PDA

View Full Version : Help designing traps?



Steelrose
2008-05-18, 08:45 AM
I'm currently mastering a mid-level adventure though the traps are just no challenge for the characters. In my efforts of designing new and horrific traps I found that I'm a bit uncertain about how exactly the trapfinding feature works. All sample traps I've found had search and disable device DCs, meaning you could find and disable them though it never specifies how. If I were to design a trap with a proximity trigger of 20 ft. Could a character with trapfinding find and disable it before it springs and if they can; how?

There are traps with the alarm spell for instance, that can cover larger areas. How would one disable a trap like that without springing it?

Also, any ideas of challenging traps would be appreciated. :smallsmile:

Raum
2008-05-18, 11:33 AM
What are you looking for from your traps? You don't need them to go off to 'win', you just need them to be interactive.

Some, such as pits, should have to be bypassed rather than disarmed. It helps to know what the trap is and what it's purpose is even before picking DCs for finding and disarming. Most important remember to make them interactive! If the PC's only interaction with the trap is taking damage it's just a hit point tax.

Here are a couple articles on traps: Bad Trap Syndrome (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/90/bad-trap-syndrome/) and Curing the Bad Trap Blues (http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/91/bad-trap-syndrome-curing-the-bad-trap-blues/)

Bigbrother87
2008-05-18, 11:52 AM
Also, any ideas of challenging traps would be appreciated. :smallsmile:

I've taken great enjoyment from reading the diabolical creations found in the 1001 Clever Traps for Beginners (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=674705) thread on the WotC boards. Even given that name, some of these are just plain evil...:belkar:

Gralamin
2008-05-18, 11:56 AM
I'm currently mastering a mid-level adventure though the traps are just no challenge for the characters. In my efforts of designing new and horrific traps I found that I'm a bit uncertain about how exactly the trapfinding feature works. All sample traps I've found had search and disable device DCs, meaning you could find and disable them though it never specifies how. If I were to design a trap with a proximity trigger of 20 ft. Could a character with trapfinding find and disable it before it springs and if they can; how?

There are traps with the alarm spell for instance, that can cover larger areas. How would one disable a trap like that without springing it?

Also, any ideas of challenging traps would be appreciated. :smallsmile:

Don't use normal traps, as the ones in the DMG. They are very very badly made.
I would recommend buying Dungeonscape. Inside there is information on making Encounter Traps, a more dynamic and balanced type of trap.

Steelrose
2008-05-18, 12:05 PM
What I am looking for is traps that require thinking and is more like riddles or puzzles than just dice rolls and damage. Simply put, I agree with you on the interactive part. Those links gave me some new ideas too, thanks. :smallsmile:
My playgroup loves solving puzzles.

A friend of mine actually bought dungeonscape recently, haven't had an opportunity to look at it yet. Thanks for the tip.

Does anyone have any favourite traps you would like to share with me? :smallwink:

Avor
2008-05-18, 12:12 PM
Pit of spikes, reverse gravity.

The players walking through a cave, see a standard issue open spike pit, LOLing at it they don't even bother to make spot checks. They just get ready to jump it. The highter their roll, the worse from them.

They fly upwards into the spikes, for normal fall damage, spike damage, and just for giggles, toss in a fort save against the poison all over the spikes.

Not only does this rock, its fun to see the PC get him out, because there is still the normal gravity spike pit below. Fail to get a good grip on him at the mid point, he may just fall right into the other spikes.

Uncle Festy
2008-05-18, 12:20 PM
Huh. I remember reading somewhere (I think on WotC.com) about this group of adventurers. They walk into a circular room with two doors. As soon as they're all inside, both of the heavy stone doors slam shut, and the characters notice a stand in the center of the room. The stand has an hourglass that lasts five minutes, and a button. So the players are searching for a way out, and as the timer's ticking down, one presses the button. The hourglass flips over, and resets
So all the players are panicking about what will happen when the hourglass runs out, so one character is standing there, pressing the button whenever the hourglass gets low, as the others search for an exit. Finally they get fed up, and decide to just let the hourglass run out. And as soon as it does...
Both doors open. :smalltongue:

trehek
2008-05-18, 12:21 PM
When working with traps you should keep in mind, that running into them constantly can be annoying. It is not desirable to have the party crawl through the whole dungeon, afraid, with Search on all the time.

