Post by StoryTeller on Jan 22, 2006 7:17:07 GMT
Elmar Bihler (bihler@mathpool.uni-augsburg.de)
Place: Dungeon, Deserted Castle, whatever,... Party: Low-Level, best with
unexperienced players Aim: Catch/Delay Damage: Low or none The party is
exploring some deserted castle and comes to a side-corridor. When the last PC
has entered, a stone block is triggered and blocks the way behind them, so their
only choice is to go forward. After a few steps they come into a room that is
totally dark. The darkness is magical, so torches won't help. (If a low-level
mage tries some 'kid-stuff'-magic-light, tell him, the spell produced some kind
of short-circuit, so his light spells are burned out for that day...)
The party will then begin to explore the room on their hands and feet, and
discover that the room ends at a sharp edge:
_______
_________/ \
_[]_________ |
Stone | |
Block |____* Lever
10 feet below there is a lever that lifts the stone block and the floor where
the lever is, so the only thing the PCs have to do is to jump down and pull the
lever. (Nice DM: Place treasure chest here !) The point is, that the party has
no way to discover whether beneath the edge is a 10 feet or a 1000 feet drop,
because there are other spells besides the darkness-spell to prevent them from
going on: e.g. magical silence, so when they throw something down, they won't
hear it when it hits the ground,...
When they finally let someone down on a rope, roll some dice (just for show),
and tell them, the sharp edge just cut the rope, oops... (Be really nasty here
!!!)
Shadow Wall
Brad Collins (dragon@prcn.org)
This one is a great trap for several reasons. You can put it in any room and no
one can resist triggering it! The PCs walk into a well decorated room, you know,
chairs, tables, bookshelves, fireplace. Any wizard with them can find magical
aura in the room and even the most idiotic newbie at the game can see that one
section of one of the walls is "illusionary". It's a cheap job of illusion, it
wavers, shimmers and ripples, but in no way should the PCs be able to see beyond
it. When the wall is in anyway pierced, touched or looked through, then a huge
spiked slab of stone on the end of the hallway that the illusionary wall leads
to detaches from its springs and holdings and flies out to pin the guy to the
wall (I usually say it kills 'em instantly). The beauty of this trap is that no
one can resist looking through it. It gets em every time if once in a blue moon
you actually put something good behind it.
Trick o' the Eye
Brad Collins (dragon@prcn.org)
Your PCs walk into a fair sized room. The floor has to have some kind of pattern
and an ambient light zone must exist in this room. About halfway through the
room is a huge hole leading from Left wall to Right wall. Completely impassible
unless by tightrope walking, magic etc. The thing is that the pattern on the
floor goes halfway down the opposite side of the pit so it looks like there is
no pit. The PCs merrily stride to their doom. It cannot be detected by a detect
trap magic because it's just a Trick o' The Eye.
SMILE
Vincent iseenvetteklootzak (weijters@cs.unimaas.nl)
The PCs walk down a long corridor, with in the end a deep hole, that's
completely visible. When they close in on the hole (about 50 feet), they hear
crying. When they reach the edge, they'll see a little baby, crying in the hole.
BUT when they touch the baby, the PCs hands are stuck on the baby; they simply
won't get off. Its a paralytic poison to, they can't move a muscle anymore. The
baby starts laughing and slowly begins to eat them. (By the way, the baby has
got AC 10, (it doesn't wear a metal diaper or something) but when there are PCs
on, it gains the combined AC of all of them. (100 xp)
Ankle Sickle
Richard Lemke (enric@thesurf.com)
The trap is small, about the size of one tile, that when weight is placed on it
descends downward. Optimally this weight will be a foot, in which place the twin
blades extract and slice. The twin blades are carved similar to a quarter moon,
or sickle. The come together around the ankle and slice the tendons, and
everything else to the bone. This will maim any character, not to mention the
process of releasing the character from the trap. (The blades each take 20 Pts.
of damage)
Damage can vary with the armor worn, but the maiming is always the best part,
for any character, to move is their greatest treasure.
AN ICE LITTLE PROBLEM
Allan Ramshaw (david.ramshaw@virgin.net)
The party arrive at a room with what seems like water on the floor. On touching
it they will discover it is a powerful acid causing extreme damage to the
appendage used to sample it. In alcoves in the wall of the corridor leading to
the room there are several bottles containing various liquids. One of these is
poison which will do (not too much to kill) quite a bit of damage to anyone
drinking it. When thrown over the acid, however it will freeze creating an ice
bridge to the door on the other side.
THE THIRD GUY'S F****D
Allan Ramshaw (david.ramshaw@virgin.net)
As the party walk down a corridor they come to a place with several statues in
glass cases in the wall. Shortly after this they come to a doorway leading to a
room full of treasure. On entering this room the third person entering will be
teleported to a glass case in the previous wall and turned to stone.
The Slide
Peter Joseph Bernacki (bernack@ix.netcom.com)
The players enter a 20x15x10 (length-width-height), or a similar one, and two
etched carvings of knights are a few feet from the walls.
