Some of the best traps are those with multiple elements that play off each other, and where the goal is simply to make it to the far side over a series of turns, potentially helping each other along. Here's some I've done:
The bottom of a staircase fills with poison gas, while a torrent of water flows down the stairs. After making the initial save against the gas, the characters must forge up the water, taking bludgeoning damage on a fall while being washed back to the beginning, which has filled with more gas.
A 5x5 grid of spaces, each of which ends movement, produce random elemental effects when stepped on: they might explode in a gout of fire that directly causes damage, turn to water in which characters might fall, burst into a gust of wind to push them into that water, or release mud mephits to restrain the characters so they'll drown. This was my personal favorite...it felt more like an encounter than a trap, but the characters just had to all get through the room alive!
The door to the next room lies above a wall of shifting brick, where a pair of rotating blades like fans seek to knock them off and cut any ropes, and characters must cling to the shifting brick while waiting to move between the blades or risk falling and taking damage, all while the floor thrusts up spikes every few seconds to drive them onto the wall and statues fire bolts at the farthest ahead, even those at the top helping other characters. This one was so deadly, the party left an incapacitated character to bleed out on the spike floor because no one wanted to risk climbing back down to save him.
Oh yeah, and water. Water is the single deadliest thing in a dungeon. I once ran a simple "room fills with water, door is at the top" trap that sent the plate-armored cleric halfway around the dungeon as he found another way through...while the rest of the party engaged in a battle with cultists.
For puzzles, I like to stick to simple riddles. If it seems too easy, it probably isn't, and it's no good giving a Rubik's cube puzzle to players who just want to bash monsters and get treasure (which is most players, if not all). Plus, these eliminate the issue of player vs character intelligence. In the riddle of the doors of Moria (from The Lord of the Rings) Merry the hobbit gets on the right track before Gandalf the wizard finally picks up on it!
Just curious! I'm not the best with coming up with ideas for traps or puzzles, and you could say, I'm looking for some ideas!
Well... I believe that I can help. I see you are on YouTube... I also am on YouTube... in fact, my channel has over 50 puzzles that you could use. Each video provides full demonstration on how the puzzle works with plenty of leniency to adjust it to your game or use "as is".
Some of my favorite puzzles I created include having the players swap out different colored gems in an owl statue to open different doors, use their sense of taste to find the right key, and even make a deal with a hag that may tempt them in the wrong direction.
Here are some of my personal favorites:
Door of Shadows The adventurers have found an upright door in the middle of a dark dungeon room. They may walk around it, through it, or go over it and nothing happens. Further exploration might be needed as they need to find some type of contraption to activate the door of shadows!
Deja Vu Our adventurers find themselves in a room with snacks, drinks, and a roaring fireplace to take a break and relax. Should they look out the window they will have see themselves five minutes ago, in the past finishing up a major combat encounter. The past will catch up with them soon, leaving them with the feeling that they have been here before... beware the effects of deja vu!
Magic Mouth Puzzle Our adventurers are investigating four murals that are an obvious clue to solving a puzzle. Meanwhile, a loudmouth, magic mouth sings, talks, shouts, recites lyrics and give riddles to the party. Is it there to distract them or will the Magic Mouth provide the final clue they are looking for?
Door of the Stone Hand One of our adventurers will have to become the key to the dungeon in this puzzle. Should we draw for shortest straws? Exclaim "Not it"? Who will be the brave soul to raise their left hand and volunteer?
Plenty of D&D puzzle ideas for you! Hope this helps!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
I once threw a (very simple) bitwise operator puzzle at my players. It involved a bridge in four sections and a control panel with four levers and a button. Solving the puzzle required realizing that the button moved the bridge sections to match the output of XORing the levers with the current bridge settings.
They’ve still never forgiven me, so I’m definitely going to do it again.
I'm running tyranny of dragons for my brother and his boys. To spice up the journey north and also give the party a chance at one of the dragon masks (I'm expanding the lore of the masks and having the cult currently actively looking for a couple of the masks), I threw Dragonspear Castle at the players. It's on the way north from Baldur's Gate and provided an opportunity for another dungeon crawl, which is more engaging to the kiddos than a string of random encounters. I pulled the maps of Dragonspear Castle from two older adventures I found that revolved around it but I wanted a third level beneath the labyrinth one of those adventures had placed under the castle. It provided the perfect opportunity (akin to the things Harry has to do to get to the sorcerer's stone in the first book) for a level dedicated entirely to puzzles. (The labyrinth level I ran as a survival challenge. 3 successful survival checks and they found their way to the middle of the labyrinth.)