My favourite kind of trap is the kind where you get the painful realisation that obviously you have run into a trap, but in reality the trap doesn't do what it initially appears.

Here's an example of one, Indiana Jones style:

A straight corridor sloped upwards. At the end, on one of the sides, is a locked door, which the PCs need to go through. Some 10-20ft before the door is a rather obvious spear trap, slightly jutting out of the wall. What the PCs don't know is that there is a hinged secret hatch in the floor somewhere before the spear trap, with a huge round boulder beneath it. Approaching the spear trap triggers a nearby Reverse Gravity magic effect, which drops the PCs into the ceiling. The weight of the boulder causes the hatch to open and the boulder falls into the corridor rolling through the spear trap to the dead end, hopefully mowing over the PCs. When the Reverse Gravity ends, the hatch slams shut again and the boulder starts rolling to the other direction, passing the door, the trap and the hatch, past anyone who was waiting further away before the hatch.

A Search check along the floor or elven Spot may reveal the floor hatch, but the lid is made of heavy stone and might be hard to open even if found. The boulder below might not appear a threat to anyone standing above the hatch. The spear trap should be obvious, not requiring a skill check, although the DM can do some secret rolls to fool the players. The Reverse Gravity spell effect is hidden from detection, but can be discovered with a high DC Search check if someone can search the area behind the spear trap remotely from outside the trigger range. Alternatively, there is a safe spot for Searching right in front of the door in case the PCs teleport themselves there. The gravity effect only triggers around the spear trap. The door is mundanely locked and can be opened by magical means or a Open Lock check.

Xuincherguixe
2008-05-18, 12:26 PM
Make it look like a still beating heart is powering the trap.

This however is a clever ruse. There's some weird spacial magic. The character is seeing their own heart (or I suppose one of their team mates hearts). Destroying the heart will kill the player.

Have some things that look like diamonds. They are really explosives that go off at the slightest touch.

Another trap with the heart situation, however that really is a freaking still beating heart powering the trap.


A bunch of Undead dancing. If the players don't dance with them, many hands come out of the walls and kill them.

In order to deactivate a trap, they need to rip out a heart and put it on a pedestal.

A rose that must be smelled.


I'm sure I can come up with more later, but I need to go mow the lawn...


A trap that consists of rapidly growing grass, which must be quickly cut or the players will be crushed.

Steelrose
2008-05-18, 12:28 PM
haha, i love it. To push the players into panic over something that couldn't even scratch them.

Also, I have thought a lot about using reverse gravity, it opens a lot of entertaining possibilities.

trehek
2008-05-18, 12:44 PM
Huh. I remember reading somewhere (I think on WotC.com) about this group of adventurers. They walk into a circular room with two doors.
*CLIP*


Haha, these are nice too. Traps that aren't really traps. One pretty funny one I encountered once was what looked like a wooden door. It doesn't appear to have any traps on it. When one character grips the handle to open it, his hand gets stuck in sticky goo. The door is a mimic. Before anyone has a chance to act:

"Dammit! Not again! Always when I'm sleeping! Sorry, sorry, let me try to untangle you..."

If the PCs don't attack, the mimic does a poor effort of detaching itself, only tangling more around the stuck player.

"Oh hells, you'll just have to pull him out yourselves!"

If the PCs pull the player out without attacking the mimic, it seems relieved and opens itself up to let the PCs pass.

"There, move along now! Pfft, adventurers. Nothing but trouble! I swear, one of these days I'll climb up to the ceiling and become a lamp!"

