Awesome Traps You've Come Up With

[Keinnicht]

Anyone care to share some of their homebrew traps their particularly proud of? I came up with an especially nasty one this evening, and it got me interested in other awesome traps.

Mine is:

There's a slope. Not a massive slope, but enough of one you have to make balance checks if you move too fast. You're walking along it.

You step on a pressure plate. This triggers a grease trap. If you fall prone, you are now sliding rather quickly down this inclined surface.

Triggering the grease trap opens a trap door, so you hurdle down the slope and then fall into a pit, where you get stabbed by a bunch of spikes.

Ouch.

[Soren Hero]

Anyone care to share some of their homebrew traps their particularly proud of? I came up with an especially nasty one this evening, and it got me interested in other awesome traps.

Mine is:

There's a slope. Not a massive slope, but enough of one you have to make balance checks if you move too fast. You're walking along it.

You step on a pressure plate. This triggers a grease trap. If you fall prone, you are now sliding rather quickly down this inclined surface.

Triggering the grease trap opens a trap door, so you hurdle down the slope and then fall into a pit, where you get stabbed by a bunch of spikes.

Ouch.

this kinda sounds like a trap from teh E6 Balor thread a few months back, but instead of spikes, they used a sphere of annihilation...ouchies

[Ralasha]

'How about this? In the middle of this 90'x90' circular room is a small set of stairs, leading to a stand, atop this circular stand rests a large glass looking globe, which rests upon a cushion. This is obviously the item you have been sent for.'

If you step on the stairs, or the dais, the openings immediate burst above each doorway, spilling into the room: magma. Enjoy your aids.

A seperate trap, in the same room: is this. Removing the orb, without replacing it at exactly the same moment... makes all the doors suddenly close... with adamantine shutters.

[Dead_Jester]

Take a very tall room (something like 200 ft). In the room is a ton of different triggering systems (pressure plates, trip wires, etc) that activate a reverse gravity spell. As soon as the reverse gravity spell is activated, a dimensional anchor spreads through the entire room. When the PC's hit the top (ouch), a pressure plate disables the spell, and the PC's fall down (ouch), hitting the original pressure plates, and starting over.

And if you are really mean, why not add Black Lotus Extract to the walls? Or summon gelatinous cubes or another ooze in the room while the party are bouncing around? If you want to really test your party, how about putting walls of force on all surfaces?

If you want to kill them, put an anti-magic field in the middle and have the reverse gravity spell have been cast by an Initiate of Mystra.

The original is pretty easy to get out of (just cast fly and you should stay stable) and hack away at the walls/disable the traps, but the meaner version are really cruel.

[Ralasha]

You're following me around... aren't you dead jester? Seems like every thread I'm in make, or comment on... you're suddenly there.

No... 200 feet tall. Prismatic Walls every 40'. Or even every 30' or 20'.

[Dead_Jester]

No, you just happen to be on at about the same time as me :smallbiggrin:

[flabort]

any sized round room, although a larger one works better. ROUND is very important. there is a long pair of spiral grooves up the wall, with an adimantium bar with it's ends sticking in either groove. It can't be taken out of the grooves (part of why the room is round), but can slide through them. Inside both pairs of grooves is a whole bunch of sets of gears, attached to a... crank.
Watched Pirates of the Caribbean #2? saw what was on the dutchman, that all the pirates walked around, pushing? I mean that kind of crank.
players will find that a strength check on the crank will raise or lower the bar, by, of course, pushing it along the grooves. When a character holds on to the bar, the strength check to push it up is raised. not too significantly, only by about 5 or 6. And since it can be a combined strength check, that really shouldn't seem like much. As well, holding onto it lowers the strength check to lower the bar.
Anyways, the bar will eventually stop short of a door. a jump/tumble/whatever you feel is appropriate will let them swing from the bar, over the short gap, and to the door. Easy?
That's when they realize that if they all get on, no one will be able to push to raise the bar. so, one of them gets off, and pushes. and they're forced to leave him behind. :belkar:

[Ralasha]

jump. fly, spider climb, rope, chains, etc. not actually hard.

