bizarre, original, cool. what is the best trap youve seen?

[bjoern]

I'd have to say that mine would be the hallway of endless bison.
In a dungeon, we came upon the center of a hallway and had to either go left or right. In the hallway was a portal on both ends which allowed for a never ending stampede of celestial bison. After several failed attempts at getting through the hallway, and the cleric draining all healing spells to stave off death by trampling, we had to backtrack and find a way around that hallway.

We never did figure out the trick to defeating that trap (if there was a trick)

[Sian]

not as much because it was bizarre but because half the party got trapped in it (they wandered off for a bit of scouting)

A long winding spiral staircase, which you could only get back up from by walking backwards (else some kind of portal would 'pop' you just below were you previously were so you entered the same level you left) ... Me and the other guy that was left behind had to go make dinner in the kitchen (since it was our turn anyhows) due to the fact that the two of us very easily figured it out, but the two players that went down lacked the logical sense to figure it out, and our DM was very strict on that kind of metagaming with players helping if their characters wern't around.

They used half an hour (RL) to figure it out, while us designated cooks for the evening merely passed a note to the DM with the answer to the trap and went off our merry way to cook dinner

[gorfnab]

Resetting trap of the Create Trap spell with the Invisible Spell metamagic applied to it.

[Afgncaap5]

There's a couple honorable mentions from official sources I think should be brought up:

-In the Eberron module Grasp of the Emerald Claw, there's a trap door in front of a door in the temple that the players are in. Stepping onto it causes a razor-lined chute to open up, slicing the trap's victim as they slide down, out of view, as the trap automatically resets. Even better is the fact that the trap doesn't just send the player to a different part of the temple; instead, it ejects them from the temple, causing them to fall 150 feet to the ground below. On it's own the trap is fun, but it was made even better when I ran the game and a Sorcerer controlled a Karrnathi Skeleton that attacked them into leading the way. He had the Skeleton walked forward, and they all saw the Skeleton descend. It might not have been strictly RAW, but it was fun figuring out the exact moment that the skeleton died and telling the Sorcerer when he felt his control of the Skeleton end.

-In the book Book Of Challenges, there's a room that's got a simply ludicrous number of traps in it. Something like four poisoned arrows, four Melf's Acid Arrows, a scythe with deathblade poison, a casting of a Blade Barrier spell, a crushing wall trap, a crushing ceiling trap, a device that fills the room with water, and if you survive all of that the actual treasure chest has a force cage activate while summoning a hamatula (the real challenge being the fact that the force cage lasts 26 hours, so asphyxiation is a possible danger.) Everything's on a timer that staggers the traps, so the actual execution is like the kind of mounting beat-by-beat escalation that you see in some of the more lethal Chuck Jones cartoons out there.

-The same book also has a weird hallway where you pass all of these obviously deactivated traps because another adventurer made it through. You find her corpse at the site of the final trap, but then when you collect the treasure that she was just shy of getting herself, you hear a series of distant clicks as each of the traps reset themselves.

[Fax Celestis]

Long hallway with a large fan at the end, making it so movement towards it is at half speed and flight is impossible. The floor of the hallway is covered in pressure plates: stepping on one will make two random diodes (lining the hallway's walls, one on each side) arc a bolt of lightning between them.

[Afgncaap5]

Long hallway with a large fan at the end, making it so movement towards it is at half speed and flight is impossible. The floor of the hallway is covered in pressure plates: stepping on one will make two random diodes (lining the hallway's walls, one on each side) arc a bolt of lightning between them.

That's just about perfect for a mad science area, like if a D&D game was set in a quasi Victorian/gaslight fantasy like you find in Girl Genius. (Which has been a dream game of mine for a while.)

[Sian]

That's just about perfect for a mad science area, like if a D&D game was set in a quasi Victorian/gaslight fantasy like you find in Girl Genius. (Which has been a dream game of mine for a while.)

