Illusion Traps for D&D
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- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2024
- Using illusions in traps is not a new concept, but there can be more to these traps than meets the eye. Find more trap ideas and DM tips at www.masterthedungeon.com/
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00:00 An Intro to Illusion Traps
01:15 Common Illusion Traps
02:14 Leveling Up Your Illusion Traps
#DungeonsAndDragons #DnD #Animatic 
Игры
One idea for an illusion trap I had after reading about the "Fools leap" Trap was basically have a solid wall on the other side of an obvious spike pit concealed by the illusion of the hallway continuing on the other side of the pit.... Players try to jump the pit, smack into the wall, and then fall into the pit they just jumped over....
Oh now that's just MEAN. I like it.
Oh, I can top this. Not an illusion trap though. Deep chasm with spikes in it, with an anti-magic field halfway across the chasm. And a Roper in the middle. Aka how to turn a CR4 encounter into a death trap for level 18 players.
You could even have a few of these throughout the dungeon and make it so that there is one that just has the illusion but no wall so that the players that are using detect magic will just naturally avoid it because they'll see the illusion even though it is the right way to go.
You can even make this worse by having a fake wall that has this "Fool's Leap" trap right on the other side. They'll walk through the wall thinking they outsmarted the dungeon and fall in. If they catch themselves, they'll pull themselves up and think they need to jump the gap but them smack into the wall and fall a second time.
@@rubixman7x7 Another idea would be the invisible pole.... (It's a pole about thee/four feet off the ground that is invisible... Not much of a threat by itself, but throw in some Kobolds as bait and the players could end up tripping over it and falling prone if they try to run at the Kobold, or chase after the Kobold as it runs safely under the invisible pole only for the Barbarian to clothsline himself on it....
Dude that is a good one
I had a Goblin Warlock with Disguise Self to look like a helpless halfling girl, inside a 5ft Minor Illusion "cage" in towards the center of a cave. My party usually likes to stick by the door and snipe enemies while the paladin tanks, but this time they charged in to rescue the poor little halfling and sprung an ambush!
There's always something really satisfying about being able to use your players' empathy against them.
@@masterthedungeon But you can't do it so often the players lose their empathy and treat every 'damsel in distress' situation as a trap. You have to let them rescue the damsel fairly regularly instead of always having the damsel be a danger in disguise.
And I think a good ending for a dungeon full of illusions is to make players doubt themselves.
Just imagine, the players went through everything and reached the real treasure room... But suddenly, the illusion of the "There's a treasure up ahead!" Guy reappears. One last line of defence, will players be too paranoid to touch the treasure?
The classic double bluff. I approve.
What they should be saying is "there's ANOTHER treasure up ahead", after finding two or three other illusionary treasures that concealed very, VERY dangerous traps. Do it right, and by the fourth treasure room the PCs will glance in at the very real treasure, think 'obvious trap' and keep on going. 😈
I'm ashamed to say that I never thought of that.
...
1:00 Oh my God, movable Illusion Traps are like programming a laser show.
Never be ashamed for not thinking of something! It's precisely what this channel is about - thinking of different ways to implement stuff that might be old hat. Not everyone is going to think "You know what my campaign needs? Magical Laser Floyd."
Fun stuff using illusions as traps. The fake boulder chase is a good one. I'll have to modify a trap coming up in one of my games to do just that, illusion of a fake pit trap with a real one just behind it, 😂.
Oh no, what have we done to your players!
@@masterthedungeon only the best of stories! 😈
Better. Imagine this, the players are ascending a long stairway that goes straight for a while. The come to a landing, the stairs continue up in front of them, and there's a small room to the side. Maybe a player pokes their head into the small room, but that's only 1 player. So they continue up the stairs. Wham! Illusion boulder comes rolling down! Party panics, everyone runs into the side room, and now there's enough weight to trigger the real trap in the side room.