[Keinnicht]

this kinda sounds like a trap from teh E6 Balor thread a few months back, but instead of spikes, they used a sphere of annihilation...ouchies

I'm not quite that mean. Although I still think the best use of the Sphere of Annihilation is the Great Horned Demon Head. It doesn't even seem like a trap.

[vonFelsenheim]

Imagine a pit trap with sloped sides and a coffin at the bottom, so that anyone falling into the trap ends up in the coffin. After they reach the coffin, a hatch opens over the pit and drops something interesting down, such as lava, acid, live insects or maybe a ooze of some kind.
Give the character in the pit a reflex check to close the coffin lid before getting hit by the whatever-it-is. The coffin is magically insulated against the whatever-it-is, but is now held shut by the weight of it. The members of the party who did not fall down the pit have to figure out how to get the character out of the pit without opening the coffin and killing the occupant.

This is not a big challenge for characters with easy access to say, fourth level magic, but for lower level characters it's going to be damned ticklish work. Alternately, let the wizard be the one who falls down the pit, and then say the coffin is cramped enough to make spells with somatic components difficult if not impossible.

And this is not one of mine, I grant you, but interesting nonetheless.

A standard 10x10 pit trap. With a gelatinous cube at the bottom.
If you're in a bad mood, drop another cube down the pit after the characters.

[nihil8r]

Greased slopes and anti-gravity are good ideas.

Filling rooms with lava and dropping characters onto spheres of annihilation aren't.

[Keinnicht]

Greased slopes and anti-gravity are good ideas.

Filling rooms with lava and dropping characters onto spheres of annihilation aren't.

Lava is reasonable for high level characters. Although I agree, dropping characters onto spheres of annihilation isn't cool. I think a good Sphere of Annihilation trap lets the players doom themselves, without having anything trying to push them into it (The aforementioned Great Horned Demon Head, for instance.)

[~Nye~]

I have a simple one
they enter through a door and enter a long corridor 100ft, with a gentle slope what seems to be a simple 10ft gap mid way and another gap before the door at the far end. Have a pressure plate about 40ft from the entrance of the corridor, when the PCs trigger the pressure plate a boulder falls from the behind them near the entrace... they run down the corridor to avoid being crushed by the boulder, and try and jump the 10ft gap however there is an invisible wall on the other side of the gap. They Leap and *splat* into the wall and the proceed to fall into the pit where they are impaled my spikes or absorbed by oozes, then crushed by the boulder that follows close behind. They can avoid all grissley demises by jumping down the hole and killing the oozes, then running down the corridor underneath the first and come up the ladder that is the gap before the door at the far end.

This one I used and I caused our druid and his pet to be processed like chopped meat...

There is a chute that has sandbags scattered about it, essentially, you jump down the chute to proceed with the dungeon, however, the serated blades that are concealed in the chute activate every 3rd object that goes down the chute (doing 10d6 slashing damage +30 to hit.) So to by-pass this two people jump down, throw a sandbag, then 2 more then throw a sandbag. TO defeat those people who fly down the chute just have it triggered by a magical sensor of some sort.

It's funny to do this with a group of PCs and have some NPCs travelling with them, they get scared and normally push one of your victi- I mean NPCs down the chute, they come trhough unscathed, and when their friend comes down on the 3rd time, always describe in vivid detail, first the stream of blood and then the various pieces of processed meat that follows, it's hillarious. Oh and remember to have a hint for this trap. Because some people wont get it. I normally put a note or th like on a guard

[The Antigamer]

There are three large black holes on the walls of this room. A riddle on a sign has an answer for which way the PCs want to go. When they solve the riddle, they walk through the hole, which is actually a portable hole. All of the holes are. If they are carrying bags of holding, bad things happen. The trick is that they have to remove the hole to reveal the door on the correct wall. So far no one has managed it of the three times I've done it :smallbiggrin:

[~Nye~]

Another trap of mine (more challenge than trap) is to have an animated skeleton arm on a table and it gestures the players in an unthreatening manner to challenge it. On the table it's scrawled rules for an arm wrestle against it. So a simple strength check beats the skeleton arm. However, those who have a strength of 16+ activate a spell of ray of enfeeblement. so they take a 1d6+1 penalty to strength. When I used this everyone in the PCs party succeeded except the fighter who failed. It was a dungeon meanto demoralise the party... I think the fighter came away with more than just his pride broken.