Raum
2008-05-18, 12:46 PM
What I am looking for is traps that require thinking and is more like riddles or puzzles than just dice rolls and damage. Simply put, I agree with you on the interactive part. Those links gave me some new ideas too, thanks. :smallsmile:Glad it helped.

Does anyone have any favourite traps you would like to share with me? :smallwink:Hmm, well rather than specific traps I'll toss out a few generic ideas needing embellishment...
The Slide - Whether natural or man made, it's a slick slide into 'something' horrible below. What's below may be obvious (sliding down an underground creek towards a much larger river) or just implied (you hear rumbling and scraping noises from below) but the characters should have a couple places to catch themselves. Now one or more are stuck some distance down the slide, recovery is the puzzle. Don't make it as simple as dropping a rope down, have the character stopped after a bend or below a drop off. Or add other complications...environmental hazards (smoke from fires below) and combat are a couple.
The Trash Compactor - Yes, named after a certain episode in Star Wars. It's simple though, the trap is a locked room containing a slowly increasing hazard. Anything from rising water, walls moving in, ceiling dropping, to toxic gas filling the chamber. What it is doesn't matter as much as certain fate at the end of some time limit. They have a limited amount of time to carry out an escape.
Ambush - Not all traps need to be triggered by their victims. You may have kobolds yanking on a rope to drop rocks on their heads, goblins firing through murder holes in the ceiling, or earth elementals attacking from below. This is an excellent method for weaker antagonists to level the playing ground when attacking the characters. Read "Tucker's Kobolds" for inspiration. :)

Steelrose
2008-05-18, 01:41 PM
I've been inspired by the "illusiory wall" spell when making traps.

I saw a trap some time ago where the party walked down a long corridor with high roof and the rogue/trapsmith went first. As he walked down, he suddenly flew up through the roof and all the rest of the party heard were cutting of flesh and the screams from their friend. The roof was too high so they couldn't touch it and therefore the illusion remained and they couldn't see what was happening on the other side of the roof. Too afraid to face the same destiny they proceeded with caution and threw some rocks which also flew upwards.They started debating how to proceed and while doing that the reverse gravity spell ended and the rogue fell down through the roof and through the next illusionary wall, the floor just beneath. Another fall of 70 ft or so with sharp, poisoned razors sticking out from the walls and a pool of acid at the bottom... :smallwink:

Jack_Simth
2008-05-18, 07:44 PM
I'm currently mastering a mid-level adventure though the traps are just no challenge for the characters. In my efforts of designing new and horrific traps I found that I'm a bit uncertain about how exactly the trapfinding feature works. All sample traps I've found had search and disable device DCs, meaning you could find and disable them though it never specifies how. If I were to design a trap with a proximity trigger of 20 ft. Could a character with trapfinding find and disable it before it springs and if they can;
Yes. Before it goes off. The trigger area is part of the trap, and can be detected and disabled.

how?
Rogue mojo. Makes a search and Disable Device check. Seriously - it's a class ability, just like spells. Do you ask how a Wizard casts Invisibility? He prepares it in the morning, then later on, he wiggles his fingers and says a few words. Casting is a class feature of the Wizard. If we really knew how he did it, we wouldn't be talking about it on some forums, we'd be getting rich playing football. Or stealing from banks. Whatever.


There are traps with the alarm spell for instance, that can cover larger areas. How would one disable a trap like that without springing it?

You use the special paints to cover the mystic runes in just the right way that it shorts out without triggering. You find some dirt in a nearby area and sprinkle it just so. It's a class feature. No, it doesn't make sense. Neither does half of the rest of the game.


Also, any ideas of challenging traps would be appreciated. :smallsmile:
Greater Shadow Conjouration(Wall of Stone) floors. Fail your save, and it's a solid floor. Make your save, and you've got a 60% chance of it fulfilling the nondamaging effect of supporting you ... and a 40% chance of it not fulfilling that nondamaging effect....

