Traps

[Oberoni]

What do YOU think? Have you ever surprised any of your players with a well-placed trap before? Also, do you favor subtle or obvious traps?

I personally prefer to leave at least some clues to the nature of a trap in any game that I run, so players don't need to constantly check for them. I feel that games can slow down and get pretty awkward when the players are constantly looking for the telltale signs.

However, every once in a while, I've used a very well-disguised trap to great effect on a PC. The look on the player's face when he realized what just happened is priceless. : )

[RobbyPants]

I don't use them very often, but that's largely because I've had a small group for a while, so there isn't always someone in the group with Trapfinding. That being said, I tend to put traps on obvious places like treasure chests and important doors, or I tend to make them more obvious and able to be thwarted by being cleaver rather than rolling a skill check.

I don't have any remarkable traps coming to mind, so I probably haven't used anything too creative in the past.


[off-topic]What brings you back after several years?[/off-topic]

[Username17]

It's not a proper old-school, insane dungeon crawl unless there are traps. That said, the entire process is pretty stupid. And the trapfinding ability doesn't make any sense and in most games is not worth even the weakest of bags of tricks.

I have had some fun with them. One dungeon I ran (the Tomb of Iuchiban, though I made up its contents myself rather than grabbing any of the third party materials on the subject), was pretty much all traps and a time limit. That worked out pretty well, but only because it had an in-world reason to be completely batshit. Deadly poisons and crushing blocks were around because no one lived there and it was seriously supposed to kill anyone who came in.

-Username17

[Dean]

I always always always go with traps that are obvious. I do this for a number of reasons but the primary two are that #1 there IS a canon for heroes going up against obvious traps and almost no canon for heroes going up against non-obvious traps with the exception of tiger traps. And number 2 obvious traps provide fun and non-obvious traps do not. Players literally don't even care that while walking down the hall you shout "Stop, walking over that square caused an arrow to shoot from the wall, 1d6 damage!". It's like a tax. They just mark it off and move on with their lives. On the other hand if you have a hallway with hundreds of arrow slits in the side of the wall and some dragon-head things at the end that look like they shoot fire then your players care. They see a problem, perhaps even a puzzle, and they move to solve it. They may grab tables from old rooms, cast spells that negate fire or stop some side from being able to project arrows (Walls of stone or something) and then they will sprint down the hallway carrying tables and screaming and crash through the door on the other side. And whether or not damage occured in the interrum is unimportant to you as a DM, because -fun- did.

[Thymos]

You know, I think the best traps are ones that are on a larger scale and have an actual way to foil them in game as opposed to just rolling a skill.

[Hieronymous Rex]

"Stop, walking over that square caused an arrow to shoot from the wall, 1d6 damage!". It's like a tax. They just mark it off and move on with their lives.

Funny that you would put it that way.

[hogarth]

"Stop, walking over that square caused an arrow to shoot from the wall, 1d6 damage!". It's like a tax. They just mark it off and move on with their lives.

Funny that you would put it that way.

I agree with what he said in the first article (traps shouldn't be just a source of random damage, and traps shouldn't be busy work for rogues). But I'm not crazy about the suggestion in the second article either, because I'm not a big fan of puzzles. Puzzles are like a gaming speed bump, and a good game doesn't need speed bumps, IMO.

(Here's a thread from last year about puzzles & riddles: http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50073)

[Crissa]

I have had some fun with them. One dungeon I ran (the Tomb of Iuchiban, though I made up its contents myself rather than grabbing any of the third party materials on the subject), was pretty much all traps and a time limit.

...And the Rogue died at the end of the dungeon, right at the one moment she relied upon reflexes to save her instead of skills when they started fighting the boss.

-Crissa

[Lago PARANOIA]

Holy fucking shit, Oberoni is back.

Dude, I didn't even notice. Welcome back, guy. That's like a four year gap.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I throw one big trap at the beginning of trapped areas to get the players to slow down, or I have small hidden ones around that just make a lot of noice to warn the people that lived there.

One time I had a vast trap dungeon. The players came across two Tarry Gehreleths encased from the waist down in stone with a sign that said they were cursed: One was cursed to lie about which way to go, the other was cursed to tell the truth. They did the old "Would he tell me to go left?" question and went through the trap-filled hallway instead of the relatively save passage (Note that players will believe the most peculiar things sometimes. truth is neither Gehreleth was cursed in any way, they were just having some fun.)

