rhoubhe
Cardboard Collector
Posts: 17
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Post by rhoubhe on Jul 13, 2014 1:23:25 GMT
A personal favorite trap of mine has always been one that at least one player could not resist. The Hoard! Now personally, having played the game for way too long, i never trust rooms halfway through dungeons that are filled with thousands of goldpieces, but my usual players, well, lets say they never learn. So here it is. Lets start with a bit of mood-setting... 'The door in the left wall of the dank hallway opens with easy, revealing a room behind it some 10 by ten feet in diameter. The floor seems to be set a bit lower here, but exactly how low is impossible to tell as the floor is totally covered with coins. Gold, Silver, Electrum, Platinum, all there for the taking! It seems you've hit the motherload!' Now, if i am your DM, you better be sure there is a catch. The catch is as follows. The floor is indeed a 'bit' lower. It is actually a 10 x 10 pit of at least 30 feet depth. The room holds no floor at, or even near player level. It does however hold a massive amount of water, filling the room up to three feet below floor level. Above that, a tiny plate of glass, just strong enough to hold the weight of some gold, and a whole lot of painted wooden coins. Yes, wooden, because wood floats! Players jumping down onto the pile will immediately break the glass due to their weight, and sink right through the hoard. For all their party members know, they sank away into the massive pile of goldpieces. I bet you they jump in to help. So, how does the trap work? Simple, 30 feet of water and a heavy PC, they will sink. Even if its the light-weight party thief, the huge layer of wooden coins above them will prevent them from coming up. They will drown unless their friends act quick... Devious, I know. But for those that want even more devious, fill the room with acid or oil instead of water. Although acid might ofcourse eat away the wooden coins... Or throw some piranhas in the water, that works too... Anyways, hope you guys enjoy this treasure hoard
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chd
Tool Gatherer
Posts: 52
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Post by chd on Jul 14, 2014 10:24:12 GMT
I'd remove the wooden coins, then replace the water/glass with a Gargantuan Ooze/Gelatinous Cube. The Ooze digests organic matter over time, so the gold/inorganic loot would be excreted onto the surface as a form of 'bait'. When a player steps onto the gold pile, I'd say "As you step onto the pile, you feel the pile shift under your feet, and hear the clinking of coin falling on coin... Initiative Roll" Then I'd have oozes pop up from under the gold, and Gargantuan ooze psudopods reach up to grab onto the player's feet and try and drag them down...
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Post by belatucadras on Jul 14, 2014 12:50:46 GMT
I like both encounters. The first is a skilled encounter and the second a combat encounter.
I think the wooden coins is an interesting idea.
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chd
Tool Gatherer
Posts: 52
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Post by chd on Jul 15, 2014 3:16:21 GMT
I like both encounters. The first is a skilled encounter and the second a combat encounter. Actually, It is only a combat encounter if the players fail to think outside the box. I ran the game last night; The PC's ended up making an improvised scoop using a bag of holding and a 10' pole. The players didn't stand on the gold-mounds, so the ooze 'hive' remained dormant. If you are a Player in my campaign, don't read the spoiler. NO REALLY, don't! If you do, you will mess up your character reactions, and I will know... Therefore no Experience and Loot for you! {--SPOILER--} The party actually scooped up some Oozelings with the gold. While the PC's are sleeping in the tavern, they will have broken loose from the bag, drunk all the booze, eaten all the food, and have begun terrorizing the Town.The Party can either leave the town, or save the town. Either way, "Consequences will never be the same!"
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sotf
Advice Guru
Posts: 1,084
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Post by sotf on Aug 9, 2014 4:00:55 GMT
One of the best toys I'd swiped from a published adventure was the horde guardian sword...I think it was from Gorgolgand's Gauntlet...the sword is a well decorated magical sword of, I believe a +1 and a small enchant that gave it a total of a +2 Equivalency...but there were two other features. The first was rather obvious, if left with a pile of coins, if anyone other than the one who is the "owner" of the sword and those designated specially, the pile animates into a construct based on the number of coins with a few extra abilities from the type of coins...the last ability of the sword was pretty much the spy abilities that had been in one of the WotC web articles, and probably is still there (Tied into the ancient dragon that pretty much was luring "interesting" adventurers in to get them to carry off the sword knowing that they would eventually leave it to protect their stuff at which point, the dragon could use the sword as a homing beacon to pop in and study anything interesting they'd found on their adventures...but the party didn't like me using it and tying the thing to an artificer they'd managed to tick off at another point who would randomly send a few of his latest experiments the party's way via teleportation options that were set up to ambush them when they got back to their stockpiles...