The goons in the dungeon would know the boulder is fake, they'll just keep going, but intruders would fall for the trap and get hurt. It's a trap that makes sense because it doesn't hurt the people who are supposed to be there.
Imagine if the first player to attempt jumping over it just fails the skill check and lands on the fake pit only for the players to continue on laughing of the trap and falling into the real one right behind it.
What if the trap was "obvious." Say a step on the stairs is the trigger that drops the illusory boulder but the actual trap is the steps behind the player opens into a pit trap but can't be seen due to the illusion of steps over the opening. One trap for the price of two illusions.
Noob tip here: As for interactive illusion traps: harm the pcs using real, hidden traps, but blame some illusion to be the source. For example: hit them with an arrow-trap, but let there be an illusiory archer far away, so that the players think they have to out-maneuver or even kill the archer. This is good for leading pcs along the way (either away or to the illusion), but allows for reaching the real conclusion if they solve this trap-puzzle. Who knows, maybe that archer was meant to get the pcs focus away from a hidden chest? Or maybe the hidden chest is at the archer's position? Whatever is more rewarding. ;)
I had a stair with some steps trapped and some not. It was a pattern to distinguish those that know from intruders. In addition, a third party that took over this old dungeon added an illusion making the non-trapped steps appear as holes in the stairs, so that the players would specifically walk on the trapped ones.
Fortunately, they knew there enemy to be tricky, and a player had just learned the spell True Sight and used it beforehand, making this trap not a trap, but a good way to reward him for his decision ;)
I once had a trapped door that had an obvious sliding lock mechanism. The lock was an illusion and once "Unlocked" would mechanically lock the door. Once "Relocked" the door would appear unlocked.
I drove my rogue crazy watching him unlock and relock the door.
Knocking on the door or making any loud noise disabled the illusion for 5 mins.
The monk of our group finally Knocked on the door and it just opened. Rogue Lost It!
Nice! It's great to know how to use illusions and what to use them for.
*In one Pathfinder campaign I played, our party arrived to a town that was coming off as odd. None of the residents seemed to respond to us or even acknowledge our presence there at all, like we weren't even there.*
*It didn't take long for our gunslinger to figure out that the town and everyone in it was one big illusion. After dispelling the illusion, the was revealed to be nothing but old abandoned ruins of a town.*
Plot twist: everyone in the party is dead, and the townsfolk cannot see them because they are ghosts.
@@leyrua, alternatively, the town died, and a local illusion wizard is overcome by grief and decides to remake the entire illusory town to try to help the ghosts depart. It's all programmed illusions, magic mouth, illusory scripts, and hallucinatory terrains. But the illusions aren't quite right. It's all an empty façade of only the outer appearance of townsfolk. The party helps him investigate the lives of the ghosts to learn the true stories underneath, both bad and good. Only then is the town able to move on. End with a tearful story and and a big boss fight with undead and fiends. Maybe they even release the soul of a newly-made angel to assist them.
@@carsonrush3352 Another alternative, everyone in town is observing a religious holiday where they do not acknowledge strangers in any way.
At sunset, the bonfire is lit, the food is laid out, and the fireworks are set off while everyone dances drunkenly, showering strangers with gifts.
I have an idea for a mixture of magical and physical illusion.
Put a curtain painted to look like a wall across a corridor. Then put an illusion on it to make it invisible.
If the party detects the illusion, they may think it is a dead end.
These traps perfect for for Halloween.
You can use illusory traps to set the mood in a "haunted" environment.
Nothing will be as it seems.
Illusion traps that mimic a different, much worse trap are also good. If whoever made the place has the capability it makes sense to save the real traps for those able to see through or bypass a fake one.
I remember one where the illusion wasn't actually hiding the dangerous part just distracting from it.
on the path to a thieves guild in the sewers there was a door with no handle and a series of buttons representing the different schools of magic. A riddle would lead the players to think that the way to open the door is to press one of the buttons (the one for illusions specifically). However, the truth is that the door itself was only and illusion and players could walk right through it but pressing any of the buttons would hit them with lightning damage.
