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One of the most successful traps I've run was actually a sort of anti-trap. Upon entering the room, the doors slam shut and a countdown begins. They find a statue on one wall and a pressure plate on the floor. Below the countdown is a button. However, the statue is immovable and the pressure plate does nothing. Pushing the button resets the timer and summons some enemies. The way to move forward is to allow the countdown to reach 0. It was a blast watching them race against the clock, try all the classic tricks, and agonize over the red herrings. This works best in a dungeon that is themed around subversion or things not being as they seem :)
We Write Weird Shit Yeah, dude, I remember you telling me about that one. Sounds totally awesome. I so plan to do that in one of my groups (or all of them!) 😈
@@darrke The purpose could be to alert someone further down the dungeon and give them some time to prepare. Maybe the owner of the building doesn't want a lot of traps that actually do damage because they don't want to risk allies and minions forgetting to disable them before walking through and getting skewered. You have to reset them constantly, clean out all the blood so the blades don't get rusty, feed the poison wasps, rehire minions... so much work. It might also lower the intruder's defenses if they think your bites have no teeth. Or, the trap gives a clue that this place is actually owned by decent people. In that case the summoned creatures actually try to apprehend the intruders, not kill them. The means create the ends, lol.
My players went down a hallway, lead by the rogue, finding sprung trap after sprung trap. I described each gruesome corpse until they got to the tomb vault. The rogue stood in the entrance looking for traps, the wizard blew past her to the chest raised on a pile of gold coins in the middle of the room. With all the strength he could muster, threw open the lid. Too late did he see the wire attached to the lid, the sounds of all the traps resetting echoed down the hallway. Before the party could finish scolding the wizard the sound of an ancient horn could be heard. Something or someone knew they were in the vault.
I ran an adventure in which the players were passing through a cursed forrest. IDK if that counts as traps, but I had several plants and animals trap the players to stop them. Like treeroots that try to catch your ankle and make you fall, twicks getting smacked into your face, poisonous mushrooms that emit spores that cause halluzinations, a huge fish jumping you when you try to drink from a pond that bites you in the face, an ape who hides on top of a cliff and who throws rocks at you or rabbits who dug out a pit to fall into. I know many of those traps aren't really effective as they won't deal enough damage to actually stop the players, but they got across the feeling of being in a cursed forrest in which all the inhabitants would try to stop you by any means.
Try this nasty trap specislly designed for the trap finder character. At the entrance of the dungeon a text reads "Ignorance is bliss". The door enchants the players, enhancing their emotions. After crossing the door, every time a player locates a trap, it has to make a Will save. On a failed save he becomes frightened as the despair of failing overwelhms him. While being frightened this way, every failed trap causes PSYCHIC damage, and most of the traps do little stuff sort of puffs of wind, and confeti jumpscares. If they choose to leave the trap alone by own volition, they suffer psychic damage. If You cannot see the trap, well... Ignorance is bliss. If an enchanted player dragged by the team thorugh the trapped corridor (and roleplayed properly) no damage happens
I enjoy using traps to actually hide something useful or even what the group is looking for. Example: I had the group trying to find the entrance to a hidden dungeon that was connected to a tower... In the area were 3 towers... T1 and T2 were guard towers with simple encounters inside that had pit traps in front of their doors... Not too deadly nor too hard to find, they set a precidence. When they found the 3rd tower, it had fallen in ruin... The expected trap had been revealed by stonework from the tower... Inside the tower was a rust monster that had been trapped inside when the tower had fallen. Que insidious laughter - the door to the dungeon was hidden INSIDE the pit trap, only able to be spotted by someone who had fallen in.
Joshua Solt Yeah, too many traditional traps in the same dungeon can get old, unless that's the theme. I generally only do one traditional trap per adventure, and only when it makes sense. I love puzzle traps, too, but my creative powers limit how often I can think up a really cool one. 😬
Joshua Solt Im a fan of alternatives to failure, so simple traps often evolve unpredictably or at least interestingly, when someone falls for them. Let’s take for example the spike pit trap. I’ve run one once where the player rolled 13 and the DC was 15. I let him succeed, but with a catch. He fell in and held on to the ledge. He started slipping, but the fighter, which had the highest strength, grabbed him and started pulling him up, but he, like the druid he was, noticed something with his high perception. There was something metal sticking into the side of the dirt walls of the trap (it was in a forest). This evolved into the players using ropes and stuff to lower themselves into the pit and try to dig out the metal thing, finding out it was a longsword, and then getting it out of the pit. It had the name of the villain inscribed in the hilt, after the words “With love” which implies it was a gift to him, perhaps from a lover. This was one of the most memorable moments in the adventure.
One time I had a pressure plate in an abandoned fortress that opened up a bunch of tiny hidden doors so that swarms of snakes would be revealed. The twist was that the place had been abandoned for so long and nobody was around to feed the snakes, so they all died. The trap was sprung, the doors flung open, and dozens of rotting snake carcasses spilled onto the ground around the players. The party was so busy coughing and holding their noses that they didn't notice the goblin hunting party that had been tracking them down, resulting in an ambush. (My players can be too clever for me, so if I want to surprise them, I have to pull stuff like this! We still laugh about the dead snake trap whenever I send them into another seemingly abandoned location.)
This one makes me chuckle like a mad lad, especially since I have a side quest involving a villainous rogue that has several flunkies, attack worgs, gigantic spiders and LOTS of traps. The setup is that the group recently took down a bandit camp and the Mrs. of the same camp (the brains of the operation while the guy they fought was more the face/co-leader of the flunkies) came home and was PISSED. Even more so when she realized that one of the culprits was someone who robbed them before. So she and some of her more stronger friends are out looking for the group, following the trail of where they’ve been and who they talked to and what they did so she can ambush them and make the one person that stolen from them twice suffer twice as much. So once the group has an idea of who they’re facing, the group has to track down the their lair to a refurbished old keep near a swamp to find them; or track her group themselves, which is twice as dangerous since she’s almost expecting them to do that. Their first encounter, she and her flunkies are just going to run away, and chasing them down leads to a different type of setup to send a message that she’s prepared for them in any sort of straight up fight. (Party level is 4) The fortress itself is riddled with traps (a couple unique ones I made myself, one involving finger traps and taking advantage of people who know Thieves’ Cant), so that terrifying “click” sound for that split second decision is brilliant.