[Blasted]

I've had more than one TPK caused by traps* which were a little too cerebral for the audience, so now the only traps I use are obvious and not overly damaging.

* some PC actions really have left me banging my head on the table. "Do you reaaalllllyy want to prod that button? You do have an 18 intelligence." "Are you sure you want to wade back through the green sludge, which you already know hurts a great deal?"

[Josh_Kablack]

I tend to overthink trap design, and consequently let my players sub in rolls or spells or oddball lateral thinking to bypass them.

But I am proud of the area guarded by Glyphs of Warding in a dungeon, which I drew all in red magic marker on the map despite everything else being black or brown. The first player had his character step into it and get blasted - the other players made fun of him for missing something that should have been obvious, but then the monsters attacked and two more player characters ran right into the area.

[Oberoni]

I don't play much D&D any more, unfortunately, but Gencon reminded me that fbmf is a cool fella, and this place is the bee's knees. If I don't post at least occasionally, someone should yell at me.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why's that? Not enough time to play, bored with D&D (or a certain edition) specifically, or bored with roleplaying in general?

If you're bored with a certain edition then stick around. There's going to be some impressive fireworks in about a year and you want a front-row seat.

[Sarandosil]

I've rarely ever used them. Generally all my dungeon crawls tend to be places where people are living, so designing traps with the thought that the people living there need to be able to navigate them always put a damper on how crazy they could be. For the most part they break my suspension of disbelief too much, and I don't want the games to get bogged own by the rogue searching every square inch three times over.

[TheFlatline]

I use traps sparingly, but I do love them.

A lot of my traps tend to be stuff like dumping a gallon of greek fire down a stairwell when everyone's standing on it. It usually requires someone throwing a lever and activating the defenses. Which means yes, if you manage somehow to kill the dude hiding in the guard room throwing levers and dropping boulders on you, no more traps happen.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I use traps sparingly, but I do love them.

A lot of my traps tend to be stuff like dumping a gallon of greek fire down a stairwell when everyone's standing on it. It usually requires someone throwing a lever and activating the defenses. Which means yes, if you manage somehow to kill the dude hiding in the guard room throwing levers and dropping boulders on you, no more traps happen.

I did something similar one time. A goblin was standing up in a secret room above the players throwing levels and such. One of my players was getting mad that there wasn't a "trick" to get by the scything blades, and argued "A trap shouldn't be able to do this". One of the rookie players threw a flask of oil up in the gears then fireballed it. The older player STILL didn't get it when a dead goblin fell out.

[TheFlatline]

I use traps sparingly, but I do love them.

A lot of my traps tend to be stuff like dumping a gallon of greek fire down a stairwell when everyone's standing on it. It usually requires someone throwing a lever and activating the defenses. Which means yes, if you manage somehow to kill the dude hiding in the guard room throwing levers and dropping boulders on you, no more traps happen.

I did something similar one time. A goblin was standing up in a secret room above the players throwing levels and such. One of my players was getting mad that there wasn't a "trick" to get by the scything blades, and argued "A trap shouldn't be able to do this". One of the rookie players threw a flask of oil up in the gears then fireballed it. The older player STILL didn't get it when a dead goblin fell out.

Sometimes n00bs astound us by the clarity of their thinking.

I remember I was forced to play in a 2nd edition game, extremely lethal, and the DM hated me because he wanted to sleep with my at-the-time GF.

So I rolled a character and he basically told me to come back in six months when there was a place to be 'introduced'. The DM's wife (yes, the drama is building) nagged him into letting me play one of the NPC mercenaries. Sure fine whatever. I noted the dude had high strength and was a whack/bonk. I can do this.

So about 30 minutes later we get into a fight with a big bad evil guy. Specifically, a greater beholder with like level 25 cleric and level 25 wizard, and we were all around level 12. Retreat wasn't an option. Did I mention the f*cking DM was an idiot?

Anyway, the party is getting it's ass kicked, the beholder has created the mother of all blade barriers (like 3 feet thick), and is summoning these gold skinned succubi. Well, I can hit those with my pointy sword, so I slash one. Molten metal splashes out and does like 3 times the damage to me that my magical sword does. The DM is enjoying this. I'm pissed. Then it occurs to me.

