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Togath
2012-12-13, 09:06 PM
Anyone have entertaining stories of encountering(or using against your party) simple but devious(and sometimes meta) traps?

A few I've used;
A stick with a bell tied to it, leaning against a door.....that if removed in order to keep the bell of ringing sets off the real trap.

A golem that doesn't attack until the PCs try to leave(through the exit to the rest of the compound) the area(this one nearly led to a tpk in the game I used it in, since I used a fairly strong golem).

A 2-3 foot deep(and fairly narrow) pit of glue, with a small, completely ordinary stick, that coats a PC who tries to grab the stick with glue(in my case I even warned that it wasn't water my describing it as "somewhat milky looking, with an oily sheen")

And one I’ve thought of, but haven’t had a chance to use;
A trigger of some sort, that triggers a trap(or traps) and an alert in a different part of the dungeon/castle/etc.

nedz
2012-12-13, 09:32 PM
A door which the party are instructed not to open.
Opening the door releases whatever doom it was containing.
Works most reliably if it is the fourth door out of a set of four.

KillianHawkeye
2012-12-13, 09:43 PM
One that I've heard about that I've always wanted to try went as follows:



The party enters a room with only two exits. The doors seal shut, trapping them inside. The room is empty except for a sandglass and some kind of button or switch. When the trap is triggered, the sandglass turns over and begins the countdown (bonus points if you use a real sandglass at the table). Pressing the button resets the sandglass.

It helps if you've described the room as being littered with bones or random blood stains, or put spikes on the ceiling, or have the room start to shake as the time begins running out. Just something to fuel the players imagination about whatever terrible fate might befall them if they don't figure out how to disarm the trap properly.

Of course, the whole trap is a lie. The only thing keeping the party trapped in the room is themselves. When they finally decide to let the timer run out, the doors simply open. :smallamused:

The Tygre
2012-12-13, 09:44 PM
Just a common knife replacing a ladder step.

A hammer sticking out from the ceiling of an oiled chute.

kardar233
2012-12-13, 10:41 PM
A largish pit trap (disguised or not, depending on how paranoid your players are), covered in an illusion of a slightly smaller pit trap.

NikitaDarkstar
2012-12-14, 03:51 AM
A mimic right next to a treasure chest. Granted that's more an encounter than a trap, but when the first chest opens fine (just lock-picking needed) people tend to assume the second will be the same way. "The treasure chest just ate your thieves tools" tends to get interesting reactions from rogues.

Arbane
2012-12-14, 04:32 AM
A room littered with cobweb-covered skeletons and old,rusting weapons.

While the PC's are smashing up the skeletons "before they can animate", the giant spider drops on them.

Gildedragon
2012-12-14, 04:38 AM
Illusory trap on a plain unlocked door, a window that'll explode if you touch it.
An unlocked chest which, when picked, locks itself and arms a gas trap.

Beelzebub1111
2012-12-14, 04:45 AM
Grimtooth's Dungeon of Doom has some amazingly simple ideas. A guillotine button slot. A door to a grain silo (hope that they aren't carrying torches).

Here's a complicated one. You enter a room with a steel floor covered in a white powder (flour). About halfway into the room you trigger a falling block trap. Weather it hits or not it's going to hurt...because the block is made of flint.

The New Bruceski
2012-12-14, 05:43 AM
One for the "who puts traps in an escape tunnel," a piece of wall which covers a fork in the path. Take the tunnel out, you hit a pressure plate which opens the way ahead long before you see it's there. Try to sneak in the other way and things look normal until you pass the fork and step in something nasty.

The main reason for such a thing, of course, would be to keep anyone who got out from knowing how to get in. Suitable perhaps for a prison where prisoners are released but for whatever reason can't be sent out through the front door. Or a man who likes to sneak in guests (in this case hitting the plate himself to flip the wall before leading them in) but fears assassins bribing them for info.

Gildedragon
2012-12-14, 06:06 AM
Oh! One from history:
Rust powder on the floor.
This is one of the few actual tomb boobytraps I know of. Any wind'll raise the particles into an abrasive, painful to inhale, painful on the skin cloud.

