Post by StoryTeller on Jan 22, 2006 7:08:20 GMT
Playing with the Golems
Il Secco (r.longobardi@telecomitalia.it)
In a 30' wide by 30' long room, entering south, a rope protrudes 20' from a hole
at ground level in the northern wall, laying in the center of the room. When the
rope is touched, the In door will close. The wall is instead an illusionary wall
running from side to side in the middle of a 30' by 60' room. By touching the
rope, the wall loses its consistency, though remaining non-transparent. On the
other side of it, some wooden golems (in a number such that the total force
ability (or half the HPs) is comparable with the party's) are waiting for
someone to pull the rope, and to engage a tug-of-war game. Around the golems,
rests of earlier losing players are laying on the ground. The characters
actually don't see what's on the other side of the wall. If the party engages
the game, the DM should roll 1d10 every round (-2 if the characters are
particularly concerned in winning the game, or +2 if they're careful): 1-5 means
the rope is pulled 10' by the characters, 6-10 means the opposite. In any case,
any of the contenders will eventually be pulled through the illusionary wall
when defeated in the game. Whenever this happens, or if the characters
spontaneously walk through the wall, the golems will attack.
Variant: If the party wins the game, the golems could be automatically smashed
to the ground.
Out
-----| |-----
| |
golems -> O| |
| |O |
|-----------| <- Illusionary wall
| | |
| | <- rope
| |
-----| |-----
In
The Futuristic Mage
Il Secco (r.longobardi@telecomitalia.it)
In a 90' wide by 150' long dark room, entering south, a collection of 15
magically charmed monsters are standing still 10' from the northern wall, in a
3x5 matrix. Two exits open on the side walls at their backs. The first row of
monsters is composed of Goblins, the second of Orcs, the third of Stirges with a
Thoul in the middle. Every monster has an bow and a sword. If your party is very
tough, you may change this composition, add normal/magical shields, different
missile weapons, explosive arrows, etc. Three pillars 20' from the southern wall
offer partial covering to the characters.
Upon entering the room, the In door will close and a Continuous Light will be
cast on the room. Another Space Invaders clone! The characters can fire at the
monsters, which will fire back to them. The monsters will walk from left to
right until the side walls are touched, then inverting direction while coming a
step toward south. The monster's speed will increase as the rounds pass,
beginning from 10' per round and adding 5' per round every step downward;
adjustments to hit rolls for the speed may be devised).
At times (20% chance every round) a monster from the first row will begin to run
towards the party, blade in hand, and to attack one of the characters. At times
(10% chance every round) an orc will come out of one of the northern exits (wich
are connected by a corridor on the north), running towards the other exit
(remember the 1000 points mother starship? The orc may be carrying a valuable
item). Exit is from the north.
-------------
o Out = = Out
| ssTss |
| ooooo |
| ggggg |
| | = : exit
| | s : Stirge
| | T : Thoul
| O O O | o : Orc
| | g : Goblin
-----| |----- O : pillar
In
How A Trap Should Really Be Put Into An Adventure
by Lloyd Majeau
Traps are supposed to be deadly and incredibly mean. Traps weren't designed to
be playthings, they were designed to kill. Just because a trap is supposed to be
deadly, does not mean that it will have unlimited resources dumped into it.
Cheap traps can be as effective as expensive traps. Here are some tips to
consider when making new traps. Following the tips are some cheap, deadly traps.
The first thing to consider when designing a trap is, "Why does it exist?" Why
would someone want to design this trap? The 'Gold Null Magic' room for example.
This is the one with the glowing 5 lb. thing, the thick stone slab, the magical
runes and the thin gold walls that the characters can beat through. Now ask
yourself one question, Why was this room created? It is entirely made of gold so
it must have cost a pretty penny, it is a one time event (considering the
characters beat their way through the wall), and you can escape so simply! If
any intelligent person spent so much money on a gold room, I think they would
have made sure it did the job in killing the fools who walked into it.
Another thing you need to think of is, "How was the trap made?" Now there are
multiple traps in there that would have taken years of work and toil to make.
