Mundane Traps that aren't insanely Priced

[Yogibear41]

looking into making some mundane traps for my base of operations, but looking through the DMG even simple things costs hundreds or thousands of gold, why does digging a hole for a pit trap cost 1800 gold? Looking for options that any character with Craft: Trapmaking could choose for some basic mundane traps that aren't insanely prices.

[el minster]

looking into making some mundane traps for my base of operations, but looking through the DMG even simple things costs hundreds or thousands of gold, why does digging a hole for a pit trap cost 1800 gold? Looking for options that any character with Craft: Trapmaking could choose for some basic mundane traps that aren't insanely prices.

A pit, you can use a hid check to disguise it with leaves. Pouring poison on a door handle doesn't cost anything and can be hidden similarly. The classic "bucket" trick is free.

[Biggus]

I just noticed this myself yesterday. Some of the traps are quite elaborate and make sense to be expensive, but there's quite of few of them that I can't for the life of me see why they cost so much.

[Bohandas]

My headcanon is there's a type of Inevitable that's dedicated to price-fixing

[Asmotherion]

Well, it's different if we're speaking pavement. Some arisan work would be needed to make for example a false floor that doesn't hint there's a pit underneath. Also, baring magical means to dig (which would go under "hiring a caster" cost, an amount of workers must dig the pit, and they need to be paid. Materials to build the trapdoor too.

[SquidFighter]

I think it's to give an estimated time of crafting. So the price reflects the time and effort it takes to build it, not the inherent value of the trap itself.

Digging a 5x5x5 hole, and then finding, cutting, and sharpening the trees for the wooden spikes involves a lot of work.

[Biggus]

I think it's to give an estimated time of crafting. So the price reflects the time and effort it takes to build it, not the inherent value of the trap itself.

Digging a 5x5x5 hole, and then finding, cutting, and sharpening the trees for the wooden spikes involves a lot of work.

It does, but given that 1GP is worth at least $100 in today's money (some people say over $500), 1,800GPs seems like a lot for a simple pit trap...

[Zombimode]

It does, but given that 1GP is worth at least $100 in today's money (some people say over $500), 1,800GPs seems like a lot for a simple pit trap...

The 1800 gp Camouflaged Pit Trap is 5x5x10 ft., can only be detected by a specifically trained professional (you need to have the Trapfinding Class Feature in order to detect traps with DCs > 20, regardless of your Search modifier) at a non-trivial DC (24) and can only be safely disabled if you actually know what you're doing (Disable Device DC 20).

It is NOT a hole with some half-assed cover.

Lower the DCs and you get dramatically lower prices.

[liquidformat]

It does, but given that 1GP is worth at least $100 in today's money (some people say over $500), 1,800GPs seems like a lot for a simple pit trap...

So I did landscaping for over 10 years, two guys with shovels ($10-$15/hr) digging a 5X5X5 pit you are looking at a day to 3 days of work depending on the soil you are digging through. So you are looking at ~$160-$720 just for making the pit. I am going with two man crew because cost between one person digging alone and two people digging together is very similar but you drop the time in ~half, also you can't really fit more than two people in such a work space so your cost jumps up with 3+ people with no noticeable change in productivity compared to two.
Expanding that out to 10' deep is interesting and the time frame to dig that really depends on where you are at, I am in the mountains and we can start to hit bed rock somewhere between 5-20' here where as in many jungle areas it can still be pretty soft dirt 20'+ deep. As a general ballpark 5X5X10 pit would take 3 weeks for a 2 man crew so $480-$2,160.
The cost of making the lid can also vary wildly, making a lid in a forest/jungle/plains type area with dirt ground is relatively cheap just doing a wood thatching with a mix of dirt and local detritus is relatively quick and easy though does take some skill, you could estimate a cost of ~$500. Making other floors would be quite a bit more complex and expensive, for example making a rough stone floor that looks like the rest of the floor around it in a cave and making the mechanical assembly underneath can get very expensive very fast easily costing double the cost to dig the hole. So as a rough guesstimate I would go with the cost to make our Camouflaged Pit Trap to be $1000-$7000, so assuming 1gp=$100 we are looking at 10-70gp for a Camouflaged Pit Trap. That also seems reasonable.

Also IC for Raw info on cheaper traps have a look at Trapsmith (Dun), Combat Trapsmith (CSc), and Extraordinary Trapsmith (RoD) for cheaper traps. You could also just pay a wizard to put explosive runes all over the place inside your complex.

[TheCount]

Iirc DMG II had rules for booby traps and one of the prestige classes mentioned above did as well.

[Eladrinblade]

If they were too cheap, every dungeon would be jam packed with them. Their price incentivizes dungeon builders to use them wisely, where they'll actually matter.

[Zombimode]

Just out of curiosity: where does the estimation of 1GP = 100$ come from?

[Malphegor]

My headcanon is there's a type of Inevitable that's dedicated to price-fixing

Midasprisfix, Inevitable of Commerce and Avarice
Diminuitive Construct
This miniature outsider looks something like if someone bashed a pseudodragon into a construct at high velocity, compressed it with a hydraulic press and then fused them into a hand-sized mechanical reptilian creature. Bits of golden reptilian scales blur into white gold plating, and occasionally bursts of steam come out. Its head is flattened, and posssses an engraving of a dragon's head from above, as if minted like a coin.
Perhaps the least documented Inevitable, this Lawful entity is usually incorporeal, and wanders marketplaces and shops continually. It occasionally casts the spell Identify as a spell like ability (at will) on objects, and when it sees something that has been priced lower or higher than the supply/demand ratios that the Identify spell can divine, it manifests and does all in its power to change things, usually summoning weak Modrons to alter records (1/day) or Disintegrating it (1/1d4 rounds in a similar manner to a breath weapon, caster level equals hitdice) if it is truly worthless or the price is far higher than the item is truly worth.
In combat, Midasprisfix generally acts as if it was a dragon, but pocket sized. It is extremely against rogues and anyone who has stolen anything near it.

A midasprisfix can be appeased by offerings of pure coinage of accurate value in one's nation, improving its affinity by one step. It grows restless though if denied the time to patrol and hunt down things to price fix.
In recent years with adulteration of coinage, Midasprisfix have become more and more aggressive.

note- (I forget if inevitables were outsiders or constructs lol)

[SquidFighter]

(...) So as a rough guesstimate I would go with the cost to make our Camouflaged Pit Trap to be $1000-$7000, so assuming 1gp=$100 we are looking at 10-70gp for a Camouflaged Pit Trap. That also seems reasonable.

So I've checked, and the normal craft DC of such a simple trap is DC20, implying that a lone expert needs to craft 40g worth of pit per week in order to make any progress. Clearly the 1800g price isn't reflecting the time it takes, since that would be 45 weeks. Therefore, the price is probably as high for game design reasons, not to reflect their actual value (either in time, expertise or materials).

But then again, when did D&D ever have a realistic economy ?