Grod_The_Giant
2012-12-14, 09:07 AM
A largish pit trap (disguised or not, depending on how paranoid your players are), covered in an illusion of a slightly smaller pit trap.

I love it.

On a similar note, a hidden, deeper pit trap right on the other side of an obvious one.

ReaderAt2046
2012-12-14, 11:26 AM
One that I've heard about that I've always wanted to try went as follows:



The party enters a room with only two exits. The doors seal shut, trapping them inside. The room is empty except for a sandglass and some kind of button or switch. When the trap is triggered, the sandglass turns over and begins the countdown (bonus points if you use a real sandglass at the table). Pressing the button resets the sandglass.

It helps if you've described the room as being littered with bones or random blood stains, or put spikes on the ceiling, or have the room start to shake as the time begins running out. Just something to fuel the players imagination about whatever terrible fate might befall them if they don't figure out how to disarm the trap properly.

Of course, the whole trap is a lie. The only thing keeping the party trapped in the room is themselves. When they finally decide to let the timer run out, the doors simply open. :smallamused:

A way to make that even better is to have the "trap" start filling the room with some kind of harmless but visible gas. They'll take it for a poison-gas cloud.

Knight13
2012-12-14, 11:31 AM
I always liked the idea of a homebrew enchantment that, when cast on an object or terrain feature (like a pit trap), forces a Will save when the players look at it or become convinced that the object is an illusion that they passed the Will save on. Cue the party falling into an obvious pit trap when they try to walk right over it.

nedz
2012-12-14, 12:49 PM
Corridor bends right 90o.
Monster in corridor around the bend.
Illusionary mirror at 45o angle at the corner.
Laugh as the casters blast a stone wall.
Bonus points if there is a charger in the party.


Alternate version I: There is a pit behind the mirror.

Alternate version II:

Wide corridor has a T junction with a 90o right hand turning.
Corridor around the corner is empty.
Illusionary mirror at 45o angle at the junction so that the corridor ahead looks empty.
Dragon, or similar, behind mirror.
Laugh as the party get blasted from nowhere.

Slipperychicken
2012-12-14, 01:20 PM
And one I’ve thought of, but haven’t had a chance to use;
A trigger of some sort, that triggers a trap(or traps) and an alert in a different part of the dungeon/castle/etc.

That's actually the most widely-used one in real life, and it's so effective that people don't actually build "traps" as much as means to detect intruders and alert security.

I don't see the point of the glue-stick. Even if it's superglue, it's not going to do much aside from inconvenience the PC. It makes a lot more sense to have it just be poison instead (or poisoned glue).

Razanir
2012-12-14, 02:43 PM
This one's one a trap, per se, but it might seem like one. The PCs are approaching an underwater city. Two emissaries go above water to meet them. Not knowing who or what to expect, they bring two merform belts– one for a mermaid, one for a merman. Take one too hastily before they can offer to go get more merman belts, and one of the PCs gets turned into a mermaid

Togath
2012-12-14, 04:30 PM
I don't see the point of the glue-stick. Even if it's superglue, it's not going to do much aside from inconvenience the PC. It makes a lot more sense to have it just be poison instead (or poisoned glue).

I was more trying to come up with a "trap" that could just be a coincidental encounter(such as having the "glue" be sap from some sort of plant, with the stick[or bark, or something like that] being in the pool from whatever wounded the plant, causing it's sap to leak out. It also helps[if the party is using torches to see by anyway] if it happens to be flammable sap:smallamused:).
Poisoned glue(or just strait poison) also works I suppose:smallbiggrin:.

Raum
2012-12-14, 04:36 PM
Punji traps...deceptively simple yet horrifyingly effective. I used a few in a Savage Worlds game some time ago. :smallbiggrin:

Ravens_cry
2012-12-14, 05:21 PM
It's a simple, blindingly obvious, string trigger trap. On the other side is an extremely cunningly hidden pressure plate trap.
Illusionary wall . . .as a floor.:smallamused:

Gbrngfol
2012-12-14, 11:53 PM
My favorite trap has to be a door with the words 'DO NOT OPEN' scrawled in blood on it. Open the door, nothing happens. Take a few steps, nothing happens. Then when all party members walk through they discover the door is a mimic. The mimic then pushes a pressure plate on the ceiling, locking all the party members in the room they just walked into. Well I guess that was a little complicated.