I still love those "treasure traps"; I always have some of those shiny necklaces of strangulation lying around. Last, but not least, let your players find the famous head of vecna ;)...
Environmental Trap: Knee-deep water is held back by a sealed door (slides open and locks itself inside the wall). If the players don't block off the water from the door within 3 rounds, water floods into the next few chambers, raising the water level enough to allow the in-ground pools of water to release their swarms of quippers into the dungeons hallways. Treasure Bugs: A corpse is on the ground with a torn coin purse and has scattered gold coins, gems, and jewelry near the purse and on the corpse itself. If placed in the pc's own purses, after 1d10 minutes the affected pc(s) need to make a DC 15 perception check. On a failure, the pc's are surprised, as 1d3 Swarms of Insects destroy their coin purses and surge onto the pc(s). (Give the swarms, False Appearance as various treasures. A hint for the pcs might be the unusual high value of the treasure compared to the pc level or a DC20 Investigation check. Another rider for the swarms could be a Paralytic Bite, Constitution Saving Throw DC10. On a failure, the target becomes poisoned for 1 minute and while poisoned this way the target is also paralyzed. On a success, the target is immune to the poison for 24hrs.)
Defective/cursed/mislabeled items are always fun... Nystul's Magic Aura goes a long way toward that end, and you can always make some lead flasks clearly labeled as Healing Potions, actually containing, oh, Alchemist's Fire or something fun like that... :)
@@theDMLair Thankee. Particularly fond of the lead bottle since pretty much every relevant divination spell is blocked by "a thin sheet of lead" - so a bottle should do the trick just fine.
This video has some awesome tips for spicing up traps, just what I needed. I’m going to be trying the “click” trap idea, I think my players will love that.
Thanks! The click rule is my favorite because it doesn't require any changes to a standard trap. The DM just changes how he runs the trap. Makes it feel like less of a "DM screw job" and gives the players more control over what happens.
One of my favorite traps I ever built was based on a tetertoter. Picture a 80by20 hallway, now as the players walk down it they can't see that the floor at the other end is sinking slightly. By the time they get to the other side the floor is level with the doorway. 5 feet from the door the floor immediately drops out from under them and they all fall as a group into a pit with whatever level monster is appropriate. After killing the monster they can climb back up the slide only to find the way is blocked. They now have to either go back down and find a way out or try to, as a group climb the "blocking wall" in hopes of getting the trap to trigger again. Over an hour was spent trying to figure out how to escape the pit. Feel free to run with this idea and let me know how you tweaked it.
I've seen many videos claiming to make traps more interesting but they are usually mediocre at best, but was actually pleasantly surprised with some of the ideas here 👏👏👏
entertaining and some very useful ideas. This is one of the reasons I like pit traps or falling traps, they give a clear constant obstacle and sometimes make people question things
I had a dungeon that was just 1 giant trap. The first room consist an alter with 4 embedded keys: 1 gold /with a ruby key in the north, 1 adamantine w/ an emerald in the east, 1 silver w/ a topaz in the south, and 1 mithril w/ a sapphire in the west. Each room was painted or decoration with a color or a picture that resembled an element or scenery that was accurate for each of the 4 elements: fire, earth, wind, and water. There is 4 doors in each room located in their designated side; north, east, south, west. Depending on the decoration and/or color of the waters determined which key and door must be used. If the wrong door is open, then a trap is set with an element determined by the side/direction/door they used. Once the players know the how it works, it's fairly easy, but with my group they were so paranoid once I started throwing in bigger rooms with multiple doors on the same side wall. Luckily, the party had a paladin to provide bonus to their saving throws or they might've not made it.
Trap Idea: 'You are in a 20 foot long, 10 foot wide room, at the other end of the room, there is a wooden chest and a skeleton beside it, clutching a dagger.' For this one, if a player gets within 5 feet of the skeleton, the skeleton reanimates, attacking the player. The chest is an ordinary chest, unstead of being a mimic, like the party suspected.
My best trap was a magic smooth-faced statue that when you look at it turns you to stone and reshapes your face to be blank. The party knew a medusa would be in this dungeon so they had a salve of stone to flesh, but then the unstoned person still had no orifices and began suffocating. They had to stab a hole where their mouth used to be and waited for their natural regen to fix their face. I hate body morphing though so I think I was more scared than the player that activated it.
You could also use a traps to spice up combat. The party enters a room with 2 dragon head statues, anda night statue near a piece of treasure. If the party steals the piece of treasure, walls drop around them, and the knight animates for battle. At initiative order 20, fire shoots in a specific direction from the dragons. The party has to work around this. Perhaps they disable the dragons, don't enter their dangerous areas, or use them against the knight.
This video made me want to try out using traps in my next adventure, so, well done. ; ) (It's actually the fourth one I'm running. DMing is at the same time addictive and exhausting. Been doing it for roughly a year now and most of my free time goes to prepping sessions, looking for assets, mapmaking, miniature painting... How do you people manage to run four weekly games without burning out, it's insane. o: Please tell me it gets easier over time once I built up a backlog of stuff I've prepared, found, already memorized etc.)