Eberron seems tailor made for supplying a base to build a pseudo-Girl Genius game on to, with very little refluffing (making Warforged a bit more humaniod and call them Jägers) it should get there

[Afgncaap5]

I'd actually make the Jaegers from scratch, I think. Monstrous Humanoid versions of Warforged wouldn't be a bad way to quickly fluff it, though. The one drawback is that Warforged take a hit to Charisma, and I think Jaegers actually have Charisma in spades.

Artificers are *close* to sparks, but they're still more in the realm of mysticism and arcane lore than true superscience. Still, potato/potato. (Especially since there are hints in Girl Genius that sparks can trace their roots back to magic rather than pure science.)

[PsyBomb]

1) One evil DM had us descending some broad solid-stone steps. About halfway down, our scout found a Passwall oriented vertically. That's how we figured out the BBEG was 15th caster level...

2) 10x20x20 room, containing two self-resetting traps of Invisible Spell Create Water.

3) Party forced to split along parallel hallways divided by a wall of Force. At the end was a button on each side, clearly labelled, that would infect the other side with Mummy Rot and open the last door (party is low-level at this point). Solution was that the wall of force wasn't there for the last 10 feet, took us 20 minutes to figure it out.

[bekeleven]

Nice and simple: Pit trap with a gelatinous cube at the bottom.

Fall in? Auto-engulfed.

[Necroticplague]

A self-resetting trap of Persistent Giant Size. Inside a 10 by 10 hallway.

[Beige]

A self-resetting trap of Persistent Giant Size. Inside a 10 by 10 hallway.

thats just mean :smallbiggrin:

it's the full stop that sells it

[atemu1234]

We used Crystal Creatures (Advanced Bestiary) in one of my games. We had pit traps with spears spiked with Brilliant Pestilence and trap doors that had rooms filled with Crystallized Commoners.

[Segev]

You walk into the room, and a door slams shut behind you. All that's in there is a magic mouth counting down from 100, a big red button, and a decayed skeleton in adventurer's collapsed beneath it. The door is arbitrarily hard (varies based on the DM's desires for the party to be able to brute force out of it) to open. When the red button is pushed, the mouth starts the countdown over from 100.

If the countdown is allowed to run out...
...the door opens, and everybody can leave.

[Slipperychicken]

I like the good old punji stick (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/traps-hazards-and-special-terrains/traps/punji-stake-trap). No versimilitude-breaking, it's cheap as dirt (hell, it's literally dirt hole + sharp stick + leaves), it can deliver poison or disease, and is most of all simple.

I like the Bear Trap (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/traps-hazards-and-special-terrains/traps/bear-traps-cr-1) too. It's iconic, simple, and damaging. Costing only 1 gold a pop (or 3.34 silver if you just craft them), you could easily fill rooms with the things.

Land-mines and bouncing betties are also good ones, even if I don't see them in dnd. Open up that door? BAM! Enjoy being transformed into chunky salsa.

[Thurbane]

There was an old 1E or 2E module that had what was basically an induction coil running down an entire corridor. Anyone walking down the corridor in metal armor would suffer a Heat Metal effect.

One I read about in a book: a pit trap filled with whipped cream. You'll suffocate it in, it's not dense enough to swim in, and if you try to climb out up a rope it makes everything slippery. Plus, you know, for the giggles.

[Necroticplague]

One I read about in a book: a pit trap filled with whipped cream. You'll suffocate it in, it's not dense enough to swim in, and if you try to climb out up a rope it makes everything slippery. Plus, you know, for the giggles.

Heh, excellent idea, but not much of a long-term one. After a day or two, the bubbles of whatever gas is making it 'whipped' will have risen out of it, making it just a swimmable pool of milk and gelatin.

[atemu1234]

One I read about in a book: a pit trap filled with whipped cream. You'll suffocate it in, it's not dense enough to swim in, and if you try to climb out up a rope it makes everything slippery. Plus, you know, for the giggles.

