Fun with mean traps!

[Icewalker]

Post your ideas (not necessarily fully fleshed out with numbers) for fun traps. And by fun I mean evil. Of course, as a DM, they generally function as the same thing.


Thinnish corridor, group walking single file, meat shield is in front. There is a door in the hallway, when you turn the knob, a pit trap opens onto spikes in the hallway between 5 and 20 feet away from the door. To draw:
_____________________
|ff [ PIT TRAP ]
------------------------

You know, so it catches everyone except the meat shield.



Door, with a very obvious and quite large vertical tunnel above the spot where the person opening the door is, and at the top you can quite clearly see a large spiked boulder attached to the ceiling. When the door is opened, a reverse gravity spell goes off around the door.

[olelia]

Force Cube around 10x10 square + maximized/empowered Blade Barrier = party blender drink.

[Daracaex]

These threads are always fun! Here's a fun one I saw somewhere else:

Greed's Punishment:
The room is mostly empty, but above is a glass ceiling with gold pieces and gems and expensive things on it. The glass is easy to break, but if the party decides to break the ceiling apart, the glass completely shatters and the party has gold rained down upon them. But breaking the glass also activates a mechanism that locks the entrances to the room and gold was not the only thing above the glass. (Insert whatever beastie you want here).

[Icewalker]

Oooh, nice irony for the Greed's Punishment trap; you could just have it crush them under the money.


Ok, here's another dungeon trap that requires slightly more in-depth actions on the part of the players:

A bunch of holes open at about chest height, arrows slide just barely into view. Everyone hits the floor, hopefully. Everyone also hopefully slightly overlooked the fact described in passing during the entry into the room that the floor is a grate. Then acid bubbles up, dealing crazy damage as it covers their entire front.

[olelia]

This one was an old 2.0/3.0 trap.

You have normal 10-20 foot pit trap. The person lands on what appears to be "dust" but is actually ground up glass. A series of cogs start turning which in turn starts turning the fans which create gale force winds through tiny holes in the wall. In turn the person is literally cut to death by millions of pieces of glass. If you want to be mean throw an antimagic filed in the pit too.

[Forrestfire]

Puddle 'O People:
When triggered, this trap casts Flesh To Stone, Rock to Mud, Mud To Rock, And Stone To Flesh on the victim.

[Icewalker]

Puddle 'O People:
When triggered, this trap casts Flesh To Stone, Rock to Mud, Mud To Rock, And Stone To Flesh on the victim.

...eeeeew.....

[DanielLC]

Puddle 'O People:
When triggered, this trap casts Flesh To Stone, Rock to Mud, Mud To Rock, And Stone To Flesh on the victim.

Replace the last two with dispel magic.

My idea was a teleportation circle on the bottom of a pit trap that teleports to the top of the trap (or better yet, above it). This way, the victim falls back into the trap and takes damage again every round.

Another one is making a pit trap that drops the victim down at least one floor, than locks. That way one party member has to fend for himself until they meet up again. The trap is better if the party is going down, rather than up, so they don't know the path and have to wander a while. An especially deadly version can drop them into a pit of acid or a gelatinous cube.

If your DM does traps like these, I'd suggest having an arch-mage cast the sonic version of fire wall onto the dungeon, than casting permanency on it. Although it is much to far to damage the BBEG, the noise will keep him from getting sleep and annoy him until he leaves, and confronts you. Because fire wall is directional, your party shouldn't be driven crazy by the noise.
If you're too cheap for that, cast iron wall on all the exits and starve him out, or, if it's a cave of some sort near a river, cast move earth to move the riverbed through the entrance. Those are just a few ways to bypass the dungeon.

[Guy_Whozevl]

So we're creating Tomb of Horrors reject traps, hmm...?

One I actually used was a locked door and two pressure plates on either side of it. In the room were two large crates filled with pebbles. Yes the solution is flipping obvious, move the crates onto the pressure plates which would open the door, no questions asked. The PC I used this on thought he smelled foul and smashed one of the crates beyond repair, scattering the pebbles. Seeing how he just screwed himself over, he was forced to leave his gear behind to weigh down the other plate. I love stuff like this.

