The idea came into my head to have the PCs going down a hallway loaded with traps - some deadly, some not. They have to get through them all successfully, with no player kills, to exit the hallway. The catch is that if they don't do so, when they reach the end, they are sent back to the beginning of the hall and have to do it over, presumably healed to what they were when they started, ala an Edge of Tomorrow looping type of thing. I was thinking of adjusting the DC on each trap up or down, depending on if they had already solved it or not.
what do you all think? Would this be fun for a party or not?
As long as it doesn't become a repeating cycle where they're making the same rolls to disarm, bypass or survive traps and doing nothing more than waiting for the dice to roll their way. That will get painfully monotonous and boring to the point they'll start telling you to assume they do the same things, roll all the dice they've memorised are required in sequence and just repeat that sequence until it's all successes.
Find a way to keep it fresh and make it more interesting than just waiting for RNG to give them the perfect run like a repeating speed runner.
Rouge-likes can get kind of boring in D&D. And the more characters you have making the attempt+more attempts you have to make = high likelihood someone is going to fail at least one of them. It might be fun for some groups, but I could see myself getting frustrated.
My experience is that in most parties, dealing with traps is the rogue or artificer's responsibility and the rest of the party just winds up standing around waiting for them to finish. So not a very exciting time, especially if it requires a "perfect play" like this scenario.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If you want to try something like this, what I'd suggest is that something in the hallway changes with each loop, providing clues to the nature of the true puzzle, and that the traps are actually just a distraction. In fact, once they've solved a trap, I'd just hand-wave away rolling for it again on subsequent loops unless a different character tries to do it, or they try a different approach
I'd also hint in advance about the "looping" nature of the hallway, so that if they have a streak of good rolls and blow through all the traps unscathed on their first run and find themselves still stuck without an exit, they might realize they'll need to fail deliberately to go back to the beginning
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Another way to avoid making this repetitive is to turn it into a skill challenge instead of just a series of checks. More failures than successes means they have to repeat the hallway, and the DCs get harder.
There's a few ways you could run this, too. 1) Everyone in the party has to contribute something unique to each obstacle. 2) Each member of the party has to solve a different obstacle in series, kind of like a cascade effect. 3) No one can use the same skill twice. 4) Each trap they have to repeat, they can't use the same skill they did before to solve it.
If you're designing this, I also encourage you to review what spells the party has that might just bypass one or all of the elements altogether. Nothing takes the wind out of a DM's sails faster than realizing magic makes your traps irrelevant. Good luck!
I don’t see a hallway of traps being fun at all, even for a group entirely made of rogues. To me, the only enjoyable traps are puzzles, be it mini puzzles or convoluted ones.
The idea came into my head to have the PCs going down a hallway loaded with traps - some deadly, some not. They have to get through them all successfully, with no player kills, to exit the hallway. The catch is that if they don't do so, when they reach the end, they are sent back to the beginning of the hall and have to do it over, presumably healed to what they were when they started, ala an Edge of Tomorrow looping type of thing. I was thinking of adjusting the DC on each trap up or down, depending on if they had already solved it or not.
what do you all think? Would this be fun for a party or not?
As long as it doesn't become a repeating cycle where they're making the same rolls to disarm, bypass or survive traps and doing nothing more than waiting for the dice to roll their way. That will get painfully monotonous and boring to the point they'll start telling you to assume they do the same things, roll all the dice they've memorised are required in sequence and just repeat that sequence until it's all successes.
Find a way to keep it fresh and make it more interesting than just waiting for RNG to give them the perfect run like a repeating speed runner.
Rouge-likes can get kind of boring in D&D. And the more characters you have making the attempt+more attempts you have to make = high likelihood someone is going to fail at least one of them. It might be fun for some groups, but I could see myself getting frustrated.
My experience is that in most parties, dealing with traps is the rogue or artificer's responsibility and the rest of the party just winds up standing around waiting for them to finish. So not a very exciting time, especially if it requires a "perfect play" like this scenario.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If you want to try something like this, what I'd suggest is that something in the hallway changes with each loop, providing clues to the nature of the true puzzle, and that the traps are actually just a distraction. In fact, once they've solved a trap, I'd just hand-wave away rolling for it again on subsequent loops unless a different character tries to do it, or they try a different approach
I'd also hint in advance about the "looping" nature of the hallway, so that if they have a streak of good rolls and blow through all the traps unscathed on their first run and find themselves still stuck without an exit, they might realize they'll need to fail deliberately to go back to the beginning
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Another way to avoid making this repetitive is to turn it into a skill challenge instead of just a series of checks. More failures than successes means they have to repeat the hallway, and the DCs get harder.
There's a few ways you could run this, too. 1) Everyone in the party has to contribute something unique to each obstacle. 2) Each member of the party has to solve a different obstacle in series, kind of like a cascade effect. 3) No one can use the same skill twice. 4) Each trap they have to repeat, they can't use the same skill they did before to solve it.
If you're designing this, I also encourage you to review what spells the party has that might just bypass one or all of the elements altogether. Nothing takes the wind out of a DM's sails faster than realizing magic makes your traps irrelevant. Good luck!
I don’t see a hallway of traps being fun at all, even for a group entirely made of rogues. To me, the only enjoyable traps are puzzles, be it mini puzzles or convoluted ones.
You could have the traps reset after the party passes and they have to go back out the way they came in.
Indiana Jones run out of the tunnel in the first movie was a pretty good example.
If they blow through them on first try they would exit