Another one I did, which was more flavor in terms of the campaign, but it caused alot of panic and anxiety, baring in mind, my villains in my first campaign were mainly yuan-ti and medusa's.

They step into a chamber that is spherical, the walls are banded as like a serpents coils and there is a large snakes head on the ceiling, in the center of the room on the floor there are several buttons laid out Saying SERPENTS COILS. When one of the players approaches this and steps on one of the buttons the door to the chamber imeadiately closes and the coils around the edges begin to constrict. the PCs have to step on the buttons to spell CONSTRICT and then the room stops closing in.

[D Knight]

mine is The Cake trap. its uses any number of candles of fireball on a white cake with explosive runes that say "surprise!!" yeah if the party does not read the runes the candles go off when a good bunch of the party is standing around it. but if you miss up the frosting and blow out the candles you have the world best cake.

[flabort]

There are three large black holes on the walls of this room. A riddle on a sign has an answer for which way the PCs want to go. When they solve the riddle, they walk through the hole, which is actually a portable hole. All of the holes are. If they are carrying bags of holding, bad things happen. The trick is that they have to remove the hole to reveal the door on the correct wall. So far no one has managed it of the three times I've done it :smallbiggrin:

You're evil.
Do you want your virgin sacrifice to be human or baby seal?

[Ralasha]

He's insane, he'll take the baby walrus.

[The Antigamer]

With butter!

[Ralasha]

Butterlube. Goes good with ice slides!

[Re'ozul]

Daerns instant fortress (if multiuse item).
Door has a handle inside and closes automatically after each character.
Inside handle makes fortress collapse into its portable state.
Actual door opener is a button on the side of the doorframe.

[Cardea]

Whipped Cream Pit.

If you're in the afterlife, who're you gonna tell you died from drowning in whipped cream?

[Ralasha]

Some hot guy?

[Cardea]

Some hot guy?

Except most of us who try that would be given odd looks or be hit in the face.

Not all of us make people wish they had a girlfriend that was hot like us.

[Ralasha]

Oh, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting not everybody looks like my mirror. Wait, that is my mirror right?

[John Cribati]

Courtesy of Lycan_01:

If the player triggers a pressure plate, spring-loaded launching mechanisms lining the walls and ceiling fling 2d4 Dire Weasels which do 1d4 gnawing damage each, and the target is Slowed and suffers 1d4+1 Ongoing Damage. Save Ends Both. Increase dice size at DM's discretion and/or sadism.

[Cardea]

Courtesy of Lycan_01:

If the player triggers a pressure plate, spring-loaded launching mechanisms lining the walls and ceiling fling 2d4 Dire Weasels which do 1d4 gnawing damage each, and the target is Slowed and suffers 1d4+1 Ongoing Damage. Save Ends Both. Increase dice size at DM's discretion and/or sadism.

http://myfacewhen.com/images/136.jpg

[Sipex]

((4th edition, so this doesn't take 3.5 countermeasures into effect))

The PCs approach a large, empty room via a set of stairs going down. Upon entering the room starts filling with water and will continue until it's full. Across the room is a large set of double doors which are locked/barred/blocked/whatever. Instinctively a PC will rush the doors only to run straight into an invisible wall.

The entire room is a maze of invisible walls, if a PC runs into one they're stunned until start of their next turn. Eventually you'll have PCs wading or swimming around a room trying to get to the exit.

[Ralasha]

Sipex! It does not exist! Do not speak of that which must not be named. It is pure concentrated EVIL!

[Cheesy74]

<Greased incline description>The Tomb of Horrors does that exact thing, only with illusions of a fleeing adventuring party to draw you in and lava instead of spikes. Oh, also, the path actually leads to a dead end. Gygax hated everyone, man.

What traps have I invented?
I've had a long, wide corridor covered with moss on all sides, floor and ceiling as well.

