3.5 Magic Traps resetting?

[DracoCookie]

Ok so I am quite confused on this matter as a player. According to my knowledge of how magic traps work, you can't have them reset, this was an issue in a recent session where the DM used the following trap;

Players fall into a Diemension door, gravity is changed and another diemension door at other side of the room is openned resulting in players continously moving through both at increasing speed (thus to increase fall damage). The idea was that on the third passing through the diemension door it would disappear and you go splat. The save was reflex.

One of the characters die due to massive damage rule and the rest of us make it out without too much of a problem (thanks to feather fall and a rope).

I had afew issues with this...

#1. How does someone make a magical trap that resets in such a way that it can only reset 3 times then suddernly stop.

#2. The spell descriptor for diemension door appears to make such a trap.... impossible.

Firstly, there was five of us. So that means the caster had to be atleast caster level 15 (3x5), second the spell states; "All creatures to be transported must be in contact with one another, and at least one of those creatures must be in contact with you." This implies the portal closes the moment one creature passes through it.

Can anyone clarify this for me, thanks :).

[Yora]

Custom homebrew magic item.

The DM is not limited to the books and can add new rules as needed.

Or he build three traps of dimension door and made it so that each one only becomes armed after the one before it had been set off.

[Planar]

Firstly, Dimension door does not create a door.. per se. Name is actually a relic from older editions if i am not mistaken.

DM might have created a tweaked version of Ring Gates or used Teleportation Circle (9th level spell) that is to be dismissed when certain conditions are met.

Hop this helps.

[Arcanist]

Custom homebrew magic item.

The DM is not limited to the books and can add new rules as needed.

Yep, it's called Rule 0 or DM's fiat as I'm sure you're familiar... Unlike players the DM isn't exactly bound to the rules... This can be a good thing and a bad thing since the DM could be nice and give you a competence bonus for the stupidest stuff while he can also give you a penalty for again, the stupidest stuff :smalltongue:

It takes a Good DM to use Rule 0 wisely :smallcool:

[Kaustic]

I want to say that the Traps & Treachery line of books have that trap and how to set it up. There are alot of ways that Traps can be developed. I think in the case's for the traps it might be DM Fiat. It's been quite a while since I've looked into the books though.

[Killer Angel]

According to my knowledge of how magic traps work, you can't have them reset,

At least on this, you're mistaken. You can certainly have magic traps with automatic reset (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/traps.htm). At the bottom, you'll find the table with the cost modifiers.

[NichG]

This isn't how the DM did it, but you can make a 'trap' that goes nowhere near the trap rules. Magic in D&D is flexible enough to make triggered effects via the right layering of spells. For instance, a Magic Mouth can be used to check for conditions and say something in response to those conditions - it can't speak command words or activate magic items, but it can respond to auditory conditions, allowing you to use multiple sets of Magic Mouth as a computer to evaluate arbitrarily complex logic. Combine with anything that can respond to verbal commands (say a simple zombie) and you can make arbitrarily complex triggers, using the spell network as the zombie's 'brain'.

The obnoxious thing about something like that is that if you ran it strictly by the book, its impossible to detect or disarm. It isn't a 'trap' in the sense of an item called a trap with pre-packaged mechanics. Its an encounter with a zombie.

[gr8artist]

The other players pretty much covered it, but the DM basically gets to make whatever unique spells and traps he wants to. As long as he gives you a reasonable DC to detect/stop/avoid then it shouldn't be a problem.
There are several creatures who use spell-like powers that are greatly edited for fluff/flavor.
Ghosts, for example. Their possession uses the spell "magic jar" as a reference, but their version is so different from the wizards' that they might as well be two different spells.