Like digging a 1/2 mile through earth (Chutes and Wedgies), or keeping any
number of creatures alive while they are involved in the trap (any number of the
traps had something with a monster chained to the wall. Doesn't it need to
eat?). Even that one trap with the rings of spell turning on the walls (don't
those rings have charges?). Most of these things would have had to have been
built by gods in order to work, and if they were made by gods, then why are they
so easy to escape? When designing a trap, one must think like the person that
would be building the trap. First, the person would probably try to make the
trap fatal or inescapable. Why would someone want to build a trap that can even
POSSIBLY be escaped from the inside? It is pointless (now at this point, you're
probably saying so that it will save the PC's lives. But now think to yourself
on the intelligence of PCs: they usually head right into danger without a
thought. Well, if they do that, then kill or imprison them). So, I worked up the
following list of things that the trap builder would have to consider...
Is it easily escapable? If it is, what's the point?
Is it fatal? If it isn't, what's the point?
Is it publicly accessible? If it is open to the public, any local Joe can
trigger it, maybe even a loved one of the uilder. Traps only belong in an
area where it is culturally taboo, publicly known (and therefore a trap to
outsiders), or strictly private (in one's private study would be nice
because he would know about it, but no one else and no one else is allowed
in there).
Are the materials required cheap or expensive? Available or not? Again, the
gold room. How much did that thing cost? And availability, how much water is
there in a desert? Very little, and what is, is greatly valued, so having
some water weird trap in the only water hole for miles is stupid.
Is it easily visible? An open pit. Hmm, I'll walk onto it (although
visibility is perfect for reverse psychology, and even reverse-reverse
psychology).
Is it believable? Try to follow the laws of physics, or at least the most
basic principles since magic warps the laws of physics. Shooting an arrow
into a teleporter that teleports the arrow behind the archer won't work
because the arrow will still fall while it is in motion.
If an animal is involved, is it maintained? The many 'chained to the wall'
monsters for example. Who feeds the beast? Why is it still alive if no one
is in the dungeon to feed it?
The point? Think something through before using it. Now, my examples of traps to
make adventures fun or educational.
Don't Touch. (Lloyd Majeau)
This trap is best placed before a treasure room or behind some altar or
something. The thing is simple. An alcove about 1 foot deep is in the wall. Set
in the alcove is a sword held up on supports (which are actually pressure
plates). When the sword is raised off the pressure plates, blades swing down and
chop off the hand (using a simple system of counterweights, the blades could
travel really fast). This is a trap that is so obvious, that when it goes off
you ask the player if he drools when he ties his shoes. It is best if the sword
is worthless. Careful examination would show the slits in the walls where the
blades would come from.
Let Them Rot. (Kevin Majeau)
This trap is best used in Egyptian pyramids or other places made with big stone
blocks. Basically, there is a long corridor that has a visible corner or turn.
This will grab player's attention as they wonder what lies past that corner. So,
they journey down the hall and probably step on one of the many pressure plates
dotted along the hall. When they hit one of the pressure plates, a huge stone
slab falls down closing off their entrance (and air supply). When the players
check the corner, they find a dead end. I'm sure that this will probably kill
off the entire party, so it is best used as GM muscle when the characters start
acting irrational (raiding taboo temples for fun).
Don't Look. (Kevin Majeau)
This trap is best used in some astrologer's study or something. In one room a
telescope is sitting pointing to the wall (perhaps as an even greater clue, you
could have no windows in the room). Anyway, when a force is pressed against the
eye of the telescope, a spike shoots out into the eye. Mean as hell, but hey,
it's an effective trap.
Traps set by stupid people. (Kevin Majeau)
This is actually something that could be thrown into an adventure involving a
really stupid race for fun. The inhabitants of the dungeon love to set traps,
but they're not too bright. So, the result is a bunch of nonfunctional traps (a
starved to death scorpion in a locked treasure room, a rope and log trap with
the ropes too long or too weak, a trap that jams, a pit trap that has a bunch of
dead, previously poisonous snakes, etc. etc. Good for a laugh I'm sure.)
Reverse Psychology. (Lloyd Majeau)
I mentioned this trap before. Along a narrow hallway, a visible pit can be seen.
It is actually an illusion of a pit that is not really there. Since the
characters probably don't know that, they'll jump over it onto the illusionary
floor hiding the real pit (right after the fake one). To make it effective, put
big spikes at the bottom of the real pit.
