I need some cool ideas for cool traps and annoyances for my players. Because I think I've overplayed the spike pit, giant boulder and tripwire tropes enough.
Mimics, anon
That chair? A mimic.
That partially emptied glass of water? Mimic.
The little girl in the corner? Two mimics and an onahole.
That delightfully refreshing bath? A mimic wrestling a gelatinous cube.
>>47677681
Illusions are a go to in a number of situations.
>>47677764
>The little girl in the corner? Two mimics and an onahole.
If the onahole isn't also a mimic, you're doing something wrong.
>That delightfully refreshing bath? A mimic wrestling a gelatinous cube.
Har.
>>47677681
Try punji spike ball. It was a improvised trap used in Vietnam, but is so native that tribals could use it or just use a trip wire spike ball. http://i.ytimg.com/vi/K4cLiV_o8Go/0.jpg
>>47677681
Element traps, pressure plates, verbal triggers, body language triggers, the word "overthinking" written on a wall in an otherwise empty room.
A long hallway with a non sensible teleporter in the middle that sends you back to the start of the blast. Hallway.
Room where kobolds have made a makeshift soccer like game, with a Rock tied to a rope hanging in the middle and tell ledges on each side. They swing this rock at each other trying to knock each other off the ledge. The PCs enter mid game.
Jusy remembered, an immobalized gelatinous cube in an archway with teleportation runes on the keystone. Anyone who steps in would be transported to the afterlife.
>>47677681
An oily, slippery floor. Don't drop your torch!
A sinister ladder. The second rung from the top is actually a switch that will drop everyone from the ladder. Alternatively, some of the rungs have poisoned nails sticking out of them.
A jammed door. There's no lock, but it is stuck firmly. There's a collapsed floor and a nice drop on the other side. Anyone trying to break it down could fall through.
Conveniently placed braziers. They are filled with poisonous plants that emit toxic fumes when lit.
A cozy carpeted room. The room has solid walls and a sturdy door with a bar. It looks like a safe place to rest, but the carpet is actually a very patient mimic that wraps up and constricts its prey.
Fishing hooks! Some dickhead dangled fishing hooks from strings right at head level. They could be poisoned, or trigger a nearby spear trap.
A tower built from petrified gelatinous cubes with a mass de-petrification trap at the top.
>>47678013
That is just pure evil
>>47677764
The floor? A mimic.
The exit? A mimic.
The tavern? A mimic
Your whole life? A mimic.
>>47678314
>Your whole life? A mimic.
How the fuck would that work?
>>47678372
Imagine Matrix. Except mimic.
Some traps I liked in my history as DM:
- A pressure plate right at the entrance of the dungeon that filled the dungeon from the bottom to the top with deadly gas (enemies inside were mostly undead so they were immune to it). The players could find some potions to allow them to breathe the gas harmlessly for a few rounds or they could find a way to stop it.
- A cage lowered on them with one (or more) rapidly expanding gelatinous cube(s) inside.
- A trap mimic. As in, with a succesful trap check you can find a mysterious device. Trying to disarm it gets you attacked.
>>47677681
Do the Right thing Anon.
Take a good, long look at Viet-cong Traps like
>>47677786 suggested. then go a step further and add in something to make the trap worse.
>fake step in a stair that leads into a short, barbed pit that catches your leg. the room is filling with water
>do you risk fucking up your leg to the point of bleed-out by trying to rip it out fast, or do you take the time to do it slow and risk drowning instead
>>47678372
its pretty easy. Ive already been living a lie my whole life.
>>47678372
Its a gigantic joke/mindfuck being played on one guy by like an entire village of Mimics, then broadcast across the lands Ala Truman show.
>>47677948
Wait, because of the runes or the cube?
There's a pretty good chance my inept party would end up the afterlife either way.
>>47678599
>>47677799
>>47678002
The problem with that kind of traps is that they can all be defeated by simply having a summoned creature or something walking ahead the party. That's why traps on their own are boring, and should only be used in conjunction with an encounter, to make it harder.
>>47678732
i'm not sure what your party is like, but generally any i've seen or been a part of don't just have summoned monsters pacing down halls to check for traps for the party. 'sides, even if your summoned monster did spring the trap, well then bam. 'yer down a monster for one trap potentially, with only so many more ahead.
>>47678314
The outhouse?
I need to know soon please.
>>47678732
Traps are fine on their own for draining party resources. If people are summoning monsters, they are using resources they need.
But do that I agree that traps are best used in conjunction with other encounters. No one ever expects the cleric to walk into a snare trap and get dangled 10 in the air during a boss battle. That will make parties shit themselves.
OP should check into Grimtooth's Grimoire.
sleeping monster trap(the whole team has to pass without the warrior clanking too much, or without the mage tripping over his fancy dress)
quicksand is always fun trap
groundhog day trap
wisdom trap(have them figure out a riddle etc)
trap that requires you to move by standing on certain obvious floorplates, then attack them with NPC's
traps that are already sprung, and requires them to use spells or abilities they posess in a creative manner to get past, unless they want to pass a difficult acrobatics check
my favorite lazy trap:
trap springs(dont care what they roll), and they're stuck. you wait for them to come up with a great idea to escape and pretend it was your plan all along.
hope it helps
>>47678786
and a rather perverted one at that, too!
>>47678372
The mimic is a magical creature, but through some minor oversight by the creator of the original mimics, a rift was opened that channeled nearly endless magical energy into it's transformation. As a result the mimic dreamed into existence a world and real living people, animals, trees, and so on. All going through generation of generation, one era after another, wars, cataclysms, and so on.
