I always liked the pitch black room with the symbol of death, and for added fun the next pitch black room is actually a sphere of annihilation, but for all time comedy traps the pit of whipped cream has to be a winner, try climbing out when covered in slippery whipped cream, and you can mercilessly mock players for years about drowning in whipped cream.
Your favourite traps
- Thread starter Krug
- Start date
More PIt Traps
Some of my favorite pit traps:
1) A pit trap the does not open until the player is standing in the middle of the trapdoor .... then a wall of force appears around the edges so that he has no where to jump to .... especially nice for those with great reflex saves.
2) A pit with a trapdoor that closes after the player falls in. While the players up above are trying to get the door open, a wall starts to move in the pit and pushes the victim into a second soundproof pit. When the players above get the trapdoor open, the pit is empty ...hmmmmm did he get teleported?
3) A pit that leave a little bit of room on either side to pass it by ... but those ledges are actually tilting floors or have moving walls that push players into the pit.
4) A pit whose sides have been permanently enchanteed with the Grease spell.
5) A simple pit that is 10 feet deep (or less) with something in the bottom that th players want ... the thin is ... the bottom of the pit is actually an illusion ...... heh heh
6) This one is really deadly. A simple pit trap that is no so simple. What the characters do not know is that there is a "pit" hidden in the ceiling with spikes in it .... after someone falls into the normal pit ... a Reverse gravity spell activates and the player "falls" upwards and takes damage on the spikes in the upside down pit. Of course ... when the reverse gravity spell ends ... they will fall and take damage for the third time. Ouch.
7) Another favorite is having a room with a water feature with a bridge or something ... the players know there is some sort of trap around on the bridge ... and they have seen something nasty swimming around in the water ..... after searching a bit they find a passage that bypasses the whole room ...... but as they move down the passage, the first in line triggers a series of pits that all drop th characters into sldies that deposit them in the water room with the nasty swimming thing.
Other things that are fun are poisonous gases that rust metal or rot wood ..... combinations of spells like a slow for the party with a haste for the skeleton guards ......
Some of my favorite pit traps:
1) A pit trap the does not open until the player is standing in the middle of the trapdoor .... then a wall of force appears around the edges so that he has no where to jump to .... especially nice for those with great reflex saves.
2) A pit with a trapdoor that closes after the player falls in. While the players up above are trying to get the door open, a wall starts to move in the pit and pushes the victim into a second soundproof pit. When the players above get the trapdoor open, the pit is empty ...hmmmmm did he get teleported?
3) A pit that leave a little bit of room on either side to pass it by ... but those ledges are actually tilting floors or have moving walls that push players into the pit.
4) A pit whose sides have been permanently enchanteed with the Grease spell.
5) A simple pit that is 10 feet deep (or less) with something in the bottom that th players want ... the thin is ... the bottom of the pit is actually an illusion ...... heh heh
6) This one is really deadly. A simple pit trap that is no so simple. What the characters do not know is that there is a "pit" hidden in the ceiling with spikes in it .... after someone falls into the normal pit ... a Reverse gravity spell activates and the player "falls" upwards and takes damage on the spikes in the upside down pit. Of course ... when the reverse gravity spell ends ... they will fall and take damage for the third time. Ouch.
7) Another favorite is having a room with a water feature with a bridge or something ... the players know there is some sort of trap around on the bridge ... and they have seen something nasty swimming around in the water ..... after searching a bit they find a passage that bypasses the whole room ...... but as they move down the passage, the first in line triggers a series of pits that all drop th characters into sldies that deposit them in the water room with the nasty swimming thing.
Other things that are fun are poisonous gases that rust metal or rot wood ..... combinations of spells like a slow for the party with a haste for the skeleton guards ......
One other favorite ....
My all time favorite is a room that is a deep pit that has water in it or a sandy bottom with landsharks or is foggy so the bottom cannot be seen. Traversing across the room is a series of floating platforms (Or columns) that have to be jumped to to get across ... but they are fairly close together and its not too hard to do ..... however, halfway across the room, one of the platforms is an illusion ........leaping onto that platform means plumetting down into whatever lies below ... with no way to prevent it from happeneing. A nice DM can even give the players a Spot check to notice that there is no dust (or not the same amount of dust) on the illusionary platform.
The trap can easily be by-passed by flying .... unless the DM chooses to prohibit that ... but I don't like to prevent the players from being able to use their abilities .... let them use up their flying spells ..... I'll just make them need another one a few rooms later ......
My all time favorite is a room that is a deep pit that has water in it or a sandy bottom with landsharks or is foggy so the bottom cannot be seen. Traversing across the room is a series of floating platforms (Or columns) that have to be jumped to to get across ... but they are fairly close together and its not too hard to do ..... however, halfway across the room, one of the platforms is an illusion ........leaping onto that platform means plumetting down into whatever lies below ... with no way to prevent it from happeneing. A nice DM can even give the players a Spot check to notice that there is no dust (or not the same amount of dust) on the illusionary platform.
