Right then /tg/,
Let me hear your best traps and puzzles.
The more bizzare and unconventional the better.
a plate of spaggheti that distratcs adventures, stalling for time while they eat it.
they need will saves to realize that they aren't actually progressing.
Many tiles in a certain hallway are false. But the drop is only about 5 or 6 inches. It's only enough to sprain or maybe break an ankle.
Victims are forced to waste a healing ability of some sort, or be at a disadvantage in a fight.
It would also be cheap to install, so the dungeon would have lots of them.
A chasm with a bridge of magic.
But if the adventurer goes to walk across, they fall.
You have to jump on it so the impact will trigger the solid barrier.
It's a twist on the classic "walk, don't run" wall.
>>43612712
Anti-magic, so no flying.
First room filled with tiles that are marked- marked tiles will explode if weight is put on them.
Next room, the reverse is the case.
Final room?
Every single tile, marked or not, is booby-trapped.
>>43612712
My last tea was great.
M&M3E
An office building with explosive computers and deathtrap elevators. The elevators close and drop to the ground exploding in impact. If 3 hit the ground it destabilizes the foundation and causes a full building collapse. The staircases are fuming with sleep gas requiring fortitude checks each floor.
>>43613292
...Why did they need to get into a building like that, anyways?
Has anyone ever done a trap or puzzle that hasn't resulted in the person who fails to solve/disarm/spot it throwing a temper tantrum about how it's not fair?
Because I don't think it's ever happened.
>>43613313
Mayors daughter was being held hostage on the top floor. It was all a distraction so the big bad could actually steal a power battery from the power plant.
>>43613259
Tomb of Horrors did this first, and did it in the most subtle, yet perfectly thought-out way, and it did it right in the very first hallway.
>>43613259
Sorry, but anti-magic is bullshit. It completely takes several character types out of the game. Mage players will get pissed for not being able to do anything, and the others get shafted because they have to babysit.
It's not just an obstacle, it's a game breaker.
That goes far into That DM territory.
>>43613399
>Sorry, but anti-magic is bullshit. It completely takes several character types out of the game.
And plenty of individual magic spells completely take several character types out of the game.
>>43613399
So it's fine for the fighter to sit out anytime something happens at a distance, but the wizard actually having to rely on his teammates is that DM?
>>43613474
>Windwall
Hey Archers, go watch TV or something, we'll call you when the encounter is over.
>Flying enemies
Hey Fighter and Barbarian, go pick us up some pizza while we fight this thing.
>Anti-magic trap forces the caster to not solve things via spells.
FUCKING UNACCEPTABLE.
>>43613426
But that is something that can be countered or prepared for in context. An anti-magic field is like having an "anti-physical combat" field. A spell that shuts down a wizard or which paralyzes a fighter makes sense, and a party can cope. But this is just arbitrary. It's like saying only have the party gets to play for this session and the others are just there to watch, but can also get killed if the others can't protect them.
And doing that for a whole dungeon?
Nope.
>>43613179
While I think the trap itself is kinda meh, I like the idea of using surges/recoveries as a currency for recovering from/powering through traumatic injuries.
>>43613342
Yeah, I find traps in tabletop to be kinda lame most of the time. As a GM, I feel like it's just a dull way to make the players waste some time and resources, and it doesn't really make me feel clever or devious, just like a dick. As a player, I think the GM is a dick for taking half my HP because I rolled too low.
I think the real solution is to replace traps with encounters. Fighting's more fun than making non-stop skill checks, anyhow. You at least get to choose spells and maneuvers and describe stunts.
>>43612798
papyrus pls go
>>43613399
>>43613426
I wouldn't say it's a game breaker. Yes it does negate the spell casters but hey if you don't want them to just pull a spell out of their arse and actually use some form of real problem solving it's great. Have a chasm; instead of just casting fly and ferrying the party across they have to remember that there was a room full of wooden pews and the druid has to now cast wood shape to join them all together to make a bridge (possible as the room with the pews is outside amf). Just because you always play a spellcaster don't complain when you can't just cast to solve your problems
>>43613515
>anti-physical combat field
What is flight
>>43613509
>>43613474
An anti-magic field for the WHOLE dungeon, mind you. Having an obstacle or two that requires certain character types to shine is one thing, but this would be like having several sessions worth of only flying enemies, or windwalls as far as the eye can see.
>>43613515
>An anti-magic field is like having an "anti-physical combat" field.
Wizards actually have these. A few of them, actually.
>But this is just arbitrary
Tons of monsters have anti-magic. Tons of monsters and enemies rely entirely on magic, and a party wizard using his own anti-magic field can shut them down and make the encounter trivial.
You're objecting to a rule of the game applying to players.
>It's like saying only have the party gets to play for this session
Tons of things casters have access do this to non-magic party members.
>And doing that for a whole dungeon?
So to you, there is a limit on what things a DM is allowed to challenge a party with. Ok.
>>43613542
Bbbbuut anon; what is lasso hahahaha
>>43612712
The floor is tiled with 1/3 meter square tiles.
The ceiling begins lowering on the party.
If they're standing on two or more tiles, they get crushed.
If they're standing on one tile, the pressure from the ceiling and the player's weight is enough to depress the tile.
Just as the ceiling touches the floor, the tiles below the players who figured it out give way, and they fall into the next part of the dungeon.
>>43612712
A few old favorites:
A rope bridge with chimes and bells hanging off of it. It's an effective alarm against low-level adventurers. Just have something else ready for flying guys.
Sprinkler systems in the ceilings triggered by a magic detection system. Puts out fires. Reveals the position of invisible characters. Makes electrical spells hazardous.
Dampens spellbooks.
Gelatinous cube in a pit disguised as a pool of water.
Mummified enchanted medusa head.
It looks like a solid gold bust of whoever gazes at it. You have to pass several willchecks to keep from being fascinated/turned to stone. Used it to gaurd a pirates treasure before. It garnered some interesting reactions.
>>43613562
He said it's an anti-magic field across the whole dungeon.
I apologize for wording that wrong earlier, but it's the dungeon-wide anti-magic field that is the real issue.
>>43613516
>As a player, I think the GM is a dick for taking half my HP because I rolled too low.
And this is why everything about D&D is worse now.
Because players feel entitled to the safety of their character.
>I think the real solution is to replace traps with encounters.
More encounters always, objectively, makes game sessions worse. Unfortunately, you are the demographic that gets designed for.
I might have to steal the cube in a pit anon and see which silly player goes for a swim muhahaha!
>>43613621
Better yet, put a jewel at the bottom of the pit. Use the cubes stealth roll to hide the fact that they are rolling to spot the jewel AND the cube.
>>43613516
>As a player, I think the GM is a dick for taking half my HP because I rolled too low
If you have to roll to avoid damage from traps you are doing something wrong. Take it from a old 2e player. Pretty much every one of my fantasy-genre characters have had one or more of the following in their starting kit: collapsible 10 foot pole, several rocks each tied to a short piece of rope, filled waterskin, bundle of torches, paper with chalk or ink, 5 meters of sturdy rope and/or small bag filled with sand or dry dirt.
Players like you are literally the cancer of the gaming community and the ones dumbing down modern games. Either man up and get creative or cry about character safety to mommy like the pussy you are.
>>43613621
>>43613720
I put a secret door at the bottom of my pit. The party spotted it easily enough...
What made it even better was that I had a leering gargoyle looming over the pit, explaining the pit as an old fountain, and throwing a big, fat red herring at the party.
The party stood guard in preparation for a gargoyle attack, while the thief went down to check out the hidden door...
>>43613826
>poking all 10000 floor tiles with a pole is creative
It's a hell of a way to annoy your DM, ill give you that
A couple more favorites:
The party is in a clock tower. There is a big spiral staircase winding up. The PC's can stand at the bottom and look up. They see the top of the stairs about 100' up, and a massive, swinging pendulum. The party noped out of that. Sometimes it's good to present the party with really obvious traps in order to steer them into your more devious ones.
By the way, my pendulum had a big stack of platinum coins resting on it. The party never found them since they never even bothered to go up the stairs. However, had they attempted to take the coins, they would have found themselves magically aged by one year for every coin taken. They would have been able to reverse aging however by adding coins to the stack.
>>43613907
"As we walk down any corridors here, it can generally be assumed that I'm methodically poking every tile I'm about to walk over with a 10 foot pole before I walk over it."
"Ok, your speed is reduced because you're taking time to do something."
"That's fine."
Like 30 seconds and it's done.
If you actually need to describe yourself poking each tile individually, your DM a shit.
>>43613907
I don't think you get the point of trap design. It's all about setting up expectations, and then subverting them.
Players don't ever watch their feet? Pit trap. Players afraid of another pit trap and now poking every tile in the floor to check for pits? None of them are trapped, even the obvious ones. Instead, the ceiling is trapped to fall on them when they try to open what appears to be a pit with their 10' pole.