All so that one day an abandoned dungeon could be explored by your group, all so that you could find the mimic there waiting for you.
After you deliver the final blow, you are left in the 'white room' with the slowly dissipating essence of the mimic explaining that you just destroyed your entire world.
>>47678800
>No one ever expects the cleric to walk into a snare trap and get dangled 10 in the air during a boss battle. That will make parties shit themselves.
Holy shit I'm doing this
>>47678314
The other party members?
Dopplegangers equipped with Mimics.
>>47677681
Start by making the players give a shit about the environment.
>Doors open one way, and it's keyed which way they open on the map.
>If it opens towards the players, the hinges are on their side and easy to remove.
>If it opens away from the player, the door is trivial to break down.
>Both will prevent barring the door later, and the latter is loud and will summon reinforcements.
>If the door isn't busted or dehinged, you can bar the door but only from one side. If there is no built in bar, jamming a spike in the floor works in a pinch.
>Loud noises and long waits might bring reinforcements from other areas.
>Google The Alexandrian monster roster. It's slightly less arbitrary than fully random encounters and will help you figure out which direction reinforcements might be coming from.
>Now barring doors is a useful defense at the cost of slowing egress by the barred route.
>Track lighting, track torches, make light spells difficult to maintain if you reasonably can. Even if that just means some shit where status effects can end the spell, or you just limit the range.
>Include water. Douse torches.
>Include gusts of wind. Douse torches.
>Include passages that require full submersion to navigate, secret or otherwise. It's a nifty way to hide a secret passage, and everything you carry through gets doused.
>Include enemies with darkvision.
>There should be cramped as fuck spaces you have to crawl through.
>You should not be able to carry big shit through these spaces. No ten foot poles, maybe no heavy weapons, hell your full plate might not fit.
>Do not light these spaces.
>Make these spaces branch, turn, change elevation, and so forth so people are disoriented on the other side.
>Fill these spaces with chihuaha sized ants or something.
Continuing.
Go the Chechen route
>>47679219
>Places you can see but not yet go.
>Scrying pools, windows, bigass chasms.
>Let players see and anticipate things they don't have to interact with yet.
>Let them peek at a puzzle and work on it while they approach.
>Let them get into an arrows-based pissing match with someone who can't close into melee. Ideally this is a one sided fight and you take the opportunity to set a precedent that retreating is the solution to that shit. If your players didn't already know.
Anyway, it's into this environment that you drop traps and puzzles. If the only time the players give a shit about the environment is when you've telegraphed to them that there's a trap or puzzle that's not great. If the thing you hide a trap behind is a roll or a routine action you're going to get a lot of pointless rolling or ten foot pole tapping on every tile or whatever. The first and most important step in making traps and puzzles work is to reward the players for giving a shit about the environmental details they can already see.
>>47678026
>>47678013
I don't understand this one. What's wrong with a billion pounds of this?
>>47679219
>>47679309
Anyway, some general tips once you've got this down:
Puzzles should ideally be seen before they are physically encountered and be solved if they are features of the dungeon. Puzzle boxes or other portable puzzles are also nice. If you've got keycard bullshit, it's probably better to have the "keycard" activate something inconspicuous in a room players are likely to visit. Rather than having a room with an obvious gate that clearly calls for a key that could be fucking anywhere. The former feels like a reward, and the latter like a chore despite having a similar function.
Door traps are easy enough, but don't just hide them behind a check, and don't just trap doors. Do those two things and all you've done is added a roll to every time the party encounters a door. Since enemy placement and patrols and noise matter now, hopefully you've got people looking through knots and keyholes or listening at doors. Letting them hear whirring gears or running water, or see a large boulder is awesome. Piling sand against the door so they get buried when they open it towards them (and know they don't have to worry when it opens away) is cool. Showing dim light under the door to hint at torches, fire, or sunlight is cool.
Once you've got chasms, you should have some rickety as fuck bridges. This is a little like a pit trap, but the party sees it coming and there's more to do. Do they try to put fewer characters on it? Stabilize it by sacrificing rope? Does it fall while people are on it? It could split the party into three different places (chasm and either ledge) and you can show it before the party reaches it, get them thinking about it (again with the chasm). And whether the party navigates successfully or otherwise, they can take a bunch of rope, cut the bridge (same logic as the door barring) so it can be pretty rewarding too.
>>47678372
The Chameleonian is so proficient at mimicry, sometimes even it even fools itself.
>>47679268
>>47678314
>Your whole life? A mimic.
That's deep bro
>>47679219
>>47679309
>>47679676
This is all rad. I've been trying to work better description and feel into my DMing. What other things are good for the feel of a place, dungeon or no?
>>47677681
-False doors - just an annoying dead end by themselves, but could be extra trouble when combined with a chase
-pits of lava/sludge/water - similar to the spike pit - can be concealed, or just simply be there to funnel movement. Add deadly creatures swimming in the substance for more lethality.
-poison gas traps - you may want to rate them based on how far they will spread, so that opening/closing doors could contain or spread the gas farther
-shifting walls - can be actual mimic-like organisms or a clever clockwork dungeon mechanism. Like false doors they aren't necessarily lethal on their own, but shifting the dungeon layout could trap/disorient the PCs.
-"Turret" trap - some sort of device that tracks and shoots stuff at PCs entering within a certain area. Fluff accordingly - an ancient obsidian statue that shoots lasers from ruby eyes, etc. Like the gas trap, can serve to deny an area to PCs.