Just got recommended this playlist via youtube algorithm. Loved all three vids, and thought I might throw out my two cents on running a Kobold Warren with lots of traps. I have used Kobolds as the minions for higher level baddies, solely because they are so good at trapping their dens. And my players would rather find another, much easier way, than trying to sneak through the obvious side entrance that might be filled with Kobolds packed in like a beehive. I like to run Kobold Warrens like heavily fortified positions. There are at least two traps in every corridor that might not be set off by the slender figure of the Kobold, but the similarly heighted, but far fatter, halfling/gnome. Tunnels that are only 4 ft. tall and 4 ft. wide to force all but the small sized party members to have to crawl. Hanging log traps in the entrances to larger rooms that are just tall enough to hit the Kobolds. Rooms with small holes in the walls for arrow slits, or hanging stalactites that kobolds can hang from upside down and throw rocks at the party. Perhaps a Kobold Scale Sorcerer (Volo's pg.167) has set up a trap specifically for the party involving a glyph of warding in tight tunnel with a Fireball or a Lightning Bolt. The Glyph might only go off when someone with a divine connection (or demonic in the case of warlocks) but might not be hidden that well, so that the party can choose to go over it or try to find another tunnel. Throw in a "Kobold Tamer" or three with a bunch of Piercers or Darkmantles with strategies to distract the party while the pets get into place. Or "Kobold Lancers" who ride into battle on Giant Lizards or maybe even a Guard Drake (Volo's pg.158, two are amphibious with swim speeds, and two have burrowing speeds) if they are the minions of a Dragon. Have Kobold Dragonshields (Volo's pg.165) that are able to agily dodge the traps of a given room while they get closer and closer to the spell casters of the party. All Kobolds have Pack Tactics and some have Multiattack, they would be trying their hardest to take advantage of those traits. So yes a Wizard may have fireball, but would they be able to cast it and avoid the swing axe trap from the ceiling in the same turn? A paranoid wizard would take a similar approach as well now that I think about it. They would put in as many traps in their tower as they could think of, and being the clever sort that they are, they might also put a lot of them on specific puzzles so as to prove their superior intelligence.
magical traps that alter the battlefield can also be a fun idea like one time when i was running a pathfinder game I had a reverse gravity trap in a room so when someone stepped on the pressure plate the party and the enemies were suddenly falling onto the ceiling
I've thought of this trap after watching one of your videos it was a crystal light based trap that shifts the dungeon aroung each time a pc goes though it instead of damaging the pc
I ran a room one time with three swinging wrecking balls across a narrow bridge with a pool of water below. I had a DC10 int save to time getting through correctly and if they failed that then they could still save with a DC12 dex save. I was originally concerned that with low DCs and two attempts to save that they'd breeze right through... Nope... they spent an hour in that room.
I ran a trapped elevator once in Pathfinder. I actually developed a system I call the Telegraph system. I'll explain. Each wall had arrow slits that could open and close. An arrow slit would open fire in a line attack, reflex save. One or two arrow slits would open on each wall every round, to which I rolled randomly to determine. Top of the initiative-Telegraph-You know which arrow slit opens, so you know which rows/columns to avoid on the battle-mat. Bottom of the initiative-The arrow slit fires. Anything in the line gets to make it's save. To keep players from gaming the system, the Telegraph is always the top of the initiative (100), the effect is always the bottom (0). Players can not hold actions until after the trap fires, players ALWAYS go before the trap. This allows them to avoid the trap. The idea was to create a very movement dependent encounter, so I didn't want to trigger too many Attacks of Opportunity. So I used swarms of insects as the monsters. The swarms were small enough that they took no damage from the arrow line attack, and they can't make AoO's so they don't punish the player for moving to avoid the trap. The players had to survive 15 rounds with progressively more and more arrow lines taking up space, leaving them with fewer and fewer safe spaces on the map. Also, the elevator wasn't that big, so it was getting pretty tough to 'dance' through these arrow lines in a safe manner. It was very memorable and fun, though there was one player who could do nothing to the swarms so she spent the fight just dodging and trying to lure the swarms away from allies by being the closest target for them to go for. I've usually saved the Telegraphed mechanics for big boss encounters and trapped puzzle rooms, and it's worked out pretty well so far.
I came up with a trap where the players were in a temple and there were seven levers, each labeled with one of the seven deadly sins. The temple hieroglyphs gave clues to which sin they worshipped on the way to the room with the levers. Each wrong lever was a new trap that would activate. Stone Golems. Crumbling Floor. Caving walls etc... They pulled all the levers frantically until they finally got to the last one before anybody died.
Two year old video, but commenting anyways. I had never heard of the click rule before this. That is brilliant and I am now sharing it with all my DnD groups.
I used an "Aladdin" trap on my PCs one time. Clear warning not to touch anything, especially those giant rubies embedded as eyes on the large statue they are supposed to avoid, only to summon two large fire elementals on the party...
On thing I aways hated about dungeons is "What are they doing there?" I mean, what's their purpose? So I've already tried to have a good solid reason. In my current campaign the dungeons were constructed by a long lost religious order as a kind of magical bank. Each room or trap can be easily bypassed, IF you know how, otherwise they are potentially deadly, and at the end of the dungeon is a store room with all their stuff safely locked away. After you have worked through it once, you can walk through again unscathed when you know the trick, so my players have actually set up home over one of the dungeons and have started to use it as their own bank for storing their treasure in!
I had a high level wild mage NPC called someone the Incompetent who had traps in his tower that had wild magic effects, which were only determined if the trap was triggered. This led to some hilarity but also a near party wipe when the small chest the players decided to test with an arrow fired from 60ft away contained an explosion big enough to bring down the ceiling and blow holes in the walls. That day the party learned that disarming a trap is better than trying to trigger it at a distance. Particularly when the loot is vaporized. They never did work out that a wild mage might have wild traps, until I had a NPC drop a hint.
The best trap I EVER ran was on April fools... it was a long hall with ornate tables with runes on them.on the table are different “magical” items and a glowing center table they do something, a magical count down. Then the door just opened. Nothing happened. It just opened. The entire session they where freaked out it would come back to haunt rhem
I have a quick question when it cards to the click sound you make when trap goes off. Do you do that sound for every tracking of dungeon or do you only do it for 3??? And how does your players react to it doesn't slow it down there dungeon crawling or no??? Because I'm thinking of using that technique for a dungeon I'm running. I would just like to know how your players react through exploration now.
That would be interesting. I think the easier to overcome part is key. A PC that can't use a leg/arm gets pretty useless pretty quick. Maybe just a short rest or something and some healing to overcome it?
What if you assigned difficulty values to the traps and have the players roll perception to sense the trap triggering, initiative to see if they can react before the trap goes off, and then if they fail to get clear with initiative they make the reflex roll. That way initiative has more value outside of just going first.