>>43612712
everything is mimics. that's it. that's the trap
>>43614079
Even the lich's phylactery is a mimic.
>>43614099
and the mimic is a lich
>>43613720
Ohhhh so mean and devious! This would work wonders as currently they need to find a sapphire as a spell component! Thanks for the help!
>>43612712
The princess is really a prince.
>>43612712
A regular door with a know and no hinges. Pushing makes it stop quickly, as does pulling. There is no keyhole, only a turning knob.
This got my players stuck for 15 minutes because they couldn't find something to break it down. It's just a sliding door with a turning knob, and it's heavy enough to look like an ever-locked door.
Stick some goons or a lowering ceiling with jt, guarantee your party will ragequit.
>>43612712
There is a large pile of coins in a corner of the room.
Unfortunately, the coins are actually magically stunned, flesh-eating insects. As the party picks them up, it takes a couple of rounds for the spell to wear off but by then they're in bags.
Finish this joke: Many have tried, all have failed.
"A naked blonde walks into a bar with a poodle under one arm and a two-foot salami under the other. She lays the poodle on the table. Bartender says,'I suppose you won't be needing a drink.' Naked lady says..."
>>43612712
A crisp, brand-new hundred dollar bill glued to the sidewalk. When you try to pick it up, you can't. Always good for a giggle.A day later, that bill will be part of the sealed payment package in an arms deal targeted by a sting operation. Forensics will find only your DNA on the apparently uncirculated cash
A false pressure plate on the floor connected to a very obvious swinging floor trap. Tinkering with the pressure plate activates a reverse gravity spell that sends the person flying into the ceiling's "decorative" spikes.
The 11-foot-pole trap. Party approaches a poorly trapped chest. Party busts out the trusty 11-foot-pole to disable it. PC disables trap. PC approaches chest - only to fall into the pit trap triggered by a warm body entering it's radius.
>>43614079
Do you have the source for that image?
>>43613342
We did an Indiana Jones-style game once, and the traps were a big part of the enjoyment.
The Eleven-Marbles. A room is slowly filling with water with no visible exits. In the center is a dais with twelve holes and only eleven marbles placed within each one. Watch and enjoy as the party struggles to find that last, non-existent marble.Anything round will work to fill the last hole.
>>43614038
>your speed is reduced
No kidding... what if the tiles are only a foot wide? It will take an hour just to get down a short hallway. You figure every monster in the dungeon is just going to sit in its appointed room for several days while you make your way there?
On the up side, the lich is going to be fast asleep by the time you make it that far, so you'll get a surprise round.Yes, undead don't sleep. But that's how long it's taking, it's gone completely comatose from boredom, because you are poking every tile on the way....
>>43615078
>the bard sticks his dick in itLooks like I got this old lady wet just by walking in the room!
>>43615104
>It will take an hour just to get down a short hallway.
Are you joking? Giving a tile a good prod with a stick only takes a single second. You don't need to hit every single tile, either, just a path wide enough to walk on. Hell, if the party all have decent Dex you could just walk along one row at nearly normal speed, although you'd be in a bad spot if something were to show up at just that moment.
>>43615121
The boiling frog. As the party delves deeper in search of loot, the temperature begins to increase gradually. Water will be consumed in much greater quantities, exhaustion and the heavy-plate of the fighter will weight him down ever more. Eventually, the party will have passed the point of no return if they were suicidal enough to keep delving, just like the content frog slowly being boiled alive.
>>43613250
Oobleck Bridge, nice.
>>43614748
>Oh, none for me, but my boyfriend said before it can take the sausage the bitch needs to get wet, so one water dish, please.
>>43614996
It's cobbled together from a series of images by http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=251370
>PCs notice writing on the wall
>If they try to decipher it then the words change to common, but only for their character (I handed them a note card)
>4 PCs took the bait and inspected the writing
>If one of them tries to say out loud what they read on the wall then they collapse to the ground because of a sudden surge of pain (no damage though, they were first level so I didn't want to kill them for something they couldn't easily predict)
>The notes all have hints for future parts of the dungeons (ways to take when they come to a forked path, answers to puzzles), but they some are untrue while others are actually true
>Worked better than I could have hoped, players would bicker about what to do because what they read contradicted each other, but they couldn't say it out loud.
I was really pleased with how well it worked and my players said that they really enjoyed it after the session.
My favorite so far wasn't even intended to be a trap but for some reason made everybody stop doing everything for an hour and resulted in mild harm for the party and one death.
Party decided to go explore this random dungeon they found. On about the 5th level or so they find this empty 12x12x12 room completely empty except this large red button. The button seems oddly compelling, almost like its shouting "push me!". For reference ahead of time the boss room is locked and by solving one of any NUMEROUS minor puzzles they could have opened it but they all went past them after failing simple water in one jug to balance out the weight or running past complicated looking ones. This big ass red button was THE last one i was throwing them. How to solve this most amazing of amazing puzzles? Press the button. Now naturally they were hesitant of a button that seemed to have some unnatural aspect almost compelling them. so what does the bard do? He just runs up and presses it.
"You hear a rumble from far below and an ominous feeling, almost like a pressure behind your eyes, set in. What do you do?"
"I press it again!"
"Okay......you hear a distant rumble and the odd feeling disappears."
Cue an hour of him pressing the button over and over again. Debates happened on if they should check out that rumble. Maybe leave a button pusher behind or split the party to see what happened. But NOOO thats OBVIOUSLY a great way of killing the party. This nefarious trap has held them up for around an hour and 15 mins IRL at this point. Constantly describing the same action and feeling. The party is convinced the button does something other than make the area shake and an odd feeling set in. The party is taking my huge hints to move on as me trying to kill them. Finally something just breaks and i decided the odd shaking they felt and the odd eye pressure was actually symptoms of minor nerve gas exposure. Next button push.
cont.
>>43617432
"You push the button for the 10,000 time. You hear an odd rumble from down below and the ominous feeling returns slighty stronger than before. this time however theres an odd tingle in your fingers almost like pinpricks."
You can just see the bards triumph on his face. Hes solved it! The grand mystery! This button ACTUALLY does do something! How did he celebrate this grand discovery? By pushing the button again.
"The rumble happens again but the feeling of pressure in your heads stays and your hands can't feel much more than the pins and needles now."
"I push it again!"
"The rumble sounds again. The pressure suddenly spikes and your nose starts to bleed. You've lost all feeling in your hands and its creeping up your arms."
After that the party left only taking one damage and the effects wore off but not the bard. He was convinced something was gonna happen. He just kept pressing that damned button. Bard is doing it more slowly now trying to find a way around dying before he reaches the require amount of button pushes. The party actually gets to the basement and sees the boss and the opening and closing door keeping him trapped inside.
Party tried to rancor the boss and almost got TPK'd twice before they did it the ol fashioned way. on the way back up they pass the bards corpse and a room full of poison. The big red button on the wall is cracked and broken. One sits an extra turn just to try and fucking push it.
>>43612712
A hall full of tripwires and pressure pkates that do nothing while the hall fills with an odorless gas.
>>43612712
A hall full of tripwires and pressure plates that do nothing while the hall fills with an odorless gas that will eventually knock them out.
>>43617592
>>43617581
Why did that post twice?
>>43612712
Seven slots arranged in a circle, with seven keyholes aligned within them. {A,B,C,D,E,F,G}. Through the process of completing the dungeon, the party gets seven matching keys {a,b,c,d,e,f,g}
All keys must be inserted into the keyholes to rotate the inner circle (with the keyholes) However, it will only move to the next step if there is a key matched with the correct hole. If no keys match, it will jam. You must complete an entire rotation to unlock the mechanism.
For example, at n=3
ABC
a b c
This rotation would match all 3 keys initially, so the first rotation can be made. Then it would be as follows
ABC
c a b
Notice that now none of the keys match, the mechanism jams and must be reset.
If you instead choose
ABC
a c b
A matches, so you can rotate to
ABC
b a c
C matches, so you can rotate again, and then B will match, and then you can complete the cycle.The trick is finding a solution such that only one key is ever matched, because if there is any position such that two keys match, there must be a position where no key matches. For seven keys, the solution is something like {acfdeb} I'm too tired to recall it perfectly, but there is a solution, trust me.
I recommend using playing cards to let them move them about.
>61 replies
>And 3 images
>20 unique posters
>And nobody posted this yet
>>43613560
>>43613618
Jesus Christ, I posted this a while back thinking it wouldn't start an argument. Either way, I meant that the anti-magic field held for the trap, to prevent teleporting past it or the like.
I mean. why would there even be traps if the Wizard can just say "I teleport" or "I fly"?
Use all that brainpower on solving problems rather than flicking your fingers, for God's sake, I know you have it.
