Schmuck Bait

[HamsterKun]

I need help making a schmuck bait for a dungeon in my campaign. You know, the trap that’s left in plain sight, but is hard to resist. I want to have one as a setup to an ambush.

[Segev]

I think we'll need more detail about the dungeon, the ambushers, and the like to really help. Are these kobolds in a jungle? Fremen in a desert? Half-elven bandits lurking in the corners of their lair after being followed back to it by adventurers avenging a caravan they've robbed? Goblin wererats in a musty sewer?

The most generic schmuck bait is anything valuable - a chest of coins, a bejeweled chalice, a glowing sword or other weapon - sitting on a plinth in the middle of a pit, with a rickety bridge or similar leading up to it. Or just sitting amidst out-of-place straw strewn over the floor in a 20 ft. radius around it (poorly concealing a pit trap).

Making the "treasure" a mimic would let the ambushers trap any schmucks who get to the treasure in that precarious, open position.

If you're in a medieval castle-like dungeon, you can make it less obvious but still pretty suspicious by having the whole dungeon use strewn rushes as the standard flooring, but this room has, beneath the rushes, a honeycomb of pits and narrow paths. Works especially well if the dwellers have tremorsense, so they can feel where the pits are when walking. The chest or other loot is in the middle of this large room, and ambushers can traipse all over the floor because they know where to stand safely, while anybody who doesn't will fall through into the pit traps when they step on the wrong rushes.

[Telok]

A lever with a sign saying "Trap lever, do not pull".

It worked with my players.

[HamsterKun]

Making the "treasure" a mimic would let the ambushers trap any schmucks who get to the treasure in that precarious, open position.

What I thought of is where there’s a lever that says “DO NOT PULL THIS SWITCH” in Draconic. Pulling the switch drops a treasure chest, which everyone fears is a trap, but ultimately isn’t.

...Only for a gelatinous cube to ambush the group.

[Resileaf]

What I thought of is where there’s a lever that says “DO NOT PULL THIS SWITCH” in Draconic. Pulling the switch drops a treasure chest, which everyone fears is a trap, but ultimately isn’t.

...Only for a gelatinous cube to ambush the group.

Have the gelatinous cube drop in thirty seconds or a minute after the lever is first pulled. The players will probably wait a couple of rounds when the treasure drops to see if there's something up with it, while the rogue checks the chest for traps, at which point they'll probably lower their guard and start searching the chest for valuables, and then the cube lands on top of them.

[Keltest]

Just have a big red button with a skull on it in the middle of the room with nothing else. It doesn't actually do anything in this room, but it arms a whole bunch of other traps in the next room, and re-arms anything they already triggered or disabled that could plausibly be rearmed by it.

[Segev]

Just have a big red button with a skull on it in the middle of the room with nothing else. It doesn't actually do anything in this room, but it arms a whole bunch of other traps in the next room, and re-arms anything they already triggered or disabled that could plausibly be rearmed by it.

Better still, make it a big red wheel with spokes that has to be turned manually and with great effort. The mechanisms don't have a magically-refilling power source: you have to provide the elbow-grease yourself by turning the wheel to reset/arm them all. A satisfying set of clicks and clanks occur as you turn it, terminating with a definitive and resounding clunk when it is done.

[HamsterKun]

Have the gelatinous cube drop in thirty seconds or a minute after the lever is first pulled. The players will probably wait a couple of rounds when the treasure drops to see if there's something up with it, while the rogue checks the chest for traps, at which point they'll probably lower their guard and start searching the chest for valuables, and then the cube lands on top of them.

“Um...guys...?”
“Hey, watchya waiting for?”
“If that thing can squeeze through that hole in the ceiling, ...let alone that door.”
“...Uh-oh...”

[Man_Over_Game]

Two large, wooden signs next to each other on a red rug. The area is well lit by the various torches in the room.

One says: "That sign is a mimic".
The other says: "Nuh uh! He is!"

They're both signs. The rug underneath them is a mimic.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I got my party once (nearly, stupid mage hand legerdemain) with a obvious, poorly guarded vault door. Behind it, a wall with the words "I prepared explosive runes" written on it.

[King of Nowhere]

there is an obscure artifact in the shape of a crown; if you put it on someone else, you dominate person on them. if you put it on yourself, you die and the artifact is destroied.

we got that crown without an instruction manual. guess what we tried to do to figure out what it does?

[jjordan]

Sword in a stone?

[HamsterKun]

sword in a stone?

(insert relevant soul eater reference here)

[Xuc Xac]

Lou Zocchi once told me about a trap that might fit. There's a lit wall sconce with a sign next to it that says "Whoever touches the lamp dies". That's it.

Touch it? Dead.
Poke it with a stick? Dead.
Hit it with your sword? Dead.

There's no trick to it. There's nothing to figure out. It's not solvable. Just leave it alone because you die if you mess with it.

That stupid thing has a huge pile of corpses in front of it.

[Zhorn]

A room at the end of a hallway, with the entrance being the only way in or out. Inscriptions of various languages are etched into the walls all around the room, all saying the same thing.