Throughout the chamber, I've replaced patches of moss with green slime. It looks exactly the same, except it eats your foot when you step on it (hefty con damage, fort negates, but it sticks to you). If I feel generous I put a clue at the beginning and place the slime in a corresponding pattern.

Yeah, my players don't like me much.

[Cardea]

Has anyone made use of Taggit Oil?

[Ralasha]

The Tomb of Horrors does that exact thing, only with illusions of a fleeing adventuring party to draw you in and lava instead of spikes. Oh, also, the path actually leads to a dead end. Gygax hated everyone, man.

What traps have I invented?
I've had a long, wide corridor covered with moss on all sides, floor and ceiling as well.

Throughout the chamber, I've replaced patches of moss with green slime. It looks exactly the same, except it eats your foot when you step on it (hefty con damage, fort negates, but it sticks to you). If I feel generous I put a clue at the beginning and place the slime in a corresponding pattern.

Yeah, my players don't like me much.
Why not?! That's Awesome!

[AugustNights]

Mean trap ideas from my past... if only I had my home computer with a complete list...

L.1 Mooks of Rage.
A sword is in a stone.
Party enters room, pressure plate= door closes.
Some nonsense is written about how the sword is the only key to the door.
When drawn from the stone the sword activates a summon monster III spell for 1d6+1 fiendish hawks.
No big deal right?
Except that's a berserking greatsword, and your party is in a small room.
Also, that sword? Not the key to the door.
Smashing the door works fine though.

This ring is no joke.
Magic Aura'd ring, or an authentic ring of wizardry.
Smeared in Lycanthropic blood.
This trap is meta-cruel because Lycanthropy sucks for spell-casters. Only recommended if you really want to cheese off your party.

My all time favorite is the scrying room.
It's a room, with a tiled floor.
This room has decorative eyes along the ceiling, and an upraised tile center of the room. It's lifted about 3 inches up.
On that large tile, there is a huge pile of gold, easily 5,000 gp worth, with a beautiful egg-cut ruby on a special jade stand, balancing ever so carefully. The slightest bump, would make it fall.
The players will be terrified.
They will search for traps everywhere.
In the meantime the BBEG, or his mage is casting divination spells, and identifying as much as it can about the players through scry magics of the DM's choice.
The egg is paste, to add insult to injury at the end of the trap.

[Gelscressor]

Two relatively simple traps focusing on ability damage...

Take a trap door. Anybody falling down the trap door falls into a large body of water. Add Shadows. Add Lacedons. If you want to amp it up a bit more, you could, for instance, add a ghoulified advanced squid. And/or add a Ghost, like a Ghost Roper. Give appropriate monsters Improved Grapple for added fun.

Take a trap door. Anybody falling down the trap door falls into a small room. Add Wraiths. The victim should fall ''through'' the wraiths. Add a large spike coated in poison that deals constitution damage. Those with a sufficiently large budget can use poisonous gas or a cloudkill in addition.

[flabort]

Leave a small red glowing bead on a pedestal, surrounded by a glass box.
60% of players will, by this point, have figured out that the bead is a delayed blast fireball.
the box has a gold lace trim, and has adimantium wires woven within itself (extra strong, decorated security glass). It contains an AMF within itself. Any tampering with the glass box will break the AMF, and set off the fireball.
Players will need to get at it, though, because there's a key in the case, right next to the bead. the key is gold, and fireball (and Delayed Blast Fireball) can melt object with a low melting point, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze.
They need the key, in part because the door, made of adimantium and 5 feet thick (and 40 feet high, 20 feet wide), could not be opened any other way. OK, yes, the key has enchantments on it to be able to move that door, but none of self-preservation.
Here's an important hint: Simply lifting the box does not count as tampering with it.
That means that any attempt to smash or cut the will blow the key to kingdom come, but simply lifting it away will let you safely remove the key, without destroying it.
One final complication arises, though. the pedestal happens to be a pressure plate. Removing the box and key releives the pressure on it, and deactivates the devise holding back a massive flow of lava trying to get in the room. If they can get out fast enough, the flow will be impeded by further devises, but it will fill that room fairly quickly.