Also,
>The faster or slower than a specific speed you move forwards, the longer the hall gets. A 'goldilocks' speed or just someone really fast will allow you to progress.
>>43617660
Because everyone has seen it a million times now.
>>43614843
At my local university, on the stairs near the bus station, there us a toonie (Canadian two dollar coin). Many people have tried picking it up, all have failed.
It is covered in a clear enamel, subtly blended into the ground. It is impossible to grip the coin.
>>43617706
What if i have a crowbar?
>Obvious tripwire at chest height
>Sneaky tripwire at foot level
>Crouching dumpass can't dodge as well when he steps on it and the net falls on him
>Then the flamethrowers go off
>>43612712
One of my old favorites from Grimtooth's was a fountain full of treasure shenanigans, with a big, threatening spear-wielding statue on top of it. If anyone got too close, or they triggered it remotely (fountain is larger than ten feet) it stabs downwards awkwardly, hitting anyone dumb enough to stand directly in front of itAnd completing an electrical circuit, zapping everyone in the fountain.
Favorite that I actually had to play through was a giant (eighty feet by eighty feet or thereabouts, with ten-foot squares) chessboard with a low ceiling. There was a little podium with magic chess pieces that teleported back if you took them too far away at the front end. Naturally, we each took a piece and tried to make our way across, only to discover carrying a piece and trying to move like that piece made that square disappear and hit the area with a dispel, dropping whoever was on it into a chute that went somewhere unpleasant.We later discovered that the wizard really hated chess and set the whole thing up to annoy cleverdicks that liked it. The solution was to walk briskly across without a chess piece, and either in a zigzag or a curve or something.
>>43612712
>The Chivalric Trap
It really only works once per campaign. I made it purely for the sake of aggravating my party comprised of knights, fighters, and paladins. It looks like a Frazetta girl chained to a demon's-head gargoyle on the wall. It cries out for help and anyone who doesn't have a detect spell pretty much can't tell it's not really a damsel. When touched, the girl disappears and the demon's head sprays acid in a big cone in front of it.
>>43612712
OMG YUMMY FRUIT
*nibbles fruit*
A small potted plant on a table, sitting in the center of the room.
Cult of undead has censors full of aromatic flowers smoking away. They may not breath, but it just "feels right" to do it.
The fumes are toxic to the living, while the dead don't even notice.
>>43618144
You should throw out a real damsel in the same session some time
>>43612712
the ultimate trap
(spoilers) marriage (spoilers)
>>43612712
It's like that prank where you set up a bucket of water to fall on whomever opens a door, except the bucket is a coffin and the water is a ghast
>>43612712
A string hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room
Pulling the string does nothing but there is a pitfall right past it
Big rocky head on the wall with an open mouth and two ruby eyes. Feed me is written on the wall above its head in the language of the plane of Earth.
A coin lies on its tongue, and when they reach for it, it falls in the mouth and disappears.
The eyes start to glow, revealing themselves for what they are, gorgeous rubies enchanted with some sort of magic (Destruction).
The more cash they put in, the more the eyes glow and the more wondrous the rubies look, the rate of value it appreciates by is greater than the amount they put in.
When they reach a critical point, the rubies blast them with lasers.
>>43618990
Oh, I almost forgot the most important part.
Whenever you put a coin in, it makes a pleasant "ping" sound, like a bell.
Lulls them into thinking it's some sort of whimsical gambling machine.
When instead the Wizard made it to take people's shit, then kill them.
So in a way, it is.
>>43612712
Okay, so get this.
You know that little game with three cups and the one object beneath one of the cups? Then, you shift the cups around and someone has to guess which cup contains the object?
It's like that.
Basically, you enter a room. In this room are three treasure chests, spaced evenly apart length wise across the room.
When one walks up to one of the chests, creepy arms shoot out and drag the person into itself. Then, the chests start moving. They switch places much like the aforementioned cup game.
Now, the rest of the party must try to solve this little game. If they choose the wrong chest, the trapped character is locked in there until death. To make it crazier still, one chest holds the person, another holds actual treasure. Just how good of friends are your friends?
>>43614044
Players are watching the floor and ceiling? The walls start closing in.
Players are watching the floor, ceiling, and walls? A door closes behind them, and the air starts getting sucked out of the room.
Players are watching the floor, ceiling, walls, and doors? The BBEG fucks their mothers and then doesn't call
Damn. I was sure I had a screenshot of the balsa wood boulder flies, but I can't seem to find it.
Sorry guys. I've failed you, and I've failed myself.
>>43619260
Here ya go
>>43612798
I cam in here to post Papyrus stuff. I was not disappointed.
>>43618677
I've done that. The trap in and of itself I find induces a degree offairly justifiedparanoia towards most female NPCs for a session or two afterwards.So you can then start throwing them curveballs by making a chunk of NPCs all reverse traps which will really put a bug up the party's ass upon discovery, which in a very roundabout way is my fetish.
>>43612712
I heard someone say traps!
Myself, I preferfire and crushing-based traps, I don't know about you... but flattening and burning whoever wants to get to my treasures is my favourite way to deal with that kind of situation.
Here's a trap for you.
It's simple but effective.
I call it, 'King Midas' Folly.'
There is a pedestal in the centre of a large room. On it are large, shiny gold coins. The party can make a magic check to find that it's surrounded by an anti-magic field.
You can remove the coins, and then they turn you into gold. It can be dispelled easily, but the curse comes back if you don't dispel the curse on the treasure.
>>43617432
>>43617521
Oh god yes. This is fucking great. This is the perfect mindfuck I could use on my group.
My favorite trap so far is the good old "Clearly marked tripwire, is actually not connected to a trap, but the tiles BEHIND the wire is, so when the pc's tries to jump over it they trigger the real trap"
>>43612712
A long hallway of randomly colored tiles. Each tile has a different function!
Green tiles trigger an alarm, and you have to fight a monster.
Red tiles are impassible! You cannot walk on them.
Yellow tiles are electric. They zap you if you step on them!
Blue tiles are water!
However...
If there is a blue tile next to a yellow tile, it will also electrocute you!
Orange tiles make you smell like oranges. Piranhas in blue tiles will bite you!
Pink is okay, step on it as much as you like.
Purple is slippery. If you step on it, it will slide you forward!
But! Purple is lemon scented - which piranhas do not like!
Purple and blue are okay.
>>43620973
*hands Papyrus a word jumble*
This only works the one time, but goddamn if it wasn't funny.
The player(s) are sent down a chute into a large room. The ceiling is covered in spikes, there are indentations in the floor for the spikes, an hour glass, a shut and locked door, and a lever. Pulling the lever flips the hour glass over and resets it.letting time run out opens the door, the trapmaker built the whole thing just to stall for time.
>inb4 That DM, I was the player in this scenario.
The tiles in the hallway are pressure plates. In fact, they are large stones set in the mechanism, so only the most ingenious trapsmith could disable them. They are very difficult to depress from a distance, because they are calibrated for the weight of an adult man. Of course, this means smaller races, children, or light women can walk across them without triggering the trap.
>>43613827
...you mean, mean person.I think I like your style.
>>43614745
And then you eat them afterwards, right?
A 10x10x10 featureless room that has random dust motes floating around inside. As soon as they step inside they die instantly no-save and the magic of the room disintegrates their body and equipment after 20 minutes.
>>43616685
holy crap I'm so glad someone else knows Akai's stuff. Normally it's just me spamming stuff in monster girl threads until someone asks or the thread just quietly dies
>>43614996
but yeah like he said, it's an attempt at organizing some of Akai's stuff. normally he just posts in 3x4s of assorted monsters. I've been slowly organizing his stuff for years now. I never seem to find the patience to actually finish though.
http://www.tinami.com/search/list?prof_id=29777&keyword=&search=&genrekey=&period=&offset=20
>>43621687
you can see where the patience needs to come into play
>>43613342
The tricky thing about traps is that on a meta level players have been conditioned to check for traps all the time. If you have a group of inexperienced players a trap will work once before they learn to check everywhere that might have a trap, as a DM you have to acknowledge this and forgo shitty traps, embrace the shitty traps as a focal point or condition the players to not be afraid of traps and have a traps of varying degrees in what would be 'unexpected' places after conditioning. The last part is hard and takes a lot of experience and knowledge of your players in order to pull off well and not be a dick about it.
>>43621213
That sounds pretty great.
>>43612712
You find a princess trapped inside, it turns out she is a mimic.
You find a strange tube shapped weapon with a wooden stock, like a crossbow, it turns out it is a small mimic.
You notice a hole in a cliff, with skeletons wandering around inside and gold glittering in it, it is a large mimic.
Big, secure, important looking door with a prominent key-hole.There's nothing behind the door, tampering with the lock sets off a spike trap.