This was a really helpful video thank you. Is there a transcript available? If not place it on the dmguild. if its the same price as your other stuff has been. I'll buy that too :)
My players know I don't like using traps, mostly cause I find them illogical. That said though, they also know to keep an eye out for them, cause when I do throw a trap at them, "punitively cruel" is an understatement. These things are meant to kill you, not stub your toe.
Do you have any ideas for potentially deadly things for a haunted house? I don’t want to put right kill them however I want them to know that death is looming because I went easy on them when they wanted to go fight a dragon at a top low of lvl and they have been calling me to nice of a DM since wanted to give them a reminder thanks for your amazing videos they have helped a lot
@@theDMLair it very much was because that campaign was full of chaos and my character was so dumb it was just kind of funny for everyone. Got fixed next session as well. Also I'm amazed you're responding to comments two years later, that's awesome
Watching through your eps and this one had a lot of excellent stuff to say. I am not a fan of the "get rid of traps" attitude that is becoming a vocal part of the community. Traps are fun if done right. In one game, I had a a trap that did nothing more than spray the party a pungent scented oil. Little did they know that this oil was owlbear pheromones. The party did nothing about the oil as it didn't smell like it was flammable, poisonous, and was not magical (also made them waste a detect magic) and as they ventured through the forest that lay beyond the dungeon, they couldn't understand where all the owlbears were coming from.
I wasn't aware of the "get rid of traps" movement. I'm sure it exists because traps usually feel like a DM screw job if the DM just runs them "out of the box" so to speak. I love you're owlbear pheromone trap! LOL Did the players ever figure it out? Or is it still a mystery only you know the answer to?
Yeah it's painful when the traps are obvious there. Me: I'm going to roll an arcana check on these statues from outside the door. DM: You have to be touching the statue to do that. I go in the room and there's half a dozen statues in there. Obviously there's a trap to make them alive and attack the party. Me: Someone else feel free to check them out. *Party fighter. Why would I do something a smarter member of the party should do.* *Someone else goes in and triggers the trap. Doesn't bother with an investigation or arcana check on anything. All the statues come alive and attack the party. Everyone else went in after the first person did and made me last in line because first come first serve. They all nearly died. Somehow it's my fault for that. Was at least glad I was an Echo Knight to cast my Silver Chariot stand into the room to fight otherwise they would've all died.*
@@theDMLair Right on. I saw others with similar comments only after I posted. Sorry to dogpile, but since I got your attention, I've been binge watching your channel. You've got great edu-taining content. Very knowledgeable and you have a great character voice. If you aren't, you should be streaming some games.
Step 1; give them compelling backstories and portray their struggle in a realistic way Step 2; treat them more as people rather than sex objects Step 3; make them pretty but don't be afraid to lean into their androgenous features
Had a simple door trap resolve like this: A players character found a trap on either side of a door. Instead of trying to disarm the trap, said PC chose to carefully open the door. The trap activated and the door abruptly sung open causing the PC to stumble into the room. I asked what the height of the PC was before describing what happened next. Fortunately the PC was 5ft 4in. Had the player chosen to play a character 1 ft higher, a spike would have gone thru their PCs skull. Instead the spike just did minor dmg.
I really could've done without the constant shoving your face into the camera. It's kinda aggressive and uncomfortable to watch. Very interesting points otherwise, but if this is your usual style for videos I probably won't continue watching the channel.
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One of the most successful traps I've run was actually a sort of anti-trap. Upon entering the room, the doors slam shut and a countdown begins. They find a statue on one wall and a pressure plate on the floor. Below the countdown is a button. However, the statue is immovable and the pressure plate does nothing. Pushing the button resets the timer and summons some enemies. The way to move forward is to allow the countdown to reach 0. It was a blast watching them race against the clock, try all the classic tricks, and agonize over the red herrings. This works best in a dungeon that is themed around subversion or things not being as they seem :)
We Write Weird Shit Yeah, dude, I remember you telling me about that one. Sounds totally awesome. I so plan to do that in one of my groups (or all of them!) 😈
I love that "lost" count down trap.
That doesn't sound like a trap with purpose though, but cool idea.
@@darrke The purpose could be to alert someone further down the dungeon and give them some time to prepare. Maybe the owner of the building doesn't want a lot of traps that actually do damage because they don't want to risk allies and minions forgetting to disable them before walking through and getting skewered. You have to reset them constantly, clean out all the blood so the blades don't get rusty, feed the poison wasps, rehire minions... so much work.
It might also lower the intruder's defenses if they think your bites have no teeth.
Or, the trap gives a clue that this place is actually owned by decent people. In that case the summoned creatures actually try to apprehend the intruders, not kill them.
The means create the ends, lol.
It's a classic. LOL
My players went down a hallway, lead by the rogue, finding sprung trap after sprung trap. I described each gruesome corpse until they got to the tomb vault. The rogue stood in the entrance looking for traps, the wizard blew past her to the chest raised on a pile of gold coins in the middle of the room. With all the strength he could muster, threw open the lid. Too late did he see the wire attached to the lid, the sounds of all the traps resetting echoed down the hallway. Before the party could finish scolding the wizard the sound of an ancient horn could be heard. Something or someone knew they were in the vault.
I ran an adventure in which the players were passing through a cursed forrest. IDK if that counts as traps, but I had several plants and animals trap the players to stop them. Like treeroots that try to catch your ankle and make you fall, twicks getting smacked into your face, poisonous mushrooms that emit spores that cause halluzinations, a huge fish jumping you when you try to drink from a pond that bites you in the face, an ape who hides on top of a cliff and who throws rocks at you or rabbits who dug out a pit to fall into. I know many of those traps aren't really effective as they won't deal enough damage to actually stop the players, but they got across the feeling of being in a cursed forrest in which all the inhabitants would try to stop you by any means.
Grim tooth reverse trip wire. Tripping the wire sends locking bolts into the floor tile ahead, avoiding the wire results in that tile falling.
Devious! 😈
Try this nasty trap specislly designed for the trap finder character.