Soup of Kings
2008-05-18, 09:35 PM
Illusory wall and Teleportation circle are great for getting players into traps. The perfect example is a labyrinth. In my upcoming dungeon, the players traverse what appears to be a long corridor, but when they reach the center, the Illusory walls to either side vanish and Walls of stone rise up in different spots along the "corridor" sealing them in. The PC's have suddenly found themselves in the middle of a labyrinth without moving an inch. A less elegant solution is to transport them via Teleportation Circle, but there's a better chance of missing some and you don't get the "Oh, Gods, the walls are shifting, we're all gonna die" effect.

Another good one is creative use of poisons. Drain the hell out of their Con, then hit them with Carrion Crawler Brain Juice. When they fail their Fortitude save, dump their paralyzed husk into a pit. A big pit. Bye-bye, meatshield/door opener.

Also, things that seem like traps are great. Even better are traps that seem like other traps. I have a room in the aforementioned dungeon with three doors, each with an image carved above it; a Drow, a Troll, and a Mummy. There's an obelisk with writing on it in the middle of the room. The carvings, however, simply indicate a choice of opponent for the next encounter. The real trap is the Explosive runes on the obelisk :belkar:

Speaking of Explosive Runes, do you have to actually write "Explosive Runes" or can it be anything?

I'm gonna steal that hourglass thing, that'll totally screw with my PC's. :elan:

Oh, and one last thing. There's a book called "Book of Challenges" that has a lot of fun ideas.

FlyMolo
2008-05-18, 09:53 PM
An idea of mine. homebrew up "special" poisons. For example, blood from a werewolf with gentle repose permanencied on it. Expensive, but hellaciously fun. Were-anything, really.

Something related, reincarnation juice. It does exactly what it sounds like. The player gets reincarnation cast on them, even if they're alive. Over 1 hour, they transform into another random race. After a month, it's permanent. Remove curse should switch them back before then, though.

Make up a cool table, with up to La+2 races.

Also related, template poison. Applies a template you choose to anyone hit.

Steelrose
2008-05-19, 01:16 PM
Oh, and one last thing. There's a book called "Book of Challenges" that has a lot of fun ideas.

Is that book for D&D, cause I'm having a hard time finding it?

Lycan 01
2008-05-19, 02:47 PM
I'm not sure if I can be much help, being a DnD noob and all... But here's an idea somebody told me about once.

The story goes as such: In DnD, there are two old artifacts that can be used under certain circumstances. "Vernaith's Hand" and "Vernaith's Eye", although I know I got the person's name wrong... If you have the Hand, you chop off your own hand, and the artifact replaces it, giving you stat boosts. Same way with the eye...

Well, this was a team-versus game: the two teams had to kill each other. So, Team A decided to kill Team B in a creative manner. They got the head of a statue, put it in some cave, and guarded it with some traps. They then started spreading rumors about it in the local towns. It was said to work the same way as the Hand and Eye. Chop off your head, and the bust replaces it, giving you insane stat boosts.

Team B eventually heard the rumors, went to investigate... and lost 3 people in the long run. When they found the head, they started arguing over who would get to use it, and one of them was killed in the spat that followed. Finally, they agreed to let a Druid try it. He summoned two beasts, and ordered them to chop off his head. They did so, and the team them attempted to place the artificial head upon his shoulders. When it rolled off, they assumed they'd wasted too much time. They then chopped off a 3rd person's head, and tried the trick again faster than last time. Again, no success. Finally, they realized that they'd been tricked... and half their team was dead.


So, as proven through this story, sometimes a trap doesn't have to be blocking the reward. Sometimes, the reward itself can be a trap...

In fact, I just thought of an idea...

The Glove of Midas.

Basically, when you put the glove on, it turns anything you touch to gold. Sounds pretty cool, right? The trick is getting the glove on.

The glove can just be sitting on a golden table or something. When the player grabs it to put it on... he gets turned into gold. Unless he's wearing gloves... So, if you're lucky, a greedy non-glove-wearing PC will be the first to grab it.