-Alarm trap: makes noise, attracting monsters (roll on a wandering monster table).
vault full of clockwork stuff.
thingamagigs all over, every time a pc touches one of them it starts whirling and ticking. tick. tick, tick. tick...
start one minute clock for each one. they cast diferent shit or explode if attacked. make them feel the pressure of time (or give them initiative if you are lazy) controller spells that push players and further activate other thingies flying debree everywhere the room was full of steel spheres and chained spiked balls. black puddings block the exits and they also get flinged and pushed. use colored dice to represent location of these things as you can roll them around everytime one goes off to determine new locations. you can use colored paper balls too. as to not disturb figures, they take damage too and make eachother explode. may take a minute to set up.
>>47680141
Besides chasms/rope bridges, other hazards that can serve a pit trap function include running water and portcullises. Running water has some of the same party splitting hazards and transversal gameplay as a bridges, and can also act as a barrier for your arrows pissing match or a torch douser. Can even be set at the bottom of a chasm with a bridge for maximum complicatedness.
Portcullises/gates can make for kickass fight scenes. Especially if the gears are on the other side. Say you've got some goblins. Your portcullis makes engaging with the party pretty optional. Archers can hang back from melee reliably and they can crack the gate to shit out melee guys every so often. You can give your high STR character a moment in the sun raising the portcullis, letting him roll not to see if he succeeds, but to see how many party members he can allow through. And now a diminished portion of the party has to try and open the gate by way of gears or else they have to flee in different directions.
>dungeon or no
Really depends heavily on the context and goals. It's all just coming up with interesting decisions/stakes that go beyond basic incomplete information problems and jump scares. One of these days I'll finish my homebrew full of back end shit like this.
Have them have combat, then have a trap that triggers shit falling on top of them, infecting all their wounds.
>>47677681
a tripwire that does nothing but alert someone on the other end of the dungeon. he then leaves through a secret passage and collapses all the openings.
I got you covered. I made these with 5e in mind.
Sticky Sap Tree
Something enticing can be seen/heard within a deep knothole of a tree. When someone reaches in to grab it, their hand is entangled in sticky sap. They are grappled by the tree. The tree’s bark is dripping with the same stuff; attempting to push onesself away will thus lead to more of their body becoming stuck.
Inverted Burial
A large cylindrical room with a radius of about 50 feet and a height of about 100 feet (total) has a floor of sand, gravel, and loose rocks at least 20 feet deep. A treasure chest (or some other bait) sits in the middle of the room. When opened, it triggers a glyph of warding containing reverse gravity. The party falls upwards onto the ceiling; the debris on the ground follows, entombing them.
The Kobold Merchant
The party finds a monster deep in a dungeon who offers to sell them new equipment for prices they can’t afford. (S)he offers to instead let them use it for free for the rest of the dungeon, provided they leave their own equipment as collateral. If questioned, (s)he explains that they will be able to pay his/her prices with the dungeon’s treasure. When the party tries out the equipment, they find it is fine indeed. However, once they are out of range of the monster’s preserving magic, the equipment quickly withers to dust. Ropes break. Lanterns burn out. Metal weapons rust to garbage and wooden weapons crawl with termites. And of course the merchant has fled with their equipment.
(1/?)
>>47681034
Peculiar River
A river about 12-13 feet deep and just a bit too wide for the party to jump over it (about 20 feet or so at lower levels; 30 at higher levels) stands in their path. The river is not fast-moving, and clear enough that they can see the bottom. However, right below the surface is a line of gelatinous cubes (Monster Manual p.242). Something glimmering at the river’s bottom may tempt them further. Attempts to spot the cubes while they are underwater are made with disadvantage; however, a successful Wisdom (Survival) check can tip someone off that the water is not as deep as it appears.
Thin Ice
In a frigid dungeon, the party encounters what appears to be a sliding-block puzzle where the apparent solution requires all the large, heavy pieces to be gathered in the center. Once they are, their combined weight causes the ice to crack, dropping them (and the party with them) into the pit below. For greatest effect, use as the second sliding-block puzzle in the dungeon, with the first being required to open a locked door. When they enter the room with the second “puzzle”, mention they see a door in front of them; neglect to tell them it’s open unless they ask.
Thundering Instrument
In a cave or mountain dungeon, the party discovers an instrument brimming with magic power which is perfect for the party bard. When played, however, the instrument creates an explosion of thunder damage, which in turn triggers a cave-in or avalanche.
(2/2)
Golems sculpted as knights in thick plate armor, made of a material corresponding to PC levels, guarding something (door, chest, etc.), that will wake up when something is triggered, or a puzzle is failed, and attack.
>>47679268
EVEN BOMB IS BOMB
>>47677681
One of my personal favorite is a two-room setup. The first room contains a pile of (secretly worthless) coins. Picking up a coin in the first room causes a skeleton to be summoned into the second room. Putting a coin back down does not unsummon the skeleton, but picking it back up does summon another one.
>>47677681
Today, we'll go in a new, different direction!Wire pit,giant spikeandtrip boulders!
>>47681965
...wire pit seems legit deadly.
>>47681926
>allowing players to create unlimited amount of matter in an enclosed space
What could possibly go wrong?
>>47682081
Reminds me of that room in Cube.
>>47682103
When the skeletons reach critical mass, they'd probably just start getting denser instead of more numerous. And then eventually fuse together. If the campaign has to end with having the stop the gigantic gashadokuro before it ruins all of civilization by stepping on it, then that's how it goes.