Room 1 had a gynosphinx who shifted the party to a different reality, presented a riddle, and when the party solved it, they had to perform an action related to the answer. (The riddle was "Three times a day I'm seen but rarely linger." The answer is a meal. So they had to prep a meal for her. The oldest of my nephews gave his character the soldier background and said he was a cook in the army, is always on the lookout for cooking supplies, etc, so this was tailored to him.) When the sphinx was satisfied, she moved from her nest and the key that unlocked the way forward was laying on the straw. Room 2 had a giant statue of a dwarf blacksmith (the puzzle is from this thread here on DDB: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/3238-element-of-surprise-best-traps-and-puzzles-to-set#c18). THis was geared at my brother's character who is a dwarf. There were three doors leading off that chamber. The stone door led to an empty room with a spiked pit trap. The silver door led to a giant treasure hoard which was put there by the people who created this level of the dungeon so that anyone who delved this deep might think they've gotten the best treasure ever and leave without exploring more. The gold door led to a natural tunnel that opened on a large cavern almost completely consumed by a lake. This was aimed at the other of the two kids who has the Black Spider's staff and can cast spider climb and also has a grappling hook he had been dying to use at this point.
Of all the dungeon crawls we've had between LMoP and what we've gotten through of ToD so far, this level of the dungeon was the group's favorite.
One trap/puzzle I had just tossed at my players was a mirror image. So, they were in this mage tower and when they got onto the trapped floor they would see an exact mirror image of themselves. A very sinister version of themselves. The trick was just to leave it alone but that did not happen. First one who discovered this attacked. Had him roll against his own stats and any damage he did to the image he actually took. Took them a bit to figure out.
Just curious! I'm not the best with coming up with ideas for traps or puzzles, and you could say, I'm looking for some ideas!
Well... I believe that I can help. I see you are on YouTube... I also am on YouTube... in fact, my channel has over 50 puzzles that you could use. Each video provides full demonstration on how the puzzle works with plenty of leniency to adjust it to your game or use "as is".
Some of my favorite puzzles I created include having the players swap out different colored gems in an owl statue to open different doors, use their sense of taste to find the right key, and even make a deal with a hag that may tempt them in the wrong direction.
Here are some of my personal favorites:
Door of Shadows The adventurers have found an upright door in the middle of a dark dungeon room. They may walk around it, through it, or go over it and nothing happens. Further exploration might be needed as they need to find some type of contraption to activate the door of shadows!
Deja Vu Our adventurers find themselves in a room with snacks, drinks, and a roaring fireplace to take a break and relax. Should they look out the window they will have see themselves five minutes ago, in the past finishing up a major combat encounter. The past will catch up with them soon, leaving them with the feeling that they have been here before... beware the effects of deja vu!
Magic Mouth Puzzle Our adventurers are investigating four murals that are an obvious clue to solving a puzzle. Meanwhile, a loudmouth, magic mouth sings, talks, shouts, recites lyrics and give riddles to the party. Is it there to distract them or will the Magic Mouth provide the final clue they are looking for?
Door of the Stone Hand One of our adventurers will have to become the key to the dungeon in this puzzle. Should we draw for shortest straws? Exclaim "Not it"? Who will be the brave soul to raise their left hand and volunteer?
Plenty of D&D puzzle ideas for you! Hope this helps!
Oh shit it's you! I watched one of your videos with the deja vu room idea I gave it a little tweak but my players loved it thank you so much I've only been playing and dming for a couple of months so it was the first puzzle I threw at them and some of my players have been playing for years and they didnt even know what was going on but they all loved it thank you again
Oh shit it's you! I watched one of your videos with the deja vu room idea I gave it a little tweak but my players loved it thank you so much I've only been playing and dming for a couple of months so it was the first puzzle I threw at them and some of my players have been playing for years and they didnt even know what was going on but they all loved it thank you again
Awww yeah, you betcha! I love the Deja Vu puzzle. Super glad that it worked out for you and awesome to hear that your players enjoyed it! Well done. :)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
There was an AL module I ran once that had a few trapped puzzle rooms. The last one was the best. The entire floor, walls, and ceiling were covered in gears. There were a few mechanical Wyverns on pedestals that looked like statues. Beneath the Wyverns on their stands were drawers that had various random things that would possible heal or hurt you. In the middle of the room was a large stand with a lever in the up position. When they entered the room, the doors shut and the gears come to life. Every other turn the lever moves down one of it's 4 position toward the bottom and they have to make a dex check every turn since the gears are moving beneath them. The Wyverns came to life and attakced at various intervals, forget when lol. The only way to open the door to the other side is to have the lever at the bottom..... which it would eventually get to if you leave it alone. Everyone kept pushing it up and checking drawers and fighting wyverns, healing, trying to fly, trying to jam gears, etc. When they found out they just had to push the lever down they cursed at me for a while lol. Great fun!
