I like my poor mans bottomless pit... take one pit trap dig it at least 100 feet deep. Add one permanent one-sided planar gate tied to a second identical gate. Place it roughly 30 feet from the top of the pit. Point its entrance/exit down. Add the second identical gate with its entrance/exit pointing up about 60 feet from the top.
PC falls into the pit. Falls 60 feet. Gets smoothly transported 30 feet up the shaft. Falls 30 more feet to the original gate and starts the process all over. Best part? if the PC tries to fly up the shaft the gates work in reverse...
Gelatinous Cubes. Most people forget this, but they are mostly transparent, and it’s so funny when the person first in marching order just walks into the cube.
I once had a trap that was an Indian Jones-style rolling boulder that ended up trapping a character with a fire elemental. The best part was that the player who got trapped was mostly fire based, and their attacks were useless against the elemental.
Gelatinous Cubes. Most people forget this, but they are mostly transparent, and it’s so funny when the person first in marching order just walks into the cube.
In a Pit!
or
A trigger at the bottom of a pit that releases a cube into the pit.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I haven’t used it yet, but I’m definitely planning to:
A River runs through a kobold lair. There are two ledges that overlook the river. The kobolds greased them so that when the players step on the ledge they’ll slip and fall in the river, which will sweep them downstream to the crocodile pool, where two winged kobolds snipe from above.
Open a portal to that demiplane below a creature's feet.
The simulacrum inside opens the door, causing the creature to fall through into the demiplane.
Your simulacrum casts dispel magic on the door, trapping the creature inside the demiplane.
You have to burn an eighth level spell slot as well as waste a simulacrum, but any creature that doesn't have a way to planar travel is absolutely biffed xD
I really hope this doesn't transform into a "here's a trap I want to use on my players but haven't" thread. It seems way more useful and novel as a "here's a trap that was a good time at my table" thread.
Far and away my favorite trap I've had the pleasure of seeing at the table is from Curse of Strahd. So, spoilers ahead. Basically, as the PCs enter a long hallway, lightning flashes and down from the ceiling swoops the dark and menacing form of the vampire lord himself. He begins laughing as he flies down the hall, and initiative is rolled. But in truth, this isn't Strahd -- it's an animatronic, really no more than a mannequin wearing a cloak, which glides along a track in the ceiling. This becomes clear when they inevitably smash it to pieces. I think the trap ended up eating something like 6 or 7 combined levels of spells, but more importantly it made the players furious... At Strahd, though, not at the writers or at the DM. Excellent stuff.
I also recall a trap from the Adventurers' League module Durlag's Tomb that was pretty exciting. It's a narrow bridge over magma, and the back wall is moving to push you onto it. At the far end, a door that will only open if two switches are pulled simultaneously. Those switches are on opposite walls, and a balance beam across the bridge leads to them. Oh, and there are devils in the room trying to kill you. It's an outrageous situation, suited really well for the tier of play it's designed for, and it provides a clear goal, a clear failure state, and demands that the players split up the responsibilities. Highly recommended.
I really hope this doesn't transform into a "here's a trap I want to use on my players but haven't" thread. It seems way more useful and novel as a "here's a trap that was a good time at my table" thread.
Oh, I used my "poor mans" bottomless pit... took the players a good bit to work out an escape from it. They said it was the "best" puzzle they had ever encountered.
A pit trap . . . that fell into an open portable hole . . . that would then rip upon the character triggering it, shunting them into the Astral Plane.
It can effectively be character death at low levels, a major annoyance at higher levels, and if the players can avoid and dismantle it, it's a nice source of a magic item.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
A pit trap . . . that fell into an open portable hole . . . that would then rip upon the character triggering it, shunting them into the Astral Plane.
It can effectively be character death at low levels, a major annoyance at higher levels, and if the players can avoid and dismantle it, it's a nice source of a magic item.
On a similar note, our DM gifted us a portable hole, which, when combined with my Artificer's bag of holding infusion, creates something we like to call.....an Astral bomb.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
We fought a homebrew ruby dragon on a big bridge over lave, made of ruby.
Turned out said dragon could cause parts of the ruby to recede, dropping you into the lava if you failed a dex save. This ended up killing a tiefling NPC with the party but the cleric got lucky with divine intervention and was able to bring them back despite chunks of the body being missing when pulled out of the lava.
My favorite one that I ran as a DM was a mimic house. The party went into this weird abandoned inn looking place. Chairs, kegs of booze, and whatever else i could think of turned out to be mimics and attacked. (Homebrewed stats to make the whole thing fair and not just kill the party lol.)
The fun part? The building itself was a giant mimic, and the doors and windows came to life and they had to 'kille' the door to open it back up to get out, then fight the animated building itself as the final part of the encounter.
Kobold tic-tax-toe machine. It was rigged to explode when the characters *won* the game. They assumed the kobolds were just too stupid to play tic-tac-toe right, to unfortunate consequences.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
My DM loved mimics! and would sprinkle them throughout towns and dungeons.
