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brian 333
2018-05-20, 12:33 PM
Have a unique trap idea? Post it! Magical or mechanical, poison or inconvenience, it's all fair game.

1: The Mudroom

What appears to be badly plastered walls and floor is actually a dried, flaky layer of mud. There may be several lumps of mud in the room which turn out to be dessicated corpses inside a shell of dried mud. When the room is occupied for more than one minute, or when a specific trigged is set off, ports in the ceiling open oozing mud.

The door to this room opens inward, but has no handle or knob on the inside to pull, and it is recessed into the wall. As soon as the mud begins to splatter on the floor the door slams and locks. (How difficult it is to bash down is up to the DM.) Each of the nine ports in the ceiling can be closed from the inside, but they are twenty feet above the floor. The room fills at the rate of 4 inches per minute, so the characters have one hour to get themselves out, but after eighteen minutes the top of the door is below the mud line.

Fifteen minutes after the mud ceases to flow into the room, (whether the ports are closed or the room fills completely,) ports in the floor open and suck the mud back up into the reservoir, which takes another four hours, or at the rate of 1 inch per hour. When the last of the mud is pumped out the floor ports close, the ceiling ports reset, and the lock on the entry door releases.

2: The Misunderstood Wishing Well

"Toss a coin into the well and make a wish," the sign says. The wish will be granted, but never in a beneficial way. A character who asks for a +5 sword, for example, might discover it is +5 versus him only, and it comes to him in the hands of a vengeance-seeking hobgoblin.

A person wishing for the power of flight might be polymorphed into a fly. A person wishing to only be able to die of old age might be transformed into a mayfly.

No matter the wish, the DM should find some way to end up with the character wishing he had never made a wish. Under no circumstances should the well leave the character with anything useful. Remove Curse or Restoration should nullify the effects of the Wishing Well.

Ursus Spelaeus
2018-05-21, 11:29 AM
3: Belled Bridge
This rope bridge is decorated with bells and chimes. Any characters walking across it will make noise and alert the guards.

4: Sprinkler System
The dungeon complex is equipped with a system of pipes along the ceilings. The pipes spray water when triggered by the presence of fire or invisible creatures.

5: Aquifers
The silty water-table protects fortresses from subterranean threats. Goblins, kobolds, and burrowing creatures digging up from beneath risk flooding their tunnels when they breach the aquifer. Earth elementals can't pass through the flowing water, and water elementals can't pass through the permeable stone. If the aquifer flows beneath consecrated ground, then the momentarily blessed water can protect against both corporeal and incorporeal undead rising up from below.

6: Blessed Bricks
Vials of holy water can be sealed inside hollow bricks to damage incorporeal undead as they pass through.

7: Water Falls of White Noise
When water flows through chambers with the right acoustical properties, it creates a noise-cancellation effect that functions as a non-magical version of the Silence spell.

8: Mundane Water
Rapidly flowing water hinders teleportation, forces Concentration checks for casters caught in the current, and ruin both spellbooks and spell components.

jqavins
2018-05-21, 02:17 PM
9) Poisoned Dust

I had a party running through a long empty wizard's tower (for all intents and purposes). The rooms and the things in the rooms were covered in dust. In one room, near the end, there was a book on a lectern, positioned such that it is obviously valuable. On the book, the dust contained a dry, powdered, inhalation poison.

brian 333
2018-05-24, 01:10 PM
10: False Pit Trap

What appears to be a pit trap with spikes, some impaling skeletal remains, is in fact a rug with a very good illusion of a pit trap placed upon it. The rug can simply be walked across or rolled up, but there is no way to determine this short of prior knowledge or through investigating it with Detect Magic. (There is nothing to indicate the trap is magic or enhanced by magic, so the average adventurer wouldn't know to try Detect.) Poking the trap with a 10 foot pole or other probe appears to verify the reality of the trap.

The use of such false traps in delaying actions or to cause intruders to take another path is obvious, but one option is to create disdain for the false pit traps causing characters to ignore and walk across them, hoping they will similarly ignore the real pit traps they encounter later.