I dont know why but every time Ive put in trapped things or puzzles my players blow through it quickly enough with little problems but they've spent 10 minutes checking and rechecking and detecting magic on and attacking to ensure its not a mimic for a regular wooden door. It went so far that they actually were RPing getting out their thieves tools to pick the lock before one had the brainwave to try the handle.
Otherwise I found taking ones from movies and putting a slight tweak to it works well. Like the 1 tells the truth 1 tells a lie thing from Wizard of Oz but change it to them working a portal. Your players will spend so much time focussing on how you've changed it a bit and convince themselves it changes the outcome too that it will take them 15 minutes longer even when they get the answer in 30 seconds.
Always let your players spend the extra time to decide to lock in a decision before moving on swiftly. They'll feel like their decision is more meaningful then
I dont know why but every time Ive put in trapped things or puzzles my players blow through it quickly enough with little problems but they've spent 10 minutes checking and rechecking and detecting magic on and attacking to ensure its not a mimic for a regular wooden door. It went so far that they actually were RPing getting out their thieves tools to pick the lock before one had the brainwave to try the handle.
Otherwise I found taking ones from movies and putting a slight tweak to it works well. Like the 1 tells the truth 1 tells a lie thing from Wizard of Oz but change it to them working a portal. Your players will spend so much time focussing on how you've changed it a bit and convince themselves it changes the outcome too that it will take them 15 minutes longer even when they get the answer in 30 seconds.
Always let your players spend the extra time to decide to lock in a decision before moving on swiftly. They'll feel like their decision is more meaningful then
This, our DM ran us through a pretty standard dungeon crawl, in one room there was a cypher puzzle. He got annoyed I solved it very fast (what can I say I really like cyphers and they have been a hobby for me a lot longer than D&D has been lol). The following room had a door, that door took us an hour and a half to open, it wasn't locked but then nobody bothered to just try opening the door. We tried picking the lock well that failed because it wasn't locked, we tried blasting it open it was pretty much immune to damage, we searched the entire room for clues, we searched the previous room for clues not a single one of us checked the friggin door handle!!! It was opened from the other side by a guard who wanted to check what all the noise was about! In our defence everything leading up to the door had been quite hard!
I just had my first shot at being a DM a few weeks ago. My players totally ignored the need to check for traps while exploring an abandoned mansion.
So, I made them pay. When they entered the Lord's study, they broke a series of web-thin tripwires. A single click was heard but nothing happens.
They remained in the study and began to investigate for the sound. Every minute or so of real time, I added another click. They discovered a book on a shelf that had a thin cable attached. When they pulled it, they heard a loud locking sound. When they replaced it, they heard something unlock and another series of clicks.
They investigated the six small statuettes, three on each side of the room. Failed their checks to discover the traps.
After a few more minutes, an iron trapdoor slid shut in the windowless room, locking them inside as poisonous gas leaked out of the statuettes and slowly filled the room.
They were able to eventually break through the door via magic.
Just curious! I'm not the best with coming up with ideas for traps or puzzles, and you could say, I'm looking for some ideas!
DM/Founder for Mimics & Monstrosities, a D&D network.
Mimics & Monstrosities Youtube
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Occasional DM's Guild Content Creator
Some of the best traps are those with multiple elements that play off each other, and where the goal is simply to make it to the far side over a series of turns, potentially helping each other along. Here's some I've done:
The bottom of a staircase fills with poison gas, while a torrent of water flows down the stairs. After making the initial save against the gas, the characters must forge up the water, taking bludgeoning damage on a fall while being washed back to the beginning, which has filled with more gas.
A 5x5 grid of spaces, each of which ends movement, produce random elemental effects when stepped on: they might explode in a gout of fire that directly causes damage, turn to water in which characters might fall, burst into a gust of wind to push them into that water, or release mud mephits to restrain the characters so they'll drown. This was my personal favorite...it felt more like an encounter than a trap, but the characters just had to all get through the room alive!
The door to the next room lies above a wall of shifting brick, where a pair of rotating blades like fans seek to knock them off and cut any ropes, and characters must cling to the shifting brick while waiting to move between the blades or risk falling and taking damage, all while the floor thrusts up spikes every few seconds to drive them onto the wall and statues fire bolts at the farthest ahead, even those at the top helping other characters. This one was so deadly, the party left an incapacitated character to bleed out on the spike floor because no one wanted to risk climbing back down to save him.