Once he had a Mimic outhouse! (there was an ongoing joke about my fighter needing to pee all the time (long story))
Tell me about some of your favourite traps!
I like my poor mans bottomless pit...
take one pit trap dig it at least 100 feet deep.
Add one permanent one-sided planar gate tied to a second identical gate.
Place it roughly 30 feet from the top of the pit.
Point its entrance/exit down.
Add the second identical gate with its entrance/exit pointing up about 60 feet from the top.
PC falls into the pit. Falls 60 feet. Gets smoothly transported 30 feet up the shaft. Falls 30 more feet to the original gate and starts the process all over.
Best part? if the PC tries to fly up the shaft the gates work in reverse...
Gelatinous Cubes. Most people forget this, but they are mostly transparent, and it’s so funny when the person first in marching order just walks into the cube.
Come participate in the Competition of the Finest Brews, Edition XXVIII?
My homebrew stuff:
Spells, Monsters, Magic Items, Feats, Subclasses.
I am an Archfey, but nobody seems to notice.
Extended Signature
I once had a trap that was an Indian Jones-style rolling boulder that ended up trapping a character with a fire elemental. The best part was that the player who got trapped was mostly fire based, and their attacks were useless against the elemental.
Hombrew: Way of Wresting, Circle of Sacrifice
In a Pit!
or
A trigger at the bottom of a pit that releases a cube into the pit.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I haven’t used it yet, but I’m definitely planning to:
A River runs through a kobold lair. There are two ledges that overlook the river. The kobolds greased them so that when the players step on the ledge they’ll slip and fall in the river, which will sweep them downstream to the crocodile pool, where two winged kobolds snipe from above.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
Simulacrum - Demiplane - Dispel Magic
Create a simulacrum and put it on a demiplane.
Open a portal to that demiplane below a creature's feet.
The simulacrum inside opens the door, causing the creature to fall through into the demiplane.
Your simulacrum casts dispel magic on the door, trapping the creature inside the demiplane.
You have to burn an eighth level spell slot as well as waste a simulacrum, but any creature that doesn't have a way to planar travel is absolutely biffed xD
I really hope this doesn't transform into a "here's a trap I want to use on my players but haven't" thread. It seems way more useful and novel as a "here's a trap that was a good time at my table" thread.
Far and away my favorite trap I've had the pleasure of seeing at the table is from Curse of Strahd. So, spoilers ahead. Basically, as the PCs enter a long hallway, lightning flashes and down from the ceiling swoops the dark and menacing form of the vampire lord himself. He begins laughing as he flies down the hall, and initiative is rolled. But in truth, this isn't Strahd -- it's an animatronic, really no more than a mannequin wearing a cloak, which glides along a track in the ceiling. This becomes clear when they inevitably smash it to pieces. I think the trap ended up eating something like 6 or 7 combined levels of spells, but more importantly it made the players furious... At Strahd, though, not at the writers or at the DM. Excellent stuff.
I also recall a trap from the Adventurers' League module Durlag's Tomb that was pretty exciting. It's a narrow bridge over magma, and the back wall is moving to push you onto it. At the far end, a door that will only open if two switches are pulled simultaneously. Those switches are on opposite walls, and a balance beam across the bridge leads to them. Oh, and there are devils in the room trying to kill you. It's an outrageous situation, suited really well for the tier of play it's designed for, and it provides a clear goal, a clear failure state, and demands that the players split up the responsibilities. Highly recommended.
Oh, I used my "poor mans" bottomless pit...
took the players a good bit to work out an escape from it.
They said it was the "best" puzzle they had ever encountered.
A pit trap . . . that fell into an open portable hole . . . that would then rip upon the character triggering it, shunting them into the Astral Plane.
It can effectively be character death at low levels, a major annoyance at higher levels, and if the players can avoid and dismantle it, it's a nice source of a magic item.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
On a similar note, our DM gifted us a portable hole, which, when combined with my Artificer's bag of holding infusion, creates something we like to call.....an Astral bomb.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
We fought a homebrew ruby dragon on a big bridge over lave, made of ruby.
Turned out said dragon could cause parts of the ruby to recede, dropping you into the lava if you failed a dex save. This ended up killing a tiefling NPC with the party but the cleric got lucky with divine intervention and was able to bring them back despite chunks of the body being missing when pulled out of the lava.
My favorite one that I ran as a DM was a mimic house. The party went into this weird abandoned inn looking place. Chairs, kegs of booze, and whatever else i could think of turned out to be mimics and attacked. (Homebrewed stats to make the whole thing fair and not just kill the party lol.)
The fun part? The building itself was a giant mimic, and the doors and windows came to life and they had to 'kille' the door to open it back up to get out, then fight the animated building itself as the final part of the encounter.
Kobold tic-tax-toe machine. It was rigged to explode when the characters *won* the game. They assumed the kobolds were just too stupid to play tic-tac-toe right, to unfortunate consequences.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club