Beneficial Traps

[Randel]

Okay, after looking at the rules for magic traps (and reading the awesome article The Dungeonomicon) I got to thinking what kinds of spells would make sense to put into an automatically resetting trap.

Since a magic trap would be basically built into the building its in, it makes sense for it to be cheaper and more powerful than a standard magic item since it is designed to work in one specific spot. The larger size would allow it to gather magical energy from the environment faster and the designer could check the local environment to let it tap into whatever ley lines or weave that it gets its energy from.

These devices are intended to be made for landowners or kings who have a building to install them into.


Create Food and Water Trap
A trap built by a 5rd level caster produces enough food to feed 15 medium creatures or 5 horses every 10 minutes. Running constantly it can produce enough to feed 2,160 medium creatures a day. Choices for the food produced would often be grains or other staple foods because once produced the grain can be ground into flour, baked into bread, fermented into alcohol or fed to animals to produce meat. Some might get a large storage silo and install the trap at the top so that it runs constantly. The trap can fill the silo during the night or in off hours and then when people want to get grain they head to the silo and workers bag it up to ship.
More advanced ones might produce a watery gruel that provides food and water, people would then season it with either prestidigitation or more commonly with fruit or seasonings... like raisins or honey.
The most advanced would produce a variety of ingredients ranging from flour to eggs, cheese, and meat so that a team of cooks can work the ingredients into almost any food imaginable.
Cost to create 7,500 gp - 600 xp


Prestidigitation Trap
Used for a wide variety of purposes, most often built as a tub or basin that cleans and dries items than are put inside. Larger ones can clean people while they still wear their clothes and then clean dishes at other times.
Cost to create 250 gp - 20 xp


Cure Minor Wounds Trap
Provides healing to whoever touches it, the most often created one due to the low cost to make and the low hit dice of most commoners. If someone needs more than 1 hp of healing they just keep touching it for several rounds until healed.
Often built in the shape of statues or shrines devoted to specific saints or religions. Some dungeons or military training facilities have these to help keep their armies in shape. Some might say Cure Light Wounds is the minimum spell to put into such a trap.
Cost to create 250 gp - 20 xp


Fox's Cunning Trap
Acting like an inexpensive Headband of Intellect, if built at the 3rd spell casters level this device gives a +4 intelligence boost to whoever touches it for 3 minutes. Sometimes found in places of magical study to help students get that extra boost to get around tough concepts. Their use is the source of controversy since some argue that exposing students to the intelligence boosting magic helps speed up their studies while others argue that it could cause magical dependency and the constant rise and fall of the spell is worse for students than a constant Headband of Intellect.
Cost to create 3,000 gp - 240 xp


Hero's Feast Trap
Often built as an overly large and mostly immobile table, usually with a layer of mithril or adamantine to protect its surface, this device can create a Hero's Feast once every hour. They are invariably used by the only the highest ranking knights and royalty although great heroes and soldiers have been allowed to partake of the food created by it before going to battle.

It can be moved, but doing so requires that someone with the perquisites to craft the original item be present to re-attune it the new location. This process requires 8 hours of studying the new location and adjusting the device to suit its new environment. If the environment drastically changes around it there is a chance it might fail to work until the change is reversed or it is adjusted.
Cost to create 33,000 gp - 2,540 xp


So, any other spells that would work great for beneficial traps? Keep in mind that the cost to create is just a rule and that the market price for such a thing would likely be much more than the cost of the raw materials (since just one trap could provide so much value to the owner).

[Randel]

So, no ideas or arguments? I suppose these would fit more as scenery then something players would use. Should I have put this in Homebrew instead?

[sonofzeal]

Seems to be a nice idea, if slightly cheesy. I see people building traps of True Strike though, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to open that door.

[zaei]

For extra cheese, every time you set off the trap, you've "overcome" it, and thus gain experience. A Mass Heal trap is CR 10, so oodles of healing, and oodles of XP all around!

[skywalker]

Seems to be a nice idea, if slightly cheesy. I see people building traps of True Strike though, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to open that door.

Yes, this is generally regarded as a road one doesn't want to go down for the two reasons listed.

Some of these "traps" are also already magic items.

[Icewalker]

For extra cheese, every time you set off the trap, you've "overcome" it, and thus gain experience. A Mass Heal trap is CR 10, so oodles of healing, and oodles of XP all around!

Hooray for extremely sketchy interpretations of the rules!

Awesome.

I like the ideas. You could probably find some other fun ones as well.