There's also the huge hourglass in a room with one locked door. The door cannot be smashed down by any means. In two minutes, the hourglass will move from one end to the other. In the room is a switch to reset it. Watch as the PCs frantically pull the lever while trying to find a way out of the death trap. When they finally give up and let the hourglass empty, the door opens with no negative consequences. It's also fun, but may prompt PCs to to pelt you with dice, books, or pizza in frustration.

[Icewalker]

There's also the huge hourglass in a room with one locked door. The door cannot be smashed down by any means. In two minutes, the hourglass will move from one end to the other. In the room is a switch to reset it. Watch as the PCs frantically pull the lever while trying to find a way out of the death trap. When they finally give up and let the hourglass empty, the door opens with no negative consequences. It's also fun, but may prompt PCs to to pelt you with dice, books, or pizza in frustration.

hehe, that's not nice. The only problem is I prefer to actually time stuff like that, and then they could run out thinking and win :smallfrown:

I did that once with an infinite spiral staircase, where if you stop moving for a few rounds your head bumps into the trapdoor at the top.

[starwoof]

Ok, so the players kill a tough monster and they open the chest. Alright, gold! Awesome, +1 sword! Sweet, a robe of eyes! The players divvy up the loot and hand the robe over to their scout or whatever, then open the door to the next room. Its a medusa! Player wearing robe of eyes falls prey to the petrification.

Now my players wont touch a Robe of Eyes with their standard issue 11' pole.



Theres also the Gravity Pit. Fall into the pit, take the spike damage... gravity reverses, fall into another pit on the ceiling... trap resets... players die.

[psychoticbarber]

Ok, so the players kill a tough monster and they open the chest. Alright, gold! Awesome, +1 sword! Sweet, a robe of eyes! The players divvy up the loot and hand the robe over to their scout or whatever, then open the door to the next room. Its a medusa! Player wearing robe of eyes falls prey to the petrification.

Now my players wont touch a Robe of Eyes with their standard issue 11' pole.

Hahaha, dude, that's just MEAN.

[starwoof]

Hahaha, dude, that's just MEAN.

One of my DMs tried to turn it around on me recently. Luckily I'm not an idiot and handed the robe over to the new guy playing an ogre. :smalltongue:

[Proven_Paradox]

Okay, so. The PCs enter a room full of zombies and skeletons and other various mook undeads. They fight for a while and cut them down with minimal damage. It should be an easy fight.

Little do they know that each time a zombie goes down, you roll a d%. If you roll below whatever arbitrary percentage you set, instead of just falling still, the zombie EXPLODES for moderate damage, reflex save for half. Throw in a disease/poison from the explosion for more fun.

Where this gets really mean... The explosion affects the other zombies too. If a zombie dies from damage caused by another explosion, it promptly explodes itself--no d% roll. In a room full of zombies, this can lead to a NASTY chain explosion.

I pulled this on my players in a recent game to hilarious effect. They were scared to kill the zombies because they might explode... But if they didn't kill the zombies, they might eventually roll a natural twenty and actually do some damage! OSHI

[Kurald Galain]

I read this on the web some place...

There's a vertical shaft, going up into darkness, and more importantly, down twenty feet into a pit of spikes. The shaft isn't that wide, so it's quite possible to make a running jump over it.

Except the shaft is enchanted with Reverse Gravity. Jump, and you'll fall up into the shaft, which is pretty deep and has spikes on the top.

A variation has a rope hanging down, that you can leap to and swing from. Except the rope is actually covered-up barbed wire. Major ouch!

[Eldritch_Ent]

Take a series of corridors that screw with your player's perspectives- Yaknow, stuff like having the door at the end only painted on, or a corridor that shrinks to a tiny, fairy-sized door at one end... Stuff like that. But have them all actually LEAD somewhere. (For example, entering the painted door leads you into a room that looks normal to you, but when you come out you're two dimensional and have to travel along the walls. Or your shrink with the corridors, but don't unshrink as you come back.)

