I was building the lair for a wizardly foe, looking at spells that seemed appropriate, and I came across the symbol spell. Which seemed thematic... but also TPK bait, assuming the wizard picks an effect he's immune to, which he can do. Has anyone had experience with that? The party is level 12, for reference, but not super optimized.
You could try letting the party find out the password.
But otherwise, I think a lot would depend on the wizard. Do they just want kill intruders, or are they more interested in incapacitating them and questioning them? That could be a way around the tpk “All but two of you are in no condition to continue this conflict. Now do you want me to kill you both and then the rest of your gibbering friends over there? Or do you want to surrender, and listen to the offer I’m about to make you?”
I have experience with exactly this spell and it is one of my biggest regrets. I had set up a location to be home to an incredibly powerful Dragon Shapeshifting wizard. The doors, and windows to a cabin were all locked, and a look inside revealed a slight magic shimmer across the walls, windows and doors. The cabin belonged to the Dragon and was used while the dragon was in human form.
The dragon was made out to be merciless, and known to outright kill people who crossed, stole from, or in any other way encroached on the dragon.
So, when the party discovered the cabin of the dragon? They investigate and see the shimmer across the floor and other telegraphed evidence of glyphs and wards. I even specifically made clear that the magic was clearly incredibly strong.
Then one of the party decides that they want to get in...so they use Misty Step being able to see the inside of the cabin through the window. Even with a lower than average roll, the party member would have been instantly killed. I bottled it and decided instead that it wouldn't be 'Death' but just had the party member knocked to 0hp and knocked unconscious.
I still feel awful, but if I'm honest I did telegraph it as much as I could without explicitly saying 'this trap will likely kill you'. I still feel like it's reasonable that an incredibly powerful magic user would use the Symbol spell to protect the door, windows, or other areas of their research cabin. As the dragon magic user was also made out to be unrelentingly ruthless and cruel, I figured that they'd see it as perfectly reasonable to set up a deadly trap. Story and lorewise I think it was reasonable. As a GM, I kinda feel I dropped the ball by setting a trap that had the potential to instakill.
Thankfully, the Cleric had Spare the Dying and other healing magics.
Death symbol is decently survivable for anyone at an appropriate level -- the problem with symbol is that it triggers every turn for ten minutes, but it triggers at end of turn and only once per turn, so if you teleported in, you would take 10d10 (55) damage, but then have until the end of your next turn to either run away or dispel the symbol. However, most of the status effects do not offer a save to recover, and if you're trying to save every turn, you're going to wind up stunned for a minute or something in short order.
In the case of my party they were level 12s and the dice rolled totalled 60 - the PC's entire HP pool in one go.
If we go by the Traps damage as suggested in the 5e DMG, the dice rolled for a deadly trap at PC level 11-16 would actually be 18d10, and is dangerous at 10d10. So this was a more than level appropriate 'trap' for a mage to have left at that level.
This doesn't stop me feeling bad about it for no reason I'm able to quantify.
I was building the lair for a wizardly foe, looking at spells that seemed appropriate, and I came across the symbol spell. Which seemed thematic... but also TPK bait, assuming the wizard picks an effect he's immune to, which he can do. Has anyone had experience with that? The party is level 12, for reference, but not super optimized.
You could try letting the party find out the password.
But otherwise, I think a lot would depend on the wizard. Do they just want kill intruders, or are they more interested in incapacitating them and questioning them? That could be a way around the tpk “All but two of you are in no condition to continue this conflict. Now do you want me to kill you both and then the rest of your gibbering friends over there? Or do you want to surrender, and listen to the offer I’m about to make you?”
I have experience with exactly this spell and it is one of my biggest regrets. I had set up a location to be home to an incredibly powerful Dragon Shapeshifting wizard. The doors, and windows to a cabin were all locked, and a look inside revealed a slight magic shimmer across the walls, windows and doors. The cabin belonged to the Dragon and was used while the dragon was in human form.
The dragon was made out to be merciless, and known to outright kill people who crossed, stole from, or in any other way encroached on the dragon.
So, when the party discovered the cabin of the dragon? They investigate and see the shimmer across the floor and other telegraphed evidence of glyphs and wards. I even specifically made clear that the magic was clearly incredibly strong.
Then one of the party decides that they want to get in...so they use Misty Step being able to see the inside of the cabin through the window. Even with a lower than average roll, the party member would have been instantly killed. I bottled it and decided instead that it wouldn't be 'Death' but just had the party member knocked to 0hp and knocked unconscious.
I still feel awful, but if I'm honest I did telegraph it as much as I could without explicitly saying 'this trap will likely kill you'. I still feel like it's reasonable that an incredibly powerful magic user would use the Symbol spell to protect the door, windows, or other areas of their research cabin. As the dragon magic user was also made out to be unrelentingly ruthless and cruel, I figured that they'd see it as perfectly reasonable to set up a deadly trap. Story and lorewise I think it was reasonable. As a GM, I kinda feel I dropped the ball by setting a trap that had the potential to instakill.
Thankfully, the Cleric had Spare the Dying and other healing magics.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
Death symbol is decently survivable for anyone at an appropriate level -- the problem with symbol is that it triggers every turn for ten minutes, but it triggers at end of turn and only once per turn, so if you teleported in, you would take 10d10 (55) damage, but then have until the end of your next turn to either run away or dispel the symbol. However, most of the status effects do not offer a save to recover, and if you're trying to save every turn, you're going to wind up stunned for a minute or something in short order.
In the case of my party they were level 12s and the dice rolled totalled 60 - the PC's entire HP pool in one go.
If we go by the Traps damage as suggested in the 5e DMG, the dice rolled for a deadly trap at PC level 11-16 would actually be 18d10, and is dangerous at 10d10. So this was a more than level appropriate 'trap' for a mage to have left at that level.
This doesn't stop me feeling bad about it for no reason I'm able to quantify.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.