Another favorite of mine is a pit trap that has the way into the lair at the bottom.

invinible
2012-12-15, 12:49 AM
Have the party's clothing and equipment all swapped out with identical looking monsters while the party is asleep.

huttj509
2012-12-15, 02:45 AM
Have the party's clothing and equipment all swapped out with identical looking monsters while the party is asleep.

Chest? Monster
Ceiling? Monster
Wall? Monster
Door? Monster
Cloak? Monster (The paladin was afraid he'd hurt me, I told him to kill it, he crit. At least we had a nice bag to carry my pieces in).

Do we really need underwear monsters as well?

Doorhandle
2012-12-15, 02:48 AM
Chest? Monster
Ceiling? Monster
Wall? Monster
Door? Monster
Cloak? Monster (The paladin was afraid he'd hurt me, I told him to kill it, he crit. At least we had a nice bag to carry my pieces in).

Do we really need underwear monsters as well?

No, but it's only an animate object spell away.

I just had this funny idea where a door would not be a door (I'm talking like a castle gate here) and would just be the foot of an absolutely GIGANTIC golem that was designed to look like a door.

"The door slams you. Roll initiative."

memnarch
2012-12-15, 03:08 AM
...
Here's a complicated one. You enter a room with a steel floor covered in a white powder (flour). About halfway into the room you trigger a falling block trap. Weather it hits or not it's going to hurt...because the block is made of flint.
Wouldn't work so well since flakes of steel make up the sparks in the flint and steel combo.

Better to have a couple large rocks fall down, with a torch or two framing a doorway on the other side. :smallcool:


Chest? Monster Mimic
Ceiling? Monster Lurker Above
Wall? Monster Stunjelly
Floor? Trapper
Door? Monster Stunjelly (round 2?)
Cloak? Monster Raggamoffyn (The paladin was afraid he'd hurt me, I told him to kill it, he crit. At least we had a nice bag to carry my pieces in).

Do we really need underwear monsters as well? Too late; Raggamoffyn

Fixed (http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm). Seriously look at the poor Ork. http://www.headinjurytheater.com/images/d&d%20beasts%20captured%20one.jpg

Techwarrior
2012-12-15, 04:05 AM
So the party is chasing the Lich Sorcerer as it attempts to make its escape, it's running down the passageways waiting for the Dimensional Anchor to wear off. The round that it does, the lich casts a Silent Still Delayed Ghost Sound in the area ahead to make it sound like its still running ahead of them, and then opening and closing a door in the passage ahead 1 round later. Next turn it turns the corner and casts a Silent Invisibility and moves out of the way.

The party now trying to catch the sorcerer, runs to the end of the hall, opens the door and is stuck in a Maze Trap.

The Lich escaped the 16th level party with a 2nd and a 3rd level spell.

Deophaun
2012-12-15, 04:10 AM
Put an explosive rune behind an illusory wall. Whenever someone succeeds on the Will save, they get to roll a Reflex save as their reward.

Wouldn't work so well since flakes of steel make up the sparks in the flint and steel combo.
Also wouldn't do anything anyway. Flour on the ground isn't a danger (unless you're invisible; stupid footprints). Flour in the air with the proper fuel-air ratio, however...

Ravens_cry
2012-12-15, 04:41 AM
Put an explosive rune behind an illusory wall. Whenever someone succeeds on the Will save, they get to roll a Reflex save as their reward.

Also wouldn't do anything anyway. Flour on the ground isn't a danger (unless you're invisible; stupid footprints). Flour in the air with the proper fuel-air ratio, however...
Ah, I love the smell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRw4ZRqmxOc)of thermobaric explosives in the morning!:smallamused:

Necroticplague
2012-12-16, 04:43 PM
A favorite of our DM we've started to pick up on is a multi-wire trip. First, theirs one wire. Its the normally iron color, grey, and isn't too hard to see in the light. An inch or two past this wire, their would then be a wire lower to the ground, and painted so that it camouflages into the environment, making it much harder to spot. Then, a third wire is both significantly thinner, even closer to the ground, and made of a clear material, making it even more astronomically harder to see. Tripping any of the wires triggers the trap (or more commonly, makes some cans clatter, alerting the guards). The idea is that the first wire is easily found and disarmed, then the second is barely found, and they think themselves clever for not falling for it. They don't even bother to search for the third, and are unlikely to find it by chance.