Did someone say traps?
>>43621673
Well, it does the job I guess.
>>43613918
Was it capped at their original age? Cause I can picture my players figuring out the trap and using it to start an "Immortality" business.
>Come one, come all to the Clocktower of Youth
>"Husband eyeing a younger woman? Now you can BE the younger woman!"
>Heir to your empire an incompetent twit? Deage to a child and try again! Or better yet, deage yourself and take his place!
>Just one 1 platinum per year!
>>43615313
Except they would know it's getting warmer because humans aren't cold blooded.
>>43622540
I'm guessing they would assume the dungeon is designed to end before the temperature becomes deadly, and would push on longer than they should.
Any sensible person, though, would leave and come back with magic to neutralize the heat.
Ominous Sound traps intermixed with real traps when the players get too complacent.
> party sent to kill these tribal bandits raiding caravans for food
> bad for city income, can't have that shit
> party is alcoholic dragonborn wizard, bro halfling paladin, high elf wizard (me) and dwarf barbarian
> show up to camp
> kill them all except for one
> dwarf leaves one dude alive and says "don't ever let us catch you here again"
> start heading back to town
> dude is still following us, angry as all hell
> we head into this abandoned mansion to lose him
> suddenly get brilliant idea
> create demiplane door at the entrance to the mansion
> put a timed illusion spell inside to create an old victorian age ball full of dancing noble men and women
> the trap is set
> angry tribal dude opens door and walks right into demiplane where the illusion goes off
> had shadow magic so I make one of the noblewomen real
> dragonborn wizard uses suggestion to get him to dance
> he starts dancing with real noblewoman
> close demiplane
> some time later I open it back up for laughs
> he's still dancing with a look of malice on his face
> realize that this man witnessed his own tribe slaughtered and is now trapped into forever dancing with this fancy dressed noble lady
> close demiplane, never open it again
Fuck man
>>43614079
The dungeon itself is a huge mimic
A hypertesseract maze.
>>43614995
>triggered by a warm body entering it's radius
I'm reminded of Cube, and the various inventive triggers its traps had. Basic modern laser tripwires, of course, but also sound-sensitive traps and at least one that was triggered by heat or something.
And that's really just the starting point. With magic, you can have shit like traps that are only triggered by direct moonlight, or the sound of laughter, or eye contact. And that's really the only thing you need for a successful trap. A trigger mechanism that the victim doesn't expect.
Maybe a trap that's only triggered by searching for traps.
>>43622597
>I'm guessing they would assume the dungeon is designed to end before the temperature becomes deadly
Yes, a group of adventurers will assume the dungeon is only pretending it wants to kill them, there is no way it would actually kill them right?
Makes perfect sense, nobody has ever died in a dungeon before.
>>43613537
>you can't rely on your magic to solve all problems
>example is using magic to solve problem
I find players seem to enjoy figuring out weird uses for magic. It's just a shame that so many low-level spells have such grandiose flavor. Like, I can freeze any target?! So I can spill a flask on the ground and create an ice rink?
>no, you can't do that
Why not..?
>that's a different spell, you don't know that spell
>>43612712
>As the party goes deeper, the rooms become steadily colder until it is just below freezing.
>A thin rod of ice is preventing a wire from slipping loose and dropping the ceiling on the party.
>Their body heat will raise the room temperature enough to melt the rod of ice.
>For added fun, put skeletons in the room to (a) make the team exert themselves and (b) not pay attention to the room until it is too late.
>Make it easy to detect. If they just look and hard to disarm if they won't think.
>>43624188
So wait, there's a system that is super sensitive to temperature, protected by what I assume is some kind of system that makes the room completely impervious to all temperature shifts with the exception that it conveniently ignores the adventurer's heat specifically. For which it has to detect the adventurer in the first place.
Why not just trigger the trap when the mechanism detects the adventurer?
>>43624188
>obvious stone door with no knob or lock.
>A strength check can push through the door with moderate ease but the door is held closed by springs.
>on the other side is a room with a pile of skeletons of adventurers with coins from a kingdom that died two hundred years ago.
>the trap sprung long long ago
>these people didn't have a pry bar
>from inside the room, the door is impossibly hard to open without a pry bar.
>did the party bring a pry bar?
>>43612712
Shameless stolen from someone somewhere:
DM: "You enter the dungeon. Immediately you see an obvious metal pressure plate in the hall. The Kobolds left a sign pointing to it labeled 'Trap'."
Mira: "Okay, I'll bite. I step on the pressure plate."
DM: "You step on the plate and it makes a 'Ka-thunk' sound."
Mira: "Anything else happen?"
DM: "Not that you can tell."
Vincent: "I walk around the pressure plate."
DM: "Reflex saving throw please."
Vincent: "Damn it!"
Lyle: "Okay, that was pretty clever of those little buggers."
>>43613581
>you didn't figure it out
>you are dead
>>43613591
>rope bridge with bells
I like this sort of thing. Simple, understandable traps that still pose a problem (to the right group).
>>43621870
You see a large sack of gold coins and jewels. You get excited, but then a sinking feeling grows within you. The feeling turns out to be a mimic.
You fall to your knees and say a desperate prayer to your god. "Please, guide me from this place, I can bear no more mimics!" You wait for a reply. The silence begins to weigh heavily upon you. Minutes pass in the dark. The air in the room seems to run out as your breathing starts getting shaky. Tears well up in your eyes. You feel abandoned. Turns out your knees are mimics.
>>43624051
As far as I'm concerned, using magic to bypass an obstacle or challenge (rather than overcome it) should deny XP to the party.
Question is, what is "bypass" and what is "overcome"
>>43624352
Deep caves and tunnels are very well insulated and cold, mate. The ice rod is a non-magical heat detection system. It also delays the action of the trap, encouraging the party to take down their guard. Paranoia is a dish best served late, mate.
>>43624352
It's not meant to be a supernatural trap.
A favorite of mine is a crushing wall or ceiling that moves away from the party after they are trapped in the room. Why? As the wall moves, the room gets larger, and the air gets thinner, eventually leading to them collapsing.
>>43624472
If the party gets to whatever is hidden behind the challenge, then the challenge was overcome. If the party ends up continuing their adventure without using or getting whatever was hidden behind the challenge, then the challenge was bypassed.
>>43624487
There's a difference between insulated and completely impervious to extremely minute temperature changes.
>>43624498
I find it doubtful that it could work without something making sure the trigger doesn't go off. The problem is the trigger is extremely easy to activate. Even if you found a way to completely insulate the room, and also make sure nobody uses it or anything near it until the targets of the trap come in, you'd still have other problems like the fact that a strip of ice that incredibly thin would also be vulnerable to slight tremors in the ground and similar. Maybe even vulnerable to sound, so it might trigger if one of the adventurers yells before they get into the room.
>>43613342
The best way to do it might just be to tell your players to be careful and remember exactly what it is they're walking into. Several times.
This only works on a battle grid, and the players use numbered tokens, instead of minis.
The party enters a large room that appears to be 20x20.
At first it is very dark, but then there is a bright flash, temporarily blinding them.
When their eyesight comes back it looks like nothing has changed. The doors are now locked.
The room is split down the middle with a floor to ceiling mirror. So the room is actually 20x10(maybe!)
The mirror glows around it's edges, clearly enchanted. Rather than functioning like a normal mirror, it mirrors opposite them. So if they move right, their reflection moves left. The reflections are represented by identical numbered tokens.
They find they can pass through the mirror.
Closer inspection of the room, reveals there are numbered buttons scatted about.
Once they have themselves sufficiently mixed up, trying to figure out the red herring buttons, it is revealed that their reflections are in fact changelings, and the "mirror" is just a transparent energy field. At this point the duplicates stop mimicking their every movement.
Combat ensues, and no one is sure who anyone else is anymore.
Occasionally the changelings will tele-swap positions with them. But sometimes it just looks like they tele-swaped, adding to further confusion.
The obvious solution is to only attack yourself, and don't "help" any of your teammates. Along the way they might have to quiz each other to try and figure out who the real one is.
One one of the changelings is about to die, ideally whichever one has been the hardest to figure out, he can target his duplicate, teleswap with him, attempt to paralyze him, and create an illusion that shows him falling dead. Hopefully convincing everyone that he's the real one left standing.
If you are lucky enough to have one of the changelings win, then at the end of the combat give every player a note that reads "you won!" except for the one player that got left behind dead (paralyzed) his note reads (you are now a changeling!)
>>43619174
How do the players know there's treasure in one of the chests?
>>43613581
And when one player is a 100-pound elf wearing robes while another is 250-pound half-orc wearing another 50 pounds of armor?
>>43624188
>>43624440
>kobold pit trap has already sprung, a dead bear is suspended on spikes at the botom.
>the pit stretches across the whole hallway.
