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Post by onethatwas on Jan 25, 2014 3:25:14 GMT
So I personally am fond of super obvious traps. Things that you see, say, "yup, its a trap," but you trigger it anyway because you just got to.
Some of you may vaguely recall my trap posts at the previous forum, in which I described a floor crafted by Kobolds, made entirely of wicker. Yeah, my players figured it was a trap. It was. The heavy players (armor and supplies) caused the wicker to break, causing them to fall in pits below. The way around that was to crawl slowly on the wicker, giving the kobolds ample opportunity to attack from murder holes.
I'm devious like that.
Now I also thought today about another trap, a little more devious, but still obvious.
Set up a pit, with a bottom that fits your preference (must be deep, dangerous to enter into, or filled it a nasty, dangerous liquid). Then, at the exact middle of the pit, on the ceiling, is a key dangling from a hook or rope.
Now any player is going to say, "we probably need that key." They'll sit and puzzle over it, and likely have a fair plan to retreive it. There are two problems:
A) the key has no purpose. Just a random key, that doesn't unlock any door in the dungeon. I would make at least one lock in the dungeon particularly hard to foil the theif, making the PC's think they need this key.
B) the key has something wrong with it...it acts as a cursed lodestone, or maybe it has a contact poison, or alarms all enemies to the players presence silently.
Its obvious, but its a trap they just got to trigger...
So what other obvious traps can you guys come up with?
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Post by DungeonMasterRandom on Jan 25, 2014 10:47:01 GMT
My dad was running a official WotC campaign and one of these popped up. Not a very big trap but never the less great. There is this chest at the end of a hall. No break aways just a long hall. So we started throwing things at it like rocks, gerbils, and eventually my brother. A barred gate entraps him and an alarm bell is rung. Me and my sister luckily rolled a lift gates of 16% to our combined 23%, lifting it in one go. It was obviously a trap, but as you pointed out, you have to go for it. 4 goblins eventually came running but we obliterated them. I really wish I had crafted this one. but we were just playing on a grid map with a dry erase marker and some little pieces for characters.
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slurpy
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Post by slurpy on Jan 25, 2014 13:56:40 GMT
I have one I have been thinking about on and off for low level characters. Some kind of magic item, held up over a chasm by two thick ropes, the far end completely inaccessible. As the item is a "link" in the rope "chain," it can't be removed without the PC who climbed out swinging back and bouncing off one of the walls, possibly losing grip from that damage and dropping into the chasm.
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dmj
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Post by dmj on Jan 25, 2014 19:36:46 GMT
This one is obvious but depends on how the dm uses illusions me they act as if they are real so long as you believe they are. Given that idea. It's a large empty room with a treasure chest dead center of it. Now this room is a big pit in reality but has an illusion of a floor the only real floor is a spire that creates the pedastool the chest sits one. And in the chest is a note that says "the floor is an illusion".
Now a find traps will not work since this is an illusion in 2e that I use that must say they disbelieve or get forced to see the reality. I would allow a spellcraft check to detect something amiss.
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Post by invisiblemoose on Feb 17, 2014 19:12:44 GMT
What about a chest in a pit of snakes, requiring the snakes to be killed to get to it - only the item in the chest is something that resurrects snakes and alerts all nearby snakes to your location when held?
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Post by runningwolf on Mar 9, 2014 19:34:44 GMT
Hide it in plain sight and make it a total red herring. I have to remember some of these.... And just because this thread is most likely a trap in and of itself we all need to be reminded of our favorite trap: sorry, but I just had to....
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Post by thedmg on Mar 11, 2014 13:28:30 GMT
Don't worry, I got there first with the intro in this one
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Post by thevikingdm on May 15, 2014 5:16:09 GMT
I had set up a trap that ended up being my very first PC kill. The group found a narrow hall, that in which if you happened to be slender(like an elf in this case) could just barely fit. At the end of the 10ft. hall they saw a large pile of gold and gems. Now this was enough to make them look closer, upon inspection the party noticed a thin crack along the top and bottom of each of the side walls. With this they knew full well it was a trap and knew it would kill anyone who tried to go through. I thought it was decided at that point to move past and forget it was there, that is until the Ranger decided "I GOT THIS!!" and proceeded to get crushed by the walls.
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Post by kokigami on May 15, 2014 6:25:47 GMT
hold my beer and watch this
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Post by DnDPaladin on Oct 19, 2014 12:45:05 GMT
made this once in a while... my party entered a room where i set out a huge 2x2 treasure pile. the rogues all jumped on it like it was their lives... bosses jumped out of holes hidden int he floor right in front of it and started attacking, surprise rounds and those bosses almost one shotted one of the rogues.
i like these traps. they bring back the players down to earth. but then again... many DMs thinks the players should always wins.