Have the only plain door be the one they came in through... But set a switch or something in each room that the Party has to flip, then when all of them are flipped, the door suddenly leads to somewhere rather than the area they came through to get there. (Like the BBEG's room.) then have them all fight while in their kooky conditions. (Like, put a painted warlock on the walls blasting the party that only the 2d person can get at, and another Fine-sized (with levels in "Giant Slayer") opponent for the incredible shrinking PC to go after. Stuff like that.

[Dyrhet]

This one is designed for futuristic settings, but you could tweak it for fantasy I guess...

Anyway, the players come to a small room with a thick, reinforced steel door and a sign just outside that says "Warning Testing Room!" If your players are anything like mine they will want to see exactly what is being tested, and will head inside.

When there, they find that the big steel door slams shut, and they're left in a room with nothing but a speaker built into the wall and a large button marked "RESET".

On pushing the button, a voice calls out "Warning! Warning!" while a klaxon blares. The voice then begins counting down from ten. The players will probably hit the reset button, to give themselves more time to think of a way out. This causes the warning and the countdown to be repeated. They will probably hit the button many, many times.

Eventually, they'll probably give up, and let the voice count down to zero. At this point the door opens and the voice calls out, "Thank you for using the Warning Testing Room, have a nice day!"

[Goblin Music]

Corridor of pain

This LONG corridor has a door at the end but alas the door leads to a room full of Explosive Runes but when they open the door Pendulums ((like on a clock but blades instead of a weight) start to swing trough the corridor. if the PCs head back trough the corridor they take 1d12/5' Reflex half, but if they head into the room they get the full blast of 10+ explosive runes.

[Machete]

Permanent Image over a hallway filled with pits that have spikes at the bottom and are covered by a rotting wood panel.

Sure it gives the adventurers two saves against the trap, but it tends to kill the dumber characters off rather than the ones who crawl their way across on their bellies so their body weight doesn't break the wood.

[olelia]

small stream in dungeon + Ottilukes freezing sphere to freeze the party's legs/ankles. Now add pirahnas/other small viscuous aquatic creatures.

[Yeril]

Mook box. CR 1.

This chest contains 1d6 kobolds.

[littlechicory]

PCs enter a room, doors swing shut and lock. Suddenly the ceiling starts descending at a fixed rate, all except for a little square big enough for one person to stand under.

If presented right, the PCs will attempt to decide which of them gets to stand under the non-descending part and live while the others get squished by the ceiling.

The ceiling stops descending about five feet up (varying depending on the size of your party members). That little square? Falls and squishes whoever was elected to live. :belkar:

The entire ceiling rises back to its normal position, the doors spring open...

[jindra34]

My favorite is the obvious deadly traps with a go round that is 1'X1' in size, and has a nasty lighting bolt and gust of wind trap triggered by the pulling of a handle half way down the small corridor.

[Maldraugedhen]

This one involves a dead-end room, or, at least, an apparent dead-end room. Upon entering, a basic summoning trap goes off and a flock of evil awakened seagulls pops into the room. A lot of seagulls. Far too many for the players to statistically handle. The instant one of them goes to double back, poof--everything in the room gets Nailed to the Sky, and the gulls eat in orbit.

[Deesix]

Angry Dwarf Glued to a Door. Grrr.

[olelia]

Gold coin on bottom of floor. When someone picked it up it squirts the hand of the person with sovereign glue and casts dimensional anchor on that person. Now fill room with whatever you want.

[Icewalker]

Take a series of corridors that screw with your player's perspectives- Yaknow, stuff like having the door at the end only painted on, or a corridor that shrinks to a tiny, fairy-sized door at one end... Stuff like that. But have them all actually LEAD somewhere. (For example, entering the painted door leads you into a room that looks normal to you, but when you come out you're two dimensional and have to travel along the walls. Or your shrink with the corridors, but don't unshrink as you come back.)

Have the only plain door be the one they came in through... But set a switch or something in each room that the Party has to flip, then when all of them are flipped, the door suddenly leads to somewhere rather than the area they came through to get there. (Like the BBEG's room.) then have them all fight while in their kooky conditions. (Like, put a painted warlock on the walls blasting the party that only the 2d person can get at, and another Fine-sized (with levels in "Giant Slayer") opponent for the incredible shrinking PC to go after. Stuff like that.