At the entrance of the dungeon a text reads "Ignorance is bliss". The door enchants the players, enhancing their emotions.
After crossing the door, every time a player locates a trap, it has to make a Will save. On a failed save he becomes frightened as the despair of failing overwelhms him. While being frightened this way, every failed trap causes PSYCHIC damage, and most of the traps do little stuff sort of puffs of wind, and confeti jumpscares. If they choose to leave the trap alone by own volition, they suffer psychic damage. If You cannot see the trap, well... Ignorance is bliss. If an enchanted player dragged by the team thorugh the trapped corridor (and roleplayed properly) no damage happens
I enjoy using traps to actually hide something useful or even what the group is looking for. Example: I had the group trying to find the entrance to a hidden dungeon that was connected to a tower... In the area were 3 towers... T1 and T2 were guard towers with simple encounters inside that had pit traps in front of their doors... Not too deadly nor too hard to find, they set a precidence. When they found the 3rd tower, it had fallen in ruin... The expected trap had been revealed by stonework from the tower... Inside the tower was a rust monster that had been trapped inside when the tower had fallen. Que insidious laughter - the door to the dungeon was hidden INSIDE the pit trap, only able to be spotted by someone who had fallen in.
I'm not a fan of the Spiked pit falls and such. I love the traps that involve puzzles and such to get out of or avoid.
Also, great video!
Joshua Solt Yeah, too many traditional traps in the same dungeon can get old, unless that's the theme. I generally only do one traditional trap per adventure, and only when it makes sense.
I love puzzle traps, too, but my creative powers limit how often I can think up a really cool one. 😬
Joshua Solt Im a fan of alternatives to failure, so simple traps often evolve unpredictably or at least interestingly, when someone falls for them. Let’s take for example the spike pit trap. I’ve run one once where the player rolled 13 and the DC was 15. I let him succeed, but with a catch. He fell in and held on to the ledge. He started slipping, but the fighter, which had the highest strength, grabbed him and started pulling him up, but he, like the druid he was, noticed something with his high perception. There was something metal sticking into the side of the dirt walls of the trap (it was in a forest). This evolved into the players using ropes and stuff to lower themselves into the pit and try to dig out the metal thing, finding out it was a longsword, and then getting it out of the pit. It had the name of the villain inscribed in the hilt, after the words “With love” which implies it was a gift to him, perhaps from a lover. This was one of the most memorable moments in the adventure.
One time I had a pressure plate in an abandoned fortress that opened up a bunch of tiny hidden doors so that swarms of snakes would be revealed. The twist was that the place had been abandoned for so long and nobody was around to feed the snakes, so they all died. The trap was sprung, the doors flung open, and dozens of rotting snake carcasses spilled onto the ground around the players. The party was so busy coughing and holding their noses that they didn't notice the goblin hunting party that had been tracking them down, resulting in an ambush. (My players can be too clever for me, so if I want to surprise them, I have to pull stuff like this! We still laugh about the dead snake trap whenever I send them into another seemingly abandoned location.)
This one makes me chuckle like a mad lad, especially since I have a side quest involving a villainous rogue that has several flunkies, attack worgs, gigantic spiders and LOTS of traps.
The setup is that the group recently took down a bandit camp and the Mrs. of the same camp (the brains of the operation while the guy they fought was more the face/co-leader of the flunkies) came home and was PISSED. Even more so when she realized that one of the culprits was someone who robbed them before.
So she and some of her more stronger friends are out looking for the group, following the trail of where they’ve been and who they talked to and what they did so she can ambush them and make the one person that stolen from them twice suffer twice as much. So once the group has an idea of who they’re facing, the group has to track down the their lair to a refurbished old keep near a swamp to find them; or track her group themselves, which is twice as dangerous since she’s almost expecting them to do that. Their first encounter, she and her flunkies are just going to run away, and chasing them down leads to a different type of setup to send a message that she’s prepared for them in any sort of straight up fight. (Party level is 4)
The fortress itself is riddled with traps (a couple unique ones I made myself, one involving finger traps and taking advantage of people who know Thieves’ Cant), so that terrifying “click” sound for that split second decision is brilliant.
Sounds like fun! Yes the click rule works great.
DM Lair: "Click! There's a trap! (Evil chuckling) You'll never guess what's coming...
Party: *in unison* "Is it spikes, saw blades, or sand again?"
DM Lair: "..….."
The spider is new.
I still love those "treasure traps"; I always have some of those shiny necklaces of strangulation lying around.
Last, but not least, let your players find the famous head of vecna ;)...
Environmental Trap:
Knee-deep water is held back by a sealed door (slides open and locks itself inside the wall). If the players don't block off the water from the door within 3 rounds, water floods into the next few chambers, raising the water level enough to allow the in-ground pools of water to release their swarms of quippers into the dungeons hallways.
Treasure Bugs:
A corpse is on the ground with a torn coin purse and has scattered gold coins, gems, and jewelry near the purse and on the corpse itself. If placed in the pc's own purses, after 1d10 minutes the affected pc(s) need to make a DC 15 perception check. On a failure, the pc's are surprised, as 1d3 Swarms of Insects destroy their coin purses and surge onto the pc(s).
(Give the swarms, False Appearance as various treasures. A hint for the pcs might be the unusual high value of the treasure compared to the pc level or a DC20 Investigation check.
Another rider for the swarms could be a Paralytic Bite, Constitution Saving Throw DC10. On a failure, the target becomes poisoned for 1 minute and while poisoned this way the target is also paralyzed. On a success, the target is immune to the poison for 24hrs.)
Defective/cursed/mislabeled items are always fun...
Nystul's Magic Aura goes a long way toward that end, and you can always make some lead flasks clearly labeled as Healing Potions, actually containing, oh, Alchemist's Fire or something fun like that... :)
Devious! 😈
@@theDMLair Thankee. Particularly fond of the lead bottle since pretty much every relevant divination spell is blocked by "a thin sheet of lead" - so a bottle should do the trick just fine.
This video has some awesome tips for spicing up traps, just what I needed. I’m going to be trying the “click” trap idea, I think my players will love that.