Did this on some players a while ago. After the corridor does an L turn there is a pressure plate some way down the corridor that fire a salvo of ballista bolts from behind the characters down the corridor at them. Roll to hit the guy at the back. For those bolts that miss the back guy, roll the remainder to hit the next guy in line, continuing with each victim in line until all the bolts have hit, or you run out of targets next in line. Great for using on those groups where the cowards push the thieves ahead to look for danger.
Temple of Elemental Evil (AD&D) had a nasty one, great for the greedy bugger who always grabs the treasure. It consisted of a beautiful cloak (of venom) on a statue. A player grabbed it and put it on, death by poison, no save.
Sliding ramp trap that drops them in a deep pond or well, occupied by something that can only be hurt by fire, like a Black Pudding. (try using fire magic under water!)
My favorite one was an entire, cylindrical room, about forty feet wide and a hundred feet tall, and a lever set into the far wall
Pulling the lever makes the exit ladder drop the ceiling and the floor to start spinning at high speeds
Not particularly lethal, but fun as fuck watching everyone tumble around like fucking laundry in a drier
>>47677681 In the crypt bodies with loot hiden under shroud covered with poisonous dust that rises in the whole tomb chamber
Some traps can be created by getting the player mage to cast Dispel Magic. Have a load of trolls scattered around the room that have been temporarily polymorphed into hedges. A high bridge or tower made from summoned rock, that drops the caster to their death when dispelled. A summoned stone ceiling holding back acidic slimes, frenzied insects, giant caltrops or a river.
>>47677764
And then once their guard's up, that chest is just a normal chest.the magic sword inside is a mimic
Rope snare, in plain view, totally obvious, with "Put foot here" written on the ground in the middle of the loop. The rope doesn't actually do anything, it's just there to distract players from the concealed pit trap on the other side of it.
This might sound too obvious, but I swear that I have actually seen this one work, firsthand.
>>47677681
A corridor is filled with knee-deep water. A magic trap under the water will freeze it all solid when stepped on, and then release monsters/arrows/pendulum blades.
An arena with the floor covered in sand. When the arena is entered, the entrance closes and cells open that release monsters. There are obstacles placed around the arena that the players can use to their advantage. There is also what looks like a very defensible mini-castle, but there's several traps inside that will open another cell in the middle of the mini-castle and flood it with more monsters.
Players are confronted with a trapdoor and a lever. Pulling the lever opens the way to a water-filled corridor they must go through to advance. But pulling the lever will cause a timer to start that will shut the trapdoor and bars at the other end of the flooded corridor, trapping them inside to drown. Smashing, lockpicking the trapdoor or using the key is the only safe way to get through.
A mineshaft is filled with flammable gas. It is patrolled by skeletons. The skeletons each have several vials of alchemist's fire visibly strapped to their skulls, shields, and the heads of their maces.
A stone bridge is broken. There is a permanent illusion that makes the bridge look intact.
The far end of a rope bridge runs through a series of pulleys. When someone crosses, a catch is released and the bridge falls. Then someone loots the bodies and winches the ropes taut again.
>>47677799
What do you think of traps that can be waited out as a form of avoidance? I've got a couple in mind for a dungeon where the wizard who made it would have canisters of acid gas that would get reloaded every so often, so if the party triggers them they could run out of the room and wait for them to run out, lure enemies in and let them get melted, or maybe if they break through the wall they can detach the canisters and use them later.
>>47678314
>Your whole life? A mimic.
No John you are the zombies
>>47681074
>neglect to tell them it’s open unless they ask.
Now that's just lying (by omission) to your players and makes you look like a massive asshole "Haha I lied and now you're all dead!"
What about sci-fi traps?
>>47683336
Like that laser hallway from resident evil?
>>47682711
>Wizards
>No sense of right or wrong
>>47677681
Why not make this the final boss of the dungeon?
Your party will be mostflusteredby W'Orc'lock-'chan'
>>47683727
Step up yourpungame. Also, get better taste in general.
>>47683806
> no bulge
Shit trap desu. The joy in a trap is the party sees it but falls for it anyway, like mimics. You think you'd learn to smack every chest you see, but nope, they always just loot it
My computer's an asshole with the off button in the wrong place, so this is going to be shorter than the first time I typed it.
Puzzles aren't gates. A puzzle should give the players a bonus for solving it; it doesn't have to be physical, they should come out ahead.
A puzzle should never stop the party cold.
Obstacles must be played around. If they can be solved, they're a puzzle.
An obstacle stops the party from taking the path they thought they were going to take out, or can add tension in some other way.
Traps take resources from the party. They aren't instant kill "ha ha, you were standing wrong" stuff, that's bullshit.
Douse all their torches. Split the party. These are resource denials. "Gimmicks."
>>47683090 is a puzzle if done right.
Once solved, it's a resource to be used by the party.
>>47683837
That's not a trap, that's a pun machine.
>>47678599
This. You might go to /k/ and ask them for diagrams and PDFs for traps. My dad had an old manual for improvised traps developed by the army in 'nam. Anything you see there could be made in a fantasy setting, and mixed with magic and/or fantasy elements, like venoms, alchemical fire, acids, etc.
>>47679722
>>47677681
Mimic
>>47682275
Instant death traps are bullshit.
>>47678451
I like a variant of the gas filled dungeon where players are trapped or chased into the bottom on the dungeon and have to fight thier way UP as the gas rises and becomes more potent. The longer they remain in gas filled rooms the weaker they get.