"I grapple one of these bitches... Does she burn me if I grab her?"
"err... no only if you cut her."
*roll*
"Okay so you grab her. Now what?"
"Great! I have strength 20. Bitch is getting thrown into the blade barrier. I figure that's like 200 points of damage right there the beholder can't dodge out of because he's in, as you said, a tight blade barrier sphere."
*DM's face turns to one of utter hatred*
"Get out of my game"
"Someone can't stand innovation in their games."

Bastard... I reward really sharp, on the bounce thinking in my games. Maybe he would have if he didn't hate me for dating the chick he wanted to penis.

However, his big climactic fight was ruined. The party picked up on the concept and did 4000 damage in like 5 rounds to the beholder, who mysteriously could cast heal despite taking hundreds of points of damage. Whatever... He never invited me or my GF back to game.

[Roy]

I care fuck all about traps. Most of em are trivial, and the ones that aren't are still boring. I could put em there, but I'd just be wasting everyone's time. So why bother?

[Hicks]

I *L-O-V-E*, luuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrve traps. And I was a complete bat rastard about them too. My favorite was the Hall of Horrors: 50' tall, 50' wide, 200' long, filled to the brim with non-magical traps. Floor tiles that either shot up poison spikes or opened a trap door into poison spikes and locked, then filling with water and sharks. Contact poison on every knob, and fullsillads of poisoned spears shooting accross the hall at random heights for those who fly. Falling blocks, and and several rolling boulders... All just to fuck with the Paladin. GOD BLESS YOU SUNG! You and your "DIPLOMACY!" gave genuine joy my heart. Too bad that game disintegrated, but it was the best Damn 10 LeVALS I DMED EVAR!!!111OMGBBQ!!FUKYEAH!

Fun times...

[Nicklance]

During my DM-ing debut. I had a maximized delayed blast fireball magically illusioned as a wailing baby splattered with magical reagents on a bloody sacrificial altar.

Guess what the paladin did...*KA-BOOM!*

I made a mistake of falling into my own trap, when somehow I accidentally maneuvered my mid-boss into a Mirror of Opposition and failed the save.

[TheFlatline]

One thing I will say is that traps that are way, way, way out of a party's power level are ass.

I played in a Ravenloft game where the big bad evil guy had managed to completely cover a football-field sized room with permanent silence spells. We had no clue this was coming, and no way to escape the room except to climb a sheer 40 foot wall to pull a lever recessed into the stone. The DM declared that *any* damage inflicted on someone while they climbed would make them instantly fall. You can see where this is heading.

And the wizard we fought who had cast all those permanent silence spells had a wand of maximized fireball. Which he apparently made himself.

I did the math. The wizard had to make the wand first, and then start casting the permanent silence spells repeatedly. The experience expenditure alone would have dropped a 15th level character down to 7th level (since we were 4th level and obviously could handle an EL15 encounter).

The DM to this day doesn't understand why the game immediately ended after that encounter. He still thinks it was one of his best traps evar.

[RandomCasualty2]

I rarely use traps anymore. The problem is that healing is so accessible in 3E that a trap has to be pretty much a death trap to do anything that the PCs care about.

Further, the more you use traps, the more PCs just start to search and take 20 on every inch of dungeon. A trap dungeon is either brutally lethal and a total meatgrinder, like tomb of horrors, or it's just a borefest where people can either afford to just set them off and heal, or where they have to go at a snail's pace searching everything and then praying not to botch disable device rolls.

Either way, I've really almost eliminated traps from most of my dungeons.

[Pixels]

I find traps work best when combined with monsters in encounters. There are only four orcs guarding their pile of loot, so they set up arrow traps to needle intruders while they grab their axes. The runes around the edge of the magic circle the cultists are standing in double as a glyphs of warding loaded with Blindness (and ye, the infidels shall be struck blind by the glory of the tentacled one! Ia! Ia!) The swinging scythe trap is actually an animated object that attacks when somebody tries to disable it. Etc.

[Draco_Argentum]

I only ever saw one trap. A poison needle that the rogue triggered while trying to unlock a chest. It stunned him for a little while in a no time pressure dungeon.

Terrible trap use, I just wanted and excuse to post here and say welcome back Oberon.