[Ralasha]

I would dig around the door with my adamantine dagger. >.> :smalltongue:

[AugustNights]

I would dig around the door with my adamantine dagger. >.> :smalltongue:

When the door's to strong to get through, go through the walls. Classic Dungeon Delving handbook rule. Also, if the door is 5 feet of adamantine and your rogue isn't screaming about everything in the room being trapped, your rogue hasn't been around the block. I think the trick isn't to make the room impossible to get out of, but rather to trick the party into thinking it would be more convenient to get out of the room in a (more dangerous) different way... because there is always another way out.

[ryleah]

5 foot by 50 foot hallway lined with suits of old armor and thoroughly (and obviously) trapped with explosive rune field spells on all of its surfaces. After (slowly) reaching the other end of the hall they discover that it leads to a dead end. Also, all of that armor? force golems. lets see em make the strength checks and reflex saves not to get blown to smithereens trying to get back out of that hallway.

[AugustNights]

5 foot by 50 foot hallway lined with suits of old armor and thoroughly (and obviously) trapped with explosive rune field spells on all of its surfaces. After (slowly) reaching the other end of the hall they discover that it leads to a dead end. Also, all of that armor? force golems. lets see em make the strength checks and reflex saves not to get blown to smithereens trying to get back out of that hallway.

If they're fighting force golems and don't have access to dimension door this trap isn't cruel, it's just over powered... then again, if the party has access to dimension door, and didn't choose to prepare/learn/have it at all available... different story.

[Elvenoutrider]

The party opens the door into a lavish room that looks like it may have been a lounge. An ornate red carpet with a gold pattern leads from the door to a massive pile of silver big enough for you to dive into. The walls are lined with tapestries and paintings of drow who may have previously inhabited this fortress and a purple and black couch rests on the far end of the room.

- the pile of silver has been doused with various touch poisons. When enough silver sis removed a stone slab falls over the door and hte room fills with gas. By this point the party will probably be blind, paralyzed, and confused, except for the one who put on the dragonhide gloves that they looted from an earlier room.

- incidentally the pcs always decide to loot the couch as well, and in one case, weaponize it.

[TalonDemonKing]

My campaign has a demon called an Alrune -- Its basically an angler fish; except its a plant and it eats humans.

It's dangle (The angler fish's light) is a beautiful woman, who lures the victims closer to the plant. My campaign featured it in a dungeon, so that the woman was found in the dungeon, afraid, crying, and generally a mess. When the players get closer to the human, the ground breaks from beneathe them, and anyone within the plants range has to make a save or be grappled. The plant will then attempt swallow hole manuvers against the players.

When used against players who arn't familiar against this, it usually nets me a player or two :D

[Keinnicht]

My campaign has a demon called an Alrune -- Its basically an angler fish; except its a plant and it eats humans.

It's dangle (The angler fish's light) is a beautiful woman, who lures the victims closer to the plant. My campaign featured it in a dungeon, so that the woman was found in the dungeon, afraid, crying, and generally a mess. When the players get closer to the human, the ground breaks from beneathe them, and anyone within the plants range has to make a save or be grappled. The plant will then attempt swallow hole manuvers against the players.

When used against players who arn't familiar against this, it usually nets me a player or two :D

That's genius. Oh, I have a nasty combination of monster and trap. This was like a 30th level party, so it wasn't out of line.

1. Floating castle filled with homebrew constructs. The castle floats via a combination of magic and propellers.
2. One of them is called a Basher. Getting hit by it's slam attack is the same as being bullrushed by it. It doesn't move, it just knocks you around.
3. Possibly knocking you off the edge. It's about five miles down.
4. Possibly smashing you into one of the propellers, dealing 20D6 damage.

Nobody got knocked off the edge, but a lot of them got smashed into the propellers. Fortunately I didn't actually remember that Psionic Revify requires as much of the body as Raise Dead does, so the Psion ran around manifesting quickened psionic revify all over the place.