And then, you can try something else. The area in front of the table is a large trap door. The pressure trigger thing can support several hundred pounds, so a few players of average build and weight won't trip the trap. But, if a player turns to gold... How much weight will suddenly be added to the trap? Several hundred, if not a thousand or so, pounds, correct? That'd make even a real floor collapse, in some cases... And, so that its more physically possible, the door's hinge is near the entrance, so that the part that actually falls away is just a few inches from the table.


I dunno. My idea is probably too convoluted to use, or is just plain silly. But maybe it'll make you think of something else...

DiscipleofBob
2008-05-19, 02:48 PM
In the mad scientist's laboratory, one of the alchemy labs besides having a bunch of relatively useless if corrosive liquids, has six bubbling potions set aside. Identify, spellcraft, or other divination spells will reveal the potions to be a Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, etc. one of each. Whatever divination method you use will also mention that these potions seem more potent than their normal counterparts, but otherwise don't reveal the secret.

Each potion is an experiment gone horribly wrong. Not a trap, literally, just horribly placed and untested. The potion of bull's strength will give you a nice +4 to strength by all means, but it will also turn you into the statistical equivelent of a minotaur who goes on a berserk rampage and attacks the nearest living thing, usually the other PC's.

Cat's Grace turns you into a weretiger, and Bear's Endurance turns you into a werebear, but that's where the pattern ends.

Fox's Cunning suddenly gives you a huge boost of intelligence, as all sorts of knowledge starts flooding your brain, essentially leaving you comatose for the duration of the potion as your brain tries to accomodate the all the new information.

Owl's Wisdom makes your senses ridiculously acute, to the point where you lose your frame of reference with your sense of sight due to the new telescopic/microscopic vision that your body isn't used to. Your hearing is deafened by even the slightest noise. Your sense of smell makes you vomit as all the subtle odors are magnified and you can even taste them with your now magnified sense of taste. Your sense of touch is so sensitive you feel pain from even the air brushing against your skin.

Finally, Eagle's Splendor has no averse effects on the user, but every aware thing around him suddenly becomes afraid and confused by the magnified charisma, so everyone around the drinker must make a will save or attack the drinker.

Steelrose
2008-05-19, 03:37 PM
I've looked through some cursed items too. Thought of designing my own, inspired by Saw. These looks like magic items but when you put them on, they're annoyingly hard to get rid of, remove curse or wish should do the trick. Also, they start ticking, as a DM you have a silent countdown before they spring. Like the Saw they're should be some kind of clever way to get out of these although you'll have to do something brutal to do it.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-19, 10:03 PM
Snip.

His name is Vecna, the NE god of secrets. His hand and eye were lost in a battle with a traitorous lieutenant, he usually appears as a Lich with a had and an eye missing.

I saw a mini adventure on WotC's website, though, centered around the head of Vecna, where the heads (There were more than one, all fake) actually worked if they were attached to a character's neck and that character was brought back to life. They all had weird curses, though, like spinning around when you entered combat. Here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20070401a) it is, if you'd like to take a look.


Is that book for D&D, cause I'm having a hard time finding it?

Yes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Challenges)

drengnikrafe
2008-05-19, 10:41 PM
I recall a great one.... and it works really well for testing your friends in person.

You find yourself with nothing but your clothes, which consist of a tunic, a pair of pants, and a belt. You presently have no means by which to use magic, for you are in an antimagic room (if they insist they're a sorcerer... or they are) (works just as well with anti-psion). The room is 40 ft x 40 ft x 40 ft. There are small green tiles coating the entire thing, except in the center where there's white tiles. On the opposite side of the room is a large iron door. (If they examine the door) there is a large iron knocker 3 feet off the ground, attached to the door. (Go into great detail about it, so it seems important. It's not). At eye level, the word "patience" is printed in great and fantastic letters. The door has no handle, and does not push open.
Nothing else matters (improv it) until... they step on the tiles in the center.
The tiles sink down, and a click is heard, followed by "You have armed a mine. You now have 30 seconds to live."
If they step of the tile, they blow up and die (or take serious damage?). If they stay on it for 30 seconds, the mine disarms, and the door swings open.