>>47677681
Scent trap that sprays pheromones on them that attracts insects. Both normal and giant.
So if they don't notice or connect that with the sudden increase in fighting giant ants, then they also can't rest as they constantly have creepy crawlies coming over them until they wash the scent off with an alcohol solution or soap.
>>47678732
They're meant to be an annoyance, something to work around or waste resources getting rid of. If you try and put them in as part of an encounter, the party will either waste time trying to trick the enemy into the trap, or get mad at you for forcing them into a trap and not giving them time to get out of it.
What you should do is put two traps together. If there's a pressure plate trap that shoots arrows at the party and they sidestep, the arrows should hit a button which causes a rock to fall. If they activate a rolling boulder trap and avoid it, the boulder will eventually hit a tripwire that cause something to explode.
Booby trapped or fake treasure. Brass coated lead coins cast in the form of the regional currency's gold coin. Plate armor made from shitty, silica contaminated iron. A sword who's handle is actually extremely thin wood surrounding outward facing spikes. Extremely dilute healing potions with red dye. Spell books for spells that don't exist. Quartz carved like a real gemstone
>>47683186
They just assume it's locked. They shouldn't assume.
its a normal bear trap. like with the jaws and shit. pic kinda related. put when its pushed down a bear comes out.
>>47677783
>If the onahole isn't also a mimic, you're doing something wrong.
Bag of Devouring
My favorite trap that I pass unto you.
Damage? Minimal.
Prep work? Nothing a few kobolds and some shovels can't do in a day.
Player humiliation level? 11/10
I present the Double Pit Trap. If you are a fiendish DM you make the reflex check to avoid the trap very hard. Players fall into the pit trap like normal. The pit is deep enough they can't simply climb their way out of the pit but they do see a ladder or a climbable surface on the opposite side of the pit. As they cross over to that part of the pit they casually step into another pit trap - the Double Pit Trap.
>>47678844
Grimtooth traps aren't so much traps as they are signs that the DM doesn't want to DM anymore.
>>47677681
A room filled with all manner of complicated interacting mechanisms. The only way through, however, is to break down the deceptively weak door.
Once, I had a little keyhole trap, where a handful of needles would shoot out and hit whoever was in front of it.
The thief got needled twice in the forehead after making bad lockpick rolls. The dwarf kicked the door in, and got needled in the forehead too (he was the same height as the kneeling thief).
There was a treasure chest in the middle of the room on a pedestal. They were now kinda shook of these needles and didnt even try to figure out where exactly they were coming from for fear of getting needled again. The chest had no lock on it. They were shook now, so they correctly guessed that as soon as they opened it, they'd get needled again.
The thief, thinking he was clever, walked behind the chest, and opened it from behind. He got needled in the ass. The needles had been shooting out of the back wall, over the chest, and through the keyhole the whole time.If they had just opened the chest from the front, the lid would have blocked the needles
On a pedestal in the middle of the room lays a magical bow made of silver
If someone tries to use the bow like a bow, the string is revealed to be razor wire, and since Silver doesn't bend like a bow would, they slice up their fingers.
And if they try to be smart and give it to a construct or something, the bow just bends because it won't bounce back like a wooden bow would
>a trap that when stepped on summons a bear 4 feet above the player
Similar question, but I don't want to start a new thread. Are there any reasonable magic powers left which haven't been used by capeshit, fantasy, or sci fi?
Not talking magic systems here, I'm just talking powers. It's all invisibility, flight, telekinesis, fireballs, frostballs, controlling weather, controlling animals, mind control, etc. Any suggestions?
>>47687427
That's stupid, your purposefully not giving them the information that their characters would have so that they do something their characters would not.
>>47688495
>their characters would have
Why would they have it? Does a locked door look different from an unlocked door?
>>47688495
Pretty sure he meant "open" as in "not locked." I assume the door would still be closed in this scenario
>>47688546
He didn't say it was unlocked he said it was open.
One trap I always wanted to use was this: In a hallway that ends with two 90 degree turns in it. Trigger closer to the end that leads further down into the crypt/dungeon. Launches a lighting bolt down the hallway, which shatters the opposite wall, letting a shitton of sand to flow in and block the way back.
Mostly set up as a giant fuck you to potential graverobbers.
I want to make a dungeon made by a really shitty dungeon lord. Like it was the first time the Dungeon Master let his apprentice design one on his own and everything is just very ineffectual.
Like a room where a bunch of bears are supposed to descend from the ceiling but instead a bunch of corpses fall down because he forgot to put in air holes
Nice and simple, make a spike pit with a thick glass wall on the opposite end, no one ever checks for tricks when they see a spike pit.
>>47677681
My favorite way to handle traps is to make it super-obvious that they're there. The crushing-walls trap has gouges and scrapes all along the floor and ceiling. The poison-dart trap shoots out of holes in the wall anybody can see and left pockmarks where they've hit the opposite wall. The floor along the edge of the pit trap is all scuffed and worn by dungeon occupants avoiding it, while the trap itself is immaculate.
That way the party actually investigates and interacts with them like they're a real part of the adventure, as opposed to "oh hey, you stepped on a pressure plate and take *roll* *roll* *roll* 23 damage as darts fly out of hidden holes in the ceiling," which is boring as fuck.
>Rogue: I open the door.
>DM: You see a chair floating in the middle of an otherwise empty room.
>Rogue: I go up and touch the chair.
>DM:You have been consumed by the Gelatinous Cube. Roll initiative.
Later
>DM: With the barbarian's attack, and with a wet, pathetic farting noise, the Cube deflates and releases the Rogue. Speaking of, how you holding up?