"Overthink"

The room doesn't do anything. It's just a dead end. See how long it takes your players to give up of trying to find the room's 'trick' or secret answer.

If their in there long enough, it can be used as the site for a wandering encounter, but otherwise the room has NOTHING.

[Kaptin Keen]

Sword in a stone?

My players were once searching for a particular sword - had been asking all the sages and all the tavern keepers. So at one point, in some random cave, they turn a corner and enter a large chamber.

In this chamber, a marble pedestal sits right in the center, and suspended above it is a sword matching the description they've given - in a ray of brilliant light from on high. There might have been a chorus of angels too.

It triggered ready actions and perception checks all around the table, I'm happy to say =)

[DrKerosene]

The magic items dropped by the bad guys were cursed and did not harm undead (the dominant enemy type).

Multiple different PCs in a row on the same dungeon level promptly picked-up magic items that were just dropped when a mini-boss died. Paralysis curses, effectively.

[The Kool]

Oh I just remembered one. Has to be my friend who ran a session for his group, and they encountered a 'discount magic item merchant'. They checked out a few things, picked out what they liked... then killed the guy and stole everything. Only things is, as you probably guessed, there was a reason said items were on discount. Every single one was cursed, some dramatically. The DM expected they'd buy one or two, so he had some variety prepared, but noooooo, they had to be murderhobos. Serves them right I guess.

[Telonius]

A plain table; on the table is a clearly-labeled Deck of Many Things.

[Henro]

A cavern full of cursed rubies, who haunt anyone who remove them until they bring them back to the cavern.

[Galithar]

A plain table; on the table is a clearly-labeled Deck of Many Things.

To top it off it's a partial deck and almost all of the benign cards have been drawn!

[JNAProductions]

Lou Zocchi once told me about a trap that might fit. There's a lit wall sconce with a sign next to it that says "Whoever touches the lamp dies". That's it.

Touch it? Dead.
Poke it with a stick? Dead.
Hit it with your sword? Dead.

There's no trick to it. There's nothing to figure out. It's not solvable. Just leave it alone because you die if you mess with it.

That stupid thing has a huge pile of corpses in front of it.

Chisel it out from the wall, use telekinesis to throw it at your enemies.

[Xuc Xac]

Chisel it out from the wall, use telekinesis to throw it at your enemies.

You die! See how effective it is?

[Phhase]

I pulled off a good one on my players. There was a camp of goblins who planted cursed swords in the ground outside the camp. The swords were glowy and screamed very loudly when removed from the earth. Perfect sentries for detecting greedy adventurers.

[Kane0]

Piranha pool
Room marked ‘fungus garden’
Rust monster pen
Anything with instructions written in slaadi
Lever marked ‘gravity inverter’
Button marked ‘incinerator’ or ‘call janitor’
Magic mouth that plays simon says

[Avista]

A free resurrection scroll in a pit of death. Be creative with what's in that pit of death.

[Lord Raziere]

A weapon thats looks like a shiny legendary version of whatever is the favorite weapon of the beholder, and of course its appearance is an illusion. whoever holds it is enchanted to become increasingly paranoid that other people want it and try to kill others to prevent them from taking it.

A sign saying "THERE ARE NO MIMICS HERE" it is completely true. next to it is a treasure chest.

Label all the safe passages in the dungeon "COMPLETELY SAFE" in red letters and only put in traps for the paths that aren't labeled as such. Again, its completely truthful and actually has an internal logic to it make sure the dungeons minions don't die because they live there, but adventurers being paranoid as they are...
though if you want more plausibility to it, make sure you put it in a language that most wouldn't understand like goblin so that if you didn't know the language, the label would be useless, but give them checks to see if they translate it correctly. though if you really want to mess with heads, label them both differently and truthfully but give them checks to see if they translate them both correctly or not. with the red, it even messes up the usual logic of posting up a warning sign, because we're taught a certain logic of red meaning danger and signs as telling not to go places, so its a reversal of how we naturally think.

Make a statue that spews out an endless number of riddles for you to solve- but instead of opening a door, its at a dead end, and it doesn't do anything. its just for entertainment.

A statue that pulls out a magic item holds it out and says "here have this" while smiling. just straight up trying to give it to you. the magic item is cursed.

[Segev]

A dragon, sleeping so soundly he's drooling out of his half-open maw, has a very valuable-looking gem-encrusted golden tooth near the back of said maw.

[Lord Torath]

A dragon, sleeping so soundly he's drooling out of his half-open maw, has a very valuable-looking gem-encrusted golden tooth near the back of said maw.

Can you say "Coup-de-grace"? Gonna need some additional elements to make it true Shmuck Bait.

A bright, red, threatening button labeled "self destruct" in multiple languages.

[Segev]

Can you say "Coup-de-grace"? Gonna need some additional elements to make it true Shmuck Bait.

A bright, red, threatening button labeled "self destruct" in multiple languages.

Good luck, good sir! Coup de Grace is not a guaranteed kill.