Grimtooth revisited

[Theodred theOld]

Picked a dusty old tome last night to get some ideas for an upcoming adventure. The book is called Grimtooth's Traps and I immediately noticed the lethality of said traps. I began play in the late 90's (mostly WoD some AD&D) and a few years back picked up 3.5. My question is this: were all traps guaranteed death in the early days or was Grimtooth just a particularly cruel troll. Todays traps seem fluffy by comparison.

[Silus]

I'd like to think that Grimtooth Traps were those designed to throw players for a loop instead of "You take 1d4 damage as an arrow hits you from a hidden crossbow".

Not trolly exactly but more...interesting traps.

[Broken Crown]

Weren't Grimtooth's Traps rated on a scale of 1 to 5 for relative nastiness? I recall a few that definitely weren't instant kills.

A couple of things worth noting, though:

Grimtooth's was not system-specific, so there were no game mechanics listed. A given trap could do as much or as little damage as the DM wanted it to. Some of the traps were horrifying enough that there would be no realistic chance of survival, but depending on the tone of your game, realism may not be a high priority.

Earlier (pre-3rd) editions of D&D had many more ways for characters to die instantly. Virtually every poison was save-or-die, for example. It would be totally consistent for traps to be more lethal, too. (c.f. Tomb of Horrors)

But I agree that the main attraction of Grimtooth's is not that the traps kill, it's that they do it in such imaginative ways.

[snacksmoto]

Weren't Grimtooth's Traps rated on a scale of 1 to 5 for relative nastiness? I recall a few that definitely weren't instant kills.

They were. The first one was rated at 1 to 5 skulls and the last trap, if I remember correctly, was rated 6.

But I agree that the main attraction of Grimtooth's is not that the traps kill, it's that they do it in such imaginative ways.

I remember several like:
- the pure sodium metal statue in a magically dry space behind a waterfall.
- the crawlspace conveyor belts that speed you up to break-neck speed before throwing you out against a wall of spikes.
- the pit trap funneling the character to a small tube, with a conveniently protruding hammer. Was that the one that had the tube split in the middle with a razor-sharp divider or was it the one that shunted the character onto a giant frying pan?
- the vacuum room for those who peek into rooms, who would be violently sucked into the room full of white phosphorous. The introduction of oxygen would then ignite the phosphorous.
- the flimsy door that collapses under a boot kick, only to release the guillotine.
- the door connected to crossbow, spikes and acid pit traps to kill the characters behind the one opening the door.
- the magic darkness that would pop in once items were removed from a table. One less item than the number of characters. Once they are taken the sudden darkness hides the abduction of the character who doesn't have one of the items. The third item would be decorative but fully functional daggers for the characters to stab each other in the back for further items.


Grimtooth wasn't cruel. He was... efficient. If I remember correctly, he loved the traps in which the players would trip the trap or kill themselves through their own greed and folly.

[Theodred theOld]

I've noticed the tendency toward easily avoidable but severely dangerous traps. One the stands out is a standard narrow dungeon corridor with a chest at the end. The floor is actually balanced on a pivot point and when a "delver" goes for the chest they unbalance the floor which creates a sort of steep slope with the chest at the top. Variations on killing method include having the chest tip over and be full of acid and having the pit under the floor be incredibly deep. Bonus points if the false floor falls into the pit after our greedy delver.

[tomandtish]

Ahhh Grimtooth. The designer rejected by the Tomb of Horrors as too vicious.

As stated by others, these were intended to be nasty traps that killed in creative and unusual ways. There are 5 books (1, 2, 4, 8, lite) and a dungeon out there. The dungeon makes the Tomb of Horrors look like Candyland.