I love this thing....

Aquillion
2008-05-19, 11:05 PM
Some quick ideas.

First, try to make your traps at least a little logical. If the PCs are exploring a tower made by a sadistically mad wizard or a tomb filled with traps, that's fine, but in most cases you should avoid things that make no sense. The Dungeonomicon (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=659653) has an excellent section on the logic behind traps that I recommend you read.

One thing to keep in mind: In general, the 'safer' a trap is for the normal inhabitants of an area, the more sensitive and easier-to-set-off they're going to be willing to make it. Conversely, in gameplay terms, the less instant 'you lose' it is to set a trap, the harder you can make it to spot and disarm -- an instant death trap that the rogue has almost no chance of finding is (usually) no fun, while one that just causes the walls to start slowly closing in is perfectly acceptable even if the original search DC was obscenely high.

Basically, I've noticed several people suggesting traps that come down to 'roll and die'. Those have their place, but for the most part, avoid them. Outside of a few gems in the Tomb of Horrors, they tend to not be as memorable as you think... it takes a very, very good concept or setting to make something memorable when the actual gameplay of it comes down to one die roll.

Good traps should create situations; they should give the players a chance to react to them, or change the environment in interesting ways.

One of the nastiest types of traps out there can be a simple alarm. All of a sudden, doors are locked, guards are descending on them, and everything becomes a lot harder. Alarms should be quite common in any area actively defended by sentient creatures.

Walls that slowly close in, ceilings that slowly descend, and rooms that slowly fill up with sand, water, or acid are old standbys for a reason, too. Sure, they can often teleport out at higher levels, but that's not so bad -- it's a win for the trap, at least, and the players will likely spend a few rounds trying to solve it without wasting the spell (of course, that involves search checks for the mechanisms, and disable device checks to disable them -- maybe brute strength against the walls, too.) There could also be a well-hidden emergency release that disables the trap -- this justifies a slow-death slightly, since it means the BBEG wouldn't have to worry so much about setting it off by accident. (It's still best used by a sadistic NPC, though.)

Traps can lock doors, collapse passageways, and otherwise seal exits to make things more interesting, especially when combined with an alarm or with one of the gradual hazards above.

Another fun thing to do is to have a trap that enables other traps, particularly ones behind the PCs. You could have them activate silently, but having a series of loud ominous 'clicks' from up and down the passageway can be even more fun.

Another option are 'environmental traps', traps that weren't actually placed there by anyone deliberately, but form out of the environment -- these are good to give the rogue something to do in places where 'real' traps wouldn't make sense. A wooden bridge that has rotted internally and has a chance of collapsing every time someone crosses its center is a trap in its own right, too, and can follow many of the same rules. Again, think about the encounter that will be created when it's 'set off' -- maybe it's a bridge over an undead-infested mire, who will attack whoever fell off the bridge when it collapses (while the players who weren't on the bridge desperately try to get their friends out of the swamp.) You could even have the undead take a turn or two to emerge -- put the players on a raised path, so it takes a climb check (or some other trick) to get back up. And midway through their efforts...

Creatures can also be traps. An undead critter, construct, or other patient opponent can wait silently underwater or in that mire until someone walks into reach, then suddenly spring to life and grapple them. That's another form of trap. The old dead body that turns out to be undead and grapples you when you try to search / loot it is another variation on this, although it's old enough that most players won't fall into it if they have any reason to believe undead are in the area (but you'd be surprised, and when it works, it's great fun. Avoid calling too much attention to the corpse -- obvious glittering gold objects on it are a dead giveaway. Just mention it in passing, noting that it's wearing some tattered clothes or whatever -- nothing obviously valuable -- and watch your players' eyes light up as they declare their intent to search it for treasure.)

