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View Full Version : What sort of goblin traps would survive massive flooding?



Scalenex
2020-03-14, 02:51 AM
I started a new game, and a new homebrew system that is a heavily a tweaked version of D&D.

Anyway, I used goblins in a bunch of a random encounters and I realized the the goblins did not play like goblins. They didn't use much in the way of traps. The goblins raids on the local villagers were pretty slipshod.

Partially to explain this and because the greater plot involves the local Underdark being flooded, the goblins were suddenly driven out of their underground lairs and forced to improvise on the surface world in short order.

Now the players are navigating the new underdark river. They defeated a dungeon and took all the gold and stuff but the dungeon also had literal tons of coal and iron ingots. They are trying to help their friend the Duke collect this coal and iron. They cannot ship it above ground because the area has a lot of hostile orcs, so they are traveling underground with some friendly knights and a bunch of red shirts to ship the goods by water underground.

When they get their flotilla where the goblins' lair used to be, what traps would still be intact? Either traps that could be accidentally triggered because they were designed well or maybe there are goblin undead drowned revenants that can trigger the traps.

Thanks in advanced!

Jay R
2020-03-14, 10:10 AM
Deadfalls would not necessarily have been set off.

Poisons might have washed away, or they might have just been diluted and spread out. What was once a strong poison on a lock on a door might now be a weak poison on anyone who touches the door.

Some traps may have been disabled, but others may have gotten worse – the lock is now rusted shut. A door that used to hold back undead may have rotted away.

A trap with a small black pudding might now be a room full of black pudding.

Also, remember that your goblins don’t have to act like D&D goblins. Harry Potter’s house elves aren’t like Lorien elves. Game of Throne wights aren’t like barrow wights. Doc, Dopey, and Grumpy aren’t like Norse dwarves.

Your goblins don’t have to be trap-users. They can be, of course, if that fits the challenges you want to set up.

In my games, the description of a sentient race in the books is the standard beliefs about them in the PC’s homelands. They are pretty accurate about races that they spend lots of time with, but even then, there will be lots of variations, just like all Texans aren’t lie the few you’ve met. And there will be some information that is just prejudice, like the way elves and dwarves generally think of each other in Tolkien.

[And yes, my players are warned about this. The introduction to my last game included the following:

DO NOT assume that you know anything about any fantasy creatures. I will re-write many monsters and races, introduce some not in D&D, and eliminate some. The purpose is to make the world strange and mysterious. It will allow (require) PCs to learn, by trial and error, what works. Most of these changes I will not tell you in advance. Here are a couple, just to give you some idea what I mean.
1. Dragons are not color-coded for the benefit of the PCs.
2. Of elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, kobolds, goblins, and orcs, at least one does not exist, at least one is slightly different from the books, and at least one is wildly different.
3. Several monsters have different alignments from the books.
4. The name of an Undead will not tell you what will or won’t hurt it.
5. The first time you see a member of a humanoid race, I will describe it as a “vaguely man-shaped creature.” This could be a kobold, an elf, or an Umber Hulk until you learn what they are.

Mutazoia
2020-03-14, 10:51 AM
Pits would still be viable, especially if there is still some standing water. Walking around in knee-deep muddy water makes a 10' pit harder to spot, and technically almost more dangerous (armor weight keeping people from swimming back to the surface...although most PC's are apparently able to swim quite well wearing a half-ton suit of full plate armor, and carrying another half-ton of equipment and loot.)

Matuka
2020-03-14, 04:03 PM
In a cold, dark, and wet tunnels full of rotting corpses from drowned goblins, creatures like Gas Spores Shriekers, once used for alarms and security now grow recently with no one to shear there numbers. Snakes swimming out of pit traps and hiding nearby, waiting for prey.

Blackhawk748
2020-03-15, 12:46 AM
A trap from a 3rd party book (pretty sure it was one of the Traps and Treachery books) is called the Goblin Equalizer and it's a spring-loaded greatsword that swings out at around gut height for your average human, which is just over the head of your normal goblin. It's placed in a wall and triggered by a pressure plate, so if the flooding wasn't particularly violent and was just more sudden, it should still be in the wall.

Monsterpoodle
2020-03-16, 03:01 PM
As a previous poster said a pressure plate that a goblin won't set off might not be set off by a gradual flooding, the same goes for trip wires, spring traps and deadfalls. New dangers would be oozes and slimes, cave piranhas or similar ;), and all the other critters that got flooded out of their homes too. Beware of Drow with snorkels.

Clistenes
2020-03-18, 05:03 AM
Your basic pit trap with metal spikes at the bottom could become more dangerous after a flooding... If the floor of a tunnel is covered by a sheet of dirty water up to the height of your ankles, the hole would be invisible, and while you can float out, your feet and legs would still suffer wounds from the dirty spikes.

For more damage, the spikes could have harpoon heads, leaving you stuck there...

Sapphire Guard
2020-03-19, 01:26 PM
Any kind of pressure plates/tripwire based traps could become a lot more difficult to detect or more easily sprung due to damage.

Could just be things like abandoned rusty daggers underwater that still have an edge, anything hard to see.

Boci
2020-03-19, 01:44 PM
The first time you see a member of a humanoid race, I will describe it as a “vaguely man-shaped creature.” This could be a kobold, an elf, or an Umber Hulk until you learn what they are.

Is the humanoid shorter than a human, scaly with a taller? About human sithe, a little lither, with pointy ears? Larger with dis-coloured skin and insectile antenna on the head?

Trying to keep players guessing is fine, but if you can only enforce it by refusing to describe what the characters can see with their two eyes, then you need to rethink your approach.