That's awesome....I am SO using that (can I?). It's the Alice in Wonderland adventure! Plus death!



PCs enter a room, doors swing shut and lock. Suddenly the ceiling starts descending at a fixed rate, all except for a little square big enough for one person to stand under.

If presented right, the PCs will attempt to decide which of them gets to stand under the non-descending part and live while the others get squished by the ceiling.

The ceiling stops descending about five feet up (varying depending on the size of your party members). That little square? Falls and squishes whoever was elected to live. :belkar:

The entire ceiling rises back to its normal position, the doors spring open...

Hehe, that's quite cruel. Many adventuring groups will try (and perhaps succeed) to find a way around it, or will just spend like an hour trying to figure it out...

However it kind of fits the almost silly theme of the above idea. I think I'd make the little square for the "survivor" instead dump them into a spike pit instead of killing them. I prefer not to straight kill people if I can.

[DanielLC]

Fill the room with the BBEG in it with hidden pit traps. The BBEG knows where they are, but the adventurers will be afraid to move after falling in one.

[Renrik]

Fun with magnets!

The PCs enter a room that appears to be normal, save for one wall is made out of iron and the other appears to be made out of lead (possibly with some big old bloodstains on it.) A series of checkerboard tiles exist in the floor- these are a diversion. The PCs will think that by stepping in the right order, they can avoid the trap. This is not true. As soon as someone touches the doorknob on the other side of the room, the polarity of the huge magnet that looks like the lead wall is reversed, sucking the iron wall towards it, along with any iron objects the characters are carrying (possibly including armor, making whole characters get sucked up against the wall just moments before the iron wall smashes in, killing them. Three rounds later, the polarity reverses again, resetting the trap. Denizens of the dungeon probably loot the room between crushings.

A well-defended armory in a gnomish or maybe dwarven fortress: The PCs enter. The place's walls are covered in hooks from which hang swords, spears, axes, and warhammers of all sorts. In the center is a big metallic pillar about 10 ft. wide on each side from which hang what appear to be the best of the weapons. The moment any of these weapons is toched, the magnetic feild is activated, sending the weapons on the walls hurtling towards the pillar-and anyone who stands between the and it.

[Doey]

Cant rember what book it was in.
Eldritch Potion - upon death the creature explodes in a 10ft radius burts, doing 5D6 (ref for half)

Party is dropped into a huge pit of kobalds, who offer to help the party escape in exchange for all their items. Party prolly wont agree, and start attacking. Once they kill one, all of them explode. =)

[Renrik]

Fun With Kobolds!

In a kobold warren, the players are getting chased by a huge group of kobolds (works best on low-level characters or extremely new players who don't understand what a kobold is). Alternatively, they could be chasing the kobolds. A section of flooring up ahead is rigged to fall if put under the stress of concentrated weight about equal to a human. The first PC to step on it get thrown down into a spiked pit. Anyone who jumps to the opposite side triggers a tripwire uon landing, which causes a big, spikey log to fall out of the ceiling and ram into the person, dealing damage and bull-rushing them back into the pit.

When the PCs are in a kobold warren, they trigger a trap that sends a boulder rolling down the tunnel at them. Running back from the boulder puts them in the path of either a few suicidal kobolds willing to waylay the humans long enough for them to be crushed or into a spiked pit. if they fall into the huge spiked pit, the boulder will fall into it and kill them anyway.

[Fako]

1) Fun with illusions!

The PCs enter 5' wide corridor (length doesn't matter, but trap takes up 25'), with a 20' spiked pit trap, 5' wide, left in plain sight, uncovered. The ground past it appears dusty and unbroken, as if this path isn't often used...

The truth is that the "pit trap" is an illusion on the square, and the next 20' are the actual pit trap, 50' deep with spikes, covered with another illusion to make them look like the floor... players make a running jump, and manage to fall into the pit trap anyway...