You'll notice another thread in most of these traps: They tend to be things the players could've avoided by being careful enough. That's important -- there should certainly be traps that require search checks, but overall you should avoid overusing 'gotcha' things like cursed items. Part of the fun of a good trap is the fact that it's definitely the players' faults that they fell into it; it's much more memorable when you play fair and they fall for it anyway.

Farmer42
2008-05-19, 11:32 PM
I have two that I'm fond of, one of which has several variations ranging from moderate challenge to the PC's really, REALLY made me angry.

So, the nice, normal one:
The PC's fight their way into a room, approx. 70' long, 20' wide, and 40' tall. The PC's enter from a hole in the side of a statue about 12' up. The statue is crumbling from some form of damage, but half of it still stands about 30'. It's clear to the pc's that they've come in through what was once a pipe for funneling liquid, as there are seven more statues, each ten feet wide and fourty feet tall, still standing and fully functional. The liquid is a slightly green mild acid (1d3 damage per round in contact) that fills the room to ten feet.There are the remains of an entrance that took up the entire short wall five feet away and a statue five feet the other way. Ten feet beyond that is another statue, with a fourth on that wall standing five feet further away. Five feet away from that is another set of colossal doors that tak up the entire wall. The wall opposite the players mirrors theirs, however the statue there still works. Fifteen feet from each door centered in the room is a 30' tall arch 5' wide and 10' long running parallel to the doors. 10' away from the arch nearest the players is another arch, approx. 15' away from the third one near the other set of doors. At the far end of the hall is a lever that will drain the room and open the doors.

There are two solutions: either the PCs swim over to the lever, or they make the spot check to notice that the statue's remains, while still standing, wouldn't be hard to push over. Then the PCs either get a disable device or Know: Arch. Engineering to see if they can topple it into the arch, creating a domino effect and knocking the far doors open, causing the acid to drain out and allowing them to move on.

The Sadistic trap:The PCs enter an empty room of your choice and see a Minotaur waiting for them in the middle. As they rush in, they discover that there are actually walls of force permancied into a maze for them to traverse. Occasionally, deeper into the maze, add in some shadow evoked walls of force as "shortcuts." Change as you see fit for size or difficulty. I have one in a no-scrye-zone that's two levels and nearly 2 square miles for if my players ever make me really really, REALLY mad. I've never had to use it.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-20, 03:16 PM
Another fun thing to do is to have a trap that enables other traps, particularly ones behind the PCs. You could have them activate silently, but having a series of loud ominous 'clicks' from up and down the passageway can be even more fun.

There's one in the aforementioned Book of Challenges called "All of the Trreasure, None of the Traps, wherein the PC's travel through a 5x5' spiral hallway, all the while seeing the ominous signs of traps already sprung by a previous party. When they reach the center, after having passed 11 such traps, they find a charred, dead rogue hunched over a chest. When they open the chest, it sets off an automatic reset flame strike trap, and when they remove a pound of weight from the chest (which is on the pressure plate) it resets all the traps they came by already.

Like I said, the Book of Challenges has some great ones.

throtecutter
2008-05-20, 06:56 PM
I've seen a fun trap that involved a candle that is the center of an antimagic field with the only way to move on is to light it.
Nothing was as funny as 4 20th level characters realizing that they had no nonmagical way to light it...

Another good trap I remember reading about is having a riddle where each time a wrong answer is given, a monster in a forcecage gets a buff. When the right answer is given, the forcecage lifts. The monster needs to taunt the PC's as they make him more powerful.

Aquillion
2008-05-20, 08:28 PM
Also... while it depends on the group, I personally recommend strongly against "puzzle traps", situations where there's only one "right" way for the players to get through. Good traps should reward non-linear thinking and players with interesting abilities, not just "read the DM's mind and do exactly what they want or die."