[Jewfro]

Here's a mean one: There's a square room, as big as you want, with each floor tile being about the size of a 5 foot square. There's a door on the opposite side of the room that the PC's enter from. Outside the room is a map (preferably found on a guard in a preceding room) with a red line running through a grid from one side of the grid to the other in a winding fashion. The PC's will put two and two together and decide that the line on the map is the proper way to navigate the grid that is the room, because the wrong tiles will be pressure plates triggering some trap. Here's the kicker (and the reason you can't just cast fly/spider climb/other silliness and be done): Only the tiles directly adjacent to the path outlined by the map are trapped (with a lava trap or a dart trap or what have you). All of the other ones are perfectly fine. Oh, and that door at the end of the room? It's either a mimic, leads to a room full of oozes, triggers whatever unsavory trap you decided that the pressure plates are connected to, or contains a gate to the nine hells that only opens when the door is opened. The real way out of the room is a simple hidden door off to one side of the room.

What? You want it even douchier? Alright, well make the tiles greased or thin so that they require a balance check to navigate. More? Okay, try having the last tile of the path be trapped too. Still Douchier? There's no secret door, it's just a dead end.

I use this one all the time.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Infinite Pit Trap
This one looks like your standard pit trap, with a trapdoor triggered however you'd like. Above the trapdoor is a triggered downfall trap (SpC, forces a creature in the air 100ft down, 50 on a Ref save) to prevent people from jumping over it. The nonstandard part: when a creature falls into it, the creature seems to fall forever in complete darkness, feeling only the wind rushing past its face as it falls. In reality, however, the pit trap is only 120 feet deep, and when the creature is 20 feet above the floor, it is caught by an immovability (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/immovability.htm) effect (by DM fiat/houserules if you wish, but the last time I used this there was actually an erudite watching the trap using shenanigans to allow personal range powers to be transferred).

A permanent wind wall or gust of wind provides the wind-rushing-past-the-face effect, a dimensional lock prevents the trapped creature from 'porting out, and deeper darkness and silence between the surface and the trapped creature prevent its companions from figuring it out. Even if the creature's companions do figure out what's going on (usually by jumping in after it), trying to physically extract it is damn near impossible for most characters thanks to the immovability effect. My last party required 3 in-game days and an entire tribe of goblins to get their party mate out.

Checkmate!
Picture your standard 30-by-30 large dungeon room. The floor is completely covered in 1-by-1 tiles in one of seven colors, each of which has a different rune on it and each of which makes a different musical note when pressed down. When a creature enters the room, there is already one pressed down, to indicate that there is a puzzle to be solved. The tiles can be lightly pressed or tapped, and they'll give off their note and go down an inch or so, but if a creature stands on one for more than two seconds, it will sink down and lock into place. If pressed in the correct sequence, the tiles begin to glow and hum with their musical notes; press the wrong tile, and all of them stop glowing, unlock, and rise up, and a monster is summoned based on the last tile pressed. The tiles won't do anything until the monster is defeated.

The trap? Whatever door/hatch/etc. the room supposedly unlocks is a fake. There is nothing to be gained aside from fighting a bunch of monsters, and divinations asking for help with the puzzle do nothing because there is no solution.

[Ralasha]

You walk through a door. You are teleported into individual shafts, at the bottom is a portal that leads to the top, all along the way are barbed spikes too small to stop you, but big enough to tear through armor and skin. at the top is the exit portal. Have fun.

[Vicril]

Here's one I used in a home brew game a while back. It's nothing too special, but it can make the players scratch their heads which is always a good thing.

You have a long, narrow hallway with a low ceiling. It can be any length and height as long as it is far too long and short for characters to jump down. I've found a good height is about 6' tall.
The hallway is literally covered in tripwires. Every 1/4" or so you have a tripwire in plain sight running horizontally across the floor of the room, so close they're almost touching one another.
When a PC steps on one or a rouge tries to maybe test one nothing happens. This confused the heck out of my players. The trick is that the floor (under the tripwires) is actually made up of large stone tiles and the tripwires are holding them up, with a pit or something below. Breaking too many tripwires leads to a section of floor falling out from the PCs feet as the weight becomes too much for the remaining wires to hold.

[Karuth]

We had an instance where we as players got design a trap filled dungeon and we went crazy with it... only to end up in it later.