>it can be jumped with a moderate roll
>the last few feet before the pit are made of very thin stone that will break if one tries to push away the planet for a moment by leaping.
>breaking the stone floor dumps you into the pit with the dead bear.
>if you're lucky, you land on the bear.
>>43624542
So let it be a little colder than freezing and delay the trap longer. There's no need to be upset. It works just fine.
>>43624609
optionally, if you want to make things really odd, and your players arn't cry babies, don't even give them the chance to know if they have been replaced. Pull a battle-stat galactica, and let them think they won. But 6 encounters later, start dropping hints that one of them isn't who he thinks he is.
>>43624689
I'm not upset, I just don't see how the trap could work.
If it's a little colder then the trap will probably trigger after the party has already left the room. And you still didn't answer any of the problems I brought up, since even if it's delayed the temperature difference would still be incredibly small.
>>43613342
I feel like the important thing to do is to make sure that they don't just feel like wandering damage.
I'm fond of traps that are easy to find, but hard to disable, or that reset regularly, so they have to avoid an area or approach it creatively.
Alternatively, traps of non-damaging spells can tip the balance of combat in a way that makes the party feel threatened without feeling overwhelmed by damage, like a trap that casts both create pit and silent images of pits, and the enemies know which pits are illusions. Alternately, spells that cause temporary status effects can change the tide of a battle when used in a trap, but won't kill the party, like entangle, cause fear, or ray of enfeeblement, or firing a screaming bolt or two down the hallway at nobody.
Make it feel like something the enemy would actually want to have in his base, and not a proverbial double- edged sword. Make it something to be capitalized on, not "see this or die".
And then in rare cases, put in something truly terrible, something that can genuinely kill, but only when they know what they're getting into and are properly paranoid. Just to remind them that such traps exist.
>>43614748
>"You're right - I need at least two."
>>43614745
The party finds a massive stash of gold dubloons.
They're actually chocolate.
>>43625155
Could be really fucking valuable if chocolate doesn't exist in wherever they're adventuring. People would love it and want more of it.
>>43624746
Just fuck off with your austism, the trap works perfectly fine.
>>43621544
They are extremely delicious, if you cook the right.
>>43625342
No it doesn't. It's a fantasy trap that was made by someone who didn't think the physics through. It wouldn't work in reality.
I gave them a pair of shoes of accuracy.
But didn't tell them they only work when thrown.
>>43625396
Sounds muslim
>>43625392
It works just fine, you are just too stupid to stop complaining.
>>43625442
Please stop shitposting if you don't have anything to say.
>in this universe, the word for treasure is just a synonym for mimic
>>43625467
>MUH REALISM!
>MUH PHYSICS!
God just fuck off already.
>>43625546
I'm sorry your trap idea doesn't work, anon, maybe you could come up with something better if you spent your time trying to form rational arguments instead of just shitposting and namecalling. Then you wouldn't need to be so upset.
>>43625392
Good thing this is for a game.
>>43625191
Shit, got me there.
>party finds a bunch of what look like gold ingots
>actually wrapped chocolate bars
>everyone opens one up
>they're enchanted with a teleport spell that brings them to another dungeon, where a guy in a purple suit and top hat is waiting for them, twirling a cane
>>43625662
Which is why I first suggested there must be some kind of magic involved. But apparently nu-uh, just pure physics drive it.
>>43613509
>>Flying enemies
>Hey Fighter and Barbarian, go pick us up some pizza while we fight this thing.
wait, do people seriously not take a ranged backup weapon in case this happens?
I have three. One that I actually used was a hallway filled with a double-row of statues, and utter blackness beyond them. Each turn you spent in the room, you had to pass a Will save or look into the darkness beyond and lose healing surges. I basically forced my players into an endurance slog where they thought that they could easily die, without actually killing them. I think it turned out beautifully.
The others, that I haven't done but love the concept of: a room with three doors, and three levers. All the levers are trapped. All the doors are magically locked. There's some sort of hidden puzzle to open the doors. And a room filled with treasure. All the treasure is Mimics. The room is a Greater Mimic.
>>43625804
Shit, I'm a fucking Bard and I don't even leave home without a longsword, rapier, mace, and crossbow.
>party finds chest
>rogue searches for traps, doesn't find any
>someone pokes chest with a stick, nothing happens
>they open it
>chest filled with gold
>they start taking some, and the chest starts to rumble>a stripper pops out
Star Wars (Saga Edition) game, set in 23 ABY.
The players are New Jedi on a mission from Mace Windu (no, seriously, they found him as a one-handed ancient hermit in the Coruscanti undercity,) into an apartment suite that's been basically untouched since the Clone Wars.
The suite was Sheev's, from his Senatorial days, it was an anonymous bolt-hole which had had its rent and utilities and such paid for ad infinitium by an automated bank account whose balance was actually going up. Needless to say, it was full of deadly things, but the most deadly things had either been killed by Darth Vader when he stomped through the place a week before RotJ looking for something to help him kill Palps, or had simply died of old age.
So there they were, a small pack of nuJedi, their tech-geek tagalong learner Jedi who was previously a Shadow Academy student, and Mace motherfucking Windu. The old man was not in good shape, he'd participated in a fight against some robotic Tukata Sith Hounds and was now resting on a couch with the tagalong, as his heart was in bad shape.
Anyway, they explored to their left, and found a huge fitness room, containing a giant swimming pool with benches and walk-in showers on the far wall. Then the Hovering Robot Butlers (Buttlers, my players named them afterwards,) approached, and asked if they could take everyone's cloaks.
Now, my players weren't interested in taking a swim in Sheev's swimming pool. They were not that stupid,
Unfortunately for them, Sheev had subcontracted the deathtrap design for this room to the Joker. The fire suppression system spat out a torrential downpour of liquid soap, onto the slick tile floor of the pool-room forcing everyone who was not hovering in mid-air to make some annoying checks just to stay upright, and some hard checks to move any appreciable distance.
But it gets worse! (Cont.)
>>43625916
It gets worse: the Hover Buttlers proved that they had both extendo-arms, and the Improved Trip and Bantha Rush feats. Cue them attempting to force the players off their feet and shove them back INTO the pool!
My players managed, through some herculean efforts and good luck, to mostly stay out of the pool, though one was shoved back in. Now, as originally designed, there was some nasty darksided predator eel thing in the pool, but that was installed 40 years ago and it ded. That's okay, though, the backup trap was still in effect!
With one of the players still in the pool, and the number of Hover Buttlers beginning to drop, a torrent of liquid nitrogen began showering into the pool, causing it to fog up and threatening to freeze a hard crust over the top. The Jedi who was in the pool was fished out by another using Move Object, and then yet another grabbed the last Hover Buttler with the same thing, and flung him into the pool.
Then the Iron Knight in the flying Iron Man type chassis simply flew over the pool, and dropped a small det-charge into it, depth-charging the thing and sending a shower of droid parts and water splashing all the way up to the roof.
My players now hate butlers. And tile floors, hand soap, and swimming pools.
The best traps are those triggered by greed. A pressure plate held down by a pile of gold that, when released, opens up valves that flood the room with lava.
Or the Astral Diamond superglued to the floor with a trapped soul inside that swaps with the victim if they fail a will save.
>>43613342
The key thing about traps is they need to be a 'true' encounter. They can't just be 'oh, the player wasn't checking for traps and/or failed a skill check, take 10 damage.' They need to have some choices for the player to make. Hints that the trap was there. Consequences for ignoring it that are impacted by player input (NOT just a skill check). Meaningful rewards for success. That kind of thing.
Like any good encounter, they also benefit from surprises midway through. Take this trap from my last session; a hallway with vertical lines of spears that fire from one side to the other in a set pattern. It's easy enough to time it and step past the first row, but beyond it is a pressure plate that locks the spears in place, trapping the players, and causes the walls to slowly move forward to crush them. Now they need to find a way to break through the spears and escape the trap before the walls close completely. (Incidentally, my player resolved this encounter by spotting the pressure plate before it was triggered and dismantling the trap with a Stoneshape spell.)
Another trap in the same dungeon was a pile of gold bars with a curse on them that would turn anyone who touched them to gold. The trap was slow acting, however, and would take two hours to fully turn the character to a gold statue. Should the players succumb to greed, it would give them combat penalties and put them on a timer to finish the place so they could get the curse removed. The party thief managed to spot the trap and warn away the players, But they have plans to return for it later and try to dispel the curse.
My favorite traps to use are crushing traps, falling traps, or traps that activate guardians of some kind. Traps that put the player in a high pressure situation where they have time to attempt to get out of it, either through ingenious ideas or the abilities at their disposal. Be sure to design your traps with the player character's abilities in mind.