One of my favorite illusion traps is a set of stairs going downwards which are solid for the first 15 steps or so but become illusions over a giant pit trap towards the end. If they check the first few stairs they will find them solid and assume the rest are as well. Also fun is layering multiple illusions over an area, if they dispel the first illusion they assume the second is real and get trapped by it. Invisible floors over pits and caverns can also be fun, make it easier for the monsters to get around but keep the players stuck.
Wonderful examples to build the tension and then trick the PCs when there is then NOT an illusion
I've always thought that seeming was the single coolest spell in dnd cause it has the flavor of solving any inconsistencies that the people viewing the illusion might notice.
I just thought of a fun way to add even more insult to injury for the man in the cage illusion in this video.... Have the room itself be forced perspective like a Disney Castle. Have it also have an illusionary floor but have it only go down 6 inches. Have the first few Rose of tiles have mixed in level spots with the floor so the party thinks they found a trick to finding the right tiles but have them shortly after lose where to go (the party is going to be too busy looking for the right tile to probably notice that they're getting slightly larger with every step) to add insult to injury you have to put a force perspective ring from the ceiling that they will never reach that they can try to throw a grapple hook at in hopes to trying to swing across. Put a post in front of the cage that's forced perspective in order to try to have any Archer get the wise idea to shoot a tightrope across... Pretty much just use this room as a Time sink
"Hahahaha! You think this is the real Quaid!? It is."
* machine gun fire *
Wow this is so high quality. How do you only have 1000 subs!
A favorite of mine is to use illusory walls that monsters attack and retreat through. Eventually, players start just walking through them when they get the hint it's yet another one. But some of them? Some of them have illusory attacks coming out of them, and just behind the illusory wall is a _prismatic wall._
I love the idea of watching an npc glitch out because they canonically weren’t programmed well enough
Im playing a gnoll sorcerer (wild magic with a homebrew expanded spells list) who uses hunting traps, this is giving me ideas for blending illusions with the traps...
tbh would love to see some people expand more on alternate hunting traps for combats & ambushes for both players to make/buy and dms to utilize.
Thx for the helpful video and the wonderful ideas
Thank YOU for watching!
I know you drew it as your thumbnail but I imagine a throne in an ancient ruin that has the words "Only the true king may sit upon the throne". The thing is, this place was built by people who don't believe in the authority of kings or queens and made just the seat part an illusion. This way, if someone were to touch just the outside, it would be solid. But if the sit down, all they can do to save themselves is potentially grab the arm rests.
You can even modify it so that it's too tall for them to just sit down on and they need to sort of hop on but will find themselves falling down a chute into a large death pit. You can give the into to people that there's something off by describing the smell of the dead bodies that are lying in the pit.
Ooh! A dragon casts an illusion of a sleeping dragon on the floor of a cave while the real dragon sleeps on a ledge high up in the dark of the same cave.
Totally one day gonna place a stool in a prankster mage's home and stick an illusory backrest on it 😈
If you're doing a prankster mage, you MUST have at least one doorway bucket waterdrop prank. Cast the illusion that it's not really there and when someone walks under it-SPLASH! Prank'd.
Or have a hallway, short or long, and have suspicious line cracks along the sides and ceiling with a "corpse" cut in two laying near it. The party will definitely see it as a guillatine or wall blade cutting trap due to the clear hints, and upon the trap being disarmed or arcane trigger dispelled, a little pop-out wood cutout of a cutsie little ghost swings into view and goes "boo~". ...And while the group gets a chuckle out of it, have illusionary ghosts slip out from the walls behind them while they're distracted and start groaning and giving chase. A prank within a prank.
@@jessegd6306 This is brilliant. Might do a slight variation on the Ghost prank, but totally using it. Thanks 😊👍
Illusions are tricky to use because RAW there is a limit to how much it can fool someone senses.
Changing gold coin for coal? They would feel the roughness and shape difference when touching it.