My favorite of the bunch was:

Situation:
Directly before you enter the room you there is a rock shaped like a wegde. In the room, on the right side is a large stone cylinder that rolls over a slighty aslope floor to the left. The exit is to the left. If you do not run the cylinder will block the path of completely as it is as high as the room. The room gets narrower on the left, meaning the cylinder will get stuck at some point.

What happens:
If you take the wedge and try to prevent the cylinder from moving you will find it's actually a very soft and brittle material with an illusion on top (and a spell for extra weight). Naturally the wedge gets squished when you try that (and you too).
If you run for the exit you will discover the cylinder is not actually made of solid rock all the length, but composed of many smaller segments. This means it can break up and follow you much deeper into the narrowing corridor than you expect it to. And if you are not fast enough you will get squished again.

[hydraa]

Cityscape has a trap that is not a trap for the catious rogue types.
A sinkhole is a natural effect that can be used on them when desired. Thus a rogue of find trap spell should not be able to located it.
The sinkhole could be flavored with various effects as well. ( i had it happen in a street and then had a weaked cesspit ooze appear on the other side of the party from the sinkhole

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Not 'precisely' a trap, but during a windstorm a player in my arctic game had a tree fall on the outhouse. He was trapped in the cesspit for the duration of the encounter with the tree covering the top... then the forest fire began.

Good times.

[agentnone]

In a dungeon the party entered a room with a narrow, 50-foot long bridge, with no sides. High above them with an easy spot check (DC 10) they noticed a very large bell hanging in the darkness. Below the bridge they could see a bright, almost neon, green liquid lightly bubbling. They move across the bridge unhindered and press on through the dungeon.

Eventually they go down a level (or two if you're sinister like me) and work their way to a 10-foot wide, 50-foot long hallway with glass walls and ceiling. A eerie green glow filing the hallway. A small tripwire at the entrance to this 50-foot halway is hard to spot (DC 30). When they trip it, nothing happens for a full round, the very next round the bell sounds, the glass walls cracking and the acid...ahem, green liquid slowly leaking in. A round goes by, then on the next round another chime from the bell, the glass cracks more. A round of silence. One the final, following round, the glass completely shatters filling the whole hallway with acid.

At the end of the hallway is a door on the floor, much like that you'd see on a submarine. However, the door has 3 locks on it with varying difficulty. Time is running out.

Once the door is open, it's a halfway rotted rope ladder about 60 feet down. Only one person can go at a time or else the rope snaps. 2 rounds of acid on the ropes snap it too.

Just hope they remember to close the door or else all the acid will drain onto them.

Out of a party of 7, only one died. The rest needed some healing. Mostly because they hung around until they heard the second chime of the giant bell. DC and damage are up to you though. The party was roughly 7th level so the acid did 2d4 per round of full immersion, 1d4 per round of just contact.

[Ralasha]

At the end of the hallway is a door on the floor, much like that you'd see on a submarine. So... it was a screen door, right?

[agentnone]

So... it was a screen door, right?

Yeah, in theory you could make the door that way. Imagine how mad the players would be. Tell them the door is much like that you would see on a submarine. Laugh as they struggle to get the locks off to get it open. And then all confused when even after they shut the door, acid still pours in. It's pure genious!!

[super dark33]

you need to get past a room, but then, you see a line, for a storm giant female restroom! you will be stuck there FOREVER! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Ralasha]

you need to get past a room, but then, you see a line, for a storm giant female restroom! you will be stuck there FOREVER! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA

Depends on your alignment, their alignment, and your charisma modifier. They might decide to forcefully reproduce with you instead.

[Sipex]

Yeah, in theory you could make the door that way. Imagine how mad the players would be. Tell them the door is much like that you would see on a submarine. Laugh as they struggle to get the locks off to get it open. And then all confused when even after they shut the door, acid still pours in. It's pure genious!!

That's a very intelligent trap and one of the few my players WOULDN'T kill me for.

[Moose Man]

hallway that halfway down triggered the floors retreating into the walls, doors closing, and also, the walls were coated with unbreakable adamantine. as were the doors. under the floor, oobleck. not only did they have to run until exhaustion, but it was fun watching them for waiting the rouge to roll successfully.