Oh yeah, and water. Water is the single deadliest thing in a dungeon. I once ran a simple "room fills with water, door is at the top" trap that sent the plate-armored cleric halfway around the dungeon as he found another way through...while the rest of the party engaged in a battle with cultists.
For puzzles, I like to stick to simple riddles. If it seems too easy, it probably isn't, and it's no good giving a Rubik's cube puzzle to players who just want to bash monsters and get treasure (which is most players, if not all). Plus, these eliminate the issue of player vs character intelligence. In the riddle of the doors of Moria (from The Lord of the Rings) Merry the hobbit gets on the right track before Gandalf the wizard finally picks up on it!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Well... I believe that I can help. I see you are on YouTube... I also am on YouTube... in fact, my channel has over 50 puzzles that you could use. Each video provides full demonstration on how the puzzle works with plenty of leniency to adjust it to your game or use "as is".
Some of my favorite puzzles I created include having the players swap out different colored gems in an owl statue to open different doors, use their sense of taste to find the right key, and even make a deal with a hag that may tempt them in the wrong direction.
Here are some of my personal favorites:
Door of Shadows
The adventurers have found an upright door in the middle of a dark dungeon room. They may walk around it, through it, or go over it and nothing happens. Further exploration might be needed as they need to find some type of contraption to activate the door of shadows!
Deja Vu
Our adventurers find themselves in a room with snacks, drinks, and a roaring fireplace to take a break and relax. Should they look out the window they will have see themselves five minutes ago, in the past finishing up a major combat encounter. The past will catch up with them soon, leaving them with the feeling that they have been here before... beware the effects of deja vu!
Magic Mouth Puzzle
Our adventurers are investigating four murals that are an obvious clue to solving a puzzle. Meanwhile, a loudmouth, magic mouth sings, talks, shouts, recites lyrics and give riddles to the party. Is it there to distract them or will the Magic Mouth provide the final clue they are looking for?
Door of the Stone Hand
One of our adventurers will have to become the key to the dungeon in this puzzle. Should we draw for shortest straws? Exclaim "Not it"? Who will be the brave soul to raise their left hand and volunteer?
Plenty of D&D puzzle ideas for you! Hope this helps!
I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
Wally DM on YouTube
I once threw a (very simple) bitwise operator puzzle at my players. It involved a bridge in four sections and a control panel with four levers and a button. Solving the puzzle required realizing that the button moved the bridge sections to match the output of XORing the levers with the current bridge settings.
They’ve still never forgiven me, so I’m definitely going to do it again.
I'm running tyranny of dragons for my brother and his boys. To spice up the journey north and also give the party a chance at one of the dragon masks (I'm expanding the lore of the masks and having the cult currently actively looking for a couple of the masks), I threw Dragonspear Castle at the players. It's on the way north from Baldur's Gate and provided an opportunity for another dungeon crawl, which is more engaging to the kiddos than a string of random encounters. I pulled the maps of Dragonspear Castle from two older adventures I found that revolved around it but I wanted a third level beneath the labyrinth one of those adventures had placed under the castle. It provided the perfect opportunity (akin to the things Harry has to do to get to the sorcerer's stone in the first book) for a level dedicated entirely to puzzles. (The labyrinth level I ran as a survival challenge. 3 successful survival checks and they found their way to the middle of the labyrinth.)
Room 1 had a gynosphinx who shifted the party to a different reality, presented a riddle, and when the party solved it, they had to perform an action related to the answer. (The riddle was "Three times a day I'm seen but rarely linger." The answer is a meal. So they had to prep a meal for her. The oldest of my nephews gave his character the soldier background and said he was a cook in the army, is always on the lookout for cooking supplies, etc, so this was tailored to him.) When the sphinx was satisfied, she moved from her nest and the key that unlocked the way forward was laying on the straw. Room 2 had a giant statue of a dwarf blacksmith (the puzzle is from this thread here on DDB: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/dungeon-masters-only/3238-element-of-surprise-best-traps-and-puzzles-to-set#c18). THis was geared at my brother's character who is a dwarf. There were three doors leading off that chamber. The stone door led to an empty room with a spiked pit trap. The silver door led to a giant treasure hoard which was put there by the people who created this level of the dungeon so that anyone who delved this deep might think they've gotten the best treasure ever and leave without exploring more. The gold door led to a natural tunnel that opened on a large cavern almost completely consumed by a lake. This was aimed at the other of the two kids who has the Black Spider's staff and can cast spider climb and also has a grappling hook he had been dying to use at this point.
