' letter, which is always good. I've mentioned the trap on another thread somewhere, possibly pre-crash, but I quite like the kobold portcullis trap - kobolds watch the party go into the room through arrow slits, pull a level to drop the portcullises trapping the party in the room, and start shooting.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Here's another few simple ones:

-A pit that is easily findable, and an easy ten foot jump across. The landing point on the other side is blocked by a Wall of Force (or super clean, thick wall made of glass) - so you jump across the pit, hit the Wall, and fall into the pit anyway.

-A long section of hall where there is a pivot point on one wal every five feet - after reaching a certain point in the hall, the pivoting walls are activated, locking each PC into his own 5 ft x 10 ft room, with some form of monster - skeleton, golem, whatever. Each PC has to handle their foe entirely on their own in close quarters.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Scaling Traps to Level

On the same idea, water filling rooms are a fun one too. Doesn't work very well at higher levels since the party can usually carve their way through the door PDQ. But, at lower levels, is way too much fun.

I am going to deliberately take the above quote a bit out of context.

The effectiveness of traps does tend to drop off for higher level characters because the associated skill checks get easier to succeed, and the players HP scale beyond it. A 3d6 damage trap is potentially deadly to a 1st or 2nd level fighter, but barely a nuisance to a higher level fighter. And most traps that rely on Saving throws also become too easy to work around.

I think that the trick to making a trap worth using against high level PC's is to have the effects target character attributes that dont scale as dramatically. Ability checks, drowning effects, and passage ways that are suddenly sealed off are all very inconvenient, and they also scale to level. Also, where reasonable, try to use traps that rely on a touch attack of some sort rather than a normal attack or a saving throw.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[merelycompetent]

Personal Favorites (please remember to add saving throws where appropriate):

* Spike-filled pit trap that is actually a stone/iron golem. Once someone falls in, the lid slams shut, and the pit/golem rises up out of the floor to attack the rest of the party. The victim in the pit/golem takes damage each round from being thrown about and onto the spikes. If it's an iron golem, lightning damages the victim inside, fire acts as a heat metal spell (lasting 1 round/die of damage), cold as a chill metal. Victim will also run out of air eventually...

* Mirror of Minute Opposition. Mirror on the wall actually does nothing until the party leaves the room. Then their evil duplicates, all 1' tall, emerge from the room, load up for bear, and take off in pursuit. Requires pre-planning by the DM to keep game from bogging down while he/she recalculates the PCs' specs for being Tiny.

* Superglue Door. The entire surface of this door is covered with a spell that immediately causes any organic material that comes into contact with it to stick... permanently.

* Opening the door, chest, etc. causes the rest of the hall (except the space in front of the door) to fall into a pit.

* Steel wire, painted black, set at neck-level for a human-sized jumper, over the crevasse of lava. Covering it with an illusion/invisibility is even better.

* Replace ye olde metal pit spikes with wooden ones... each containing a rot grub.

* Bug zapper. Flying over this (obviously) trapped, rickety wooden bridge causes lightning bolts to shoot from the statues' eyes at the flyers.

* Opening the door causes the wall that it's on to fall on the opener's side (can be lethal if the rest of the party is lined up on the wall next to the door).

* Stepping on the pressure plate causes one random creature in the hall to be polymorphed into a Fire Giant. Note that the hall is only 5' wide by 6' tall. Not necessarily fatal, but will delay the party and use up resources to fix.

* Room is filled to a 2-inch depth with flammable oil. Room is also filled to a 1" depth with marbles. Works well in large, open rooms with balconies for mooks to shoot flaming arrows at PCs. Add chandeliers with smoke mephits for candles for additional entertainment.

Enjoy!