J.Quondam
CR 1/8
"Would you like a pastry?"
"Sure thanks. Oh OW OW OW OW! They're hot!"
"Ahahaha! You fell for my devious everburning scones trap! Ahahaha!"
D&D General Your Best Traps +
- Thread starter BookTenTiger
- Start date
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
A friend reminded me of another one I used. They came across a corridor that had several pit traps. After hitting the first one, they were like "ok, let's be careful going down the hallway". By the fourth trap, they were like "haha, yeah, good one, James" and they passed it.
Later, they were confused because the MacGuffin they were looking for (something held by an Elven adventurer who had entered the catacombs long ago) wasn't anywhere to be found.
Then one of them finally had the bright idea to search the pit traps, and there, sure enough, was the dead body of the Elf, impaled on some spikes.
Later, they were confused because the MacGuffin they were looking for (something held by an Elven adventurer who had entered the catacombs long ago) wasn't anywhere to be found.
Then one of them finally had the bright idea to search the pit traps, and there, sure enough, was the dead body of the Elf, impaled on some spikes.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I have a story like this! When I was young, I read a lot, and I picked up a lot of words I had no idea how to pronounce. Gary's overly fond use of purple prose once tripped me up when I had to describe a dimly lit by braziers.
I couldn't understand why the girls were laughing to hard....
LordEntrails
Hero
I don't understand. Wat was the challenge of the trap here?
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Well maybe it's a bad example, it was a trap related story though. Basically, the idea was, sometimes falling for a trap can be a good thing.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
The party knew about the pressure plate - so they jumped it. Landing right on the hidden pit. They fall down, need help immediately, and the party can't rush to the edge without dealing with the pressure plate trap first. Or jumping both together, assuming there wasn't another trap on the other side (there wasn't, but they wouldn't know that).
LordEntrails
Hero
Thanks, I did not understand their was a plate and a pit.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
My first description wasn't the best. I've edited it to make it clearer. Thanks for the heads up that I didn't explain well.
Eltab
Lord of the Hidden Layer
Borrowed trap:
For beginner players. The dungeon has a few long hallways with archer snipers or tripwired bow-and-arrow traps at the far end. Later on the party meets a giant. Then they encounter another long hallway and can find the tripwire to an XXXL crossbow that fires a telephone pole down the hallway at them.
Thanks, Grimtooth.
Self-designed trap:
When Viagra came out IRL, it was simple to change a Potion of Poison to a jar full of little blue triangular pills. When you ate one, you got ... um, the opposite of what the player would expect. But there was a way to solve this problem - eat a feast of foods which folklore says are aphrodisiacs.
Then I started thinking outside the original design scope.
The fuller solution to this curse / trap developed as I went through the 4e Skills list and came up with a reason to need that skill to acquire some of the various unusual ingredients (such as oysters, rare mushrooms from a cliffside, dragon eggshells, &c). Eating the meal and curing the condition was a simple-level skill challenge, not a single die roll.
This trap turned into a low-combat adventure module when I was done with it.
For beginner players. The dungeon has a few long hallways with archer snipers or tripwired bow-and-arrow traps at the far end. Later on the party meets a giant. Then they encounter another long hallway and can find the tripwire to an XXXL crossbow that fires a telephone pole down the hallway at them.
Thanks, Grimtooth.
Self-designed trap:
When Viagra came out IRL, it was simple to change a Potion of Poison to a jar full of little blue triangular pills. When you ate one, you got ... um, the opposite of what the player would expect. But there was a way to solve this problem - eat a feast of foods which folklore says are aphrodisiacs.
Then I started thinking outside the original design scope.
The fuller solution to this curse / trap developed as I went through the 4e Skills list and came up with a reason to need that skill to acquire some of the various unusual ingredients (such as oysters, rare mushrooms from a cliffside, dragon eggshells, &c). Eating the meal and curing the condition was a simple-level skill challenge, not a single die roll.
This trap turned into a low-combat adventure module when I was done with it.
Another one I got good use out of: I had a narrow, 5-foot-wide corridor in an underground complex called the Magekiller. At one point, the corridor bisects a circular room and then continues on. But inside this circular room is a metal ring, mere inches smaller in diameter than the room's curved walls and nearly as tall as the room's ceiling. There's a doorway in the metal ring that lines up with the passageway to the south (the way the PCs came) and the bottom of the metal ring is jagged like a saw, so the metal is balanced on a bunch of points. The triangular "openings" along the bottom are only several inches high, but they extend along the entire circumference of the metal ring, which has seven bars sticking out at chest height and all pointing toward the center of the ring. The PCs can see through the triangular openings at the bottom of the far side of the metal ring that the straight corridor continues on to the north.
So, they do what's apparently expected of them if they wish to continue exploring: they spread themselves out evenly along the metal rods and all push in the same direction (they chose counterclockwise), dragging the entire metal ring around in a 180-degree rotation until the "door" opening in the ring faced north, lining back up with the corridor and allowing them to explore further. (The wizard cast a grease spell underneath the metal points to help them slide the metal ring around - it was plenty heavy. And moving the metal ring 180 degrees like that took them something like 5 rounds.)
The corridor to the north doesn't go very far before leading to a room with a non-working fountain that at first looks like it's filled with algae-covered water. But nope: that's a dormant arcane ooze that attacks when the PCs get close enough. Not only is it a big, acidic blob-monster that dissolves those it can engulf, it also strips away spells from the spellcasters within range each round. After a few rounds of this the PCs decide on a tactical retreat, but that means going back into the circular room and pushing the entire metal structure back to the other configuration (which takes 5 rounds and multiple PCs all pushing at the same time)...and the arcane ooze's amorphous body allows it to flow underneath the metal structure between the "points" of the "saw-blade" bottom and enter the circular room there with them, continuing its attacks.
They barely made it out of that one alive and to this day my players hate arcane oozes.
Johnathan
So, they do what's apparently expected of them if they wish to continue exploring: they spread themselves out evenly along the metal rods and all push in the same direction (they chose counterclockwise), dragging the entire metal ring around in a 180-degree rotation until the "door" opening in the ring faced north, lining back up with the corridor and allowing them to explore further. (The wizard cast a grease spell underneath the metal points to help them slide the metal ring around - it was plenty heavy. And moving the metal ring 180 degrees like that took them something like 5 rounds.)
The corridor to the north doesn't go very far before leading to a room with a non-working fountain that at first looks like it's filled with algae-covered water. But nope: that's a dormant arcane ooze that attacks when the PCs get close enough. Not only is it a big, acidic blob-monster that dissolves those it can engulf, it also strips away spells from the spellcasters within range each round. After a few rounds of this the PCs decide on a tactical retreat, but that means going back into the circular room and pushing the entire metal structure back to the other configuration (which takes 5 rounds and multiple PCs all pushing at the same time)...and the arcane ooze's amorphous body allows it to flow underneath the metal structure between the "points" of the "saw-blade" bottom and enter the circular room there with them, continuing its attacks.
They barely made it out of that one alive and to this day my players hate arcane oozes.
Johnathan
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