Portable traps

[Chuckles]

I'm playing an invisible thief and am looking for some portable traps to toss in combat, so I don't have to worry about losing my invisibility. I've got caltrops, but haven't found much else. GM's kind of a by the book type guy, so if it can be found in a book somewhere, that's better.

[AlphaNerd]

Portable holes are 6' in diameter, which means they more or less take up one square, and they're 10' deep.

You could throw and light oil in various squares.

Setup rudimentary trip-lines.

[josephbt]

I loathe traps. I simply cannot fathom their point.

The thing is, there are 2 kinds of traps. The Indianajonesque trap and "har-har-a-xbow-in-the-wall" bullshit trap. The first ones you see once in three adventures and they are fun. You get to have a story like "how I survived the acid-spewing-death-trap-of-doom".

The other kind you see all over kobold lairs and goblin lairs and madwizzard lairs and bloody-boring lairs. They serve no purpose other than to whittle you HPs down or to simply annoy you and make the party move slower or to put the barbarians in the front. And sometimes they even don't pose a threat. Like magical traps and permanencied Arc Sight.

Bloody traps and Gygax.

[Draco_Argentum]

One time the party rogue tripped a paralysis trap. We just waited until it wore off and since it was a disused temple its not like that cost anything other than saying, "we wait until it wears off".

[tzor]

AFAIK Gygax is not responsible for the most vile of all traps known to man, the fountain filled with clear acid and an illusion of some nice baubble (coin/gem) under the liquid. I've seen every 1st edition DM use it, but I still don't know where it came from.

What about good old fashioned bear traps? They have to be statted by someone someplace. Especially if made invisible they could be lots of good clean fun!

[fbmf]

1179476370[/unixtime]]I loathe traps. I simply cannot fathom their point.

The thing is, there are 2 kinds of traps. The Indianajonesque trap and "har-har-a-xbow-in-the-wall" bullshit trap.

Ummm...Indiana Jones had bolts shot at him from a mechanism in the wall in the opening of RotLA.

Would you mind clarifying the difference.

Game On,
fbmf

[Fwib]

I am guessing that save-or-die by having a ceiling drop slowly on you (unless you are clever) or run away from the big rock or fight the pit of snakes with the torches, etc...

A trap that is an actual encounter, rather than 'make save, ignore'

[AlphaNerd]

Honestly, the easiest way to make a trap memorable is to *combine* it with an encounter. Sure, you can make it *into* an encounter, but that takes work and skill.

[User3]

Basically what fwib said.

See, IJ sees the triggers on the ground, so he has to move carefully, and before he saw the weird light that invokes spikes. And after we have the famous big rock. All one single fun encounter, and not "make ref or take 15dmg". Later on in the movie there is the pit with snakes. Still fun.

An encounter has to have meaning. A trap(encounter) that has only one purpose - to reduce HP by some bullshit ammount(so that the real encounter is "fun") is incredibly boring & unimaginative.

[josephbt]

that was me guesting. damn browser forgot my data AGAIN!

[Catharz]

Indiana Jones traps seem to be of the 'railroad or die' type, rather than the 'let's make combat tactics even more interesting (confusing)' type.

[tzor]

Not to mention that some of I.J.'s traps required obscure knowledge to overcome - which ironically was flat out wrong.

Like "In the Latin Alphaet 'Jehova' is spelled with an 'I'" is doubly wrong. First of all the knights of Sir Arthur never used the word in the first place. Second of all the earilest use of the term not only was the "J" an "I" the "V" was a "U" but that was in 1530, not the time of King Arthur.

Yea it's a Wiki reference but it's got to be more accurate than a sloppy movie script.

The first English translators of ****, believed it had the correct vowel points, and translated it as it was written:

"Iehouah" in 1530 A.D. English.
"Iehovah" in 1611 A.D. English.
"Jehovah" in 1769 A.D. English.

Note I used **** because I have no clue how to copy and paste Hebrew from a webpage so that it works in the messageboard.

The important thing about I.J. is that is is a "serial move" type movie. These movies were actually smaller and ended every one with a "cliff hanger" that made you wonder for a whole week how the hero would get out of the death defying trap. By their very nature serial movies are the ultimate forms of railroading known to man.