Opposite the door is a spiraling staircase. The players can search the murals to
their hearts content, yet, nothing is apparent.
The steps are touch activated, the first stair sinks ever so slightly (5% chance
of noticing) and remains that way for awhile (see below). When the fifth step is
hit, the murals explode (not too powerful, within five feet takes 1d6 from the
stones), exposing two images of _____s).
The players will most likely sprint up the stairs, which spiral upward seemingly
endlessly. When a certain stair is picked (make sure the players are now at
least 100 feet up) have the stair fall, tripping the foremost player. The
players will probably tumble over him.
The stairs flip over, exposing a oily, rounded surface, now the fun starts! The
players slide at amazing speeds down the oiled stairs. Have the stairs fork at
certain places. Have two players go one way, two another, one here, one there,
be creative. If the players have a retainer or hired mercenary, have him be lost
forever, all his goods gone.
This is an excellent way to test the players survival skills alone. Make it
difficult. Put the fighters together, put the spellcasters together, put the
players that have both magic and fighting alone (elves, paladins).
Where they land is totally up to you. Remember, they have been falling down a
oiled half-pipe, so when they land, they land hard. If you want some egotistical
bastard to die, land him on a bed of five foot spikes. I guarantee he'll die.
The Chest
Peter Joseph Bernacki (bernack@ix.netcom.com)
The players will smack themselves when they figure this one out. Put a chest in
the middle of a 10 by 10 by 10 room. Make it extremely suspicious looking. They
can search to their hearts content, yet they find nothing (because nothing is
there) on the chest. The walls are clean, too.
They probably won't open the chest, but if they do, the trap is ruined. You see,
the door is charged with an electrical current as soon as its opened. When they
open the chest, the door is undone.
This is best with a very cautious group.
Andy/Terry Zerger (tzerger@gunnison.com)
This trap will make a PC think twice about snatching any seemingly magical item
they see. The PCs are adventuring, looking for treasure or something or are just
passing through a sort of ruin, when they come to huge double doors. Upon
passing they doors they are greeted by a tome standing on a pedestal in the
middle of the room as well as seemingly-holy-light gleaming off the book. Way
more then likely either a mage or cleric from the group will run up and grab it,
desperately wanting its spell contents. However, just when the player has
attained the prize, the beam of seemingly-holy-light diverts and
blinds/wounds/whatever whoever it is that grabs the book. I used this to humble
my caster and he always uses summoned creatures to get such things now.
The Wall
Steve Ingold (whooly@odyssee.net)
It's a wall that throws back whatever you threw at it. In other words, it
somehow provokes the PC's. Maybe a NPC told the PC's to attack it, or the wall
speaks, maybe the wall throws at the characters something that had been thrown
at it before. Whatever it is, when a PC's hits it physically the wall hit him
back with the SAME DAMAGE, maybe by growing an arm or throwing a brick, if they
cast a fireball at it, the wall throws it right back, DOUBLE DAMAGE (double with
magic attacks only). It behaves like a creature with all the same bonuses as the
attacker. The cool thing is that it can't be destroyed unless a clever idea is
used, like attacking yourself. You see if you attack the wall it attacks back
automatically, if you attack yourself, the wall will take damage. Get it (double
if magic, regular if normal). Another cool thing is that if they heal themselves
they actually heal the wall, double. If you heal the wall you heal yourself
double, etc. Of course all this only works within a certain range of the wall...
say 100ft.
Guy A. Jett (gajett@ix.netcom.com)
The Party comes into a small room about 10ft tall and 10x10ft wide and long. The
doors slam shut and lock behind them. There is a sound of grinding as the floor
slowly moves down. It stops and the ceiling moves away. Bugs or some small
crawly things fall into the room. There is a gate on the new exposed wall, but
if the players move, they are attacked by the bugs...
The Party comes to a room, 50x50ft and 10ft tall. The floor is covered with
white powder. The door slams and locks. There are two doors, one is the way out,
but the other has a lever, if pulled, the lever disintegrates the floor and the
party falls 40ft down into a pit of lava, the powder is TNT, BOOM.
As the party comes into the room, they see nothing but a door at the other side.
If the party heads for the door, they pass a fulcrum and the room spins down a
track, and spins, and spins, hitting the PC's. They fall into the pit trap
desired
! !
////////////////.//////////////////
00 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Key:
!=door
/=floor
.=fulcrum
0=wall nearest to the first door
|=track
^=pit bottom
Temple of Doom
DS Wilson (The.Wilsons@xtra.co.nz)
Have the PC's enter a temple in a jungle somewhere. on the way in they get shot
at by wall mounted poison crossbows and nearly fall into collapsing floors, and
nearly get skewered by wall spikes etc. Then, they will arrive in a chamber with
a magnificent golden statue covered in jewels sitting on a pedestal. If the PCs
detect magic, none will radiate (This is a mechanical trap.) Sooner or later one
of them will pick it up. Suddenly the pedestal drops 18 inches and a loud
rumbling is heard. Any PC's with brains will start running, because a large
boulder is about to descend from the wall behind the pedestal and chase them
through the passages, of course setting off al the other traps on the way out.
Or, in English, The Boulder Scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. My DM pulled
this one on us (at my suggestion) and all the party except me and one other died
in the temple. You can disable other traps as you see fit, to insure PC
survival.
THE LIQUID FLOOR TRAP
Angus Murphy (murphy@biology.ucsc.edu)
Have the characters open a door into a metal corridor with a paneled floor.
There is a cold wind blowing from the end of it, and a bright light, not unlike
sunlight, is emanating from the end. Preferably, the characters have been in a
dungeon for a while and are looking for a way out. The trap in this room is a
pit in the paneled floor. This pit has a permanent HEAT METAL spell cast on its
bottom. This pit is about 8' deep and is filled with molten aluminum. When in
its molten form, aluminum looks just about the same as it usually does with just
a hint of silver. This makes it look no different from the rest of the floor
panels. The wind they feel is actually a NORTH WIND spell (found in DRAGON
MAGAZINE ANNUAL #1) with permanency cast on it. This gives the illusion of an
exit and gets rid of the heat from the pit. The light is from a LIGHT spell cast
on the wall at the end of the corridor. Falling into the trap usually means
instant death, but you can apply whatever damage you want.
Trick Pit Trap
Philip Wrobel (pwrobel@infini.net)
This trap is works great on thieves and mages. First have the party be chased by
a monster(s) and make them arrive at a pit that cannot be crossed by a teleport
spell (It is dark and they can`t see the opposite side.) Actually, the pit is an
illusion. It is impossible to levitate because there is an anti-magic barrier.
The only way to cross is to climb the walls. But in the ceiling there are many
holes where crossbowmen can fire bolts at the PCs without being harmed.
Teeter-Totter Room
Ryan Greene (rcgreene@research.att.com)
The players enter a room that is 60'around, with a 40'high domed ceiling. On the
right is a fountain, filled with water, and a few coins in the pool of water. On
the left is a statue with a pile of gold at the base. Opposite the entry is
another door to get out. The entire floor is a giant teeter-totter, with the
center being the safest place to walk. If the players take any of the gold at
either side, the following occurs simultaneously:
Rods pop up on the floor at 4'intervals over all of the floor. If anyone is
hit by a rod, they are stunned.
The water begins to drain from the fountain, very rapidly.
Oil begins to pour down on the floor from the ceiling, covering everything
Next, the floor begins to tilt to the side that the players are not on, sliding
them through the rods that have appeared into one of four holes at the bottom of
the pit. If anyone should manage to hold onto one of the rods, they will retract
once the floor is perpendicular to the ground.
LRhinoJr@aol.com
As the party walks down a corridor, one member falls down a VERY deep pit
(200-300'). The pit is a cubic curve so that it comes out gently and the PC
doesn't take any damage. But the 'chute' deposits the character in a room and a
stone door closes off the pit. The character is in a 10' x 10' room with a door
on one wall with a 3 position lever beside it. The current position is in the
middle (off). One position opens the door to a very long ladder, and the other
position opens a valve for water or sand to fill the room, and seals the door.
Well, isnt that cute.
Myrkul (a052802t@bc.seflin.org)
This trap consists of a room (the GM decides how big,) well lit by thousands of
tiny multi-colored lights flitting about the room. The room is well decorated,
as if it were a mage's sitting room. There are no books, scrolls etc. In one
corner of the room, there sits a small pile of metal objects. If a piece of
metal is tossed into the room, it is immediately swarmed and carried by the
lights over to the pile (alternatively it could be dropped onto a teleport pad,
disguised as a rug, in this case there would be no pile). If anyone enters the
room with even a metal filling, the person is immediately swarmed and devoured
(bone and all) by the lights, the metal being dropped onto the pile/pad. If a PC
is brave enough to enter sans metal (especially after seeing his companion get
eaten), he finds that the swarm does not devour him, but rather tickles. The
remaining PCs can now pass through, metal and all, safely. The PC who entered
sans metal will find that when he tries to leave, the swarm plasters itself
against the air in the doorway where he/she exits. If the party was nice enough
to bring the PC's equipment along with them, he/she can now retrieve it from
them. The lights cannot exit the room, and if a spell is cast into the room, the
lights flash, blinding the party for an amount of time equal to the spell's
level in minutes.
A Slippery Path
Ben Laffin (gille001@maroon.tc.umn.edu)
This is a take-off of the classic collapsing corridor trap. The party is walking
down a slippery hall, when, after the party has passed the midway point in the
hall, one PC trips, slips, whatever. To keep from falling, they grab a torch
holder. This triggers the walls to fall away, leaving a void in either
direction. Also, the void is gaining strength, making the floor ever slimmer.
The PCs can see that the "e;real"e; world is still though the door at the end of
the hallway. They have to tiptoe along the floor, which is still very slippery.
If one of the PCs is unfortunate enough to fall into it, you can make up
whatever you want to happen. Perhaps a teleport to another world?
For those GMs who are feeling especially malevolent, the PCs may be in a
hopeless situation: the door can keep moving away at the same pace as the party
moves towards it, thereby dooming the party.
Healer Man
Angus (thekid@voicenet.com)
The PCs enter the room (Preferably from an area to which they can't retreat back
to) and find a large room. The room has no exits other than a door on the far
side of the room (Locked for now). In the room, the is a statue of a warrior and
bard with a glowing ball of light in the between the two:
----------------
| |exit
| |
| W * B |
| |
| |
----------------
When a character touches the light (which they will do in frustration of being
trapped) the light takes the shape of the PC that touched it. Basically, this
causes great confusion. Everything on the two must be the same. If someone
attacks the "e;Twin"e; then the wounds will appear on the real PC. If you attack
the real PC, the wounds only appear on the real PC. The only way to kill the
"e;twin"e; is to heal it. This can be by spell, chant, potion, herbs (you get
the idea.) It can take as little as one of these to kill it or more. (The less
needed, the more ticked your PCs will be) Took my PCs about 45 minutes.
William655@aol.com
The PCs are in a large abandoned castle, and stumble upon the treasure room.
There isn't much treasure, but there is a small corridor in the back of the
room. As the players walk down it, they see a light shining from a room on the
left. There are two rooms, one further down. When they move into the doorway of
the first room, an invisibility and mute spell is cast on the character in the
back. There is a sudden panic in the group, and then an image of the
"e;missing"e; character is portrayed in a cage on the other side of the room. As
the characters move towards it, a trap door opens that drops them into a slowly
narrowing pit. On all sides are rotating buzz-saws. The pit ends up only being 6
inches wide at the bottom, but before the players die, they "e;see"e; what was
in the other room... a full arsenal of +15 weapons and armor! It is best to use
this with a group of players with a good sense of humor.
Angus (thekid@voicenet.com)
Have the PCs see a very likable artifact in a room. When they enter the room,
have the door close. The artifact (which they find to be an illusion)
disappears, and they find themselves trapped. The door doesn't budge. In the
room is a skeleton, and in the skeleton's hand is a silver dagger. On the door
is seen the markings below:
T N E S S F F T T _
In order to open the door, they must figure out what goes into the blank (_).
Also, they can only scrape it into the door using the silver dagger. No other
weapon, chisel, or object can even mark the door. If they take the dagger and
scratch in the correct letter with it, the door opens. The letter that they must
scratch in is "O". The reason is this is that the letters stand for: Ten, Nine,
Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, and One.
This took my PCs about half an hour...and that was only because one of them
vaguely remembered it from a puzzle book he had read. So, I judge it to take a
little longer than that for the average group.
FLOOD THE DUNGEON
Nicki Vankoughnett (vankougn@lycos.nbchs.north-battleford.sk.ca)
This trap is very difficult to set up, but great for getting a lot more time out
of a dungeon. When the players are finished with the final villain of the
dungeon, have them find the treasure room. Once inside, of course they find a
very large amount of gold, silver, gems, etc. The treasure is large enough that
just preparing it for transport out of the dungeon will take about a day. The
room is also somewhat elevated from the rest of the dungeon, say, about 15 - 20
feet above the lowest point. One of the chest's will be stuck to the floor. When
it is opened, it will set off the trap. Once it is opened, elsewhere in the
dungeon, a floodgate will open, and begin filling the dungeon with water. At the
source, there is a silence spell, to keep the players from hearing this. What
should happen, is that the players will be focused on the treasure, and have the
door to the room closed. When they go to leave, they will find that a little way
down the stairs or ladder, or whatever, that way down is filled with water.
Getting out of the dungeon will be much more interesting now, especially if the
players have to continually surface for air. Also make it clear that carrying
any significant amount of the treasure will weigh them down. Also remember that
torches do not burn underwater. If you wish to improve their chances of
escaping, allow the treasure to contain one or two magical items that will allow
survival under water.
Scissors Trap
lorie Coleman (dogncat@earthlink.net)
In this trap, if a PC opens a door [It should open away from them and hit a wall
on the other side.] it will trigger a button that will do two things:
It will lower a long wooden block with a spike on the end of it.
Two pairs of blades will come out of the wall on both sides of the door, at
neck level and ankle level. The top blades are equivalent to vorpal swords,
and the lower ones are equivalent to swords of sharpness. Roll to see if
limbs are severed. [Neck twice and both feet. But only if the scissors hit.]
If a saving throw is failed, they take 4d8 points of damage. If they make it ask
them if they jump through the doorway or backwards. Make sure you don't tell
them about the spike behind them! If they jump back they impale themselves on
the spike [1d10] and get hit by all four blades! If they jump forward, some GMs
might want to be particularly mean and put a pit just right outside the door.
Others might want to be nice and keep a safe way through it all. If you do put a
pit, you should make a different path leading to that same room.
Place: Dungeon, Deserted Castle, whatever,... Party: Low-Level, best with
unexperienced players Aim: Catch/Delay Damage: Low or none The party is
exploring some deserted castle and comes to a side-corridor. When the last PC
has entered, a stone block is triggered and blocks the way behind them, so their
only choice is to go forward. After a few steps they come into a room that is
totally dark. The darkness is magical, so torches won't help. (If a low-level
mage tries some 'kid-stuff'-magic-light, tell him, the spell produced some kind
of short-circuit, so his light spells are burned out for that day...)
The party will then begin to explore the room on their hands and feet, and
discover that the room ends at a sharp edge:
_______
_________/ \
_[]_________ |
Stone | |
Block |____* Lever
10 feet below there is a lever that lifts the stone block and the floor where
the lever is, so the only thing the PCs have to do is to jump down and pull the
lever. (Nice DM: Place treasure chest here !) The point is, that the party has
no way to discover whether beneath the edge is a 10 feet or a 1000 feet drop,
because there are other spells besides the darkness-spell to prevent them from
going on: e.g. magical silence, so when they throw something down, they won't
hear it when it hits the ground,...
When they finally let someone down on a rope, roll some dice (just for show),
and tell them, the sharp edge just cut the rope, oops... (Be really nasty here
!!!)
Shadow Wall
Brad Collins (dragon@prcn.org)
This one is a great trap for several reasons. You can put it in any room and no
one can resist triggering it! The PCs walk into a well decorated room, you know,
chairs, tables, bookshelves, fireplace. Any wizard with them can find magical
aura in the room and even the most idiotic newbie at the game can see that one
section of one of the walls is "illusionary". It's a cheap job of illusion, it
wavers, shimmers and ripples, but in no way should the PCs be able to see beyond
it. When the wall is in anyway pierced, touched or looked through, then a huge
spiked slab of stone on the end of the hallway that the illusionary wall leads
to detaches from its springs and holdings and flies out to pin the guy to the
wall (I usually say it kills 'em instantly). The beauty of this trap is that no
one can resist looking through it. It gets em every time if once in a blue moon
you actually put something good behind it.
Trick o' the Eye
Brad Collins (dragon@prcn.org)
Your PCs walk into a fair sized room. The floor has to have some kind of pattern
and an ambient light zone must exist in this room. About halfway through the
room is a huge hole leading from Left wall to Right wall. Completely impassible
unless by tightrope walking, magic etc. The thing is that the pattern on the
floor goes halfway down the opposite side of the pit so it looks like there is
no pit. The PCs merrily stride to their doom. It cannot be detected by a detect
trap magic because it's just a Trick o' The Eye.
SMILE
Vincent iseenvetteklootzak (weijters@cs.unimaas.nl)
The PCs walk down a long corridor, with in the end a deep hole, that's
completely visible. When they close in on the hole (about 50 feet), they hear
crying. When they reach the edge, they'll see a little baby, crying in the hole.
BUT when they touch the baby, the PCs hands are stuck on the baby; they simply
won't get off. Its a paralytic poison to, they can't move a muscle anymore. The
baby starts laughing and slowly begins to eat them. (By the way, the baby has
got AC 10, (it doesn't wear a metal diaper or something) but when there are PCs
on, it gains the combined AC of all of them. (100 xp)
Ankle Sickle
Richard Lemke (enric@thesurf.com)
The trap is small, about the size of one tile, that when weight is placed on it
descends downward. Optimally this weight will be a foot, in which place the twin
blades extract and slice. The twin blades are carved similar to a quarter moon,
or sickle. The come together around the ankle and slice the tendons, and
everything else to the bone. This will maim any character, not to mention the
process of releasing the character from the trap. (The blades each take 20 Pts.
of damage)
Damage can vary with the armor worn, but the maiming is always the best part,
for any character, to move is their greatest treasure.
AN ICE LITTLE PROBLEM
Allan Ramshaw (david.ramshaw@virgin.net)
The party arrive at a room with what seems like water on the floor. On touching
it they will discover it is a powerful acid causing extreme damage to the
appendage used to sample it. In alcoves in the wall of the corridor leading to
the room there are several bottles containing various liquids. One of these is
poison which will do (not too much to kill) quite a bit of damage to anyone
drinking it. When thrown over the acid, however it will freeze creating an ice
bridge to the door on the other side.
THE THIRD GUY'S F****D
Allan Ramshaw (david.ramshaw@virgin.net)
As the party walk down a corridor they come to a place with several statues in
glass cases in the wall. Shortly after this they come to a doorway leading to a
room full of treasure. On entering this room the third person entering will be
teleported to a glass case in the previous wall and turned to stone.
The Slide
Peter Joseph Bernacki (bernack@ix.netcom.com)
The players enter a 20x15x10 (length-width-height), or a similar one, and two
etched carvings of knights are a few feet from the walls.
Opposite the door is a spiraling staircase. The players can search the murals to
their hearts content, yet, nothing is apparent.
The steps are touch activated, the first stair sinks ever so slightly (5% chance
of noticing) and remains that way for awhile (see below). When the fifth step is
hit, the murals explode (not too powerful, within five feet takes 1d6 from the
stones), exposing two images of _____s).
The players will most likely sprint up the stairs, which spiral upward seemingly
endlessly. When a certain stair is picked (make sure the players are now at
least 100 feet up) have the stair fall, tripping the foremost player. The
players will probably tumble over him.
The stairs flip over, exposing a oily, rounded surface, now the fun starts! The
players slide at amazing speeds down the oiled stairs. Have the stairs fork at
certain places. Have two players go one way, two another, one here, one there,
be creative. If the players have a retainer or hired mercenary, have him be lost
forever, all his goods gone.
This is an excellent way to test the players survival skills alone. Make it
difficult. Put the fighters together, put the spellcasters together, put the
players that have both magic and fighting alone (elves, paladins).
Where they land is totally up to you. Remember, they have been falling down a
oiled half-pipe, so when they land, they land hard. If you want some egotistical
bastard to die, land him on a bed of five foot spikes. I guarantee he'll die.
The Chest
Peter Joseph Bernacki (bernack@ix.netcom.com)
The players will smack themselves when they figure this one out. Put a chest in
the middle of a 10 by 10 by 10 room. Make it extremely suspicious looking. They
can search to their hearts content, yet they find nothing (because nothing is
there) on the chest. The walls are clean, too.
They probably won't open the chest, but if they do, the trap is ruined. You see,
the door is charged with an electrical current as soon as its opened. When they
open the chest, the door is undone.
This is best with a very cautious group.
Andy/Terry Zerger (tzerger@gunnison.com)
This trap will make a PC think twice about snatching any seemingly magical item
they see. The PCs are adventuring, looking for treasure or something or are just
passing through a sort of ruin, when they come to huge double doors. Upon
passing they doors they are greeted by a tome standing on a pedestal in the
middle of the room as well as seemingly-holy-light gleaming off the book. Way
more then likely either a mage or cleric from the group will run up and grab it,
desperately wanting its spell contents. However, just when the player has
attained the prize, the beam of seemingly-holy-light diverts and
blinds/wounds/whatever whoever it is that grabs the book. I used this to humble
my caster and he always uses summoned creatures to get such things now.
The Wall
Steve Ingold (whooly@odyssee.net)
It's a wall that throws back whatever you threw at it. In other words, it
somehow provokes the PC's. Maybe a NPC told the PC's to attack it, or the wall
speaks, maybe the wall throws at the characters something that had been thrown
at it before. Whatever it is, when a PC's hits it physically the wall hit him
back with the SAME DAMAGE, maybe by growing an arm or throwing a brick, if they
cast a fireball at it, the wall throws it right back, DOUBLE DAMAGE (double with
magic attacks only). It behaves like a creature with all the same bonuses as the
attacker. The cool thing is that it can't be destroyed unless a clever idea is
used, like attacking yourself. You see if you attack the wall it attacks back
automatically, if you attack yourself, the wall will take damage. Get it (double
if magic, regular if normal). Another cool thing is that if they heal themselves
they actually heal the wall, double. If you heal the wall you heal yourself
double, etc. Of course all this only works within a certain range of the wall...
say 100ft.
Guy A. Jett (gajett@ix.netcom.com)
The Party comes into a small room about 10ft tall and 10x10ft wide and long. The
doors slam shut and lock behind them. There is a sound of grinding as the floor
slowly moves down. It stops and the ceiling moves away. Bugs or some small
crawly things fall into the room. There is a gate on the new exposed wall, but
if the players move, they are attacked by the bugs...
The Party comes to a room, 50x50ft and 10ft tall. The floor is covered with
white powder. The door slams and locks. There are two doors, one is the way out,
but the other has a lever, if pulled, the lever disintegrates the floor and the
party falls 40ft down into a pit of lava, the powder is TNT, BOOM.
As the party comes into the room, they see nothing but a door at the other side.
If the party heads for the door, they pass a fulcrum and the room spins down a
track, and spins, and spins, hitting the PC's. They fall into the pit trap
desired
! !
////////////////.//////////////////
00 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Key:
!=door
/=floor
.=fulcrum
0=wall nearest to the first door
|=track
^=pit bottom
Temple of Doom
DS Wilson (The.Wilsons@xtra.co.nz)
Have the PC's enter a temple in a jungle somewhere. on the way in they get shot
at by wall mounted poison crossbows and nearly fall into collapsing floors, and
nearly get skewered by wall spikes etc. Then, they will arrive in a chamber with
a magnificent golden statue covered in jewels sitting on a pedestal. If the PCs
detect magic, none will radiate (This is a mechanical trap.) Sooner or later one
of them will pick it up. Suddenly the pedestal drops 18 inches and a loud
rumbling is heard. Any PC's with brains will start running, because a large
boulder is about to descend from the wall behind the pedestal and chase them
through the passages, of course setting off al the other traps on the way out.
Or, in English, The Boulder Scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. My DM pulled
this one on us (at my suggestion) and all the party except me and one other died
in the temple. You can disable other traps as you see fit, to insure PC
survival.
THE LIQUID FLOOR TRAP
Angus Murphy (murphy@biology.ucsc.edu)
Have the characters open a door into a metal corridor with a paneled floor.
There is a cold wind blowing from the end of it, and a bright light, not unlike
sunlight, is emanating from the end. Preferably, the characters have been in a
dungeon for a while and are looking for a way out. The trap in this room is a
pit in the paneled floor. This pit has a permanent HEAT METAL spell cast on its
bottom. This pit is about 8' deep and is filled with molten aluminum. When in
its molten form, aluminum looks just about the same as it usually does with just
a hint of silver. This makes it look no different from the rest of the floor
panels. The wind they feel is actually a NORTH WIND spell (found in DRAGON
MAGAZINE ANNUAL #1) with permanency cast on it. This gives the illusion of an
exit and gets rid of the heat from the pit. The light is from a LIGHT spell cast
on the wall at the end of the corridor. Falling into the trap usually means
instant death, but you can apply whatever damage you want.
Trick Pit Trap
Philip Wrobel (pwrobel@infini.net)
This trap is works great on thieves and mages. First have the party be chased by
a monster(s) and make them arrive at a pit that cannot be crossed by a teleport
spell (It is dark and they can`t see the opposite side.) Actually, the pit is an
illusion. It is impossible to levitate because there is an anti-magic barrier.
The only way to cross is to climb the walls. But in the ceiling there are many
holes where crossbowmen can fire bolts at the PCs without being harmed.
Teeter-Totter Room
Ryan Greene (rcgreene@research.att.com)
The players enter a room that is 60'around, with a 40'high domed ceiling. On the
right is a fountain, filled with water, and a few coins in the pool of water. On
the left is a statue with a pile of gold at the base. Opposite the entry is
another door to get out. The entire floor is a giant teeter-totter, with the
center being the safest place to walk. If the players take any of the gold at
either side, the following occurs simultaneously:
Rods pop up on the floor at 4'intervals over all of the floor. If anyone is
hit by a rod, they are stunned.
The water begins to drain from the fountain, very rapidly.
Oil begins to pour down on the floor from the ceiling, covering everything
Next, the floor begins to tilt to the side that the players are not on, sliding
them through the rods that have appeared into one of four holes at the bottom of
the pit. If anyone should manage to hold onto one of the rods, they will retract
once the floor is perpendicular to the ground.
LRhinoJr@aol.com
As the party walks down a corridor, one member falls down a VERY deep pit
(200-300'). The pit is a cubic curve so that it comes out gently and the PC
doesn't take any damage. But the 'chute' deposits the character in a room and a
stone door closes off the pit. The character is in a 10' x 10' room with a door
on one wall with a 3 position lever beside it. The current position is in the
middle (off). One position opens the door to a very long ladder, and the other
position opens a valve for water or sand to fill the room, and seals the door.
Well, isnt that cute.
Myrkul (a052802t@bc.seflin.org)
This trap consists of a room (the GM decides how big,) well lit by thousands of
tiny multi-colored lights flitting about the room. The room is well decorated,
as if it were a mage's sitting room. There are no books, scrolls etc. In one
corner of the room, there sits a small pile of metal objects. If a piece of
metal is tossed into the room, it is immediately swarmed and carried by the
lights over to the pile (alternatively it could be dropped onto a teleport pad,
disguised as a rug, in this case there would be no pile). If anyone enters the
room with even a metal filling, the person is immediately swarmed and devoured
(bone and all) by the lights, the metal being dropped onto the pile/pad. If a PC
is brave enough to enter sans metal (especially after seeing his companion get
eaten), he finds that the swarm does not devour him, but rather tickles. The
remaining PCs can now pass through, metal and all, safely. The PC who entered
sans metal will find that when he tries to leave, the swarm plasters itself
against the air in the doorway where he/she exits. If the party was nice enough
to bring the PC's equipment along with them, he/she can now retrieve it from
them. The lights cannot exit the room, and if a spell is cast into the room, the
lights flash, blinding the party for an amount of time equal to the spell's
level in minutes.
A Slippery Path
Ben Laffin (gille001@maroon.tc.umn.edu)
This is a take-off of the classic collapsing corridor trap. The party is walking
down a slippery hall, when, after the party has passed the midway point in the
hall, one PC trips, slips, whatever. To keep from falling, they grab a torch
holder. This triggers the walls to fall away, leaving a void in either
direction. Also, the void is gaining strength, making the floor ever slimmer.
The PCs can see that the "e;real"e; world is still though the door at the end of
the hallway. They have to tiptoe along the floor, which is still very slippery.
If one of the PCs is unfortunate enough to fall into it, you can make up
whatever you want to happen. Perhaps a teleport to another world?
For those GMs who are feeling especially malevolent, the PCs may be in a
hopeless situation: the door can keep moving away at the same pace as the party
moves towards it, thereby dooming the party.
Healer Man
Angus (thekid@voicenet.com)
The PCs enter the room (Preferably from an area to which they can't retreat back
to) and find a large room. The room has no exits other than a door on the far
side of the room (Locked for now). In the room, the is a statue of a warrior and
bard with a glowing ball of light in the between the two:
----------------
| |exit
| |
| W * B |
| |
| |
----------------
When a character touches the light (which they will do in frustration of being
trapped) the light takes the shape of the PC that touched it. Basically, this
causes great confusion. Everything on the two must be the same. If someone
attacks the "e;Twin"e; then the wounds will appear on the real PC. If you attack
the real PC, the wounds only appear on the real PC. The only way to kill the
"e;twin"e; is to heal it. This can be by spell, chant, potion, herbs (you get
the idea.) It can take as little as one of these to kill it or more. (The less
needed, the more ticked your PCs will be) Took my PCs about 45 minutes.
William655@aol.com
The PCs are in a large abandoned castle, and stumble upon the treasure room.
There isn't much treasure, but there is a small corridor in the back of the
room. As the players walk down it, they see a light shining from a room on the
left. There are two rooms, one further down. When they move into the doorway of
the first room, an invisibility and mute spell is cast on the character in the
back. There is a sudden panic in the group, and then an image of the
"e;missing"e; character is portrayed in a cage on the other side of the room. As
the characters move towards it, a trap door opens that drops them into a slowly
narrowing pit. On all sides are rotating buzz-saws. The pit ends up only being 6
inches wide at the bottom, but before the players die, they "e;see"e; what was
in the other room... a full arsenal of +15 weapons and armor! It is best to use
this with a group of players with a good sense of humor.
Angus (thekid@voicenet.com)
Have the PCs see a very likable artifact in a room. When they enter the room,
have the door close. The artifact (which they find to be an illusion)
disappears, and they find themselves trapped. The door doesn't budge. In the
room is a skeleton, and in the skeleton's hand is a silver dagger. On the door
is seen the markings below:
T N E S S F F T T _
In order to open the door, they must figure out what goes into the blank (_).
Also, they can only scrape it into the door using the silver dagger. No other
weapon, chisel, or object can even mark the door. If they take the dagger and
scratch in the correct letter with it, the door opens. The letter that they must
scratch in is "O". The reason is this is that the letters stand for: Ten, Nine,
Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, and One.
This took my PCs about half an hour...and that was only because one of them
vaguely remembered it from a puzzle book he had read. So, I judge it to take a
little longer than that for the average group.
FLOOD THE DUNGEON
Nicki Vankoughnett (vankougn@lycos.nbchs.north-battleford.sk.ca)
This trap is very difficult to set up, but great for getting a lot more time out
of a dungeon. When the players are finished with the final villain of the
dungeon, have them find the treasure room. Once inside, of course they find a
very large amount of gold, silver, gems, etc. The treasure is large enough that
just preparing it for transport out of the dungeon will take about a day. The
room is also somewhat elevated from the rest of the dungeon, say, about 15 - 20
feet above the lowest point. One of the chest's will be stuck to the floor. When
it is opened, it will set off the trap. Once it is opened, elsewhere in the
dungeon, a floodgate will open, and begin filling the dungeon with water. At the
source, there is a silence spell, to keep the players from hearing this. What
should happen, is that the players will be focused on the treasure, and have the
door to the room closed. When they go to leave, they will find that a little way
down the stairs or ladder, or whatever, that way down is filled with water.
Getting out of the dungeon will be much more interesting now, especially if the
players have to continually surface for air. Also make it clear that carrying
any significant amount of the treasure will weigh them down. Also remember that
torches do not burn underwater. If you wish to improve their chances of
escaping, allow the treasure to contain one or two magical items that will allow
survival under water.
Scissors Trap
lorie Coleman (dogncat@earthlink.net)
In this trap, if a PC opens a door [It should open away from them and hit a wall
on the other side.] it will trigger a button that will do two things:
It will lower a long wooden block with a spike on the end of it.
Two pairs of blades will come out of the wall on both sides of the door, at
neck level and ankle level. The top blades are equivalent to vorpal swords,
and the lower ones are equivalent to swords of sharpness. Roll to see if
limbs are severed. [Neck twice and both feet. But only if the scissors hit.]
If a saving throw is failed, they take 4d8 points of damage. If they make it ask
them if they jump through the doorway or backwards. Make sure you don't tell
them about the spike behind them! If they jump back they impale themselves on
the spike [1d10] and get hit by all four blades! If they jump forward, some GMs
might want to be particularly mean and put a pit just right outside the door.
Others might want to be nice and keep a safe way through it all. If you do put a
pit, you should make a different path leading to that same room.