Rotten food? They would smell and feel the texture before even eating it.
Most of the time, for low level spells/ Encounters, illusions are done once the players interact with it.
One idea I had makes use of the spell Major Illusion, cast as a 6th level spell. Given enough time, you could build an entire stronghold around this. Have a hidden door (concealed with an illusion to just look like regular wall) that can only be opened by pulling a level. The lever is in a hole in the wall nearby, with the hole also being covered up by an illusion. Have a few more illusions of what appear to be traps but are actually just red herrings.
In the pf2 campaign I am running (age of ashes) there is a goblin in a 9 foot throne in a cave. He demands the best weapon of the party. They mock him and try to deceive him with a rusty dagger. The goblin, enraged, leaps from the throne to the middle of the party. They are still laughing until half the jump when he transforms into a Huge demon blasting powerful spells left and right.
Oh, thank you brave adventurers! I am a prince from a faraway land, and I would love to give you my fortune as a reward, but I would need to hire a boat to bring it here!
Best use for Illusions to apply to traps: 1) Make a well (mundanely) concealed trap, use Illusion to make it the only safe path look trapped, use a badly flawed Illusion to “try to hide the trap” in the safe path.
2) Make the treasure room look like a storage room full of broken/worn items. All the treasures have mundane traps on them, but the players will probably think the illusion was the only protection.
How I run some of my illusion traps:
Each PC will roll a Wis Saving Throw in advance so I know which PC will be affected by the illusion's negative effect.
Recently, my PCs were investigating a crypt. They were following dried up blood stains down some stairs up to a small cave. A spooky flooaty red orb was, well, floating on a rock pedestal in the other side of the cave. As they approached it, I described how blood and bile started leaking from the cracks in the wall. The PC discovered the cave's entrance was no longer there, and flesh undead hounds started digging in the room from the cave's wall that were slowly turning to flesh. Each time they would kill a hound, two more would dig their way in. Almost TPK, the PC were freaking out, they finally were able to kill the orb which deactivated the illusion; they never walked down the stairs and there never were a cave.
The impact on the group was super fun for them to realize when I started removing half of the map at this point and telling them to recover ammunitions and potions used. I described to the only PC that successfully resisted the illusion how the others suddenly fell to their knees/ on the floor and started mumbling and moaning from the pain they were "experiencing". Those PC would have the Frightened condition for the rest of the dungeon (t'was right before the last room with a small challenge which they ended-up citing their way through)
Great RP moment. 10//10 would recommend it to any DM
I had my own players chase an illusion focused bard type villain for a while, in one of his lairs he made illusions of himself that taunted the players as they went, often programmed to laugh if they triggered traps (there were a lot of traps)
Eventually the players stopped trying to interact with the illusions, since the ranger got tired of losing their arrows, and sometimes trying to attack it would trigger a magical rune trap.
Finally they got to an illusory wall with an illusory door in it, a player stuck their head through and saw it was a big slide leading to an underground cave network, in the room with them was another of those illusions, however something was written in glittering letters on the slide that the player looking couldnt make out, and i only allowed perception checks to those who stuck their head through the wall... Every time a player had stuck their head through the illusion in the room has shouted "Have a nice trip sucker!"
Finally, with the whole party trying to look at the writing, the illusion said "Finally, the words were starting to lose their meaning" and cast thunderwave, pushing the party unto the slide. Turns out, the illusion was the actual bard... And the writing on the slide? It could be read as they slid down to the underground lake... It said "Have a nice trip sucker!"
*bear trap exists* ... *center actually is button for a hidden room, not made to close the jaws on the bear trap*
thank you Anri, very helpfull
I was in a group once that encountered a ghost at fairly low level. One of the players who knew a ghosts abilities thought the DM couldn't possibly be using a ghost and impulsively, instictively thought it must be an illusion and chose to disbelieve it (house rule, advantage on save against a genuine illusion but disadvantage against the real thing).
He had a really bad day.