>Rogue: Almost dead, fuck off.
>DM: Neat.The Mimic demorphs from its chair form. Roll initiative.
>>47689336
Wouldn't thegelatinous cubehave eaten themimic?
>>47689385
TheMimicwasimmune to the acid damage because of Deliquescent Gloves, but not the paralysis, hence the modelock.
>>47689268
>My favorite way to handle traps is to make it super-obvious that they're there. The crushing-walls trap has gouges and scrapes all along the floor and ceiling. The poison-dart trap shoots out of holes in the wall anybody can see and left pockmarks where they've hit the opposite wall. The floor along the edge of the pit trap is all scuffed and worn by dungeon occupants avoiding it, while the trap itself is immaculate.
>Team enters hallway, as described
>Door locks behind them, ticking can be heard.
>A button in the middle of the hallway that, when pressed, resets the timer.
>Door at end of hallway has no apparent lock to pick, four feet thick of solid adamantine, and bladed to deter sundering.
>When timer ends,the door unlocks.
>>47677681
Good old greasy floors, cones of frost (enough to give someone frostbite if not taken care of but otherwise annoying) in alcoves, have an echo chamber somewhere that confuses the fuck out of them.
Mirrors in random places, so that if you're not paying attention your reflection could look like another person. You look up, gasp, and walk right into a nice hallway of grease.
Rock wall with sharpened edges, making it nearly impossible to scale, but there is a small channel cut through it that is clear, it'd be hard to get through without getting partially skinned though
Mirages and illusions.
Beautiful magical gems that explode when touched; sending magical shards into those in the nearby radius. Those caught in blast radius, take physical damage, and may be effected by the magical properties. Polymorph, blindness, madness, etc.
>>47689268
Yeah. I mean, think about videogames - part of the fun of having graphics and a physic engine and stuff like that, is that you can have the player look for traps and see how they interact.
One of my favorite moments in Fallout3was a grocery store that had set up traps like a rupe-goldberg machine, where a swinging trap would hit boxes, that would act like dominoes, causing a chain reaction that would end in an explosion. Or when I once shot a raider, and his corpse fell down a hole with a pressure plate at the bottom that activated a bunch of grenades, taking out a whole bottom floor for me.
>>47677681
The classic trapdoor-piledriver combo. No fuss, no muss.
I recently did a huge dungeon crawl, and the most hated "trap" was a series of scribed tiles in the one language the party didn't know. They had to be stepped on in the correct order or the entire floor would collapse, rendering the area impassable without a lot of creativity. They never did figure out the pattern.They encountered it a second time as skeletons shot arrows from afar
I've always wanted to do a dungeon full of written riddles on walls (that open doors etc.) and have one of them be extremely tiny print. It would readExplosive Runes.
>>47677681
Stun runes and 2 feet of water
A floor trap triggers in an ancient, deserted laboratory. When the PC makes the easy save and jumps out of the way, the conjured drinks / food trays that come out the wall chute just make a mess on the ground. A tiny rusty robot with a dustpan comes out of a floor-level chute on the other side of the hall.
>>47679268
i love this one, i cant help but picture a russian sergeant pointing to soldiers in the distance as they open doors, walk one floors, etc and explode.
>>47677681
Old barely functional traps
Make then shit their pant with stupid high roll requirements followed by the sound of a massive trap springing in motion, only to end up with the moving walls stalling, the shower of poison dart flying with the velocity of a dead sloth, or even the poison be long neutralized.
Insert this every so often
Also/Alternatively hide secret passages that are actually traps, have them come along many trap triggered then a dead body on the last one, they'll be extra careful despite the lack of traps from there on.
Dungeon traps got too meta at my table and we actually just have a gentleman's agreement now. The final straw was TOO simple and boring: a 15ft cube boulder above the far side of a straight passageway, with old and rusty looking braces holding it up.
It was basically pure decoration and not a trap at all - the braces WERE clearly holding it up and would continue to do so if the PCs left it alone. if they say "hey let's drop this shit to be safe" they only seal the passage (and possibly die if done too stupidly). But it also had no fucking reason to be there - nobody carves out a tall ass stone hallway to fit a giant decorative stone cube in their dungeon hideout! It was a meta trap with no gameworld justification, might as well have had "OVERTHINKING" printed on the side, if that Oglaf strip had existed at the time. It was the idea of a trap, the threat that you were missing something and/or could instantly die due to a DM's bad design, and a question of whether the DM would think it up at all if there wasn't a purpose. Queue literally 2 out-of-game hours of doing nothing.
Anyway while it might've sounded hilarious on paper, it was just extremely awful for the game. If there are traps, they're just standard Do You Have A Rogue checks for a pitfall or an arrow now and there's always a way around.
>>47678002
>torch
Literally why. Light cantrip best girl
>>47682201
>gigantic gashadokuro
>Not black hole of necromantic energy
It's like you don't even spooky.
>>47690858
Her big sister is even better, we nixed out need for torches by taking a trident, removing the tines and casting Continual Light on the metal that was left. Admittedly this was during 1st ed, so I'm not sure how well the idea would hold up nowadays. We also used the spell to make Anti-Drow projectiles.
>>47677681
...question: how much responsibility does the DM have to mention details the party would skip over otherwise?
To be specific, when does the DM have a responsibility to mention a place is full of flying bugs and overgrown foliage instead of the more descriptive mosquitoes and poison ivy?
>>47687977
Not true.