Thanks! The click rule is my favorite because it doesn't require any changes to a standard trap. The DM just changes how he runs the trap. Makes it feel like less of a "DM screw job" and gives the players more control over what happens.
One of my favorite traps I ever built was based on a tetertoter. Picture a 80by20 hallway, now as the players walk down it they can't see that the floor at the other end is sinking slightly. By the time they get to the other side the floor is level with the doorway. 5 feet from the door the floor immediately drops out from under them and they all fall as a group into a pit with whatever level monster is appropriate. After killing the monster they can climb back up the slide only to find the way is blocked. They now have to either go back down and find a way out or try to, as a group climb the "blocking wall" in hopes of getting the trap to trigger again. Over an hour was spent trying to figure out how to escape the pit. Feel free to run with this idea and let me know how you tweaked it.
Tge c in scythe is silent like scissors. I like the idea of resetting traps for your enemies.
I've seen many videos claiming to make traps more interesting but they are usually mediocre at best, but was actually pleasantly surprised with some of the ideas here 👏👏👏
Thanks! Glad you like it. 😀
entertaining and some very useful ideas. This is one of the reasons I like pit traps or falling traps, they give a clear constant obstacle and sometimes make people question things
I had a dungeon that was just 1 giant trap. The first room consist an alter with 4 embedded keys: 1 gold /with a ruby key in the north, 1 adamantine w/ an emerald in the east, 1 silver w/ a topaz in the south, and 1 mithril w/ a sapphire in the west.
Each room was painted or decoration with a color or a picture that resembled an element or scenery that was accurate for each of the 4 elements: fire, earth, wind, and water. There is 4 doors in each room located in their designated side; north, east, south, west. Depending on the decoration and/or color of the waters determined which key and door must be used. If the wrong door is open, then a trap is set with an element determined by the side/direction/door they used. Once the players know the how it works, it's fairly easy, but with my group they were so paranoid once I started throwing in bigger rooms with multiple doors on the same side wall. Luckily, the party had a paladin to provide bonus to their saving throws or they might've not made it.
Trap Idea: 'You are in a 20 foot long, 10 foot wide room, at the other end of the room, there is a wooden chest and a skeleton beside it, clutching a dagger.' For this one, if a player gets within 5 feet of the skeleton, the skeleton reanimates, attacking the player. The chest is an ordinary chest, unstead of being a mimic, like the party suspected.
My best trap was a magic smooth-faced statue that when you look at it turns you to stone and reshapes your face to be blank. The party knew a medusa would be in this dungeon so they had a salve of stone to flesh, but then the unstoned person still had no orifices and began suffocating. They had to stab a hole where their mouth used to be and waited for their natural regen to fix their face. I hate body morphing though so I think I was more scared than the player that activated it.
You could also use a traps to spice up combat. The party enters a room with 2 dragon head statues, anda night statue near a piece of treasure. If the party steals the piece of treasure, walls drop around them, and the knight animates for battle. At initiative order 20, fire shoots in a specific direction from the dragons. The party has to work around this. Perhaps they disable the dragons, don't enter their dangerous areas, or use them against the knight.
This video made me want to try out using traps in my next adventure, so, well done. ; )
(It's actually the fourth one I'm running. DMing is at the same time addictive and exhausting. Been doing it for roughly a year now and most of my free time goes to prepping sessions, looking for assets, mapmaking, miniature painting... How do you people manage to run four weekly games without burning out, it's insane. o: Please tell me it gets easier over time once I built up a backlog of stuff I've prepared, found, already memorized etc.)
Just got recommended this playlist via youtube algorithm. Loved all three vids, and thought I might throw out my two cents on running a Kobold Warren with lots of traps. I have used Kobolds as the minions for higher level baddies, solely because they are so good at trapping their dens. And my players would rather find another, much easier way, than trying to sneak through the obvious side entrance that might be filled with Kobolds packed in like a beehive.
I like to run Kobold Warrens like heavily fortified positions. There are at least two traps in every corridor that might not be set off by the slender figure of the Kobold, but the similarly heighted, but far fatter, halfling/gnome. Tunnels that are only 4 ft. tall and 4 ft. wide to force all but the small sized party members to have to crawl. Hanging log traps in the entrances to larger rooms that are just tall enough to hit the Kobolds. Rooms with small holes in the walls for arrow slits, or hanging stalactites that kobolds can hang from upside down and throw rocks at the party. Perhaps a Kobold Scale Sorcerer (Volo's pg.167) has set up a trap specifically for the party involving a glyph of warding in tight tunnel with a Fireball or a Lightning Bolt. The Glyph might only go off when someone with a divine connection (or demonic in the case of warlocks) but might not be hidden that well, so that the party can choose to go over it or try to find another tunnel.
Throw in a "Kobold Tamer" or three with a bunch of Piercers or Darkmantles with strategies to distract the party while the pets get into place. Or "Kobold Lancers" who ride into battle on Giant Lizards or maybe even a Guard Drake (Volo's pg.158, two are amphibious with swim speeds, and two have burrowing speeds) if they are the minions of a Dragon. Have Kobold Dragonshields (Volo's pg.165) that are able to agily dodge the traps of a given room while they get closer and closer to the spell casters of the party. All Kobolds have Pack Tactics and some have Multiattack, they would be trying their hardest to take advantage of those traits. So yes a Wizard may have fireball, but would they be able to cast it and avoid the swing axe trap from the ceiling in the same turn?
A paranoid wizard would take a similar approach as well now that I think about it. They would put in as many traps in their tower as they could think of, and being the clever sort that they are, they might also put a lot of them on specific puzzles so as to prove their superior intelligence.
Cool ideas! 😁
Glad you liked the videos!
My favorite traps to use are Vietnam style traps, first person sets it off, but the guy 3 or 4 back in the party suffers the effects.
Great stuff! Gives me a fresh perspective on how to utilize traps for both entertainment and challenge.