If that was true in real life, I'd be dead...:smalleek:

[Slipperychicken]

Heh, excellent idea, but not much of a long-term one. After a day or two, the bubbles of whatever gas is making it 'whipped' will have risen out of it, making it just a swimmable pool of milk and gelatin.

Magic, wizards-did-it, Quasi-Elemental Plane of Baked Goods, you know the drill.


EDIT: You could even justify such a trap by saying it's the spot where a magical chef dropped his Decanter of Endless Whipped Cream while fleeing from monsters.

[Marlowe]

If that was true in real life, I'd be dead...:smalleek:

You are saying that in real life, you have actually fallen into and survived a pit of whipped cream?

What ARE you, some FDA special agent?:smallsmile:

[The Insanity]

... lets just say that it turned that "she" was a "he". :smallannoyed:

[atemu1234]

You are saying that in real life, you have actually fallen into and survived a pit of whipped cream?

What ARE you, some FDA special agent?:smallsmile:

Let's just say it was a bet.

[Kol Korran]

A dungeon that turned itself into a big trap. Basically the party was going through a dungeon, and there were all kinds of signs for what appeared to be... dysfunctional traps: Gaping huge faces, silts in walls, giant trap doors, but nothing worked. As they saw a lot of the things in various degrees of neglect and disrepair, they assuemd those traps were such as well. I left a few traps active (or partially so), and so they figured it was all part of the atmosphere. As they reached the final room, they expected to find some sort of an uber boss. They found a giant skeletal figure, sitting. Thinking it was some sort of an undead, they buffed, and attacked... the simple skeleton.

As they did so however, the door behind them shut, and they could hear all kind of noises goign behind it. The dungeon's traps were becoming active, and some undead guardians and constructs were released. Oh, and the dungeon was flooding... fast.

It became a race to get to an opening (/which was blocked, the other entrance was at another place), while they had to deal with the suddenly active traps (Though most of these were simple to deal with, they were simple given time, not on a time pressure) and the undead and construct.

Fun times! :smallbiggrin:

[Dr. Cliché]

This thread has a lot of great ideas - excuse me while I steal them all. :smallbiggrin:


You could even justify such a trap by saying it's the spot where a magical chef dropped his Decanter of Endless Whipped Cream while fleeing from monsters.

Glorious.

[NotScaryBats]

There was a 2E adventure that had a staircase that slowly got bigger and bigger, culminating in a giantsized double door. Giant rats and insects came out of mouseholes in the walls, and the effect was that it felt like you had been shrunken. Of course, it was just creative architecture, but that 'trap' has always stayed with me.

I *think* it was Curse of the White Flame or something like that.

[Jack_Simth]

I'd have to say that mine would be the hallway of endless bison.
In a dungeon, we came upon the center of a hallway and had to either go left or right. In the hallway was a portal on both ends which allowed for a never ending stampede of celestial bison. After several failed attempts at getting through the hallway, and the cleric draining all healing spells to stave off death by trampling, we had to backtrack and find a way around that hallway.

We never did figure out the trick to defeating that trap (if there was a trick)
Given the setup? There's not actually an infinite number of bison. Which means you just stand outside the stampede and start killing (or dismissing) them as they go by. Sooner or later, the number of bison is exhuasted, and you walk on past.

Alternate: Put a wall in the way of the source (wall of Stone, wall of Iron, Wall of Force... potentially Wall of Ice, even).

[bjoern]

In a somewhat recent campaign, our party was ascending a tower (presumed a wizards and unoccupied.)
The final door was trapped with an unknown number (at least 6) baleful polymorph spells that I guess were permanent.

Our whole party turned into mice.
My guy was a
Lycanthrope so I was allowed to change out of the form, and since it was kind of comical,the DM allowed it to function like me suppress the spell while I was shape changed. It actually came in handy down the road, being able to turn into an itty bitty mouse.