How about an illusionary pit and the "rope" hanging from the ceiling to traverse the trap is actually a monster's tentacle.
My current character just damages enemies. They used fire spells before, but now they use lightning spells. My character has had the ultimate character arc!
So I had a very simple illusion trap. Basically there was a narrow passage way that lead to the boss of the dungeon, a necromancer. The party dutifully lined up and moved to engage the necromancer... and then the walls started stabbing them, since... there was actually no passage at all, and instead a wide open area filled with skeleton knights! And the rogue could not make his save so was freaking out that the walls was seemingly attacking him. He then decided to climb over the party, and jump to necromancer... which, surprise, was also a werewolf, and had been hiding to buff herself up for the fight. It did not go well for the rogue.
I once ran a game where the bbeg was a powerful illusionist and sometimes he would dash through a wall but on the other side of the illusory wall would be some kind of trap or he would make a fake version of himself that ran through a very solid wall and cause the players to run full speed into a wall it was hilarious
I know it's not really an illusion but my friend wanted to loot everything so I started making ?d? Moths fly into his face with 1d4 flying into his mouth
Put an illusion of a trap, but the real trap is where you would stand while disarming the illusionary trap.
For a witty, middle level party that have some renown. Add a disease trap in [one of] their first ancient dungeon[s]. A local lord's envoy meets the PCs on the road to the next city. The lord pleads to have the party bring a stop to the plague (that has been following hot on the heels of the party). Cue: mystery side quest. Yes, the party have resisted the plague, by now - however - they are the patients 'zero'. The plague takes 3, or so, days to kick in [alter to suit daily travel speeds, and compensate for the wave not having caught up to the party by now]. The party need to depend on those Medicine, History, and Nature dump sets of expertise. Perfect way for the real smart players to roleplay their discovery process. And (self suspecting) guilt for the real top nerds is a decent emotional hook - but for everyone else there are all your adorable NPCs they have met to think about.
my favorite i ever did was this: at first, there was a 10 foot pit with a rope hanging roughly in the middle. nothing was wrong with this. second, there was an illusory rope over a 10 foot spike pit. the third was an illusory rope over an illusory spike pit which held the entrance to the room they were looking for.
When making an illusion trap, ask yourself one question: WWSD. what would Sheogorath do?
I like to think about how illusions are programmed, and how the spell level affects the illusions "A.I."
A simple illusion will just play a programmed phrase, higher levels may have a flowchart of things to say like if party takes too long, Highest level illusions are basically a fully interactable A.I. programmed for the trap
One of the most effective illusions in the game is the simple wall. If it matches the rest of the walls in the area, there is zero reason for the opponents to consider it to be an illusion.
Of course, this can lead to problems for a DM, if they stick the Big Bad Illusionist villain behind a door concealed by an illusionary wall and the PCs never suspect it's there... even if it's the simplest and most logical defense a BBEG Illusionist could think of for his lair...
Put a real boulder trap trigger 20ft further up the passage than the illusory boulder that they trigger first...
what if there was part of a dungeon with a magical field, causing illusions to become real for limited periods of time?
You could always just turn on the illusions whenever you're busy feeding the monsters or taking them out on walks!
Or you could have the real thing there to help the illusion's "programmer" design the holograms, as a sort of "real world reference", or to help mix in the real with the fake
**Writes down notes** Will this be on the exam?
Subversion of the illusion floor hiding a pit. instead you have several obvious pits and many illusion pits, hiding the real pits in a sea of red herrings. "You walk through the doorway into a large room that is littered with numerous holes in the floor. each hold leaved about half a foot between it and the next. the first one you see has spiked lining the bottom and appears to be about ten feet deep, and happens to have a skeleton skewered by spikes at the bottom."
throw in some swinging traps to make crossing seems impossible. Laugh when one of them 'fails' their check and lands flat on their face over a 'pit', then laugh more when they think all of them are illusions and they actually run into a pit.