I like using XEG thief’s tools to make traps as a PC, and using it to set up reverse encounters, where the NPCs where the ones bumbling throw traps..
magical traps that alter the battlefield can also be a fun idea like one time when i was running a pathfinder game I had a reverse gravity trap in a room so when someone stepped on the pressure plate the party and the enemies were suddenly falling onto the ceiling
I've thought of this trap after watching one of your videos it was a crystal light based trap that shifts the dungeon aroung each time a pc goes though it instead of damaging the pc
Also throw a mimic in a group of chest I thought that would be a humorus idea
I ran a room one time with three swinging wrecking balls across a narrow bridge with a pool of water below. I had a DC10 int save to time getting through correctly and if they failed that then they could still save with a DC12 dex save. I was originally concerned that with low DCs and two attempts to save that they'd breeze right through... Nope... they spent an hour in that room.
I ran a trapped elevator once in Pathfinder. I actually developed a system I call the Telegraph system. I'll explain.
Each wall had arrow slits that could open and close. An arrow slit would open fire in a line attack, reflex save. One or two arrow slits would open on each wall every round, to which I rolled randomly to determine.
Top of the initiative-Telegraph-You know which arrow slit opens, so you know which rows/columns to avoid on the battle-mat.
Bottom of the initiative-The arrow slit fires. Anything in the line gets to make it's save.
To keep players from gaming the system, the Telegraph is always the top of the initiative (100), the effect is always the bottom (0). Players can not hold actions until after the trap fires, players ALWAYS go before the trap. This allows them to avoid the trap.
The idea was to create a very movement dependent encounter, so I didn't want to trigger too many Attacks of Opportunity. So I used swarms of insects as the monsters. The swarms were small enough that they took no damage from the arrow line attack, and they can't make AoO's so they don't punish the player for moving to avoid the trap.
The players had to survive 15 rounds with progressively more and more arrow lines taking up space, leaving them with fewer and fewer safe spaces on the map. Also, the elevator wasn't that big, so it was getting pretty tough to 'dance' through these arrow lines in a safe manner. It was very memorable and fun, though there was one player who could do nothing to the swarms so she spent the fight just dodging and trying to lure the swarms away from allies by being the closest target for them to go for.
I've usually saved the Telegraphed mechanics for big boss encounters and trapped puzzle rooms, and it's worked out pretty well so far.
One, identify a problem (traps are boring and uninteractive). Two, give actual solutions. Fantastic stuff.
I came up with a trap where the players were in a temple and there were seven levers, each labeled with one of the seven deadly sins. The temple hieroglyphs gave clues to which sin they worshipped on the way to the room with the levers.
Each wrong lever was a new trap that would activate.
Stone Golems. Crumbling Floor. Caving walls etc...
They pulled all the levers frantically until they finally got to the last one before anybody died.
Two year old video, but commenting anyways. I had never heard of the click rule before this. That is brilliant and I am now sharing it with all my DnD groups.
I used an "Aladdin" trap on my PCs one time. Clear warning not to touch anything, especially those giant rubies embedded as eyes on the large statue they are supposed to avoid, only to summon two large fire elementals on the party...
On thing I aways hated about dungeons is "What are they doing there?" I mean, what's their purpose?
So I've already tried to have a good solid reason.
In my current campaign the dungeons were constructed by a long lost religious order as a kind of magical bank. Each room or trap can be easily bypassed, IF you know how, otherwise they are potentially deadly, and at the end of the dungeon is a store room with all their stuff safely locked away. After you have worked through it once, you can walk through again unscathed when you know the trick, so my players have actually set up home over one of the dungeons and have started to use it as their own bank for storing their treasure in!
Click rule seems amazing
It really is. 😁 And it can easily be applied to any trap. That's perhaps the best part.
This video has sparked my creativity.
Thanks for sharing,
I had a high level wild mage NPC called someone the Incompetent who had traps in his tower that had wild magic effects, which were only determined if the trap was triggered. This led to some hilarity but also a near party wipe when the small chest the players decided to test with an arrow fired from 60ft away contained an explosion big enough to bring down the ceiling and blow holes in the walls. That day the party learned that disarming a trap is better than trying to trigger it at a distance. Particularly when the loot is vaporized. They never did work out that a wild mage might have wild traps, until I had a NPC drop a hint.
The best trap I EVER ran was on April fools... it was a long hall with ornate tables with runes on them.on the table are different “magical” items and a glowing center table they do something, a magical count down. Then the door just opened. Nothing happened. It just opened. The entire session they where freaked out it would come back to haunt rhem
I’m an ambassador from the Reddit Hive-mind here to confirm… We do indeed Rock
I have a quick question when it cards to the click sound you make when trap goes off. Do you do that sound for every tracking of dungeon or do you only do it for 3??? And how does your players react to it doesn't slow it down there dungeon crawling or no??? Because I'm thinking of using that technique for a dungeon I'm running. I would just like to know how your players react through exploration now.
implament a crippled limb system like in fallout but... easier to overcome
That would be interesting. I think the easier to overcome part is key. A PC that can't use a leg/arm gets pretty useless pretty quick. Maybe just a short rest or something and some healing to overcome it?
"I HATE KOBOLDS!" was the most accurate thing to say, like ever.
What if you assigned difficulty values to the traps and have the players roll perception to sense the trap triggering, initiative to see if they can react before the trap goes off, and then if they fail to get clear with initiative they make the reflex roll. That way initiative has more value outside of just going first.
This was a really helpful video thank you.
Is there a transcript available?
If not place it on the dmguild. if its the same price as your other stuff has been. I'll buy that too :)
My players know I don't like using traps, mostly cause I find them illogical. That said though, they also know to keep an eye out for them, cause when I do throw a trap at them, "punitively cruel" is an understatement. These things are meant to kill you, not stub your toe.
Where'd you get your "Choose Your Weapon Wisely" shirt at?
Guerrilla Tees :)
You are describing the scene from Indiana Jones :P
Do you have any ideas for potentially deadly things for a haunted house? I don’t want to put right kill them however I want them to know that death is looming because I went easy on them when they wanted to go fight a dragon at a top low of lvl and they have been calling me to nice of a DM since wanted to give them a reminder thanks for your amazing videos they have helped a lot
I would check out Grimtooths Ultimate Traps Collection if you're looking for ideas. I think there is a link in the description.