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Post by pillpeddler on Nov 11, 2014 2:43:23 GMT
Win or lose?? We should all have fun... its just that sometimes my fun involves PC fatalities and resurrections and geas driven quests. Is that a bad thing ? : )
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Post by DnDPaladin on Nov 11, 2014 8:19:29 GMT
you know your an evil DM when you gotta bring 50 new character sheets every games !
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Post by AnarchyDice on Jan 16, 2015 17:03:45 GMT
I usually find that I can even plainly state glaring warning signs that if they had investigated even the slightest would have revealed the trap. I toss in false warning signs on an equal proportion of rooms, but it really just comes down to laziness on the player's part. It's always fun to see them become hyper vigilant, analyzing everything instead of being prudent, where they soon tire of not finding any traps so they stop looking at all. Its the circle of laziness =D
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Post by DnDPaladin on Jan 16, 2015 20:06:07 GMT
i had a rogue search for traps here and there in an empty room, somehow he was conveince there was something int he room because it was empty. and he figured he was just not searching correctly. well actually he thought he wasn't making the DCs and thought i had made the DC too high... but really sometimes an empty room is just an empty room !
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Post by lordmorbius on Jun 12, 2015 14:01:40 GMT
i had a rogue search for traps here and there in an empty room, somehow he was conveince there was something int he room because it was empty. and he figured he was just not searching correctly. well actually he thought he wasn't making the DCs and thought i had made the DC too high... but really sometimes an empty room is just an empty room ! Sometimes an empty room is just an empty room...and you haven't stepped inside of a room sized mimic at all. =O
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javenspell
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Is this your Character sheet Larry?
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Post by javenspell on Mar 18, 2016 15:11:26 GMT
This reminds me of a story from the 80's. I was 13 playing DnD for the first time...we were hired by the townsfolk to get rid of a magic user in a nearby castle who was losing his sanity and causing havoc on the town...so we walk into the first room which is empty except a rope hanging from the ceiling with a note on it that says pull me...nothing could scream trap more than that...sure enough someone in our party just couldn't resist and pulled it. Tar came falling on us and feathers shot out from everywhere and then we were instantly teleported to the town's main square. Oh the humiliation....
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Mar 19, 2016 9:28:28 GMT
This reminds me of a story from the 80's. I was 13 playing DnD for the first time...we were hired by the townsfolk to get rid of a magic user in a nearby castle who was losing his sanity and causing havoc on the town...so we walk into the first room which is empty except a rope hanging from the ceiling with a note on it that says pull me...nothing could scream trap more than that...sure enough someone in our party just couldn't resist and pulled it. Tar came falling on us and feathers shot out from everywhere and then we were instantly teleported to the town's main square. Oh the humiliation.... You didn't have a DM named Pete did you? My first DM was named Pete and he liked to do this sort of thing with newbie players.
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javenspell
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Is this your Character sheet Larry?
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Post by javenspell on Mar 19, 2016 15:28:45 GMT
To be honest it was 32 years ago...I don't remember his name...I remember stories like that though...and that we played in an abandoned morgue...so there was that added creepiness. Did your Pete live in North Dakota? That's were I was back then.
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Post by adamsouza on Mar 19, 2016 15:57:57 GMT
You know its a trap...but you gotta go for it.
I read the thread title and had to make sure I wasn't on 4Chan...
You'll laugh pretty hard at that if you're familiar with 4Chan.
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The narrow corridor and rope from the ceiling are pretty epic. I've honestly never had a DM that sadistic, but I'm definitely going to use the rope from the ceiling trap now.
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Post by bluecloud2k2 on Mar 20, 2016 6:30:07 GMT
To be honest it was 32 years ago...I don't remember his name...I remember stories like that though...and that we played in an abandoned morgue...so there was that added creepiness. Did your Pete live in North Dakota? That's were I was back then. This was 21 years ago in Cheyenne Wyoming. I was 11 years old AND HOLY CRAP MY ROLEPLAYING EXPERIENCE IS OLD ENOUGH TO DRINK!!!!! Um... As I was saying, I was 11 years old and Pete's brother and their friends had been playing together for a while... I was the newbie. Apparently they felt the humiliation trap was an initiation rite. For my specific one, it vanished all body hair and dumped you in the village square naked with your gear at your feet. I was playing a dwarf fighter. Losing beard hair was a mark of shame. They really enjoyed my roleplaying with that character when I kept trying new ways of covering up the fact I had no hair.
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