>>43625609
Actualy, it's my idea, not his. Keep getting mad, though. The idea works. Tremors? Thicker rod. But muh delay too long? The collapse happens behind them. Now they're trapped. If you want to find flaws you can. Don't be lazy, though, and make solutions to the flaws.
>>43613179
A variation on this is to make some drops super deep, but only wide enough that their leg would go through. Same effect but potentially more damaging. Also slows them more.
>>43625804
people seem to only have one weapon when they play fighters, unless they are veterans and then they bring the whole fucking armory "just in case"
im somewhere in between, you need a polearm, a sword, a shield, a crossbow, and a knife hidden somewhere easy to reach on the body.
>>43626418
That's because Fighters don't have the necessary stats to not suck horrifically at both melee weapons/bows and shit, or they don't have the feats/specialization to back it up, or maintaining a backup weapon at respectable levels is prohibitively expensive.
D&D is a game about specialization, step out of it and you're dogshit. It just so happens that if your specialization is magic, it encompasses a hell of a lot.
>>43626382
>The idea works.
No it doesn't. It literally does not work. If you tried to do it in real life you would fail. Even if you want to argue that it might work for some reason, you still need to go out and prove it by doing it before you get the privilege of saying that your idea works.
>Tremors? Thicker rod.
Then it won't melt anywhere near fast enough. The temperature difference created by a few guys being in a room for a few seconds would be measured in fractions of a percent of a degree.
But since you also asked me to find solutions, one I can think of in this case is if the trap was made in a room perfect for a camp site. If the party stayed in a small room for several hours it has a slim chance of working right. If they set up a campfire then it has a decent chance of working right.
>Don't be lazy, though, and make solutions to the flaws.
There are no real solutions to your starting premise except for involving magic, which you said it does not, since we agree that that would negate the entire point.
>>43613342
>>43613826
>>43613516
I'm going to bitch about this because it frustrates me to no end, even though I should probably be over it by now.
I once went into a bandit's hideout, and the party snuck in to the leader's quarters. After taking him out, we obviously tried to loot everything of value from his room before getting the fuck out of there.
There were three armed and deadly traps in his sleeping quarters alone, one of which would have destroyed the contents of the chest (and activated on contact, requiring a series of high DC rolls to even notice, let alone prevent), and he hadn't even left the room.
So then when I found what the DM suspiciously describes as an ornate chest behind nothing but a locked door, and we have already combed the rest of the room for traps, I'm obviously not retarded enough to fall for it. Yet the DM gets mad at me when I turn the chest to face towards the wall and open it (as my thieves' tools broke in a different lock so checking for traps was a waste of time) and tried to bother me about metagaming. You can't honestly expect me to think the one shiny treasure chest isn't going to be booby trapped when literally everything else of interest was so far. He then later admitted the poison would have potentially been enough to knock my character into negatives, and he just thought it would be funny to watch us waste all of the healing potions in the chest right after we got them.
This is why I have a love/hate relationship with traps. Thinking up ways to get around them can honestly be a really fun challenge. But when literally everything explodes, shoots you, or in some other way tries to kill PCs for looking at it, but there are dozens of NPCs milling about who should be interacting with these objects on a regular basis and yet never seem to set any of them off, or when they're just arbitrary resource taxes placed "for the lulz" it fucking pisses me off and ruins immersion.
>>43626645
He accused you of metagaming for resolving the trap through clever thinking? You should have been rewarded XP for that! I can't blame you for still being annoyed about it.
I mean, I can understand his frustration in one sense; it's like designing an elaborate firework and seeing it doused in water moments before it explodes. But players should always be rewarded when they resolve a dangerous situation through clever thinking, even if the DM is a little disappointed at not getting to watch the resulting fireworks.
>>43624469
>Your prayer goes unheard
>Your god was a mimic
>>43627423
Do mimics have hearing problems?
>>43626559
>look at how autistic and mad this guy is.
It works because rule of cool, mate. Would it work in real life? Prolly not. Do I care? No. It is a fun idea that isn't worth all the anger you have summoned for it.
Also, have you ever been snow caving? It's a kind of campout under eight feet of snow. It works because the snow itself insulates the camper against the deeper cold of the air outside the shelter. The shelter is just a little cave dug out of snow and it gets really toasty in there with just one body's warmth. Warm enougj that it melts the snow a few inches over night. No heater. Imagine how much heat is generated by five to eight bodies in combat. You could warm up a small room pretty effectively that way.
Now, I want you to step away from computer, take a deep breath and go spend some time with people that like you. It may remind you that the psudo-physics that powers a trap in a game of pretend is not worth all this gut-twisty rage.
>>43624469
>I like this sort of thing. Simple, understandable traps that still pose a problem (to the right group).
Yeah, I like simple, non-magical traps. Especially those that can confound casters.
A few more:
>Murky Water Vault
Protect your treasures from scry-and-fry casters by filling up your vault with murky water saturated with dense particulates. Swarms of fine creatures, such flesh-eating krill, would be ideal for this. The murky water impedes visibility, thus limiting the usefulness of the caster's divination attempts. The dense particles/life in the water should be sufficient to disrupt teleportation. If the caster wishes to invade your dungeon at all, they will also have to use up spell slots or item slots on under-water-breathing effects and swimming aids. They won't be able to bring scrolls or their spell books with them, as the water will surely ruin the pages and make the ink run.
You may consider filling an entire level of your dungeon with water and populating it with aquatic monsters.
>Sliding Wall Vault
Keep your precious treasures in the juncture of intersecting passages, and build sliding walls into the corners where passages meet. Slide walls randomly at unpredictable intervals. You can have goblins perform this task, or automate the task using pressure plates triggered by scurrying rats or by levels flipped by bits of driftwood falling down a water-fall in some other part of the dungeon. The shifting layout of your vault should help to disrupt scrying attempts.
>Pressure Gauge
If you rule that teleportation causes a displacement of air, you may use strategically placed air pressure gauges to trigger traps in order to disrupt teleporters.
You could set the pressure gauges to trigger a system of billows that blow dust through your dungeon. The dust particles impair visibility and disrupt teleportation. They may also carry poison, or some element that clings to the invader for purposes of tracking them.
A room(used as a library or otherwise storing flammable/otherwise vulnerable to pests/molds/whatever material) full of inert gas, protected by some weak wards. If the adventurers go in without appropriate protection or dispelling the wards and somehow filling the room with fresh air, they'll pass out and suffocate rather quickly.How much of a dick would I be for including this inside a lich's fortress? Obviously the PCs will get perception checks to notice that something is wrong and in any case, should notice the wards
>>43628265A lich might also consider removing all the air from their tomb and turning the place into a hermetically sealed vacuum. Not only does that help protect their lair from adventurers, but it also helps to keep their stuff preserved. Books, robes, and undead minion's won't deteriorate as quickly.
>>43628384
This also helps to neutralize pyromaniac PC's (a common concern among dungeon masters.)
>>43621974
lobster trap hahaha
>>43622684
shoulda just killed him evil bastard
>>43628049
Maybe you could just keep your entire vault pressurized so that some winding teleporting in instantly dies after they leave due to their body violently decompressing.
A locked door next to a small hole in the wall. PCs have to reach through the hole to unlock the door.
No actual trap besides overthinking it, but will still probably slow the party down more than an actual trap. Be sure to ask what hand they're using to reach through, write it down, and roll some dice where they can't see the result.
>>43628783
>vault has no air in it to preserve its contents better
>if you teleport in, you can't teleport out even if you don't need to breathe because you need air to speak the verbal component of the spell
>the door isn't even locked, but you need an enormous strength check to open it against the vacuum
>players proceeding through the dungeon normally just pull a lever to let air into the vault before entering it
>>43629698
Good thing I'm playing. A war forged. Pretty sure a quick jab with my backup halberd would open up even a tiny hole to the other side of the door, allowing air to enter the vault.
>>43629698
Well, this reaches more into the monster department, but suppose there was a species of creatures that was ridiculously tough and/or annoying, but could be put into a dormant state by depriving them of air? The monsters remain in a state of suspended animation as long as they remain in a vacuum, but giving them air to breathe wakes them up.
And of course you make the PC's aware of this before-hand. Maybe a curio shop in town keeps a sealed jar containing a specimen that breaks open some time early in the session, and that's the adventure hook?
>>43627808
>It works because rule of cool, mate. Would it work in real life? Prolly not. Do I care? No. It is a fun idea that isn't worth all the anger you have summoned for it.
ABSOLUTE SHIT DM DETECTED
If you can't be internally consistent in your bodybuilding and DMing, you are the worst type of DM. If it's "because magic" then fine, we all accepted a long time ago that magic in fantasy settings is total bullshit, and won't ruin the verisimilitude of a setting that includes it, but "rule of cool" is just code for DM fiat and handwaving. Saying "It is this because I said it is" is the fastest way to piss players off and actually makes you shitty and coming up with real solutions to problems.