Razanir
2012-12-16, 05:28 PM
A favorite of our DM we've started to pick up on is a multi-wire trip. First, theirs one wire. Its the normally iron color, grey, and isn't too hard to see in the light. An inch or two past this wire, their would then be a wire lower to the ground, and painted so that it camouflages into the environment, making it much harder to spot. Then, a third wire is both significantly thinner, even closer to the ground, and made of a clear material, making it even more astronomically harder to see. Tripping any of the wires triggers the trap (or more commonly, makes some cans clatter, alerting the guards). The idea is that the first wire is easily found and disarmed, then the second is barely found, and they think themselves clever for not falling for it. They don't even bother to search for the third, and are unlikely to find it by chance.

What are the Perception/Search DCs for that? I'd imagine something like 20/25/30? I might wind up using that

ThirdEmperor
2012-12-16, 05:38 PM
Here's a really simple, practically inescapable one- A poisoned healing potion. Only, the poison's an oil and denser than the potion, so it all sinks to the bottom, foiling the classic taste test. If you want to warn them you can even say it's multicolored and odds are they'll still drink it.

Necroticplague
2012-12-16, 06:00 PM
What are the Perception/Search DCs for that? I'd imagine something like 20/25/30? I might wind up using that

10 (first wire, trivially easy), 20 (second, a fair challenge), the third is (30 search/40 spot (hard to look for if you're searching for traps, almost impossible to see with just a glance)). Part of the difficulty comes with us/them not bothering to search for the third wire after managing to Spot the second.

Chilingsworth
2012-12-16, 06:12 PM
How about explosive runes worked into warning signs. If the read the signs? *boom* If they don't read the signs, they stumble into something worse.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-12-16, 06:39 PM
Carbon monoxide through the vents.

Gets 'em every time.

Archmage1
2012-12-16, 08:40 PM
This is a more... evil trap, but...
Bag of holding type IV, an illusion to make the opening look like a door. Party walks in... and someone closes the bag(a time delay trap of some sort)

To set it up, don't have any illusions, to mislead the players.

Or...
A button. A big red button. Pushing it does... horrible things. With a fancy door nearby.

Razanir
2012-12-16, 08:57 PM
Or...
A button. A big red button. Pushing it does... horrible things. With a fancy door nearby.

Even more evil. They enter a room with a bunch of buttons at the far end. The walls start moving in. The walls only stop and retract if they hit the red button

Ravens_cry
2012-12-16, 10:11 PM
Even more evil. They enter a room with a bunch of buttons at the far end. The walls start moving in. The walls only stop and retract if they hit the red button
More evil still: Pushing the buttons makes it go faster.:smallamused:
Mildly less evil than that.
To make it stop, they press a certain brick on the wall at the start.

invinible
2012-12-17, 12:30 AM
How about explosive runes worked into warning signs. If the read the signs? *boom* If they don't read the signs, they stumble into something worse.

That would be the Inspector Gadget method.

Chilingsworth
2012-12-17, 12:57 AM
That would be the Inspector Gadget method.

How so? (I know what inspector gadget is, but I fail to see how exploding signs are like him.)

On another note, one particularly nasty trap I remember is a tilting spike trap: Victims (us) fell in, landed on spikes. Turns out the pit was actually a box on a pivot. Also, the walls were lined with spikes. One round later, the box pivoted and impaled us again. Few rounds (I think it was 1d6 rounds between pivots) later it happened again, and so on. We very nearly died to that one. Didn't help that our rogue hadn't speced himself for trapfinding.

Deophaun
2012-12-17, 01:58 AM
On another note, one particularly nasty trap I remember is a tilting spike trap: Victims (us) fell in, landed on spikes. Turns out the pit was actually a box on a pivot. Also, the walls were lined with spikes. One round later, the box pivoted and impaled us again.
Someone's DM has been delving through Traps and Treachery.