Take em and mess with them to get your desired level of pain.
Ran a game for some mates, 3 totally new to rpgs and one more veteran player, loaded the basic dungeon with kid safe grimtooths to sink in how the should show some caution in unfamiliar places.
Just replaced "lava" with "septic waste" and had it in the sewer.
Grimtooth lite has some non-lethal ones too.
>three wires with flying foxes running to island in pit of literal shit
>island has a chest full of goodies
>vet immediately says its a trap
>others hurr not gonna listen to a gurl derp
>paladin grabs first one and goes
>hidden blade severs rope halfway
>when he crawls out armour is full of shit and vomit
>tries number two
>vet repeats herself
>its a metal rod that goes just past the ledge. Rest is illusion
>drags self out goes to three
>dammit its a fcking trap
>its super stretchy and dumps him in again
As they give up and leave vet rogue rolls detect illusion
>treasure is illusion
>passes roll to see what it is
>a pile of shit in a box
By the end they had learnt that when everything looks clear, break out the 10 foot poles and send in the paladin
Also, grimtooth is in the lotsastuff doc in the pdf thread. A good read for any dming wanting to spice up their traps.
>>47687954
What about making the pit trap surrounded by carefully propped up walls of dirt that are designed to fall into their own tunnels if the party tries climbing up the walls? Which then each lead into their own pit trap? You could, in theory, get everyone stuck in their own holes. Or accidentally cave the walls in on top of themselves which could make it a lot more lethal.
Use the fact you have overused the spike pit trap to your advantage!! Party gets trapped in an illusion trap. It seems to be a hallway with copious amounts of pit traps. The players presumably can easily avoid the pit traps. The hallway simply never, ever ends. The only way out is by jumping into a pit trap.
>>47688728
>Guess the right answer for a riddle and pull corresponding lever.
>Pulling any lever, either wrong or right one, will produce the same result: giving the treasure and activatnig the trap at the same time.
>>47689484
>Your party is now consumed by an analytical research to find the way to retrieve gem grenades safely for later use
>>47677681
Have a hallway where magic shit is always dripping from the ceiling. When the magical liquid drops hit a floor or a wall, they create a temporary portal for 6-18 seconds. If a drop hits the player it teleports them. After being teleported or entering a portal they end up reappearing instantly in place of another random portal made by a magic droplet or in the place of another droplet currently falling.
The droplets should have enough internal forces that the liquid forms droplets at about the size of a human head.
>>47691177
When the PCs could conceivably tell the difference between different types of bugs and plants. Which, unless they are all the city-est of city-slickers, is pretty much always, at least for common nuisances like poison ivy.
If you are absolutely dead-set on them blundering into the room of itchy annoyance unawares, I'd make it a nature or survival or some other relevant skill check.
>>47677681
>pic related are my traps
>>47691177
GM's descriptions are the PCs' eyes. what the characters know and would notice, you tell the players.
>>47693007
Crona isgirl, it's confirmed in recent manga chapters.
>>47693242Some people might mistake her for a guy though. Reverse trap still is a trap.
What kind of traps would you put into a space station, anons?
>>47693426
Traps that might be set up in a modern setting - tripwires and shotguns, perhaps chemical reactions, etc. You can also take advantage of anything that causes a lack of gravity, or an explosion that would open a hole into empty space, wrecking the ship but definitely killing the target.
>>47677681
>>47677764
From an earlier mimic thread:
>Everything is a mimic
>Chest tries to eat me
>Tree tries to eat me
>Human tries to eat me
>Have to kill mimics for food
>Use their hides for clothes and shelter
>Taking a nap disguised as a chest
>Mimics mostly leave me alone
>Get woken up by footsteps
>Look through keyhole
>Human mimic has wandered in
>Stay quiet hoping it can't smell me inside
>It comes right up to my chest mimic shelter
>Spring out and start stabbing it with mimic fang dagger
>It jumps back and pretends to be dying after one stab
>It stops moving, playing dead to lure me in
>Hour later it still hasn't moved
>2 hours later, decide it must really be dead
>start butchering it
>Even cut open you'd never tell it was a mimic
>But I know
>Everything on this island is a mimic.
>Everything.
>>47693007
No Ruka?
I almost tpked my party with a simple 5ft gap.
>>47679057
Mimic Azathoth please go.totally having one of the planes be an "alternate reality" that's actually just this/the elemental plane of mimic.
>>47695919
This requires elaboration.
>>47695919
Love it when parties critically fail or just are stupid. Do tell.
>>47695777
>The building is a mimic.
>The rooms are mimics.
>The island is a mimic.
>>47678013
IIRC there was a thread not too long ago asking how to keep your players from just melting a glacier dungeon and frozen GCs was a suggestion.
>>47678800
It's like you can see the combined arms doctrine for dungeons like the Soviets for the battlefield.
They planned for the coordinated attack of infantry, artillery, armor, watercraft, and aircraft in operational scale.
>>47695803
I just ripped a picture of the internet. Rukako's one of my favourites by far.
>>47695954
>The planet is a Mimic
>The sun is a Mimic
>The solar system is composed of Mimics.
Mimic Lich when?
>>47697608
We're all mimics.
We're just pale imitators, pretending to live normal human lives.
>>47697685
>the lich's phylactery is actually a mimic
>>47677681
you could have a room with light spells creating blindingly white light, so much so that you only see white when closing your eyes. Then have a sound silencing spell and add earth golems/elementals with tremorsense. Add whatever else you want, protip: bear traps
>>47677681
large room with a straight path to heavy, elaborate door, multiple switches on the wall with easily detectable traps (spikes, swinging blades, runes, etc.) around them. The door is unlocked and the switches either release or restrain monsters in the next room, depending on how nice you're being to the players.