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Post by DnDPaladin on Oct 5, 2014 0:18:26 GMT
gold traps are always fine. ihad my players enter the room of th eboss, who was hidden in the floor. when they entered they saw my 20ft hoard pile and another 5ft hoard pile next to it. along with 2 statues... the rogues just ran in thru without thinking. i stopped them mid motion pulled initiative and had a surprise round of 1 level 5 barbarian bugbear and 2 orcs with him... the bug bear ended up coing out face to face with the first rogue. bugbear raged. critted... and the rogue was left to a measely 1 life point... really wish i had one shotted him instead.
he never came back to reality faster then that !
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Post by ogrestamp on Sept 2, 2015 8:06:13 GMT
I always like throwing in just a single item. If there is only a single item, it must be even more special. Every time I have done this, someone in the party falls for it. Tonight I was sending two of my party through a labyrinth which had teleportation in dead end alcoves. To lure them in, I would say they would see an empty alcove except for a jewel encrusted dagger, or a ruby the size of a fist or a potion. My friend caught on soon but his son just couldn't contain himself. I even put a pearl, over an inch in diameter, in two alcoves almost next to each other. My friend's son was beside himself because he knew one of them had to be real. It made for some really fun roleplaying, but experience won the night and most of the items weren't touched.
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Sept 13, 2015 4:26:08 GMT
One of the best toys I'd swiped from a published adventure was the horde guardian sword...I think it was from Gorgolgand's Gauntlet...the sword is a well decorated magical sword of, I believe a +1 and a small enchant that gave it a total of a +2 Equivalency...but there were two other features. The first was rather obvious, if left with a pile of coins, if anyone other than the one who is the "owner" of the sword and those designated specially, the pile animates into a construct based on the number of coins with a few extra abilities from the type of coins...the last ability of the sword was pretty much the spy abilities that had been in one of the WotC web articles, and probably is still there (Tied into the ancient dragon that pretty much was luring "interesting" adventurers in to get them to carry off the sword knowing that they would eventually leave it to protect their stuff at which point, the dragon could use the sword as a homing beacon to pop in and study anything interesting they'd found on their adventures...but the party didn't like me using it and tying the thing to an artificer they'd managed to tick off at another point who would randomly send a few of his latest experiments the party's way via teleportation options that were set up to ambush them when they got back to their stockpiles... I love Gorgolgand's Gauntlet! I don't know how many times I got players who would hit a dungeon, pile up their loot, and when they used the sword/loot pile as a midnight guard, half the loot would be gone the next day. Of course I always made sure they got an increased amount of loot to compensate.
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sotf
Advice Guru
Posts: 1,084
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Post by sotf on Sept 13, 2015 4:40:03 GMT
One of the best toys I'd swiped from a published adventure was the horde guardian sword...I think it was from Gorgolgand's Gauntlet...the sword is a well decorated magical sword of, I believe a +1 and a small enchant that gave it a total of a +2 Equivalency...but there were two other features. The first was rather obvious, if left with a pile of coins, if anyone other than the one who is the "owner" of the sword and those designated specially, the pile animates into a construct based on the number of coins with a few extra abilities from the type of coins...the last ability of the sword was pretty much the spy abilities that had been in one of the WotC web articles, and probably is still there (Tied into the ancient dragon that pretty much was luring "interesting" adventurers in to get them to carry off the sword knowing that they would eventually leave it to protect their stuff at which point, the dragon could use the sword as a homing beacon to pop in and study anything interesting they'd found on their adventures...but the party didn't like me using it and tying the thing to an artificer they'd managed to tick off at another point who would randomly send a few of his latest experiments the party's way via teleportation options that were set up to ambush them when they got back to their stockpiles... I love Gorgolgand's Gauntlet! I don't know how many times I got players who would hit a dungeon, pile up their loot, and when they used the sword/loot pile as a midnight guard, half the loot would be gone the next day. Of course I always made sure they got an increased amount of loot to compensate. Unfortunately, that kind of goes opposite of what Gorgolgand is supposed to act like (and he makes a few appearances in other modules that have been published). The sword is intended to be a hook for the adventurers to leave it by their treasure and let it take a look at and study interesting items and things the adventurers stumble across. Things like looking through the party Wizard/Archivist's backup spell/prayer book and such being enough payment for him, making him a very interesting take on a dragon who has the longer viewpoint, making him root through and abscond with portions of their loot kind of flies in the face of the long term prospects he has... The best part is that you can reuse the item elsewhere (even without the hidden "ability" it normally has) and if the group has anyone who played the Gauntlet will get paranoid about being spied on. There used to be an interesting article on the WotC site about spy items as well.
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Post by DnDPaladin on Sept 15, 2015 9:23:05 GMT
bah my players always use rope tricks to have night watch. its awefull how easy to create a pocket dimension simply for the sake of sleeping in peace. but i like the sword idea.
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