Togath
2013-01-25, 05:40 PM
Anyone have tales of interesting environmental traps/ambushes they've used while GMing/encountered while playing?:smallsmile:
A few I've used(two ambushes and two traps);
A pool of sticky--and more importantly flammable--tree sap, with an oddly shaped stick, and a few pebbles and coins in it.
The trap happened when a player went to try to search the pool of sap, getting some on himself...he then light a torch with flint and tinder...the sap, being flammable, caught fire, burning him a bit(though I did rule it burnt out quickly).
I do find it entertaining I was able to lure a PC into sticking his arm into a pool of unknown(but pine sap scented) sticky liquid by putting "an oddly shaped stick" at the bottom of it.
Same campaign, right before they entered the tunnels where they found the pool of sap, I described a small pond, covered with pond scum with a few tiny bubbles rising to it's surface from time to time.
He then searched it by poking around with a stick in it, hitting a small patch of "rocks" and knocking loose three fresh cucumbers, one partly eaten, from the rocks(this was a campaign where they had encountered Asian creatures/aspects before, so I had sort of expected them to guess what was coming next)..
They then seemed completely uninterested in the cucumbers(which struck as weird...doesn't it seem unusual to poke a pond and get a salad?) and began to wander off when a confused kappa(whose shell they mistook for a patch of rocks) came out of the pond and asked for it's food back.
It didn't end up a combat, as they figured it out quick once I told them what a kappa was, and gave him his cucumbers back(in exchange he told them where the NPC they were seeking had gone from there).
Same campaign(a while after the sap incident, but still in the same cave/tunnel system) the PCs came across a section of tunnel about fifty feet long, where streams of water were leaking from the side of the tunnels, creating a bunch of shallow rivers...the trap being that the deep parts had very sticky silt, hence why the tracks they were following were zigzagging(which is apparently a word?:smallconfused:, according to my spellcheck anyway) along the tunnel, avoiding the deep bits.
I do wonder if the conversation they were having at an npc right after they got there was why they fell for it, as it may have distracted them from the presence of the streams.
A few I've used(two ambushes and two traps);
A pool of sticky--and more importantly flammable--tree sap, with an oddly shaped stick, and a few pebbles and coins in it.
The trap happened when a player went to try to search the pool of sap, getting some on himself...he then light a torch with flint and tinder...the sap, being flammable, caught fire, burning him a bit(though I did rule it burnt out quickly).
I do find it entertaining I was able to lure a PC into sticking his arm into a pool of unknown(but pine sap scented) sticky liquid by putting "an oddly shaped stick" at the bottom of it.
Same campaign, right before they entered the tunnels where they found the pool of sap, I described a small pond, covered with pond scum with a few tiny bubbles rising to it's surface from time to time.
He then searched it by poking around with a stick in it, hitting a small patch of "rocks" and knocking loose three fresh cucumbers, one partly eaten, from the rocks(this was a campaign where they had encountered Asian creatures/aspects before, so I had sort of expected them to guess what was coming next)..
They then seemed completely uninterested in the cucumbers(which struck as weird...doesn't it seem unusual to poke a pond and get a salad?) and began to wander off when a confused kappa(whose shell they mistook for a patch of rocks) came out of the pond and asked for it's food back.
It didn't end up a combat, as they figured it out quick once I told them what a kappa was, and gave him his cucumbers back(in exchange he told them where the NPC they were seeking had gone from there).
Same campaign(a while after the sap incident, but still in the same cave/tunnel system) the PCs came across a section of tunnel about fifty feet long, where streams of water were leaking from the side of the tunnels, creating a bunch of shallow rivers...the trap being that the deep parts had very sticky silt, hence why the tracks they were following were zigzagging(which is apparently a word?:smallconfused:, according to my spellcheck anyway) along the tunnel, avoiding the deep bits.
I do wonder if the conversation they were having at an npc right after they got there was why they fell for it, as it may have distracted them from the presence of the streams.