>>47690927
I accidentally did this once, my DM was pretty fun, but also a bit of a dick.
>Playing a Pale Master
>Take a feat that causes my undead to explode when they "die" dealing their Hit Die in Negative Energy
>Slowly filling a city with my undead guards due to Pale Masters controlling unlimited undead
>Have literally 50k+ skeletons milling around this giant city
>Pelor decides to purge the city with a positive energy blast
>(DM had actually forgotten my explosion feat)
>Entire city is now nuked, everyone is dead
>Tore a hole open to the negative plane
>>47679366
gelatinous cubes are bane of adventurers everywhere, also need to tell you that you're a colossal gaylord for being a tripfag
>>47679722
Have you tried the good old bear trap - Pressure plate that when stepped on drops a dire bear from the ceiling.
How about the bungie pit - the spike trap is on the ceiling, the reverse gravity rune is on the floor, the hilarity sorts itself out.
Or if you're a complete dick - Spring loaded box full of rubber bouncy balls inscribed with symbol of pain, symbol of death, symbol of confusion and symbol of spell loss.
When all else fails the trick room - table is a mimic, tablecloth is a tatterdamaleon, couch is a cushion fungus with death linen killer pillows, carpet is a trapper, chandelier is four skeletons making a perform acrobatics check, walls are covered in stun jelly, bearskin rug is a construct, curtains are sheet phantoms, door is an urban druid using wild shape, only person in the room is Sir Brian Cunsumptington the Third.
>>47695777
>the room contains some less than convincing treasure chests
>spot check
>you notice the doorway you walked through has fangs
>>47677681
mosquitoes that make them sick.
>sudden shooty-poos
>discharging both-ends
being disgustingly ill slows everybody down. it isn't poison - it is their own body's reaction to biological attack. so only construct/golem/robots are immune.
>even the undead could suffer the effects
>please tell me how your vampire character is immune to blood spurting from their butthole
>>47687775
Hammerspace dragon plus illusion.
Especially with intelligent monsters like dragons: monsters hang out around traps, and will Sid triggering them by not being in the wrong place. Have fun fighting kobolds from the bottom of a deep pit.
>>47688418
>razor wire
You mean monofilament? "Razor" wire, also known as concertina wire, doesn't look anything like a bowstring.
>>47682832
>A stone bridge is broken. There is a permanent illusion that makes the bridge look intact.
I've actually done this before. Had an underground castle made by humans rather than dwarves, but the stonework was amazing. Most of it have off dim light and had a faint aura of magic players assumed was the cause of the glow. Humans underground need light after all. Turns out, these guys couldn't carve stone very well but they could make great illusions, so they decided instead of spending years carving a slab of rock they'd just make it look like an ornately carved wall. Que a long forgotten battle and now you can't tell that the bridge in front of you was broken four centuries earlier.
>>47701774
No, what I was talking about was a mass of skeletons So dense that have collapsed into a black hole in the shape of a skeleton, this black hole has been animated by the vast amounts of necrotic energy contained within it and as such, though it emits Hawking Radiation, it does not fade away.
>>47677681
I WANT TOhugCHILCHACKAnd Marcille.And Laius.And Senshi.
I made this one before but its specifically good for cold north/fae trickery bullshit.
Imagine you're out and about and you need firewood, and you find a few logs stacked up on top of each other. Pretty good fine right? Except the logs are actually ice.
You can't feel the difference and they don't really melt or produce water unless 'burned', so the logs keep putting out your fires, but because of the magic they look and feel just like regular firewood logs you'll probably have to throw out ALL of your firewood because the ice ones got mixed up in there.
Just a way to annoy players and make their life a bit harder.
>>47677681
>Have the party fall through a chute of some kind.
>The door that delivered them here vanishes into the stonework.
>Inside the room is a single lever.
>Tell them they hear a disembodied voice counting down from ten and start to count down from ten to zero.
>If a player frantically declares they pull the lever, start at ten again. Keep restarting every pull of the lever.
>If they let it get to zero an archway will appear that will lead them to a small bit of treasure, a note from a dickish wizard/trapmaker, and a way out close to where the chute was.
>tfw it was all a clever ruse
My party was panicked the entire time.
>>47678451
>Trap that is actually a mimic.
>>47712548
Had something similar once.
>Party is in a big room
>Player goes into a secret room.
>Doors are sealed behind party in the big room
>Door is sealed behind player in secret room
>Inside the room is a hourglass timer that starts when the room is sealed
>3 levers and 1 button
>Each lever activates a different arrow trap in the main room where the party is.
>Button resets the timer
>When the timer runs out the doors open.
>Doing nothing allows everyone to go unharmed.
Also
>Party in large room
>Hole in the floor big enough for a single person to lay in.
>Doors seal behind players
>Stone ceiling begins lowering slowly
>Players fight over the single safe space in the floor
>Ceiling stops ~2 feet off of the ground and goes back up.
>MFW everyone would be okay if they all layed down
>MFW the party murders eachother for the hole.
>>47714141
Also also.
>Simple open pit trap in a hallway
>Only maybe 10ft across
>Simple jump, ample room for a running start
>9/10 times parties best jumper leaps first.
>Easily clears it
>Walks down the hallway further to find a way for the party to get across.
>Triggers a pressure plate
>Pit trap doubles in length.