[bjoern]

Given the setup? There's not actually an infinite number of bison. Which means you just stand outside the stampede and start killing (or dismissing) them as they go by. Sooner or later, the number of bison is exhuasted, and you walk on past.

Alternate: Put a wall in the way of the source (wall of Stone, wall of Iron, Wall of Force... potentially Wall of Ice, even).

Yeah, it was actually that trap that made us always make sure that we had a wizard or something in the party. Our cleric was junk and just a healbot.

We also had two brute barbarians, an elvish Archer, and another melee type that I can't remember.
The hallway was about 100yards long and 50 yards wide. And it was solid packed with stampeding bison, treated as mobs I assume.

[sakuuya]

There was an old 1E or 2E module that had what was basically an induction coil running down an entire corridor. Anyone walking down the corridor in metal armor would suffer a Heat Metal effect.

White Plume Mountain! That's probably my favorite old-school module for inventive traps. Other highlights:



A slowly-spinning cylindrical corridor covered in grease, so characters couldn't keep their footing while walking down it. At the end was a guy with a crossbow and flaming arrows, who set the grease on fire once the PCs were in the corridor.
A room with alternating strips of "frictionless material" and pits filled with spikes that'll give PCs "instant super-tetanus" if they fall on 'em. The wall opposite the entry had an illusory wall 10' in front of it so that if the PCs tried to throw a rope across, it would just pass though without fastening to the "wall."

[Jack_Simth]

Yeah, it was actually that trap that made us always make sure that we had a wizard or something in the party. Our cleric was junk and just a healbot.

We also had two brute barbarians, an elvish Archer, and another melee type that I can't remember.
The hallway was about 100yards long and 50 yards wide. And it was solid packed with stampeding bison, treated as mobs I assume.
Then you had everything you needed. Two brute Barbarians + another melee type.

Have them line up right next to the stampede (not in it), and start swinging. 100 yards by 50 yards is 300 feet by 150 feet is 60 squares by 30 squares = 1800 squares. A Bison (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/bison.htm) is Large, and takes up four squares. Assuming that they're packed in heavily so they only take up two squares each, that's 900 bison. They're only AC 13, 37 hp, and melee can keep it up forever if they're not getting hurt themselves. So with three melee guys full-attacking away, you should be able to kill at least three per round until *you* are the source of the danger from which they stampede away. 300 rounds, tops. You'll have it cleared out in half an hour. Goes faster if they use mob rules or some such, as the mob as a whole has less HP than do the individual components.

[GreatDane]

-The same book also has a weird hallway where you pass all of these obviously deactivated traps because another adventurer made it through. You find her corpse at the site of the final trap, but then when you collect the treasure that she was just shy of getting herself, you hear a series of distant clicks as each of the traps reset themselves.

I actually ran this scenario in my last campaign. The PCs had more trouble with the flame strike and hell hounds in the center of the spiral than the resetting traps, though, since they had a very talented rogue in the party. Still, it was fun to run.

Another trap the PCs encountered in that dungeon was a30x30' room in which each 5-foot square was a colored tile. There were six colors of type, for each color of the rainbow (minus violet). Once per round, all of the tiles of a certain color lot up and produced an appropriate effect, as prismatic spray. The only way through the room was a thick door with four locks. The key to each lock was hung around the neck of one of four arrowhawk statues in the room, which would come to life and attack when anyone stepped into the room. Although I left out violet from the floor times (since sending a level 6 character to another plane in the middle of a dungeon is kind of a campaign-stopper), the arrowhawks represented the Outer Planes in this encounter, plus they were immune to the prismatic floor.

Once the PCs had more or less figured out how the room worked, they hooked the rogue up with resist acid and had her hop from green tile to green tile with a rope. She would get the rope around an arrowhawk's neck, then the rest of the party would reel in the unfortunate bird from the doorway and snag it's key. Once they had all four keys and the door was open, they could all just double-move through the room.