An interesting concept from that book is a pit trap that hits you with a reduce and then dumps you down a smaller chute into a chamber. The reduce wears off after a few minutes, and you're (supposedly) too big to climb out. Turns out, the people who wrote the book didn't know about squeezing rules. Our poor DM was dismayed to see that his trap was a lot of effort for a mild inconvenience.

Chilingsworth
2012-12-17, 02:17 AM
Someone's DM has been delving through Traps and Treachery.

An interesting concept from that book is a pit trap that hits you with a reduce and then dumps you down a smaller chute into a chamber. The reduce wears off after a few minutes, and you're (supposedly) too big to climb out. Turns out, the people who wrote the book didn't know about squeezing rules. Our poor DM was dismayed to see that his trap was a lot of effort for a mild inconvenience.

Good thing he didn't just replace it with an augmented compression power to reduce you two sizes (with an appropriate-sized chute.)

As for my DM looking though that book, I don't think so. It was in a published adventure. (Incidentally, one we had every reason to believe would be full of traps, making the fact that the player playing the rogue not being a decent trapfinder even dumber.)

Ravens_cry
2012-12-17, 03:24 AM
How so? (I know what inspector gadget is, but I fail to see how exploding signs are like him.)

"This message will self destruct in thirty seconds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AuFgLVIYJFQ#t=215s). Thanks, Chief, Inspector Gadget is always on duty!"
Of course, the trope is older then that.

Jay R
2012-12-17, 11:03 AM
WARNING!
Standing close enough to this message to read it will drop the ceiling on you.

Cosmic Traveler
2012-12-18, 02:50 PM
the worst trap a DM can set you is having a commoner set on a high ledge of a dungeon room. as soon as you are all in the room, he fills the room with chickens, forcibly asphyxiating your party, turning this into a slice and dice for survival.

you better have cleave and greater cleave to get out of that trap

Ravens_cry
2012-12-18, 02:53 PM
the worst trap a DM can set you is having a commoner set on a high ledge of a dungeon room. as soon as you are all in the room, he fills the room with chickens, forcibly asphyxiating your party, turning this into a slice and dice for survival.

you better have cleave and greater cleave to get out of that trap
I would leave a game where a DM did that.:smallsigh:

Andreaz
2012-12-18, 03:13 PM
Trapdoor under the dungeon's waste disposal room. The door opens over you when you pass under it.

The waste disposal system is basically a gigantic green slime.

LadyFoxfire
2012-12-19, 09:17 AM
White Plume mountain has some great traps; the frictionless room full of pit traps, the rolling tunnel smeared with lamp oil with an archer ready to set it on fire once you're all sliding around in it, and the hallway that casts Heat Metal, forcing you to remove all of your armor, with a bunch of ghouls waiting to ambush you on the other side.

Jay R
2012-12-19, 12:38 PM
There is a chasm with a forty-foot-long bridge across it. The bridge is sturdy. But it is not attached. If more than 400 pounds are on the bridge at the same time, then it bends enough that it fits in the chasm and falls.

The makers of the bridge cross one at a time, perfectly safely.

[Bonus points if the party is chasing a single NPC, who is forty feet ahead of them. They see him run across the bridge safely.]

I have also used this as the floor of a hallway into a dwarven kingdom under the mountain. In that case, the party weighed it down, and suddenly what they thought was forty feet of flooring was a forty-foot sled sliding down a steeper (and lower) passage to the underground lake.

Sgt. Cookie
2012-12-19, 03:26 PM
My personal favourate is from Oglaf, in the Lair of the Trapmaster comic. Due to the pornographic nature of the site, I won't link to it. Anymore

Mono Vertigo
2012-12-19, 04:16 PM
My personal favourate is from Oglaf. [link snip'd].
Is the treasure at the end of this dungeon the Fountain of Doubt?

ThirdEmperor
2012-12-19, 05:23 PM
I'd suggest you nix the link. The comic itself might not be pornographic, but the banner adds on all sides sure are. :smalleek:

Sgt. Cookie
2012-12-19, 05:29 PM
Good point. I'll nix it.

Ravens_cry
2012-12-19, 05:33 PM
I'd suggest you nix the link. The comic itself might not be pornographic, but the banner adds on all sides sure are. :smalleek:
Oh!, the joys of adblockers!:smallbiggrin: