Post by StoryTeller on Jan 22, 2006 7:18:50 GMT
J.McGuire (73223.664@compuserve.com)
In the center of an otherwise empty, totally ordinary, middle-sized room, a
gem-encrusted crown floats in a sparkling column of golden light. Any detection
reveals that the entire room radiates magic. But it's not the magic that's going
to harm the hapless adventurers...more like the lack of it. Sooner or later,
someone is probably going to try to dispel that glowing column to get the crown,
since the golden light appears to be some sort of magical force field. (This
works best in a system like AD&D where "Dispel Magic" is an area-affect spell)
As soon as that spell goes off, the *floor* vanishes. So does the pillar of
light, but nobody is going to be worried about the fact that the crown is fake;
under the floor, of course, is a pit built to your specs. (I like about a 20'
drop to a thicket of spikes, myself) The floor was a magical wall of stone,
deliberately cast to be "magically brittle" and with no defense against any
attempt at dispelling it. It's their own magic that does them in.
Variation of Chooser Ain't the Loser (Trap Collection v1)
Tomas Weijters (weijters@rulimburg.nl)
If you would like to get your players really pissed off, make that walls stop if
they are about a foot of each other, look out for raging players!!
How Do You Like Your PC: Sliced, or Fried?
James Spector (demise@geocities.com)
First you have your typical trapdoor (or any variation). Once the party
member(s) fall through the trapdoor the fun begins. My favorite thing to do
after that is to have the victim(s) go sliding through a Blade Barrier, and end
up landing in a vat of oil (that just happens to have a Red Dragon lounging next
to it.)
Arno's Sleeping Paradise (NOT)
Tomas Weijters and Arno Janssen (weijters@cs.uniemaas.nl)
You should have a flask of wine standing on a table, with a bed behind it, and
you should let the players get out of desert or some thirsty thing, without any
water or wine. If any of the PC's drink some water, they'll have a great desire
to sleep (on that bed). This bed is actually nasty trapped: if you lay on it,
you'll sink 5 feet down, into 20 spikes (they can be poisoned or whatever) each
of these nasties dealing 1d8 damage. If any pressure is released on these
spikes, above him there are 10 spikes which will flip out, angled 45 degrees
down, so you will only get hurt if coming up, not down. The one in there will
notice that the walls are coming together very slowly. After 10 minutes of
"sleeping" the walls will finally crash into each other and squish the victim.
Sinking floor
Jonathan Cox (Eacrh@connect.reach.net)
As you are walking through a dungeon you come to a door with a stalagmite which
can be hopped over. When you open the door you see shelves on the walls which
contain gold and platinum ingots and various large magical items. The shelves
are on all sides of the room except for the door's side. When the greedy PC's
step into the room it sinks 1 inch for every 4 pounds the players are carrying.
The same occurs when the items are removed from the shelf. The walls are
slippery to the touch and not climbable. A dispel magic disintegrates the floor,
but the players will plummet to their death. Solution: Tie a rope to the
stalagmite and pull yourself up, the magic items may be obtained by flight
spells or other whatever.
Tinker Slammer
Azrael (azrael@voyageronline.net)
This trap is best used if designed by a Tinker Gnome, and built by a dwarf. The
trap is constructed by removing a 2' thick 4' wide sheet of rock from the wall.
Then excavate the interior. After placing the pressure plate in the floor
(useful to have a mage cast phantasmal force over it) and a giant spring in to
hole, place the original sheet of rock back over the opening (again concealed by
a spell of illusionary wall) When triggered, this trap slams across the hall,
and the person triggering it must make a dex check at -7 or take 3D10 points of
damage, and must save verses paralyzation -4 or have a limb broken (1D4 1Rarm
2Larm 3Rleg 4Lleg)
Buy some shoes!
Tomas Weijters (weijters@cs.rulimburg.nl)
The players are walking through a forest, and step into a small pit, which traps
their feet. The only way to get out is by taking off the shoes. The shoes are
stuck, so they'll have to go one barefoot. Later on, they'll reach a open spot
in the forest, and if they step on it, they crack through into spikes of about
1/2 foot long, into there feet. Everybody who still wears metal shoes will only
get scared, but the rest are stuck in the spikes.
The Spiked Wall of Falling Death
Daniel Sloan of Scarlet Dragon (sloan@vianet.net.au)
The trap appears in a room with a ceiling of any height, but for this
description I will use a roof twenty feet up. In the middle of the room is
another wall of about fifteen feet so it is possible to climb over the top. The
only way the PC's can exit the room is by going through the exit on the other
side of this wall. The wall is flush against the side walls so the only way past
it is over it. The wall has half foot long spikes sticking out of it on the PC's
side.
The PC's climb the wall, but it is only after they reach the top that the wall
falls. It can fall either way, so that the wall crushes them on the side they
started on, or the wall falls the other way.....the wall stops when it hits the
ground, but the PC doesn't, ending up with half foot long spikes in them again.
The only fault with this trap is that magic can help fly over it, or teleport
around it. The PC's may be clever and know that the wall will fall on them when
they climb it, so describe how there are supports preventing it from doing
this.....of course just don't tell them that it can fall the other way.
Bones, Bones Everywhere!
martichi (martichi@aol.com)
As the PC's walk down a hall, have walls spring up on all sides. Now have two
panels in the ceiling open and bones drop out in massive numbers. Have some of
the bones become skeletons, not all, though or it will simply be too much for
the PC's to fight off. I find 20 in all works well to wear them down. If not,
make a special regenerating skeleton appear from all the leftover bones. It is a
normal skeleton except turning it is treated as "special" and it regenerates as
follows: fire and acid have no effect; a solid blow (20) smashes it into a pile
of bones but it reforms! The only way to dispose of it is blasting it into the
next plane. The point is the PC's can't win. Once they fall over from damage,
exhaustion, or whatever, the lich shows up and he reveals his evil plans (insert
demonic plan here.)
At First Glance...
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
This trap is best used in goblin dungeons. The PCs walk down a section of
passage with many small holes in the roof. They may well be suspicious and may
think of using a magical shield above them, but the holes are not what they
seem. In the middle of the section of passage is a pressure pad, when stepped
on, the area of holes divides in two with previously hidden hinges in the
middle. Spikes suddenly appear from the holes and the, now spiked, slabs swing
inwards dealing 14d6 damage to anyone caught between them. However the trap is
not yet done, the slabs are now revealed to have murder holes behind them, from
which any number of things can be dropped upon those poor, unsuspecting PCs
"lucky" enough to be outside the slabs!
Cool off Time
VampD (jballou@inlink.com)
The PCs enter a square room. The entrance and the exit both seal up. The ceiling
is really a glass panel with a horde of water just sitting on top of it. There
is an illusion to make the glass look like the ceiling. There are tubes in the
walls about 1" in diameter and plugged with stone stoppers. This trap works good
if you have done one where water has poured through similar holes. The PCs
trigger a pressure plate that sends a lead ball from above the glass ceiling
down into the water. Of course the ball drops through the water, breaks the
glass, and water pours out onto the PCs. The walls have to be very clay like
here. The PCs hopefully realize that getting the stoppers out will allow the
water to drain out (the water leaves about 1' at the top for breathing, air will
get lousy but there will be air because of any reason you want). It works, that
is, if the PCs can get the stoppers out (make it easy). The water drains out to
a point (at the level, what ever it may be) and a layer of clay is washed off
the walls. The PCs can then see a seam around the exit door. They can pry (with
swords that might bend! Or anything else they may have) the door off and then
leave. *** Optional *** Be nasty and have some kind of monster in the water.
UNLOCK THE DOOR!
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
The PCs enter a passage about 20' long, ending in a dead end. As they enter, the
door locks behind them and the end of the passage suddenly sprouts spikes and
moves towards them at about 5' per round! The door has a magical lock on it and
requires two save rolls to open, one against magic and one against lock picking.
IT'S NOT OVER YET!
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
This trap should only be pulled if the PCs have just carved their way through
one of your finest adventures with barely a wound to show for it.
After last big baddie has been killed, the PCs advance into a room that is
absolutely crammed with treasure and magical items. The players will probably be
feeling smug after just decimating the GM's adventure and also be a little
uncautious, thinking it is all over. When they go for the treasure, have all the
weapons of the party suddenly animate and turn on their wielders, and several
statuettes in the treasure pile grow and turn into powerful creatures and
attack. And if this isn't enough, when (if?) they finally kill their opponents
and leave (probably without touching the treasure) they find that the big baddie
has been restored to life, fully powered up and healed! Oh yeah, and he's pissed
off too.
GO JUMP IN THE LAKE
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
The PCs come to a shallow lake outdoors with a small island in the middle. The
water is very clear and it can be seen that there is nothing in the water that
could possibly harm them... or so they think. But the white sand on the bottom
is actually enchanted and when stirred up by the PCs wading through the water
(assuming they try to get to the island) it will stick to them. At first this
does nothing, but when the PCs exit the water it hardens within seconds into a
plaster coating harder than stone and impervious to anything except magic (of
course, any forceful spell used will hurt the PC inside as well) and this would
be a good time for some nasty beastie to appear from the trees on the island. If
he/she is feeling generous, and the PCs manage to get out of this, the GM may
reward them with some treasure hidden in the creature's lair. (This nearly
killed off my players, but luckily a mage was still in the water and he dealt
with the Ogre I threw at him.)
DIP...S#!T
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
If one of the PCs is a thief and he/she tries a little pick-pocketing, have them
steal a silk purse off a wealthy-looking gentleman/lady fairly easily. When they
go to open the purse it starts to shout, "Help, Help, Thief!" hopefully they
manage to get away if they are still in a crowd, but if they are not it doesn't
matter (except maybe for an angry innkeeper wanting to know what the noise is
about) but still, the only thing in the purse is a scruffy piece of paper with
the words:- 'The curse of [some vengeful god] on you, thief!' And this is no
idle curse either, the reader of the note (not necessarily the thief) is
suddenly stricken with a crippling curse which reduces ALL their scores and
non-mental skills by a number previously set by the GM! Rich pickings, eh?
OPEN SESAME (sesame-seed hand)
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
The PCs come across an iron-bound door with no handle and a small, protruding
face made of iron on it. The face has an iron ring in its mouth. If a PC tries
to knock with the iron ring, the face spits it out and lodges some very long and
very sharp teeth in their hand! This causes only 1d6 damage, but the teeth are
coated with a nasty poison which paralyses the hand and slowly spreads
throughout the body, shutting down vital organs as it goes. (Unless otherwise
stated, assume that the hand used was the PC's weapon hand.) This trap should be
used deep into the adventure, far from any herbalist, and so relying on the PCs'
knowledge of medicine to avoid death.
No immune system can resist the poison, but the GM may have provided some
antidote earlier in the adventure. (This is even better if the players don't
know what the antidote is.)
If the PCs manage to get past the door (perhaps by blowing it off it's hinges
with magic or firepowder) they find that all the door was guarding was an old
chest which has already been looted by earlier adventurers!
On a Pedestal
Jason Cox (coxie@iastate.edu)
first is the summoning trap. This one was originally in a priest-mage's castle.
After making their way into the room they see the illusion of a treasure
chamber, so most of them will rush in. As soon as they're all in, a trap springs
and blocks the entrance. Since I have such a strong party physically, I used a
prismatic wall to block the wall. In the room are three pedestals. On each one
is a gem, a ruby, a sapphire and a diamond. Only by removing one can the party
escape (I suggest adding a riddle somewhere in the castle for the answer.) The
other two trip the trap, I used one to summon an ta' nari and the other started
replacing the flagstones (floor tiles ) in the room with stones that have magic
runes inscribed on them (death, destruction, blindness, etc)
Jason Cox (coxie@iastate.edu)
In this illusion trap the party is trapped in a box corridor with only two ways
out, down a trapdoor in the side of the wall, or back the way they came. The
illusion is that there is a large party of trolls bearing down on the party,
complete with sounds, smells, and sight. Outnumbered five to one by trolls, most
people choose to try the trap door which puts them into the next trap:
Trapped in a room that is apparently sealed (but there is a hidden secret door)
and in a zone of null magic, the party must first find the door, and decipher
the riddle to find the switch in the far corner ceiling, then work together to
reach the fifteen foot ceiling. Then after they've tripped the switch that
unlocks the deadbolts, they need to then pick the lock and free the door, which
leads to a room with a spiked pit that they need to work to get to the landing
across the pit and to safety.
The ceiling must be high enough to force the party to work together and the pit
room must not be too wide that the party couldn't string a tightrope across.
Basically don't make them death traps, though I did add a sand trap in the room
to make them hurry. A room filling up with sand makes people work faster.
Collapsing Ceiling
While the PC's are walking down a 10' x 50' hallway, they see a door at the end.
(This is where the fun begins.) Once the PC's open the door they see a 100' x
100' x 100' room. The PC's notice that there is a ledge at the top of the room.
In order to get to the ledge they will have to use unconventional means (ie,
magic, ring of flying, ring of teleportation, etc.). Once the PC's enter the
room, start counting. Once you get to 100 tell the PC's that they can feel the
room shaking and can hear granite scraping against granite. Start counting
again. Once you get to 25 each PC that has not made it to the ledge gets crushed
to death by an invisible granite block. (Nasty!)
In the center of an otherwise empty, totally ordinary, middle-sized room, a
gem-encrusted crown floats in a sparkling column of golden light. Any detection
reveals that the entire room radiates magic. But it's not the magic that's going
to harm the hapless adventurers...more like the lack of it. Sooner or later,
someone is probably going to try to dispel that glowing column to get the crown,
since the golden light appears to be some sort of magical force field. (This
works best in a system like AD&D where "Dispel Magic" is an area-affect spell)
As soon as that spell goes off, the *floor* vanishes. So does the pillar of
light, but nobody is going to be worried about the fact that the crown is fake;
under the floor, of course, is a pit built to your specs. (I like about a 20'
drop to a thicket of spikes, myself) The floor was a magical wall of stone,
deliberately cast to be "magically brittle" and with no defense against any
attempt at dispelling it. It's their own magic that does them in.
Variation of Chooser Ain't the Loser (Trap Collection v1)
Tomas Weijters (weijters@rulimburg.nl)
If you would like to get your players really pissed off, make that walls stop if
they are about a foot of each other, look out for raging players!!
How Do You Like Your PC: Sliced, or Fried?
James Spector (demise@geocities.com)
First you have your typical trapdoor (or any variation). Once the party
member(s) fall through the trapdoor the fun begins. My favorite thing to do
after that is to have the victim(s) go sliding through a Blade Barrier, and end
up landing in a vat of oil (that just happens to have a Red Dragon lounging next
to it.)
Arno's Sleeping Paradise (NOT)
Tomas Weijters and Arno Janssen (weijters@cs.uniemaas.nl)
You should have a flask of wine standing on a table, with a bed behind it, and
you should let the players get out of desert or some thirsty thing, without any
water or wine. If any of the PC's drink some water, they'll have a great desire
to sleep (on that bed). This bed is actually nasty trapped: if you lay on it,
you'll sink 5 feet down, into 20 spikes (they can be poisoned or whatever) each
of these nasties dealing 1d8 damage. If any pressure is released on these
spikes, above him there are 10 spikes which will flip out, angled 45 degrees
down, so you will only get hurt if coming up, not down. The one in there will
notice that the walls are coming together very slowly. After 10 minutes of
"sleeping" the walls will finally crash into each other and squish the victim.
Sinking floor
Jonathan Cox (Eacrh@connect.reach.net)
As you are walking through a dungeon you come to a door with a stalagmite which
can be hopped over. When you open the door you see shelves on the walls which
contain gold and platinum ingots and various large magical items. The shelves
are on all sides of the room except for the door's side. When the greedy PC's
step into the room it sinks 1 inch for every 4 pounds the players are carrying.
The same occurs when the items are removed from the shelf. The walls are
slippery to the touch and not climbable. A dispel magic disintegrates the floor,
but the players will plummet to their death. Solution: Tie a rope to the
stalagmite and pull yourself up, the magic items may be obtained by flight
spells or other whatever.
Tinker Slammer
Azrael (azrael@voyageronline.net)
This trap is best used if designed by a Tinker Gnome, and built by a dwarf. The
trap is constructed by removing a 2' thick 4' wide sheet of rock from the wall.
Then excavate the interior. After placing the pressure plate in the floor
(useful to have a mage cast phantasmal force over it) and a giant spring in to
hole, place the original sheet of rock back over the opening (again concealed by
a spell of illusionary wall) When triggered, this trap slams across the hall,
and the person triggering it must make a dex check at -7 or take 3D10 points of
damage, and must save verses paralyzation -4 or have a limb broken (1D4 1Rarm
2Larm 3Rleg 4Lleg)
Buy some shoes!
Tomas Weijters (weijters@cs.rulimburg.nl)
The players are walking through a forest, and step into a small pit, which traps
their feet. The only way to get out is by taking off the shoes. The shoes are
stuck, so they'll have to go one barefoot. Later on, they'll reach a open spot
in the forest, and if they step on it, they crack through into spikes of about
1/2 foot long, into there feet. Everybody who still wears metal shoes will only
get scared, but the rest are stuck in the spikes.
The Spiked Wall of Falling Death
Daniel Sloan of Scarlet Dragon (sloan@vianet.net.au)
The trap appears in a room with a ceiling of any height, but for this
description I will use a roof twenty feet up. In the middle of the room is
another wall of about fifteen feet so it is possible to climb over the top. The
only way the PC's can exit the room is by going through the exit on the other
side of this wall. The wall is flush against the side walls so the only way past
it is over it. The wall has half foot long spikes sticking out of it on the PC's
side.
The PC's climb the wall, but it is only after they reach the top that the wall
falls. It can fall either way, so that the wall crushes them on the side they
started on, or the wall falls the other way.....the wall stops when it hits the
ground, but the PC doesn't, ending up with half foot long spikes in them again.
The only fault with this trap is that magic can help fly over it, or teleport
around it. The PC's may be clever and know that the wall will fall on them when
they climb it, so describe how there are supports preventing it from doing
this.....of course just don't tell them that it can fall the other way.
Bones, Bones Everywhere!
martichi (martichi@aol.com)
As the PC's walk down a hall, have walls spring up on all sides. Now have two
panels in the ceiling open and bones drop out in massive numbers. Have some of
the bones become skeletons, not all, though or it will simply be too much for
the PC's to fight off. I find 20 in all works well to wear them down. If not,
make a special regenerating skeleton appear from all the leftover bones. It is a
normal skeleton except turning it is treated as "special" and it regenerates as
follows: fire and acid have no effect; a solid blow (20) smashes it into a pile
of bones but it reforms! The only way to dispose of it is blasting it into the
next plane. The point is the PC's can't win. Once they fall over from damage,
exhaustion, or whatever, the lich shows up and he reveals his evil plans (insert
demonic plan here.)
At First Glance...
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
This trap is best used in goblin dungeons. The PCs walk down a section of
passage with many small holes in the roof. They may well be suspicious and may
think of using a magical shield above them, but the holes are not what they
seem. In the middle of the section of passage is a pressure pad, when stepped
on, the area of holes divides in two with previously hidden hinges in the
middle. Spikes suddenly appear from the holes and the, now spiked, slabs swing
inwards dealing 14d6 damage to anyone caught between them. However the trap is
not yet done, the slabs are now revealed to have murder holes behind them, from
which any number of things can be dropped upon those poor, unsuspecting PCs
"lucky" enough to be outside the slabs!
Cool off Time
VampD (jballou@inlink.com)
The PCs enter a square room. The entrance and the exit both seal up. The ceiling
is really a glass panel with a horde of water just sitting on top of it. There
is an illusion to make the glass look like the ceiling. There are tubes in the
walls about 1" in diameter and plugged with stone stoppers. This trap works good
if you have done one where water has poured through similar holes. The PCs
trigger a pressure plate that sends a lead ball from above the glass ceiling
down into the water. Of course the ball drops through the water, breaks the
glass, and water pours out onto the PCs. The walls have to be very clay like
here. The PCs hopefully realize that getting the stoppers out will allow the
water to drain out (the water leaves about 1' at the top for breathing, air will
get lousy but there will be air because of any reason you want). It works, that
is, if the PCs can get the stoppers out (make it easy). The water drains out to
a point (at the level, what ever it may be) and a layer of clay is washed off
the walls. The PCs can then see a seam around the exit door. They can pry (with
swords that might bend! Or anything else they may have) the door off and then
leave. *** Optional *** Be nasty and have some kind of monster in the water.
UNLOCK THE DOOR!
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
The PCs enter a passage about 20' long, ending in a dead end. As they enter, the
door locks behind them and the end of the passage suddenly sprouts spikes and
moves towards them at about 5' per round! The door has a magical lock on it and
requires two save rolls to open, one against magic and one against lock picking.
IT'S NOT OVER YET!
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
This trap should only be pulled if the PCs have just carved their way through
one of your finest adventures with barely a wound to show for it.
After last big baddie has been killed, the PCs advance into a room that is
absolutely crammed with treasure and magical items. The players will probably be
feeling smug after just decimating the GM's adventure and also be a little
uncautious, thinking it is all over. When they go for the treasure, have all the
weapons of the party suddenly animate and turn on their wielders, and several
statuettes in the treasure pile grow and turn into powerful creatures and
attack. And if this isn't enough, when (if?) they finally kill their opponents
and leave (probably without touching the treasure) they find that the big baddie
has been restored to life, fully powered up and healed! Oh yeah, and he's pissed
off too.
GO JUMP IN THE LAKE
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
The PCs come to a shallow lake outdoors with a small island in the middle. The
water is very clear and it can be seen that there is nothing in the water that
could possibly harm them... or so they think. But the white sand on the bottom
is actually enchanted and when stirred up by the PCs wading through the water
(assuming they try to get to the island) it will stick to them. At first this
does nothing, but when the PCs exit the water it hardens within seconds into a
plaster coating harder than stone and impervious to anything except magic (of
course, any forceful spell used will hurt the PC inside as well) and this would
be a good time for some nasty beastie to appear from the trees on the island. If
he/she is feeling generous, and the PCs manage to get out of this, the GM may
reward them with some treasure hidden in the creature's lair. (This nearly
killed off my players, but luckily a mage was still in the water and he dealt
with the Ogre I threw at him.)
DIP...S#!T
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
If one of the PCs is a thief and he/she tries a little pick-pocketing, have them
steal a silk purse off a wealthy-looking gentleman/lady fairly easily. When they
go to open the purse it starts to shout, "Help, Help, Thief!" hopefully they
manage to get away if they are still in a crowd, but if they are not it doesn't
matter (except maybe for an angry innkeeper wanting to know what the noise is
about) but still, the only thing in the purse is a scruffy piece of paper with
the words:- 'The curse of [some vengeful god] on you, thief!' And this is no
idle curse either, the reader of the note (not necessarily the thief) is
suddenly stricken with a crippling curse which reduces ALL their scores and
non-mental skills by a number previously set by the GM! Rich pickings, eh?
OPEN SESAME (sesame-seed hand)
Vovoid: (plucas@ultra.net.au)
The PCs come across an iron-bound door with no handle and a small, protruding
face made of iron on it. The face has an iron ring in its mouth. If a PC tries
to knock with the iron ring, the face spits it out and lodges some very long and
very sharp teeth in their hand! This causes only 1d6 damage, but the teeth are
coated with a nasty poison which paralyses the hand and slowly spreads
throughout the body, shutting down vital organs as it goes. (Unless otherwise
stated, assume that the hand used was the PC's weapon hand.) This trap should be
used deep into the adventure, far from any herbalist, and so relying on the PCs'
knowledge of medicine to avoid death.
No immune system can resist the poison, but the GM may have provided some
antidote earlier in the adventure. (This is even better if the players don't
know what the antidote is.)
If the PCs manage to get past the door (perhaps by blowing it off it's hinges
with magic or firepowder) they find that all the door was guarding was an old
chest which has already been looted by earlier adventurers!
On a Pedestal
Jason Cox (coxie@iastate.edu)
first is the summoning trap. This one was originally in a priest-mage's castle.
After making their way into the room they see the illusion of a treasure
chamber, so most of them will rush in. As soon as they're all in, a trap springs
and blocks the entrance. Since I have such a strong party physically, I used a
prismatic wall to block the wall. In the room are three pedestals. On each one
is a gem, a ruby, a sapphire and a diamond. Only by removing one can the party
escape (I suggest adding a riddle somewhere in the castle for the answer.) The
other two trip the trap, I used one to summon an ta' nari and the other started
replacing the flagstones (floor tiles ) in the room with stones that have magic
runes inscribed on them (death, destruction, blindness, etc)
Jason Cox (coxie@iastate.edu)
In this illusion trap the party is trapped in a box corridor with only two ways
out, down a trapdoor in the side of the wall, or back the way they came. The
illusion is that there is a large party of trolls bearing down on the party,
complete with sounds, smells, and sight. Outnumbered five to one by trolls, most
people choose to try the trap door which puts them into the next trap:
Trapped in a room that is apparently sealed (but there is a hidden secret door)
and in a zone of null magic, the party must first find the door, and decipher
the riddle to find the switch in the far corner ceiling, then work together to
reach the fifteen foot ceiling. Then after they've tripped the switch that
unlocks the deadbolts, they need to then pick the lock and free the door, which
leads to a room with a spiked pit that they need to work to get to the landing
across the pit and to safety.
The ceiling must be high enough to force the party to work together and the pit
room must not be too wide that the party couldn't string a tightrope across.
Basically don't make them death traps, though I did add a sand trap in the room
to make them hurry. A room filling up with sand makes people work faster.
Collapsing Ceiling
While the PC's are walking down a 10' x 50' hallway, they see a door at the end.
(This is where the fun begins.) Once the PC's open the door they see a 100' x
100' x 100' room. The PC's notice that there is a ledge at the top of the room.
In order to get to the ledge they will have to use unconventional means (ie,
magic, ring of flying, ring of teleportation, etc.). Once the PC's enter the
room, start counting. Once you get to 100 tell the PC's that they can feel the
room shaking and can hear granite scraping against granite. Start counting
again. Once you get to 25 each PC that has not made it to the ledge gets crushed
to death by an invisible granite block. (Nasty!)