-------------------------
| Z | N
| | |
| | W---E
| | |
| Y | S
-------------------------
---
|X|
| |
| |
| |
Okay, positions X, Y and Z are all one way mystical portals. Consider all
portals to be against the wall except for Y which is a little in front of the
wall. X can only be entered from the direction South to North and deposits the
characters through Y (or a portal just behind Y). Y can only be entered from the
direction of North to South and deposits the characters through Z. Z can only be
entered from the directions of South to North and deposits the characters
through Y. Now, to figure out this trap you would have to work out some mystical
physics. Light would travel constantly from Y to Z and Z to Y, this would result
in a duplicate image of the same room and character (basically, anyone looking
through one of the portals would have to make an intelligence check to
understand that they are looking at their back). Sound would be muffled going
from the room back to X because most of the sound waves would travel through Y
back to Z, only a fraction of the sound waves could get back because they would
have to fit through the distance from Y to the wall. Another result of that
would be that when someone speaks, they here it mimicked from the other rooms, a
strange echo. The only escape from this place would be to leave the room before
fully entering. I figure that this would work because there would have to be a
distortion effect when one is going through the portal. If this effect didn't
happen, then the person would die from a heart attack or seizure when they went
through the portal (the blood couldn't flow back to half of the body while the
body was in the portal, same deal with nerve impulses and such). So, the only
way to escape is to use the distortion effect by tying a rope around someone,
having him enter the room and grab the other guy, and then go back through the
original portal.
Something to add into the room would probably be some sort of viewing mirror
that the villain could use to monitor the room. The guy could also teleport down
there to clean up whenever someone dies in there. It would also work nicely if
the room was very far away, if the room were connected to the hallway, then that
would do without one pair of portals, but would result in a pitch black doorway
(light, air and sound would not be able to escape the room). In this case, an
illusion in front of the blackness would mask the trap nicely. When someone
enters a certain area a contingency spell is cast releasing a dispel magic on a
permanenced Pass Wall spell (I think pass wall is the spell which clears away 10
cubic feet of stone until the spell expires). So, when a character enters this
area, they are suddenly encased in stone 10 cubic feet of stone. instant death
would result because stone would form inside the human body and mix with the
skin.
Il Secco (r.longobardi@telecomitalia.it)
In a 30' wide by 30' long room, entering south, a rope protrudes 20' from a hole
at ground level in the northern wall, laying in the center of the room. When the
rope is touched, the In door will close. The wall is instead an illusionary wall
running from side to side in the middle of a 30' by 60' room. By touching the
rope, the wall loses its consistency, though remaining non-transparent. On the
other side of it, some wooden golems (in a number such that the total force
ability (or half the HPs) is comparable with the party's) are waiting for
someone to pull the rope, and to engage a tug-of-war game. Around the golems,
rests of earlier losing players are laying on the ground. The characters
actually don't see what's on the other side of the wall. If the party engages
the game, the DM should roll 1d10 every round (-2 if the characters are
particularly concerned in winning the game, or +2 if they're careful): 1-5 means
the rope is pulled 10' by the characters, 6-10 means the opposite. In any case,
any of the contenders will eventually be pulled through the illusionary wall
when defeated in the game. Whenever this happens, or if the characters
spontaneously walk through the wall, the golems will attack.
Variant: If the party wins the game, the golems could be automatically smashed
to the ground.
Out
-----| |-----
| |
golems -> O| |
| |O |
|-----------| <- Illusionary wall
| | |
| | <- rope
| |
-----| |-----
In
The Futuristic Mage
Il Secco (r.longobardi@telecomitalia.it)
In a 90' wide by 150' long dark room, entering south, a collection of 15
magically charmed monsters are standing still 10' from the northern wall, in a
3x5 matrix. Two exits open on the side walls at their backs. The first row of
monsters is composed of Goblins, the second of Orcs, the third of Stirges with a
Thoul in the middle. Every monster has an bow and a sword. If your party is very
tough, you may change this composition, add normal/magical shields, different
missile weapons, explosive arrows, etc. Three pillars 20' from the southern wall
offer partial covering to the characters.
