What’s Your Favourite Trap?
Let me tell you, like any dungeon master I am a fan of traps. Overuse will make your players paranoid, but no dungeon is complete without at least a makeshift boobytrap. Here are my top five - feel free to correct me.
- Doorknob smeared with contact poison, CR5. There’s just something remarkably hilarious about opening an unassuming door and getting a handful of nitharit root. My players rightly fear doors more than any monster, but there’s another story to that.
- Razor wire across hallway, CR1. Walking along the hallway, and foop! Off with your head! What I like about this trap is that it’s decidedly lethal at level 1, where 2d6 damage can kill even an average fighter on a good roll.
- Perpendicular gravity trap, CR8. A variant on the reverse gravity trap, this has you fall along a corridor and hopefully onto that confusingly placed spiked wall.
- Portcullis trap, CR1. 3d6 damage is a lot at low levels, with the added benefit of splitting the party up in event of an ambush. Potentially very lethal for that reason.
- Mass baleful polymorph trap, CR10. Of my own devising, the entire party is struck with polymorph and turned into a creature chosen entirely at random. Save DC is as a ninth level spell; item DC is a little weak, but the hilarity of all the spellcasters turning into shocker lizards is worth the risk.
Among my least favourite traps are the CR1 scything blade (surely two orcs are more dangerous than one blade?), the green slime trap (instant-kill: not even remotely fair!), the CR3 extended bane trap (-1 to attack for four minutes) and the CR7 summon monster vi that merely creates a CR5-6 monster for one minute.
Have I missed any?
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:43 am
Bridget.
September 2nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
My personal favorite is the lowly pit trap, with a dimensional door at the bottom that opens 10 feet above the trap. They, of course, fall for a couple miles, in the span of 20feet and eventually reach terminal velocity. We’ve done the math and decided that it only deals 20d6.
It makes an appearance early on in each new campaign we start. My group, being chaotic, and some evil, come up with…ingenious ways of “freeing” someone from an infinite pit trap.
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:34 am
@Anonymous: Indeed, I rigged a similar trap in my “one wacky room after another” dungeon. You fell howevermany feet, and each time you hit the bottom you had a one in ten chance of teleporting back up.
My players handled it by flying out and handing the guy a potion of Fly as he went. Alternatively you could have a flying character catch them, throw out a net that they can land in, start filling the pit with a Decanter of Endless Water so the guy gets a water landing, polymorph him into something that can fly, shrink him so he can take the fall better, bestow him with spider climb so he can cling to the wall, or dispel the trap so that he falls now and now not 10d6 damage later.
Bonus DM points if you net the pit with razor wire so he takes damage on each pass. Bonus player points if you successfully shout loud enough to create a sonic trampoline.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:08 am
The bottomless pit/endless fall trap is a personal fave. I usually add a percentile modifier that the character hits bottom in a spike pit after so many falls. Another fave is the hidden in plain sight one. A classic. Hidden in a book or a treasure box. If the group contains a high level Healer, the trap will be a poison arrow or a Dimension Door to a hell plane for 1d20 minutes. Simple, classic, effective.
September 25th, 2007 at 2:41 am
Guards and Wards magic trap.
Fills a ridiculously large area with magical fog, magic mouths, stinking clouds, webs on staircases, and other fun stuff.
Oh, and it’s not a very high CR, so it doesn’t give anyone that much experience, either. And it lasts a few hours.
It can make a properly-designed dungeon into a hell for players. The spell is in the PHB, look it up. Level six sorcerer/wizard spell.
November 26th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Bridget Indeed
March 23rd, 2008 at 1:53 pm
My two favorites-
Again, a variation on the simple pit trap, easy to jump over. Invisible wall of force on the other side.
The other, which is a party-killer:
After fighting their way through an underground dungeon, battling nefarious monsters, the players come upon a large room with a beautiful, obviously magical, golden door. Behind the door? A magma vent.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:28 am
1. A false floor, underneath which is a pit 40′ deep with 20′ of Greek Fire and 2 nets covered in Alchemical Fire Part A & B (the oil that ignights when it comes into contact with the matching oil) the net burns quickly and deposits PC into oil pit that cant be extinguished easily. Does the PC hold his breath and hope his allies can get the fire out, or does he try to climb up the shear walls while covered in burning oil…
2. A large intricately carved statue of a Celestial hero (any cleric/paladin would recognize) with a sign that states simply “Sacrifice will be Rewarded” several Alters sit arround the room with carved openings aproximately the size of (put items you want the party to loose for the next fight here). if items are placed upon all the alters the alters become covered over with stone and magically sealed, then the statue comes to life and attacks the party (turning more demonic at the same time)