Traps for the Temple of the Laughing God [PF]

[13ones]

So I'm building a one off little adventure for some friends called the Temple of the Laughing God. It is a jungle/forest temple filled with the most DICKISH traps ever.

Like before they even get in there is this giant statue over the doorway. At the base of the stairs leading up would be an inscription that read "In order to pass the gate keeper, provide him an answer to the following question. "What is the truest form of beauty?" And then the npc would run up and shout out his answer to the statue...and then get hit by lethal beam damage from the statue's eyes. The trick to this is there is no right answer. The trap is just set up to shoot anything that makes a sound. So you just have to walk by it.

Another trap is a room with nothing in it but four walls and the inscription "over thinking". the letters are written on with magic. The walls around them are all illusions on top of just normal walls. Under the illusions and on the walls are three illusion doors and one real one. I want them to waste so much time arguing over what to do.

This is basically the temple of the Troll God...so please feel free to contribute the most trollish traps you can think of.

[AWiz_Abroad]

Completely empty room with the door you entered, and one on the opposite wall.

In the center of the room is a lever. If the party walks through, nothing happens. If any of them hit the lever, anything from wooden doors to 500 ton adamantine blocks (depending on level) slam shut and the room starts filling with something nasty.

I'm a big fan of contact poison with an appropriate DC, but sand is a classic, as are scorpions.

[Callin]

A door that leads to a dead end hallway. They have to walk to the end of the hall where there is an inscription telling them to "go back out" they need to walk backwards out of the hallway and out the shut door to progress.

The path of god from Indiana Jones Last crusades is a good one as well. Add holes or turns with faint indicators like wind blowing in certain directions.

A "pit" that is an optical illusion to look way deeper than it really is.
It also echoes all sound so they cant guage it that way as well.

A chest that requires blood of an innocent to open. Aka stabbing someone without consent to get the blood is fairly trollish.

[grarrrg]

Like before they even get in there is this giant statue over the doorway. At the base of the stairs leading up would be an inscription that read "In order to pass the gate keeper, provide him an answer to the following question. "What is the truest form of beauty?" And then the npc would run up and shout out his answer to the statue...and then get hit by lethal beam damage from the statue's eyes. The trick to this is there is no right answer. The trap is just set up to shoot anything that makes a sound. So you just have to walk by it.

Dr. McNinja (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/14p26/) much?

[Wargamer]

A large chest with an amazingly good lock on it and traps to deter the unwary. Inside the chest is the key to the chest.

[GutterFace]

i had a round room with a 2' ledge skirting the wall and an illusory pit in the center. let your low will save pc's deal with balance checks as you laugh the whole time as they try and reach the far door.

here is a classic one. stone room with 30' high rough stone ceiling. door closes behind the adventurers. a large door on the far side. covered in spikes and magicaly sealed. there are 5 fountain like pools in the room. 1 is empty. 1 is water, 1 is clear sleep potion, 1 is purple (on inspection a purple ooze). and the center is clear with a key at the bottom. make sure the room is anti magic for fun. the center pool with the key is 4' deep and is actually acid. haha when they find out. the key is actually on the ceiling and just a reflection in the acid pool. since acid is bubble and fizzy when reacted they lose sight of the key. etc. have fun with it.

[avr]

Fake loot. Genuine loot which teleports something unpleasant to it 10 minutes after being removed - acid, rust monsters, whatever. Loot which is actually a disguised swarm.

A sign reading To the Egress which leads to the nest of a large and hostile bird.

Mirrors which are semitransparent - careful examination lets you read the glyphs of warding behind them and get cursed.

Also read up on the Tomb of Horrors.

[Rodin]

There's also the ever-popular room full of treasure chests that are much easier to smash open than to pick the lock...except for a single treasure chest that looks difficult to open but is actually easy to pick, and which explodes when you try to smash it open.

Oh, and a door secured by a fiendishly difficult puzzle which...rings the doorbell. The door itself is simply locked with a key found elsewhere.

Edit:

Another good one I read about (I think on these very forums) is the "Make them think twice about using Dispel Magic" trap. Stick an illusionary wall in front of a glass wall, behind which sits a Basilisk. Fun times!

[13ones]

Dr. McNinja (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/14p26/) much?

Well...yeah, but it is a good idea for a trap none the less.

[shylocke]

Nilbogs. Nilbogs hidden everywhere. So every 10-20feet they have to make a save or do a random DM chosen action. And even if you find them, you need to use healing magic to hurt them.

[shylocke]

[/quote]
Mirrors which are semitransparent - careful examination lets you read the glyphs of warding behind them and get cursed.

Also read up on the Tomb of Horrors.[/QUOTE]

You sir are a monster. I tip my hat to you

[Callin]

Nilbogs. Nilbogs hidden everywhere. So every 10-20feet they have to make a save or do a random DM chosen action. And even if you find them, you need to use healing magic to hurt them.

Those things are Evil with the capitol E to try and kill lol. If you dont know what they are.

[shylocke]

Not sure how to keep them alive tho food wise. Would a ring of sustenance kill one? Or would it work normally. I would store them in jars of acid just to make it a bitch to get at them

[13ones]

I've come up with an idea of a reverse gravity pit. Basically it looks like a pit but trying to jump over it causes them to fly up into a spiked ceiling instead. They just simply need to walk over it (there is an invisble bridge that can be found by trying to throw something into the pit, see invisibility, or other such methods for seeing past illusions) or shut it off (hidden switch in the hallway).

This entire temple would be stuffed with Fey, Goblins, Trolls, and Plant Creatues. They end boss would be the 'Troll' king, commanding a bunch of really low CR goblins. The Troll king looks like a comically ugly Goblin wearing a pumkin as a helmet and using a rotting chicken on an iron spike as a weapon. It's only when the fight starts does the Troll king reveal himself to be the 'Avatar of the Luaghing God', which if you want an idea of what that construct would look like google "Joker leather armor" and is running a homebrewed sort of Arcane trickster class (or vivisectionist Alchemist, one of the two).

[Meowmasterish]

Later in the dungeon, put an actual clichéd trap that they will try and think their way around, when it literally tells them what to do. Basically the reverse of the first trap.:biggrin:

[13ones]

Hah. That's a good one.

"And as you enter the hallway a spiked pit opens before you."

"And what does it do?"

"Do? Doesn't do anything. just a spiked pit"

*cut to the players spending half an hour poking around a normal spiked pit, trying to see what evil it does*

This would be amplified further by an idea I just had. A similar trap where a spike pit opens much further down the hallway, but as they get close they notice the spikes aren't spike, but rather spiked shape bee hives! And the switch to close the pit is on the other side. Getting close would set off the swarm and it'd be endless swarms of bees till they closed the pit. The party would literally be COVERED IN BEES!