11: Portable Pit Trap

This is a specialized Portable Hole, either with or without spikes. It can be rolled up with living creatures inside, effectively placing the being in stasis in an extradimensional space. Time simply stops for the occupant(s) while the trap is closed, so they cannot be starved, dehydrated, or otherwise killed while the trap is closed.

The open trap can be flung over or dropped on a 10' square trapping all the occupants beneath. This leaves the tray open and allows occupants to lift the trap off of themselves, but the trapper can contest the attempts by standing or placing weights on the edge which the occupants would have to lift.

jqavins
2018-05-24, 01:45 PM
11: Portable Pit Trap

This is a specialized Portable Hole, either with or without spikes. It can be rolled up with living creatures inside, effectively placing the being in stasis in an extradimensional space. Time simply stops for the occupant(s) while the trap is closed, so they cannot be starved, dehydrated, or otherwise killed while the trap is closed.

The open trap can be flung over or dropped on a 10' square trapping all the occupants beneath. This leaves the tray open and allows occupants to lift the trap off of themselves, but the trapper can contest the attempts by standing or placing weights on the edge which the occupants would have to lift.So, it's a portable hole + Temporal Stasis. That's an incredibly useful item! Bring along perishable provisions. Transport your dying comrade back to town where better healers are. Just make sure your buddy doesn't have a Bag of Holding. For that matter, in its trap use, if the trapee it nabs has a Bag of Holding...

Anyway, this should be over in the 1001 Homebrew Magic Items thread.

Edit: Speaking of 1001 Homebrew Magic Items, I went over there after typing the above and saw you latest contribution, the Portable Portal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23097272#post23097272). So...

12) Portal Trap

A variant of the Portable Portal that can be opened on the ground like another magical pit trap, this item transports the trapee to a location of the trapper's choosing. A jail cell, a thousand mile distant, directly above so as to fall through again thus accelerating up to terminal velocity, etc.

rferries
2018-05-24, 11:39 PM
13. Chamber of Gossamer Agony
This room is full of silken strands so fine and strong that they cannot be seen by the naked eye and are capable of slicing through flesh. Treat this as a permanent nonmagical web effect, save that the web is inherently invisible and any creature moving through it takes damage as if by a wall of thorns.

14. Fountain of Euphoric Corrosion
This room is dominated by a beautiful marble fountain carved with nymphs, unicorns, or other benevolent creatures. The crystal clear waters are a powerful and anaesthetising acid (dealing 10d6 acid damage per round to immersed creatures, or 1d6 points to any creature touching or drinking from the fountain). The pool gives off a subtle, sweet fragrance - creatures must make a DC 14 Will save each round or desire to take a drink from the fountain, ignoring how it swiftly and painlessly melts their flesh to the bone.

15. Garden of Eternal Sleep
This chamber has walls of luminous crystal, pleasantly warm and humid air, and a variety of orchids, flowering vines, and fruit-bearing trees. Creatures take 1d3 points of nonlethal damage each round they remain in the room (no save) from the garden's enchantment.

16. Miniature Mirror Maze
The walls, floor, and ceiling of this small room are covered with polished mirrors that endlessly reflect each other and inanimate objects, but not creatures in the room. Anyone who (re)enters is subject to a maze effect, save that the effect does not automatically end after 10 minutes.

17. Scintillating Matrix
This chamber is very similar in construction to a Miniature Mirror Maze, save that the mirrors generate a blinding radiance instead of an extradimensional labyrinth. Creatures are automatically dazzled while in the room and take a -10 penalty on Search and Spot checks (which may disguise the presence of other traps). Undead and other creatures vulnerable to positive energy take 1d6 points of damage per round while in the room.