>>43631253
Funny. That and a good memory has been sufficient to make most of my players incredibly happy about my setting and plot.
The world is as I will it. If you think my world should work a different way and convince me, it will work another way. Pen and Paper is communal storytelling and only needs to be as consistent as the people in it require.
>>43631331
>The world is as I will it. If you think my world should work a different way and convince me, it will work another way. Pen and Paper is communal storytelling and only needs to be as consistent as the people in it require.
I really don't need to convince you. You contradict yourself
>The world is as I will it
>Communal storytelling
>Only needs to be as consistent as the people in it require
You and I both know that if your group didn't like your DMing method you'd be masturbating in your mommas basement over TEEN17 magazines and sherbet icecream.
DMs only have as much power as their (often retarded) players let them have. I myself walked on my friend who I HATE as a DM and shortly thereafter his game fell apart. Wow, some power and control he had.
>>43630437
>Giant tardigrade enemies
>>43632111
The entire dungeon is themed around tardigrades.
There can be an intense heat trap, an extreme cold trap, a vacuum trap, a high pressure trap, a dehydration trap, a radiation trap, and a toxin trap, all survivable by the giant tardigrades.
>>43631413
Woe is me, I've been called a liar and a scoundrel on the internet.
If you have anything other than the ridiculous assumption that, upon reading a single anonymous 4chan post, you "know" my group(s) and my tastes in fap material, present it.
>>43612712
My traps are really just disguised encounters. Like, I don't have a pit trap where if you fail you take damage, or you get knocked unconscious or something. My pit traps are more like crumbling floors that a player or two might fall through and get swept away by an underground river, and the other players either trust that they'll make it back or try to go rescue them. Or maybe there's a monster down there and the players need to go down and help him, rancor-style. I try to make it so my traps aren't "you failed a check" taxes on player resources, but instead are little mini-encounters in themselves.
A trap that just deals X amount of damage is something I'm generally not interested in, no matter how clever of convoluted it is. I'd much rather take a rope bridge that the bad guys show up and start cutting while the players are crossing it, or a doorway that seals behind them while something nasty comes their way. If it's not something that I think will be exciting for the players to deal with, I usually just end up scrapping it.
Sure. Just replace the goat with something more, rewarding.
Unless your party was faced against magical kudzu or something.
>>43631253
>bodybuilding
Has Doctor Muscle come over for a visit?
>>43631413
WHAT A MONUMENTAL FAGGOT.
>>43614044
jesus christ no
this is how you set up a fucking ridiculous 'arms race' where shit escalates to a stupid degree, where the players have to run through a fucking laundry list of checks every room just so that they don't get caught out by another one of the DM's bullshit 'gotcha' traps again - and this is what will slow the campaign down to a crawl.
it's also kind of weird for every trap to suddenly adjust to how a handful of people are doing, purely to subvert their expectations
it's better to run traps on an internal logic for the dungeon itself - setting up those expectations and then subverting them within the actual location
traps are something that should augment a campaign or dungeon, not take control of it
>>43636970
This.
You have to place traps that people would actually expect to work on the average intruder, not things tailored from room to room to fuck with each individual party member in the most unstoppable way... Unless the BBEG has specifically been studying them and plays into their weaknesses/strengths in order to custom tailor traps to them. But don't have every single fucking hallway adapted to murderbone the party.
>>43636850
He's right though, the guy he's responding to sounds like a smug asshole, I doubt he has any players with that kind of attitude.
>>43637029
I agree with you on that one.
The idea of having a mechanical trap activated by an increase in ambient temperature is interesting, but the way he designed the thing that started this whole shitflinging discussion doesn't seem sound to me. This is my first time chiming in on this (not that anyone would take me for my word), but I disliked the idea more and more from the moment he started getting defensive about how it would work without magic. Just say there are magical wards meant to sense temperature or something, Christ.
My personal favorite has always been riddles or clues that mislead.
PCs for some reason take everything they find as gospel most the time, so having them realize there's a pattern hidden in the tiling on the walls which rather than leading them to a secret loot vault, leads them to a plummet trap with overhanging edges is a simple, elegant solution to problems.
>>43612712
Loot that was rigged to blow up when fired in guns, a sexbot used to drill some weird fetishist to death, petrol cans filled with diesel
>>43631413
Gotta be honest man, you seem like a giant ass. I don't even know if you're trolling..
>>43637132
I believe you, since I was the person arguing with him the most.
And yeah, I proposed that magic could make it work, but the problem there is why do you even need the damn ice if you're already detecting the target with magic?
That entire thing made me think of a trap that looks completely magical and reasonably dispellable at first glance... which is true, but the magic was actually just the pin holding the trap from springing. Dispel or antimagic it or whatever, and the physical trap drops on your head.
>>43626559
>Maximum autism
Wow, you must never be around other human beings if you think a group of people exercising in a room that is below freezing would only change the temperature by "fractions of a percentage of a degree"
That's so stupidly wrong, how can people get that stupid?
>>43624636
I don't know, I never put it into practice. Just an idea.
Does anyone have really silly and ineffectual traps for me? Or any ideas for what an immortal lich with the mindset of a little girl would make?
A door that is opened by answering a riddle. The riddle equates to "what is behind this door?" The answer is death. On the other side of the door is an empty closet with a symbol of death.
>>43614748
OH SHIIIII
>>43641052
>the party must avoid stepping on certain stones, lest they be showered in potpouri.
>One party member walked too close to the wall and got smacked in the face by a pillow. He's still rather confused about concept behind such a trap.
I really can't think of anything. Just weaponize little girl things.
>>43641052
Could always go with the classic pitfall trap into pudding or jello. Just make it like 9 1/2 feet deep with a ladder built into the side. Bonus points for possibly making the trap-y think they've fallen into a slime of some sort.
>>43641052
You need teddy bear golems.
>>43641203
>>43641296
>>43641310
These are great, kickstarted my imagination. Thank you. Being at nightshift is very dull and hampers the mind.
>>43640436
>exercising
Walking through a room for a few seconds isn't exercising, anon.
It is stupidly wrong, you can pretend anyone is when you move goalposts so hard.
>>43641557
Nigger, don't go full retard.
Just click on the chain to read the original post and stop moving your goal posts to your made-up "walking for a few seconds"
It took me your "few seconds" to re-find what you were being autistic about.
>>43624188
Fighting skeletons is physical exertion, honestly, so is lugging around 100+ pounds of gear like adventurers do.
It's easily plausible.
>>43641729
Just stop, okay? Watching you drag this on and on is getting really dull.
Just put a magic fucking trigger on it, if you love your trap so much. That's what magic is FOR.
>>43641954
That's your argument?
Calling me the other anon?
Welcome to 4chan.
I'm sorry you're so autistic you can't even make up a point when you get called out on it, we tend to like when someone puts together a coherent thought.
>>43641052
You need squeaky toy hammers. If you don't include them you are a humongous faggot.
>>43641729
You're moving the goal posts. The original trap had nothing to do with exercise, which I have no idea where you pulled, and it also had nothing to do with staying in the room for an extended time.
Stop fucking shitposting about the retarded unworkable idea already.
>>43644858
>No you're moving the goal posts
>No you are!
Why not stop being retarded and address his points?
>>43644858
I linked to the original post in the post you responded too, so you can't lie your way out of it, I'm sorry moron.
Since you lack reading comprehension, I'll help!
Maybe you're not autistic, and just incredibly stupid! I always have hope for newfags.
>it also had nothing to do with staying in the room for an extended time.
>>43624188
>Their body heat will raise the room temperature enough to melt the rod of ice
>put skeletons in the room to make the team exert themselves
>make the team exert themselves
>exert themselves
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_exercise
>not pay attention to the room until it is too late.
>until it is too late
>too late
Actually, if you read it, it has everything to do with their body heat melting it over a prolonged period!
It's okay, you don't have to be so defensive.
If you admit your fault given clear evidence, I won't have to screenshot it all and mock you until you leave out of embarrassment.
>>43613619
>More encounters always, objectively, makes game sessions worse.
>always
>objectively
It's time to stop posting., grognard.
>>43644979
>grognard
You have no idea what that word means, do you?
>>43644858
Second reply, just wanted to throw in some more fun!
>More than 70 percent of the energy that powers your muscles is lost as heat, causing your body temperature to rise during exercise. To keep your body temperature from rising too high, your heart pumps the heat in your blood from your muscles to your skin, you sweat and it evaporates to cools your body.
>You generate heat at 15 to 20 times the normal rate during exercise.
You should try something like LARPing, even huge tubs of lard like you can do it, and you'll realize just how sweaty and overheated you get!
>>43644961
He isn't making any new points.