[Ralasha]

That's a very intelligent trap and one of the few my players WOULDN'T kill me for.

Oh, thank you. ^^ Glad you like the screen door approach.

[Shpadoinkle]

You've got a room. Maybe a tomb for a king or something, with only one entrance. Maybe a minute after anybody or anything enters the room, a huge slab of adamantine or diamond (or diamond reinforced adamantine) or whatever slams shut at the end of the long hall which is the only entrance to the room. Adamantine and lead and some antimagic material that prevents teleportation and ethereal travel are all embedded in the stone surrounding the room so nobody can get in that way, or maybe an antimagic field shaped to surround the room but not actually extend into it, making magic travel into it impossible.

Anyway, after the slab falls into place, the entire structure is shocked with one or two dozen MDJ traps (just to be sure), then enveloped in an antimagic field which lasts for a day or so while mechanical pumps, which have been charged and primed but held in the off position magically, fill the chamber with some gas that isn't breathable (simple carbon dioxide will do.) Intruders quickly run out of air and suffocate, and anything magical you send in gets destroyed by the MDJs. Intruders can't dig through the diamond/adamantine/whatever walls, even if they have an adamantine pick or some other tool, because there simply isn't enough air to do it in time.

Granted this doesn't stop anything purely mechanical that runs on electricity or anything else nomagical. I suppose some kind of gas or acid corrosive to everything besides adamantine could fill the structure for the duration of the antimagic field's activation.

I never intended for this to actually be used, it was just a thought experiment about how I'd protect my phylactery if I were a lich. I know it seems excessively expensive, but liches have the spells to do pretty much everything, and there's a point where monetary costs simply stop really meaning anything.

[Ralasha]

Well... I would just have a 1 way dimensional anchor, so things can get in but not out. A self-resetting mental alarm spell, and swarms of poisonous spiders. Perhaps a Basilisk or 5. Adamantine Walls, no doors, my coffin on a self-resetting levitation spell... no floor... spikes and acid at the bottom, the basilisks have anklets or some such of levitation tied into a band of some material at a specific level around the room, below which those shackles cannot fall. Congratulations, you teleport in, fall through a portal, you're now in a small hall you cannot teleport out from. you come down fr5om the top, falling through small blades which jut from the walls... in the middle is a self-resetting mord's dysjuntion trap, and at the bottom is a small barrier with disintegrates non-living matter, just to be safe. (Goodbye warforged.) at the bottom is a portal that leads back up to the top. Not that I would ever do that to my players... of course... :biggrin:

[agentnone]

That's a very intelligent trap and one of the few my players WOULDN'T kill me for.


Oh, thank you. ^^ Glad you like the screen door approach.

Yeah, I think I'm going to use this new door approach. It's been a few years since I've used this trap, so I might have to bring it back from the dead. I also like the idea of a few people getting together to design a trap or two. Grimtooth beware, there's new sick and twisted minds in town

[AugustNights]

Grimtooth beware, there's new sick and twisted minds in town

Blasphemy, there has never, ever, ever, been a trap more insidious than the dreaded click plate. On it's own it's just mean, but mixed with other traps it get down right cruel.

[Ralasha]

You mean a plate on the floor that just clicks, or causes something in the distance to make noise, but otherwise does nothing, so that the players get all paranoid?

[agentnone]

Blasphemy, there has never, ever, ever, been a trap more insidious than the dreaded click plate. On it's own it's just mean, but mixed with other traps it get down right cruel.

A lot of Grimtooth's traps were nasty indeed. So nasty that I couldn't use half of them because the party would have thought I was intentionally trying to kill them. Admit it, a lot of his traps were completely unfair. Though, very entertaining when used.

[thubby]

20 ft diameter room, fireball trap attached to the only (wooden) pillar holding up the ceiling.

they only survived because one of them had stoneshape.

[Ralasha]

>.> Circular room, quicksand floor, covered with an illusion, pressure plate outside stops the sand, so the sand doesn't start 'sinking' until everyone is in the room.