How to counter: "I ritual cast detect magic"
Ritual casting detect magic takes, like, ten minutes in-game: plenty of time to set up an ambush just after the illusion, and/or for a patrol to come up behind the party. If the goal of the illusion is to stall for time/keep intruders in one place, it's still a success.
Technically less that meets the eye lmao
What music are you using for your videos?
It's called "Fantastic Cinematic" by Dredstudio and can be found on Envato Elements.
@@masterthedungeon Thanks.
Two words: Kobold. Illusionists.
The party are pretty much prisoner mercenaries with little to no gear, ehile dungeon delving they came across a room with what the party thought was a large pile of weapons and armor from the empty Armory., but it was just an illusion while the floor was rigged for various traps from poisoned darts, pits, portals to dangerous areas of the dungeon and so on.
The party where about to "collect" their new gear when the parties cleric ask.
Cleric: what if its a trap?
Party: what?
Cleric: why would the old Defenders of this place empty all the weapons, armor and arrows from the reinforced steel door Armory to some mostly empty room?
This very logical thinking got the wizard to cast Detect Magic and sure enough he saw all the illusions saving the party from possible a painful time.
I awarded the Cleric for it.
You crafted the perfect illusion trap… there is not a chance your players will realize it is an illusion… then the warlock activate eldrich sight…
@Leyrua I have thought of a way to make it more of a hell, after they deal with the trap you made,
*put the trap what Minnion has made from this comment*
The REAL trickery starts when a High Fey or a high level Wizard starts messing with Illusion. Because those illusions have a level of reality to them. A level of mass. Imagine an illusory trader whom, after you offer to sell some goods to him, he puts a pouch of very real looking gold in your hand. You turn to walk away, and three crossbow bolts get stuck in your back. The wagon disappears and three bandits and one wizard charge.
Simple example, but it's one that reminds people. When dealing with illusions, don't trust your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, or even touch completely. A clever wizard could hand you a bowl of poisonous mushrooms and you'd eat it thinking it looked like dumplings, and tastes like meat only to find that the table, the wizard, and even the chair you were sitting on wasn't really there.
Then there is worse illusion trap of them all. Revealing the npc the pcs fell inlove (as a character not necessarily romanticly) with actually never liked them in the first place
Reverse Illusion trap! The bridge of the faithful!
-This trap is a bridge of considerable length made of shadow magic; it remains solid until a player disbelieves it. A cult's ignorant and gullible members pass with ease while doubters, spies, and adventurers are plunged to their doom. Even worse, midway through passing voices call out that the bridge is false, testing the player's ability to focus their minds.
a dungeon full of silly, obvious illusion traps. Basically a clown house. The players start intentionally setting off the illusions to see what happens. The last room has a marked spot to stand and a lever next to it, clearly the funniest illusion as a reward. Unfortunatly for the players, it isn't an illusion.
Or when you want to be really mean, have the creator of the trap put some effort into it and use phantasmal force instead of a simple Illusion spell.
A pit trap that was already sprung or disarmed. nasty spikes, and even skeletons (oprdinary, not the undead kind) are visible at the bottom. A plank is layed out over the pit and the path continues ahead. Along the path, there are more already sprung traps, some containing bodies. Those bodies have on them rusted weapons and explorer tools and rotten food in moldy bags and pouches, maybe some copper coins. The final room, the trasure room, shows signs of alrerady being looted, only small baubles are left that the previous parties didn't bother with or couldn't fit into their backpacks.
All the treasure in the treasure room is real, but not really worth the travel. All the items on the corpse's bodies along the way are real, but old and rotten and worthless. Closer inspection of the corpses themselvesreleavs, they are made of plaster or cement. Inspecting the traps will reveal, they don't have an "armed" state, they were built as "sprung".
At the pit trap at the beginning of the dungeon, the plank going over it is real, as is the pit, but the spikes and corpses in it are illusions, as is the wall at the bottom of the pit that hides a path leading to the true treasure room, still unlooted. if there are any traps on that path, they are real and unsprung.