Of all the dungeon crawls we've had between LMoP and what we've gotten through of ToD so far, this level of the dungeon was the group's favorite.
My Homebrew Backgrounds | Feats | Magic Items | Monsters | Races | Subclasses
One trap/puzzle I had just tossed at my players was a mirror image. So, they were in this mage tower and when they got onto the trapped floor they would see an exact mirror image of themselves. A very sinister version of themselves. The trick was just to leave it alone but that did not happen. First one who discovered this attacked. Had him roll against his own stats and any damage he did to the image he actually took. Took them a bit to figure out.
.
Oh shit it's you! I watched one of your videos with the deja vu room idea I gave it a little tweak but my players loved it thank you so much I've only been playing and dming for a couple of months so it was the first puzzle I threw at them and some of my players have been playing for years and they didnt even know what was going on but they all loved it thank you again
Awww yeah, you betcha! I love the Deja Vu puzzle. Super glad that it worked out for you and awesome to hear that your players enjoyed it! Well done. :)
I have a YouTube channel with 5th Edition D&D Puzzles, Character Creations, DM Tips and Quests ideas. Check it out!
Wally DM on YouTube
Oh yeah, I forgot one classic, simple, beautiful trap...
There's a 10' spike pit open in the corridor ahead. It's actually a 20' spike pit and the landing is an illusion.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
There was an AL module I ran once that had a few trapped puzzle rooms. The last one was the best. The entire floor, walls, and ceiling were covered in gears. There were a few mechanical Wyverns on pedestals that looked like statues. Beneath the Wyverns on their stands were drawers that had various random things that would possible heal or hurt you. In the middle of the room was a large stand with a lever in the up position. When they entered the room, the doors shut and the gears come to life. Every other turn the lever moves down one of it's 4 position toward the bottom and they have to make a dex check every turn since the gears are moving beneath them. The Wyverns came to life and attakced at various intervals, forget when lol. The only way to open the door to the other side is to have the lever at the bottom..... which it would eventually get to if you leave it alone. Everyone kept pushing it up and checking drawers and fighting wyverns, healing, trying to fly, trying to jam gears, etc. When they found out they just had to push the lever down they cursed at me for a while lol. Great fun!
A door.
I dont know why but every time Ive put in trapped things or puzzles my players blow through it quickly enough with little problems but they've spent 10 minutes checking and rechecking and detecting magic on and attacking to ensure its not a mimic for a regular wooden door. It went so far that they actually were RPing getting out their thieves tools to pick the lock before one had the brainwave to try the handle.
Otherwise I found taking ones from movies and putting a slight tweak to it works well. Like the 1 tells the truth 1 tells a lie thing from Wizard of Oz but change it to them working a portal. Your players will spend so much time focussing on how you've changed it a bit and convince themselves it changes the outcome too that it will take them 15 minutes longer even when they get the answer in 30 seconds.
Always let your players spend the extra time to decide to lock in a decision before moving on swiftly. They'll feel like their decision is more meaningful then
This, our DM ran us through a pretty standard dungeon crawl, in one room there was a cypher puzzle. He got annoyed I solved it very fast (what can I say I really like cyphers and they have been a hobby for me a lot longer than D&D has been lol). The following room had a door, that door took us an hour and a half to open, it wasn't locked but then nobody bothered to just try opening the door. We tried picking the lock well that failed because it wasn't locked, we tried blasting it open it was pretty much immune to damage, we searched the entire room for clues, we searched the previous room for clues not a single one of us checked the friggin door handle!!!
It was opened from the other side by a guard who wanted to check what all the noise was about! In our defence everything leading up to the door had been quite hard!
From Within Chaos Comes Order!
I just had my first shot at being a DM a few weeks ago. My players totally ignored the need to check for traps while exploring an abandoned mansion.
So, I made them pay. When they entered the Lord's study, they broke a series of web-thin tripwires. A single click was heard but nothing happens.
They remained in the study and began to investigate for the sound. Every minute or so of real time, I added another click. They discovered a book on a shelf that had a thin cable attached. When they pulled it, they heard a loud locking sound. When they replaced it, they heard something unlock and another series of clicks.
They investigated the six small statuettes, three on each side of the room. Failed their checks to discover the traps.
After a few more minutes, an iron trapdoor slid shut in the windowless room, locking them inside as poisonous gas leaked out of the statuettes and slowly filled the room.
They were able to eventually break through the door via magic.
But they ALWAYS checked for traps after that.