Upon entering the room, the In door will close and a Continuous Light will be
cast on the room. Another Space Invaders clone! The characters can fire at the
monsters, which will fire back to them. The monsters will walk from left to
right until the side walls are touched, then inverting direction while coming a
step toward south. The monster's speed will increase as the rounds pass,
beginning from 10' per round and adding 5' per round every step downward;
adjustments to hit rolls for the speed may be devised).
At times (20% chance every round) a monster from the first row will begin to run
towards the party, blade in hand, and to attack one of the characters. At times
(10% chance every round) an orc will come out of one of the northern exits (wich
are connected by a corridor on the north), running towards the other exit
(remember the 1000 points mother starship? The orc may be carrying a valuable
item). Exit is from the north.
-------------
o Out = = Out
| ssTss |
| ooooo |
| ggggg |
| | = : exit
| | s : Stirge
| | T : Thoul
| O O O | o : Orc
| | g : Goblin
-----| |----- O : pillar
In
How A Trap Should Really Be Put Into An Adventure
by Lloyd Majeau
Traps are supposed to be deadly and incredibly mean. Traps weren't designed to
be playthings, they were designed to kill. Just because a trap is supposed to be
deadly, does not mean that it will have unlimited resources dumped into it.
Cheap traps can be as effective as expensive traps. Here are some tips to
consider when making new traps. Following the tips are some cheap, deadly traps.
The first thing to consider when designing a trap is, "Why does it exist?" Why
would someone want to design this trap? The 'Gold Null Magic' room for example.
This is the one with the glowing 5 lb. thing, the thick stone slab, the magical
runes and the thin gold walls that the characters can beat through. Now ask
yourself one question, Why was this room created? It is entirely made of gold so
it must have cost a pretty penny, it is a one time event (considering the
characters beat their way through the wall), and you can escape so simply! If
any intelligent person spent so much money on a gold room, I think they would
have made sure it did the job in killing the fools who walked into it.
Another thing you need to think of is, "How was the trap made?" Now there are
multiple traps in there that would have taken years of work and toil to make.
Like digging a 1/2 mile through earth (Chutes and Wedgies), or keeping any
number of creatures alive while they are involved in the trap (any number of the
traps had something with a monster chained to the wall. Doesn't it need to
eat?). Even that one trap with the rings of spell turning on the walls (don't
those rings have charges?). Most of these things would have had to have been
built by gods in order to work, and if they were made by gods, then why are they
so easy to escape? When designing a trap, one must think like the person that
would be building the trap. First, the person would probably try to make the
trap fatal or inescapable. Why would someone want to build a trap that can even
POSSIBLY be escaped from the inside? It is pointless (now at this point, you're
probably saying so that it will save the PC's lives. But now think to yourself
on the intelligence of PCs: they usually head right into danger without a
thought. Well, if they do that, then kill or imprison them). So, I worked up the
following list of things that the trap builder would have to consider...
Is it easily escapable? If it is, what's the point?
Is it fatal? If it isn't, what's the point?
Is it publicly accessible? If it is open to the public, any local Joe can
trigger it, maybe even a loved one of the uilder. Traps only belong in an
area where it is culturally taboo, publicly known (and therefore a trap to
outsiders), or strictly private (in one's private study would be nice
because he would know about it, but no one else and no one else is allowed
in there).
Are the materials required cheap or expensive? Available or not? Again, the
gold room. How much did that thing cost? And availability, how much water is
there in a desert? Very little, and what is, is greatly valued, so having
some water weird trap in the only water hole for miles is stupid.
Is it easily visible? An open pit. Hmm, I'll walk onto it (although
visibility is perfect for reverse psychology, and even reverse-reverse
psychology).
Is it believable? Try to follow the laws of physics, or at least the most
basic principles since magic warps the laws of physics. Shooting an arrow
into a teleporter that teleports the arrow behind the archer won't work
because the arrow will still fall while it is in motion.
If an animal is involved, is it maintained? The many 'chained to the wall'
monsters for example. Who feeds the beast? Why is it still alive if no one
is in the dungeon to feed it?
The point? Think something through before using it. Now, my examples of traps to
make adventures fun or educational.
