So last night my party is plunging into a cult layer in the crypts, trying to stop an evil ritual. As we run through clearing rooms while wearing cult disguises and frantically checking for traps, we encounter a door at the end of a long hallway with a big red X on it. Investigation elicits the DM to say: "It's stinky." Frantically everybody in the party concludes it's a hideous trap designed to clear the hallway, possibly involving the nearby sewer system and everybody tells each other "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT OPEN THAT DOOR!!!"
We go around it and beat the big bad. After the session someone thinks to ask: "Hey what was the trap behind the big red X door?" DM: "That was the bathroom."
Best trap I ever saw was something so simple it was brilliant. In a solo campaign in 3.5, my fighter came across a locked door. Since I couldn't really look for traps I rolled to see if I could see if there was anything unusual about the door, and found there was not. So, I tried to bash it down and was surprised to find that it was resisting quite heavily, for a wooden door at least. I continued to try to bash it down, taking breaks to recover from the non-lethal I was taking, until finally I beat it to sawdust and discovered that behind the door was...
A concrete wall. What I had missed with my Search check was that it was a door that was just nailed to a wall. This was the same DM that had the Alchemist Fire traps that would go off TWICE so after I tripped it once I thought I would be safe, and who used strategically positioned Hobgoblins with longbows to keep me on track. https://omegle****/
I love when the “trap” ends up being nothing at all. One of my favorite ToA traps does that.
Recently, my group burned ten minutes planning how to neutralize what they thought was a mimic door… that turned out to just be a door. The real trap was two rooms over, and they walked straight into it without checking.
So last night my party is plunging into a cult layer in the crypts, trying to stop an evil ritual. As we run through clearing rooms while wearing cult disguises and frantically checking for traps, we encounter a door at the end of a long hallway with a big red X on it. Investigation elicits the DM to say: "It's stinky." Frantically everybody in the party concludes it's a hideous trap designed to clear the hallway, possibly involving the nearby sewer system and everybody tells each other "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT OPEN THAT DOOR!!!"
We go around it and beat the big bad. After the session someone thinks to ask: "Hey what was the trap behind the big red X door?"
DM: "That was the bathroom."
Best trap I ever saw was something so simple it was brilliant. In a solo campaign in 3.5, my fighter came across a locked door. Since I couldn't really look for traps I rolled to see if I could see if there was anything unusual about the door, and found there was not. So, I tried to bash it down and was surprised to find that it was resisting quite heavily, for a wooden door at least. I continued to try to bash it down, taking breaks to recover from the non-lethal I was taking, until finally I beat it to sawdust and discovered that behind the door was...
A concrete wall. What I had missed with my Search check was that it was a door that was just nailed to a wall. This was the same DM that had the Alchemist Fire traps that would go off TWICE so after I tripped it once I thought I would be safe, and who used strategically positioned Hobgoblins with longbows to keep me on track. https://omegle****/
I love when the “trap” ends up being nothing at all. One of my favorite ToA traps does that.
Recently, my group burned ten minutes planning how to neutralize what they thought was a mimic door… that turned out to just be a door. The real trap was two rooms over, and they walked straight into it without checking.
https://startplaying.games/gm/dmkevin