Visual:
---------------------
| | | |i|p|p|p|p| | |
---------------------

| | = Normal floor
|i| = Illusory pit
|p| = Actual pit

2) Fun with little known prestige class, the Candle Caster!

* - In 3.0's Tome And Blood, there was a class called the Candle Caster, which could make any spell up to third level into a candle, that when lit, would activate the spell (think of a potion, but you could modify them to do different effects...)

When the PC's enter a 30' diameter circular room, it is very dimly lit, with only a few candles burning in the center on a small table. There is a candle lantern, which is unlit, also on the table. On the walls are various sizes and shapes of candles...

The candles on the table light when the PCs enter the room, casting Suggestion on all of them to light the candle lantern to see better. The candle inside the candle lantern is a Fireball Candle, making all the other candles in the room light and subsequently go off. Do what you will to them...

3)Make the inquisitive player a little less curious

The double doors ahead are blocked by some sort of spiked pole on them, with a paper stuck on one of the jutting spikes...

If you have an inquisitive player, they will go up and grab the paper... It has a quote from V on it: "I prepared Explosive Runes today."... Wait for player reaction, then deal damage.

4) DDR trap.

Players enter a room barren of decorations except for a 10' by 10' pad marked with four arrows on it...

The first person entering the room is hit by a Heightened Suggestion (whatever DC will have a decent chance of failure) to go and show their moves on the pad. If they make the save, repeat for all PCs entering, one by one, until one fails.

When they do, all other PCs are hit by another Suggestion to watch and cheer him on, while the dancing PC makes a Perform(Dance) check. After his dance is over, all other PCs make a will save to resist the urge to "outdo" him. The lowest result gets on the pad, while everyone must repeat the saves over again to resist getting sucked into the trap. Add 10 to the last Perform(Dance) check made to determine save DCs for Suggestion.

Repeat until all players manage to save against Suggestion or they die of fatigue...

5) Diseases!

A row of pendulums swing in front of the party...

Very simple trap, use any bladed pendulums you like. However, any time one manages to hit a player, that player is hit by a Contagion spell in addition to the damage dealt...

I have only used 2 and 3 on my players, but I tell all my trap ideas I don't plan to use to at least one PC... They are afraid that any room contains a trap at times, and buy 10' poles and longspears just to check for them...

[Altharis]

Some body may have mentioned these but anyway:

Greed's Reward 2:
You open the door and see a 10 ft by 20 ft room. The wall are made of smooth marble and the floor is covered with glittering gold and treasure! There is another door in the far wall.
In fact, the floor is a thick sheet of marble resting on a giant coiled spring. Whenever more than 150 pieces of the original gold pieces are taken out of the room, the floor shoots up, crushing anybody left in the room.

Open, Sesame:
You see a normal, unlocked wooden door.
Whenever a player tries to open the door, a giant stone hand reaches slams them across the room for 6d6 damage (Reflex Negates). There are no levers, toggles, switches, knobs or anything of any kind in the vicinity. The Solution: Knock on the door. The stone hand will open it for you and usher you in. (With a possible offer of tea and cookies, just to humiliate the players even further.)

Yellow Mold Death
The room is 50 ft by 50 ft, and 30 ft high. The floor is covered with yellow mold, except for one 5ft by 5ft square on which resides a chest filled with treasure. The room's wall and ceiling are made of rough, hewn stone, with stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
If the characters walk across the mold, it goes off. So obviously, they will attempt to fly across. This is where the fun starts. The stactites are actually piercers, who will attempt to drop onto flying characters. If they hit, the the character falls and the mold goes off. If they miss, they pierce the mold and it goes off! Damned if they do, damned if they don't!

Like them?
Altharis

[Maldraugedhen]

It's interesting how many of these traps would be foiled by one of my favorite trap-disarming standbys that doesn't require a Disable Device check.
Throwing a rock.

[Doglord]

I like the "feeding chute" in dungeonscape.
Its a pit trap that leads to the hungry monsters dinnerbowl

[Triaxx]

Broken Sword

The players enter a room, containing a forge, and the tip of a broken sword. The whole weapon goes on the wall to open the door to the stairs to the next level. Hide the parts of the sword as you wish, then when they return to the forge, have it go out as soon as they light it.