So rewatchable
Hb a chest that burns whats in it if you do not disarm it
Thinking back to when I opened up a book in a magical library that turned me into a dog
Was that a fun experience?
@@theDMLair it very much was because that campaign was full of chaos and my character was so dumb it was just kind of funny for everyone. Got fixed next session as well. Also I'm amazed you're responding to comments two years later, that's awesome
Happy it worked out. Yeah, I respond to comments on lots of my videos, even the older ones. 😁
Haha, loved the video! Subscribed :)
Traps are all kinds of fun.... for the DM.
My favorite is a one-way hallway. You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave.
Yep. Most traps suck for players.
These suggestions make traps so much more fun!
Cool! Glad you like them. 😀
Watching through your eps and this one had a lot of excellent stuff to say. I am not a fan of the "get rid of traps" attitude that is becoming a vocal part of the community. Traps are fun if done right. In one game, I had a a trap that did nothing more than spray the party a pungent scented oil. Little did they know that this oil was owlbear pheromones. The party did nothing about the oil as it didn't smell like it was flammable, poisonous, and was not magical (also made them waste a detect magic) and as they ventured through the forest that lay beyond the dungeon, they couldn't understand where all the owlbears were coming from.
I wasn't aware of the "get rid of traps" movement. I'm sure it exists because traps usually feel like a DM screw job if the DM just runs them "out of the box" so to speak. I love you're owlbear pheromone trap! LOL Did the players ever figure it out? Or is it still a mystery only you know the answer to?
the DM Lair I eventually told them abd have passwd it on to the DMs that I mentor.
Yeah, it's hard to keep something awesome like that a secret. 😂
Your a really good channel man! I hope you skyrocket (don't forget to mention your loyal fan)!
Hey, thanks a lot! Yep, I'm hoping the same thing! :D
9:30 was completely unrealistic. Nobody would blame the in game kobolds, they’d all just attack the dm instead
Yeah it's painful when the traps are obvious there.
Me: I'm going to roll an arcana check on these statues from outside the door.
DM: You have to be touching the statue to do that.
I go in the room and there's half a dozen statues in there. Obviously there's a trap to make them alive and attack the party.
Me: Someone else feel free to check them out. *Party fighter. Why would I do something a smarter member of the party should do.*
*Someone else goes in and triggers the trap. Doesn't bother with an investigation or arcana check on anything. All the statues come alive and attack the party. Everyone else went in after the first person did and made me last in line because first come first serve. They all nearly died. Somehow it's my fault for that. Was at least glad I was an Echo Knight to cast my Silver Chariot stand into the room to fight otherwise they would've all died.*
The Click Rule sounds like a lot of fun; but not as fun as "Skyth Blades" :D
lol. You seem to like deadly traps, your my kind of DM.
LOL - Thanks! Yeah, I don't use traps all that often, so when they are there, I like them to be meaningful. 😈
the DM Lair Ha, ha...
title: Making Traps Better
thumbnail: **includes elf**
me: **SUSPICION**
I love your kitty!
Me too! 😻
Make them like 2e?
Imagine taking that much damage for a copper piece😮
That's a chunk! Forget about trying to get rid of the hair!
So you gave your daughter Raiders of the Lost Ark opening scene trap with slight variation
Maybe. I actually haven't watched that movie though by coincidence I started watching it a couplw days ago.
I thought this video would be about twinkie succubi
No but that sounds interesting...
So the only reddit link is to your comments instead of to individual threads...
If your a person that says skythe instead of scythe...please dont come near me...
At the risk of taking 1d6 bludgeoning damage, scythe pronounced "saheeth" not "skaheeth."
LOL - Welcome to the Lair where Luke mispronounces stuff all the time. 😂
@@theDMLair Right on. I saw others with similar comments only after I posted. Sorry to dogpile, but since I got your attention, I've been binge watching your channel. You've got great edu-taining content. Very knowledgeable and you have a great character voice. If you aren't, you should be streaming some games.
Thanks! Glad you like the content.
I think it's funny how I mispronounce stuff. I almost make a game out ot it. Lol
@@theDMLair its ok. i once had a DM actually pronounce debris as 'dehbriss' not dehbree
Whats a Skyth-blade? Do you mean "scythe" or "scything blades"? Scythe is said "Ss-eye-th".
Talking is hard. What can I say? 😌
@@theDMLair, I do it in my sleep! Good video though! The "Click" rule is fantastic.
Lol. Me too, just ask my wife! Yes, the Click Rule is my favorite hands down. And thanks! Glad you liked it. 👊
Step 1; give them compelling backstories and portray their struggle in a realistic way
Step 2; treat them more as people rather than sex objects
Step 3; make them pretty but don't be afraid to lean into their androgenous features
Had a simple door trap resolve like this: A players character found a trap on either side of a door. Instead of trying to disarm the trap, said PC chose to carefully open the door. The trap activated and the door abruptly sung open causing the PC to stumble into the room. I asked what the height of the PC was before describing what happened next. Fortunately the PC was 5ft 4in. Had the player chosen to play a character 1 ft higher, a spike would have gone thru their PCs skull. Instead the spike just did minor dmg.
Wait, if they were opening carefully, they wouldn't be leaning on the door to stumble into the room...
Make them deadly
Wait is that how yo say scythe? Is my whole life a lie?
No. He says it incorrectly sadly. Which is whatever
Dem C A T H A I R
Unrelated to the video. Just a pet-peeve.
The D4 on your shirt is an ABOMINATION!
the click technique is absolutely genius
Man...that HARD C in your Scythe pronunciation....Does not belong. In fact you don't pronounce the C at all.
Me mispronounce something? Never! Lol
Not a regular... Is "sKythe" a recurring joke? Or are you actually not aware how scythe is pronounced? I cringed physically each time I heard it
I really could've done without the constant shoving your face into the camera. It's kinda aggressive and uncomfortable to watch. Very interesting points otherwise, but if this is your usual style for videos I probably won't continue watching the channel.