Don't Touch. (Lloyd Majeau)
This trap is best placed before a treasure room or behind some altar or
something. The thing is simple. An alcove about 1 foot deep is in the wall. Set
in the alcove is a sword held up on supports (which are actually pressure
plates). When the sword is raised off the pressure plates, blades swing down and
chop off the hand (using a simple system of counterweights, the blades could
travel really fast). This is a trap that is so obvious, that when it goes off
you ask the player if he drools when he ties his shoes. It is best if the sword
is worthless. Careful examination would show the slits in the walls where the
blades would come from.
Let Them Rot. (Kevin Majeau)
This trap is best used in Egyptian pyramids or other places made with big stone
blocks. Basically, there is a long corridor that has a visible corner or turn.
This will grab player's attention as they wonder what lies past that corner. So,
they journey down the hall and probably step on one of the many pressure plates
dotted along the hall. When they hit one of the pressure plates, a huge stone
slab falls down closing off their entrance (and air supply). When the players
check the corner, they find a dead end. I'm sure that this will probably kill
off the entire party, so it is best used as GM muscle when the characters start
acting irrational (raiding taboo temples for fun).
Don't Look. (Kevin Majeau)
This trap is best used in some astrologer's study or something. In one room a
telescope is sitting pointing to the wall (perhaps as an even greater clue, you
could have no windows in the room). Anyway, when a force is pressed against the
eye of the telescope, a spike shoots out into the eye. Mean as hell, but hey,
it's an effective trap.
Traps set by stupid people. (Kevin Majeau)
This is actually something that could be thrown into an adventure involving a
really stupid race for fun. The inhabitants of the dungeon love to set traps,
but they're not too bright. So, the result is a bunch of nonfunctional traps (a
starved to death scorpion in a locked treasure room, a rope and log trap with
the ropes too long or too weak, a trap that jams, a pit trap that has a bunch of
dead, previously poisonous snakes, etc. etc. Good for a laugh I'm sure.)
Reverse Psychology. (Lloyd Majeau)
I mentioned this trap before. Along a narrow hallway, a visible pit can be seen.
It is actually an illusion of a pit that is not really there. Since the
characters probably don't know that, they'll jump over it onto the illusionary
floor hiding the real pit (right after the fake one). To make it effective, put
big spikes at the bottom of the real pit.
-------------------------
| Z | N
| | |
| | W---E
| | |
| Y | S
-------------------------
---
|X|
| |
| |
| |
Okay, positions X, Y and Z are all one way mystical portals. Consider all
portals to be against the wall except for Y which is a little in front of the
wall. X can only be entered from the direction South to North and deposits the
characters through Y (or a portal just behind Y). Y can only be entered from the
direction of North to South and deposits the characters through Z. Z can only be
entered from the directions of South to North and deposits the characters
through Y. Now, to figure out this trap you would have to work out some mystical
physics. Light would travel constantly from Y to Z and Z to Y, this would result
in a duplicate image of the same room and character (basically, anyone looking
through one of the portals would have to make an intelligence check to
understand that they are looking at their back). Sound would be muffled going
from the room back to X because most of the sound waves would travel through Y
back to Z, only a fraction of the sound waves could get back because they would
have to fit through the distance from Y to the wall. Another result of that
would be that when someone speaks, they here it mimicked from the other rooms, a
strange echo. The only escape from this place would be to leave the room before
fully entering. I figure that this would work because there would have to be a
distortion effect when one is going through the portal. If this effect didn't
happen, then the person would die from a heart attack or seizure when they went
through the portal (the blood couldn't flow back to half of the body while the
body was in the portal, same deal with nerve impulses and such). So, the only
way to escape is to use the distortion effect by tying a rope around someone,
having him enter the room and grab the other guy, and then go back through the
original portal.
Something to add into the room would probably be some sort of viewing mirror
that the villain could use to monitor the room. The guy could also teleport down
there to clean up whenever someone dies in there. It would also work nicely if
the room was very far away, if the room were connected to the hallway, then that
would do without one pair of portals, but would result in a pitch black doorway
(light, air and sound would not be able to escape the room). In this case, an
illusion in front of the blackness would mask the trap nicely. When someone
enters a certain area a contingency spell is cast releasing a dispel magic on a
permanenced Pass Wall spell (I think pass wall is the spell which clears away 10
cubic feet of stone until the spell expires). So, when a character enters this
area, they are suddenly encased in stone 10 cubic feet of stone. instant death
would result because stone would form inside the human body and mix with the
skin.