18. Wizard's Oubliette
This functions as a standard pit trap, save that any creature falling into the pit is feebleminded (DC 17 Will save negates) for as long as they remain in the pit.

jqavins
2018-05-25, 10:36 AM
19) Alchemist's Waist Pit

This pit trap has a few inches of liquid on the bottom. The liquid is usually not especially viscous, but is often sticky and occasionally slimy. A victim falling into the trap is subjected to a random reversed potion effect. Randomly pick a potion as from a treasure hoard, then inflict the opposite of its effect. For example, a healing potion causes damage, an ability buff potion de-buffs the same ability, a flying potion makes the victim double in weight, etc. Note, in some cases this may have no practical effect; the reverse of Oil of Etherialness would anchor the victim to the material plane and, since one generally does not expect to leave the material plane anyway, is irrelevant. On the other hand, a victim of the reverse Potion of Flying above could easily drown in the liquid should she fall face down. The very lucky victim could be healed by reversed poison.

Once the victim climbs (or is helped) out of the pit, the reverse potion effect lasts for the potion's normal duration. And he's covered in rather gross potion waist.

Cicciograna
2018-05-25, 11:07 AM
Not something I've ever tried, but I always thought it would be fun.

20) Insidious water-push pit double trap

This trap is to be located in a dungeon, at the end of a long corridor ending in a closed, bronze door. The trap itself, located some 5 feet before the door, is a regular, standard pit trap of whatever depth the DM deems fit, and with or without spikes on the bottom. If analyzed, it results very easy to find, but if the DC to find it is beaten by 5 or more, those studying it notice that the pit mechanism only activates if a very large weight is placed over it, way more than a single person, or even two or three. So a group of people is able to safely stand on it without danger.

The catch is in the door at the end of the corridor. It is actually a "Water lock door", as per Dungeonscape page 25: the room on the other side of the door is flooded, the water coming from an underground river of sorts. The door features a well hidden switch that, if activated, safely drains the room in 5 minutes allowing the door to be opened without issues; otherwise, if the door is opened, the water floods out. The rushing water damages the adventurers as per Dungeonscape rules and, most importantly, pushes them back if they fail the ST: the weight of the rushing water is enough to activate the pit mechanism, plunging the adventurers into the pit, at the bottom of which there's a grate to prevent the pit to be filled and drain the water elsewhere.

If the water door was not opened activating the switch, when the room is drained the door slams shut again, and the room refills in 5 minutes. When this happens, the pit mechanism closes again trapping those inside unless it is opened in some way (perhaps opening again the door).

brian 333
2018-05-26, 04:40 PM
21: The Magic Summoning Circle

What appears to be a summoner's circle of protection is instead a trap. When a person steps into the circle it summons an Evil Outsider of suitable CR to challenge the individual.

LE outsiders might attempt to barter for the soul of the occupant of the circle while CE outsiders will attempt to drag the victim off to the Abyss. Either might attempt to use those outside the circle as leverage to get to the one inside the circle.

Regardless, the summoned being is not contained or constrained in any way, and may themselves summon allies. Each mortal who enters the circle summons another Evil Outsider, but none of the outsiders can reach into the circle by any means other than verbal communications.

brian 333
2018-05-29, 08:28 AM
22: Flower Bed

In a clearing or meadow a bed of pleasant-smelling flowers grows in soft, warm soil. The aroma appears to keep bugs away, and indeed, rubbing oneself with the flower petals will cause ticks, lice, fleas, and other vermin to vacate the body and clothing of the character.

The bed of flowers appears to be a nice spot to make camp, and a safe, comfortable place to sleep, unharried by mosquitos and bedbugs. However, within an hour of lying down, tiny rootlets grow up into the sleeper's body anchoring the character to the ground, (Strength, DC 25 to break free.) Within a day the living victim begins to sprout flowers from his upper surface as the roots become substantial, entwining the character in ever stronger bindings.

While the growth of the plants do not cause pain or death, within a few days thirst will take its toll.

A character rescued from this trap will continue to sprout flowers for the next few weeks unless the condition is treated by one of the various spells which detoxify the victim. (Remove Curse and Neutralize Poison, or any spell with one of these effects.)

A side effect of this is that vermin will be repelled by the victim so long as the plant is active in the character's body.