The trap can easily be by-passed by flying .... unless the DM chooses to prohibit that ... but I don't like to prevent the players from being able to use their abilities .... let them use up their flying spells ..... I'll just make them need another one a few rooms later ......
Last edited:
Tetsubo
First Post
I had a trap back in the days of 1st edition that drove my party nuts...
A long hallway lit by torches. A doorway at each end. The party must get from one end to the other. Hanging from the ceiling at 1' increments are chains. Lots and lots of chains. The chains reach from the ceiling to the floor. If any form of magic passes within 5' of a chain, it animates and attacks. But if a creature without ANY form of magic (active or inactive) passes by the chains, they do nothing. I placed a teleport blocking spell on the hallway as well. Now... what group of PC's is going to give up their magic items?
A long hallway lit by torches. A doorway at each end. The party must get from one end to the other. Hanging from the ceiling at 1' increments are chains. Lots and lots of chains. The chains reach from the ceiling to the floor. If any form of magic passes within 5' of a chain, it animates and attacks. But if a creature without ANY form of magic (active or inactive) passes by the chains, they do nothing. I placed a teleport blocking spell on the hallway as well. Now... what group of PC's is going to give up their magic items?
Tricky things ...
Another favorite of mine was a dungeon that used undead to hold torches ...... nonagressive skeletons and zombies would stand in place holding flaming torches for the inhabitants ...... then, after the party was used to the idea and realized that the skeletons and zombies were not aggressive, I would have a pair of zombies guarding something that had their entire thoracic cavities filled with a bladder of oil ..... the skeletons would shove the torches into their stomacs and .... BOOM!!!!!!!! ...... fried players
Another favorite of mine was a dungeon that used undead to hold torches ...... nonagressive skeletons and zombies would stand in place holding flaming torches for the inhabitants ...... then, after the party was used to the idea and realized that the skeletons and zombies were not aggressive, I would have a pair of zombies guarding something that had their entire thoracic cavities filled with a bladder of oil ..... the skeletons would shove the torches into their stomacs and .... BOOM!!!!!!!! ...... fried players
Last edited:
Nebulous
Legend
fenrat said:
that's pretty cool.
I had a trap one time where the PC's escaped from every single battle with a Magnificent Mansion. One time they came out and the floor was roiling with thick fog. They were afraid of what might be hiding and blew it away...to reveal a formerly inert symbol of insanity.
Sleeping Dragon
First Post
I had one crushing wall trap where the trigger plate was smeared with sovereign glue. The floor, of course, was of a pale amber colour so it was very difficult to see the glue - the party rogue luckily rolled very high on a Spot check and noticed the glue, which he mistook for an ooze. One of the party members started prodding at the square with their glaive...that PC had a broken stick for the rest of the campaign 
The numerous pit trap variations are amusing, smearing the walls or the floor with sovereign glue could produce some very interesting results, especially if there was something nasty waiting for the PCs at the bottom
The numerous pit trap variations are amusing, smearing the walls or the floor with sovereign glue could produce some very interesting results, especially if there was something nasty waiting for the PCs at the bottom
My brother did something along the same lines, he had holes in the passageways roof and he would fill them with stuff, first few had copper and a couple silver pieces, some nothing but every now and them gas! Character would hold there torch up to see a glimmer and then BOOM!Nebulous said:
Graybeard
Explorer
One of my favorite traps of all time was really quite simple. It was on the stairs of a tower the PC's were in. The tower had a couple of rooms at the top the PC's had to get to. The stairs were spiral hugging the wall with nothing in between but a long drop. When the PC's were about 75 feet up along the stairs, they came upon the trap. The first PC triggered it and nearly fell off the stairs. He made his reflex save. The other PC's, thinking it was a grease spell on the stairs, tried to jump across. It was actually a proximity trap. When someone passed a certain spot, a gust of wind blew the individual towards the center of the tower and then they fell to their doom. Two PC's did fall off but barely managed to survive due to bad die rolls for falling damage. It took them forever to figure out how to get past it.
Chuck
Chuck
My two favorites are the pit-you-could-over-but-its-blocked (i.e. a pit with a wire or wall of force across the corridor) and the triple spring trap I will explain below. The pit trap had the advantage that it would not show up with the old version of the clerical find traps spell (most 2nd ed. parties I ran always had this running). I'm sure one could argue the point, but a wire strung across the top of an open pit doesn't really do anything. It just leads you to believe you could jump over the pit if you don't see it. The triple-spring trap is one I have used on several different parties, and it has always wacked them a bunch of times before they figured it out. The way it works is: a pressure plate on the floor (or other trigger) triggers large blade (or other damaging thing) to swing out from the wall about waist high, hitting the character for some damage and knocking him back. Triggering the trap again causes a similar blade to swing out about knee high. A third time triggers a blade to swing out about 4-5' off the ground. Every time I have employed this, the party gets hit, tries to crawl under and gets hit again, and tries to jump over and gets hit a third time. Some figure it out by then, some need 1-4 more whacks before they get it. Not the most lethal or impassable, but it realy irritates the party that some dwarf hundreds of years ago know exactly what they were going to do.
Similar Threads