>>43644970
It would take hours to be even remotely enough, like I've already said. There's no such prolonged time in that scenario. This just brings us back to what was already covered. Your "clever" idea doesn't work.
>>43645046
Irrelevant. A fraction of a degree in temperature change isn't going to start melting ice for a long time. A temperature difference that would melt the ice quickly enough to be workable in a trap situation would probably be closer to 50 degrees or so.
>>43645006
This guy is complaining about how "new" players dictate games now-a-days, complains that his way (which he believes is better, as an objective fact rather than opinion) is being phased out, and hates that DnD isn't Minesweeper, dick-GM edition, and that he's more "hardcore" because he played back when people put up with that shit.
A grognard.
>>43645085
>It would take hours to be remotely enough
Yeah, your "fractions of a percent of a degree" is complete fucking bullshit.
Ever been in a classroom with no ventilation and 30 people? The temperature will rise over 2 to 3 degrees in less than 30 minutes, and that's at a higher starting temperature with no physical exertion.
You're completely full of shit, and my "No new points" outright refuted what you were claiming.
>>43644012
Squeaky toy hammers will be includeddespite me being a faggot
>>43645139
>2 to 3 degrees in less than 30 minutes
This goes to my point, not yours. A classroom is an environment that's packed with a lot of people.
You on the other hand have a room large enough for a battle with what I assume is a good number of skeletons, so it can't be exactly closet sized. 4 guys whacking around with swords for 90 seconds isn't going to do shit.
The classroom analogy shows you why you're wrong: You have neither the concentration of people per air volume, and you don't have anywhere close to the same time spent in the room. As such it's pretty simple to see why the air temperature wouldn't change in a very perceptible way.
But you know what? Let's assume that it DID change by 2 or 3 degrees. That STILL wouldn't be anywhere close enough to flash-melt the ice in a way that would make the ice contraption appropriate for a trap triggering mechanism.
>>43645139
If he's never been to a gym, he probably doesn't understand what you're saying, anon.
Maybe just let him alone?
>>43645198
>You on the other hand have a room large enough for a battle with what I assume is a good number of skeletons, so it can't be exactly closet sized.
It's a dungeon?
Have you never seen the inside of an old-fashioned keep, castle, or prison? You usually have to hunch down, and they're cramped as hell!
And that's the perfect place for skeletons because then you can't avoid them by moving!
All you need is the door to close behind them. The difference is that a classroom probably has at least 10x the air volume of a dungeon room!
You also don't need all the ice to melt, or even to flash-melt it. You just need to weaken it.
>>43645252
"Dungeons" are very rarely modeled on actual medieval dungeons. This one certainly can't be, since it has some very specific features that were already discussed.
>>43645236
This exertion thing is just nitpicking anyway. Even if the temperature of the room rose by 10 degrees it would still probably take 15 minutes at the very minimum for the ice to melt and trigger the trap. The party would be long gone by then.
>>43645252
Wouldn't it take a half-hour to liquify an ice cube at body temperature?
>>43645252
>You also don't need all the ice to melt, or even to flash-melt it. You just need to weaken it.
Then we're back to putting the trap on such a precariously gentle triggering mechanism that it would probably just trigger if one of the adventurer's sneezed while they weren't even close to the room yet.
>>43645292
>"Dungeons" are very rarely modeled on actual medieval dungeons. This one certainly can't be, since it has some very specific features that were already discussed.
Yup.
>>43645292
>>43645293
Hold an ice cube and see if it takes that long to become water in your hands.
You could do some non-temperature shenanigans as well if you were to pressurize the whole room and have it equalize when the door is opened.
>>43645319
You could say that about anything, what if it was based on the size of the ice-thing reducing slightly, such as being slot into a hole and it only needs to lose a small % of it's diameter to be pulled through by a spring?
It would not go easily "with a sneeze" but would go very quickly when melting started and it's properties changed to allow it to be compressed a little.
>>43645252
Anon, if the adventures have to hunch down, so will the skeletons.
>You walk into a room, with seemingly angry skeletons staring at the floor because they don't have room for their skulls to sit upright. >This is only seen by the short cleric, because the barbarian and warrior arealso bowing their heads and staring at the ground with sore necks.
>The skeletons then proceed tocrouch down and menacingly waddle towards the warrior and barbarian, who likewise duckwalk ferociously into the fray
>The cleric dies of laughter, which was the trap all along
Alternatively, the skeletons of children/dwarfs
>>43645345
>Hold an ice cube and see if it takes that long to become water in your hands.
The temperature of the body is much higher than the air would be in such a dungeon, and even more importantly, heat gets transferred from the body to the ice much more efficiently than it would from air to the ice.
I think it's fair to say that if it would take 1 minute to melt a certain amount of ice by touching it, that it would take at least 15 minutes to melt that same amount of ice by breathing onto it.
>You could say that about anything, what if it was based on the size of the ice-thing reducing slightly, such as being slot into a hole and it only needs to lose a small % of it's diameter to be pulled through by a spring?
Well yeah. Such a trap trigger would also not work very well, for the same reasons.
>It would not go easily "with a sneeze" but would go very quickly when melting started and it's properties changed to allow it to be compressed a little.
The problem isn't in the "properties" part, the problem is in the "a little" part. This whole thing is beyond a hair trigger. A literal hair trigger would be heavy-handed compared to this.
>>43645390
I find that skeletons are a lot better at ground-fighting and not standing up-right than actual adventurers.
They spend a lot more time on the ground, after all.
Did you think they were just laying there waiting for adventurers? That's all part of their training.
>>43645449
Are skeletons usually trained?
I figured it was more like a zombie thing, a mindless sort of attack against intruders, just without the awkward shambling and the bonus of not having them decay, so you could use them like a fire and forget trap. You wouldn't spend time training skeletons only to have them sit in a room and wait for adventures, that like having a druid's bear companion sit at camp and eat honey while you go into the dungeon.
>>43626311
serious quality post amid a sea of shit
>>43645593
Thanks for adding your own.
>>43645559
You just order them to train themselves while you're away.
And the animalistic nature is what lets them be even more effective without the room to maneuver like a fighter with self-preservation would have.
>>43645184But you're just a regular level faggot, not a humongous faggot.
>>43645663
>rips out shin bones to be more combat effective
Skeletons truly are the master race.
>>43626311
A good trap is effectively the same as a puzzle.
A bad trap is "Gotcha! You didn't roll high enough and/or weren't rigorously checking the entire dungeon, take X damage!" with whatever coat of paint you wish to apply.
>>43613179
Have that trap, it isn't even enough to hurt them, but they have to reflex save to stop movement, if they fail by more than 5, they also are Sprawled.
It's annoying, but not a big deal.
Then, they encounter some extremely dangerous obstacle or monster which pursues them back through the hallway in the other direction.
>>43626383
But. That wouldn't hurt anyone at all. Maybe they'd scrape their knee on the sides of the hole but if it's only wide enough for one leg and it's super deep, the leg won't hit the ground. The dude will just have to pull his leg from the hole.
A pretty boring one I thought up just now but whatever. Stereotypical checkerboard-style tile pathway, each tile presses down and either does nothing or activates the trap. An "apparition" shows the "correct" way through except it turns out that the apparition was conjured by the bad guy and the solution shown is completely wrong.
>>43652015
You're underestimating how easily sprains and breaks can happen.
>>43613179
That's pretty neat, but you're clearly not thinking lethal enough, anon.
A room with two walls crushing in to on the party this is the final room of the dungeon so far they can exit but to continue to the actual goal they have to go down a grated vertical tunnel with built in ladder (like a sewer) they will be trapped by the crushing walls, the solution is lifting the solid metal grate witch is wider then the tunnel and will hold the walls so they can leave later
A simple shallow but wide pool of lamp oil will make the party more flammable easy low level TPK on a budget and if the next section is pitch black and they only have torchs all the more dangerous the trick with this one is to have it be a time restricted dungeon anyways or else party can just remove the oil with a bucket or have one strong party member take off his pants and carry the others across (though if thats your magical realm) then wash off his legs (it would take a lot of water to wash off everyone and if you manage to make the whole party pantsless and covered in oil that is a win)
An actual pushing puzzle where they have to adjust mirrors to shine a light onto something you can use actual mirrors and a laser pointer but the light is actually a laser and does damage if they get in the way of the beam during the puzzle
I recall a thread somewhere on 4chan that depicted a number of traps, some from the PDF that was linked earlier on. One of those that wasn't, however, was as simplistic as it was horribly gruesome: a rope hangs over a pit of spikes, or whatever horrible fate you'd want your adventurers to meet. Contained within the rope was a line of extremely sharp barbs; thus, anyone who put a significant amount of pressure on the rope, such as an adventurer leaping to grasp the rope, would end up completely shredding their hands, and probably falling to their doom as a result.
>>43652877
Aye, that'd hurt.
