Fun With Traps

[Studley]

Hey all,

I'm running a little bit low on traps at the moment and was hoping some people could share some of their more amazing or complex trap ideas!!

I love making traps and having my group solve/get slaughtered by them is great fun for all. Some solutions they come up with I would never have thought of and at other time a blatantly obvious solutions may go over their heads :smallbiggrin:

The one I used in the last session had my group stumped for a while :smallbiggrin: It's fairly simple but got them thinking!


The players were in a room escaping from swarming beetles that were almost everywhere. They managed to find a trapdoor and sacrificed some time setting up a rope and piton, taking damage from biting insects and ineffectually blasting a few with fire. Eventually they all descend into the hole but cannot see the bottom, they decide to drop a torch and after watching it fall for about 120ft they see the light from it flash out as if lighting up a room. They then decide to climb down to attach more rope but the beetles at the top chew through the rope and they all start to plummet reaching terminal velocity after 15ish seconds; above them, one spots a falling torch and they hear a whoosh as they pass an expanded section of the hole. This repeats every 30 or so seconds. The figure out they're in the same hole but are falling through the same section over and over.

So... Portal anyone?

After 15 or so minutes of falling, the party dissuading a member from reaching out to grab at the clearing saying he'd lose his arms and numerous attempts at slowing down, the druid finally turned into a giant spider grabbing everyone and spun a parachute type contraption out of its web to slow down enough to attempt a jump into the clearing. I liked the idea :)

The relief on their faces as they got out made my night :smallsmile: Also I'm thinking of doing another situation with them in a hole where they fall for ages, give the same impression of a portal and then make them splat... A lot. Keep 'em on their toes!


If anyone else can spare some ideas I'd love to hear them!! I'll post up a few more ideas later if anyone is interested!

[EvilAnagram]

Place an important key at the bottom of a swimming pool. Don't tell them that the pool is filled with a gelatinous cube.

I love making riddle traps. You solve a riddle, and it sets off a trap. Runes on the wall say, "Light the way to your destiny." There's a place for a torch on the wall. The party lights a torch and places it on the wall. It lights a strand of rope above it. The rope frays and tears, releasing a massive swinging axe.

I once told my party there was a rope hanging in the middle of the room. I had four party members who knew me well, and one who didn't. The four who knew me debated what to do for fifteen minutes before the one who didn't just yanked on the rope. It was tied to a brick in the rafters, which hit him in the forehead. They were pissed.

[pwykersotz]

Place an important key at the bottom of a swimming pool. Don't tell them that the pool is filled with a gelatinous cube.

I love making riddle traps. You solve a riddle, and it sets off a trap. Runes on the wall say, "Light the way to your destiny." There's a place for a torch on the wall. The party lights a torch and places it on the wall. It lights a strand of rope above it. The rope frays and tears, releasing a massive swinging axe.

I once told my party there was a rope hanging in the middle of the room. I had four party members who knew me well, and one who didn't. The four who knew me debated what to do for fifteen minutes before the one who didn't just yanked on the rope. It was tied to a brick in the rafters, which hit him in the forehead. They were pissed.

That's amazing. Well done. :smallbiggrin:

[TripleD]

Here's one I've wanted to try for a while (trap-within-a-trap).

At the end of a dungeon, right before the BBEG, the party comes to a room with two doors and two statues. They start with the whole "one of us tells only lies blah, blah, blah". If your group has been vaguely paying attention to pop culture for the last thirty years, they should solve it quickly.

The "correct" door opens up to reveal a perfectly harmless hallway with a turn at the end. The party travels down it, only to reveal a dead end and the sound of the door snapping shut behind them.

"My gods!", comes the voice of the statue through the door, "who doesn't know the answer to that one?"

Not sure about the next part. Filling it with water or gas seems cheap. Maybe just give the defenders time to buff before opening the door.

Also, since I despise it when puzzles have arbitrary correct choices, there should be a letter placed somewhere earlier in the dungeon. From the head Trapsmith:

"This is never going to stop anyone!"

The response written at the bottom?

"Good"

[Sartharina]

Place an important key at the bottom of a swimming pool. Don't tell them that the pool is filled with a gelatinous cube.

I love making riddle traps. You solve a riddle, and it sets off a trap. Runes on the wall say, "Light the way to your destiny." There's a place for a torch on the wall. The party lights a torch and places it on the wall. It lights a strand of rope above it. The rope frays and tears, releasing a massive swinging axe.

I once told my party there was a rope hanging in the middle of the room. I had four party members who knew me well, and one who didn't. The four who knew me debated what to do for fifteen minutes before the one who didn't just yanked on the rope. It was tied to a brick in the rafters, which hit him in the forehead. They were pissed.

... Wow... I especially love the "Riddle Traps", because they catch genre-savvy people off-guard.

[UHF]

Are you a Bunny? Or a Big Bad Bunny Eater?

There is a nice set of ideas right here in posts by me, UHF.
http://www.worldworksgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9110

I had such fun thinking this up that I ran it as a Pathfinder adventure. About 3 traps in, the Rogue refused to look for traps anymore. So the fighter started setting them off.

Culminating with the fighter charging a flint golem in a room full of rotting bodies. (Steel on flint = spark Rotting bodies = methane) The last thing the party heard was the wizard yelling, "Stop you fool!" (The wizard was blown clean out the door and knocked unconscious.)

I also ran a Pathfinder Adventure on an island full of cannibals. I thought up a ton of variances of trees flinging branches with spikes attached. (The Double Whammy was popular, right after the Coconut Head Bonker which produces a very hollow sound when it goes off.) The last trap was of course the small pit full of sea urchin spines. (The party nick named the ranger 'Hop Along' after that.)

With traps, variety matters. Needless to say, my players are a nervous lot.
http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/big-bad-bunny-eater-20090527-232740.jpg

[Shining Wrath]

Along the lines of Gygax's dictum "The best way to hide a pile of gold pieces is to put them under a pile of copper pieces", illusions that show people what appear to be a dangerous trap which isn't what it looks like can be deadly.

For example, it appears to be a pit with spikes at the bottom with narrow ledges around it on the sides.

Actually, it's a perfectly solid floor with pressure plates along the sides. Stepping on the pressure plates launches the person UP, through the false ceiling into bad stuff.

[Scirocco]

My personal favorite is a room filled with invisible bodaks, but without the MM it's not really viable.