Once they figure out that it can only be lit by magic, then the trap goes off. The Forge explodes detonating a fireball once every round, at CL 10. Once the sword is forged, requiring four Craft checks, DC's starting at 10, and rising by 5 each round, the forge has to be put out. Once more only magic will do it.

Placing the sword on the wall opens the gate, but also locks the doors out of the room, so anyone not in the room is trapped unless the door is locked again.

[akira72703]

This was a trap I built into a complete single floor of a dungeon.

The only traps in the joint were glyphs of warding that gave the players the aid spells, or pure positive energy. Or cure light and its variants.

This built up their Hp and with the temporary ones from the positive energy they exceeded their normal Hp. The players loved this because after a fight they would set off a series of traps to heal (the cleric was overjoyed).

They avoided the obvious 2x your normal Hp positive enrgy explosion thing by perodically attacking each other (they found it funny to attack each other in this manner)

When they got to the end of the dungeon and faced the BBEG, they each were 1 point under 2x their Hp explosion point figuring the villian would not be healing them.

They were right. He was a vampire that powered his abilities based off of draining Hp from living beings (a reverse profane life leech) around him....:smallamused: He would normally have been a cake walk but with all the juicy Hp around him he was a monster literally.

-A

[BisectedBrioche]

What about a wall covered with invisible zombie arms? Someone tocuhes it and BAM! they're subject to several grapples and get slammed against the wall until they break free.

[Fako]

It's interesting how many of these traps would be foiled by one of my favorite trap-disarming standbys that doesn't require a Disable Device check.
Throwing a rock.

Only one of mine is foiled that way! :D

...I learned to make traps harder to trigger when my party simply had the barbarian pick up an altar that a nasty trap was on... they got the altar out of the room, so the trap became worthless when turned on...

[Icewalker]

Ah, but don't you see, if a party is rational enough to set off traps by chucking a rock, I will humbly admit to being outsmarted. Then I'll chuckle quietly to myself in the knowledge that further traps will not even be detected with these methods.... :smallamused:

[Hiest, monkey]

One I've used, with hillarious results. In fact I actually ended a session right after the party triggered it.

There is a set of stairs, important detail being that they are normal stairs, not the spiral kind.

As a party member steps on a step somwhere in the middle of the staircase, ensuring the party is entirely in the stair shaft.

Dramtically the step collapses as if it is a giant button.

This "button" activates a soften earth and stone spell in holes in the wall, relealing, as sand pour out of them were there was earlier just stone, holes.

Inside these shafts are spring loaded dart traps.

Inevitabaly the party will try to dive, and make their save.

And this is the best part, when they fall, all the steps collapse forward to form a ramp, and they get grease cast on them.

The party slides down the "stairs" And into the next room. This room is dark until a single lamp ignite on the other side. The dart wounded party then notices the wooden floor under them is peppered with holes.

My favorite part. Here it comes.

The floor drops, causing the 6' needles concealed below to be revealed. THey are regularly placed so if you lie flat or crawl they dont kill you.there is alever next to the door next the lamp. This lever deactivates the needles by bringing the floor up.

What else happens when the room is deactivated? A section of needles falls through, along with a party member, they are subjected to a feather fall spell so they are not wounded. After they fall a thick pane of gless slides over the pit, trapping them in a corridor below, and they are subject ed to a riddle trap. Solve the riddle or die. The riddle is given by a magic mouth in the wall/ceiling down the hall, mine involved math and doors of different colors.

Another one used in the same dungeon:

A pressure plate activates a soften earth and stone on a concealed hourglass, that the party is standing on. It's really big. So one or more, usually just the rogue who is disabling the trap, fall through and begin to sink in the sand. They soon realize it is a giant hourglass, and if this top side is this big then the bottom is even bigger. The rogue is probably the only one with use rope, so they can't really save him. Usually the rogue simply throws them a rope after tieing it around himself.

A fun trap: A pressure plate summons 40 rats against a 2nd level party. Hilarity ensues.