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"If you were to punch someone in the face the nose is a good target, you don't have to pick an original one." The Barbarian wrote that (excellent) advice.
A wise DM once said that there are three kinds of PC death: the death the players blame the dice for, the death the players blame themselves for and the death the players blame the DM for. The first is okay, the second ideal and the third to be avoided at all costs. I think this applies in spades to trap design. If the players think the trap is fair and it was just a bad dice roll, meh. If the players realise they were given every opportunity to avoid the trap and they screwed it up, great. If the players think the DM just killed a PC by fiat, the campaign is almost certainly doomed.
That's a really good statement Nick. That has me thinking: " _How do I make a trap that the players will blame themselves for falling for_ ?" I'm not good with traps.
Maybe I'm a soft DM, but in my long campaign (now 1,5yrs running, at session 35) I would never let the players die purely based on bad dice rolls. Bad plan/decisions + bad rolls is a deserved death, but if they are trying their hardest, making good rational and tactical decisions etc., I would never let them die on a bad roll. I would totally let someone randomly eat it in a short game or oneshot, but if you're playing for such a long time so commitedly, I personally would blame myself if they made all the good desicions and still ate dirt because of some bad rolls. Feel free to argue hard against me, I'm curious about how people run their games and I am not easily offended =)
@@elendiel I would say that as a general rule, the DM should never set up a situation where a single bad roll can kill a PC. Obviously things can happen when you didn't realize the PC would only have 10 HP when they needed to make the roll, but in general a PC death should be the result of a cascade of failures rather than a singular mistake. (Excluding things like "I jump off the cliff for lolz", of course.) It's probably just because of the type of campaigns I run, but I don't find PC death adds much to the game outside of really dramatic circumstances like "Run! I'll hold the line!". Having character continuity improves both the story and the players' investment, I feel, which in my view actually increases drama. For example, I don't ever have enemies use "make this save or die" spells, because if the PC succeeds it doesn't feel dramatic and if they fail it feels unsatisfying and cheap. Likewise with really crippling "permanent until you pay a Cleric to make it go away" effects. "Make this save or be incapacitated for the rest of the fight" is much more fun in my experience, because it creates a problem for the players to solve (fighting with a man down) without sacrificing months of character investment or making the affected player feel shortchanged.
@@michaelramon2411 Completely agree. I never wanna kill my players in a long campaign, unless they sacrifice themselves, or make a bunch of really silly decisions. On the other hand, there has to be a credible threat, and consequences, so maybe they don't die, but they get a severe injury/curse that they have to live with. Maybe they lose some of their hard-earned loot. Maybe a beloved NPC dies, because they weren't able to stop the hunting party of orcs. My rule of thumb is, that they should have a 90% chance of success in encounters (if they play reasonably well), but they should feel like they have about a 40% chance. I don't want a character to die, but I do want the players to shit their pants sometimes :D
I think the best trap I ever designed was one that was not meant to cause any harm at all, or no immediate harm. The rogue managed to find the trap but failed on the disarm check so it triggered. All that happened to him though was a strange goo spurt out and covered him. It did no harm to him, or curse him or anything else to him except make him smell bad. He thought it was just a dud. Meanwhile, the main boss of the dungeon now had a way of tracking him. The monster was a Minotaur and I just had it move randomly about the dungeon using a d6 to determine the way it went. I would allow him to hit walls if that was the direction it rolled. However, after the trap had been sprung, instead of going to a wall, he went in the direction of the player. You should have seen the players face when the realization of what happened came over him. "He smells me!"
Shout out to the dwarven fighter in my game that saw the pressure plate and scratches by the wall, deciding that it was just going to release some creature. So he stepped on it. Just before the wall panel slammed him in the face.
Theres mechanical and magical traps sure, but what about natural traps? A worn out pillar or unstable rock formation could make for a dangerous and noisy encounter, potentially even separating players from each other. Last thing you want in a cave full of sleeping serpents is a broken leg because a rock crushed it while cutting off your escape route.
@@TerryAVanguard same. Natural traps should be large, common and non-lethal. Deadly traps that are constructed as deadly traps should be a rare thing used either by a watchful hunter or as a part of fortifications during a war.
My party has adopted the "click" rules for basic traps. The party rounds a corner, DM describes the scene and what they see down the hallway or in the room, player says they step forward, the DM says "click" and waits for a response, the player that triggered the click has only a couple seconds to tell the DM what they do in response to the click. Something like "i drop prone" or "i press myself against this wall". Then if the trap would miss them based on that action they successfully dodge the trap, if not then they fall victim to the trap. Additional saving throws might be required in order to escape the trap after they are caught in it depending on the circumstances. My party likes it, its adds a bit of excitement and action and dramatic quick thinking to the situation to spice things up rather than just "roll a dex save to see if you dodge the arrows coming out of the wall" "oh no..." (starts rolling)
I do a 'telegraphing' trap system, which I find helps to make the traps a bit easier to involve in a combat. For perception I make it part of passive perception. Initiative-The trap declares it's action at the top of the initiative order. This allows the players to react. At the bottom of the initiative or initiative zero, the trap's effect goes off. Example-A slot on the wall opens to reveal a bunch of flame jets. It looks like it will spray in a line effect, 40 ft long. I then draw this on the battle mat with a red marker and an arrow to indicate range and direction. Players fight, do things, some get out of the way, some can't because the enemies box them in. At the end of the initiative, the flame jet goes off, everyone in that line makes a reflex (or dexterity for 5e) save for half damage. Next round, perhaps a different jet opens while the first closes to reload. But same idea. It's great for effects like a swinging blade going back and forth, or a trap that can adjust it's direction. I even used it for spiders who had boulders stuck to the ceiling and were cutting them loose to drop on players. Think of it like throwing a grenade. You pull the pin and throw it. After a short delay it goes off. What to people do? Clear the area or get caught in the blast. NOTE-This is for traps that I want to have an impact on the combat. Out of combat I use the standard trap rules. They typically replicate hazards in video games, like the spinning fire in Mario, or the rolling boulder traps in Dark Souls.
The DM Lair guy shows just how much he has no proficiency in kitty cat language: the cat's insight on traps was quite ingenious! He should own the channel. XD
Had a dungeon with several traps for the party to solve, what I didn’t tell them directly was that the traps were already disarmed and puzzles were already solved. >.> they weren’t the first people to go through the dungeon as the quest itself was tracing the steps of a missing party
I came across a trap on a homebrew wiki some time ago, and I really liked it and hope I can put it in an adventure if I ever get to play a game. The trap is a magnetic floor, smooth and unassuming. The trigger is a lever or button mechanism either on the other side of the room or behind a wall where an enemy is watching the party. Upon activation, if the party is carrying any metallic weaponry, they must make a DC 15 strength save or have their weapons pulled to the magnetized floor. On a success, they maintain hold of their weapons but will be attacking with them at disadvantage for as long as the floor is active. If they are wearing metal armor, such as plate, the DC is (if I recall correctly) a 25. If they fail, they are knocked prone and considered restrained unless they make another strength save to attempt to stand. On a success, they remain standing but their movement is halved for the duration of the trap. Obviously you can lower or raise the save DCs at your leisure. It doesn't even have to be a floor. You could magnetize the ceiling if you wished. I just thought it would be a fun little devious trap, especially for particularly intelligent kobolds.
The ceiling. One of my daydreams is sticking my enemies to the ceiling, and leaving them there, until I have cooled off enough to come back and ask if they're ready to apologize. This is a really cool trap. "You're prone. On the ceiling."
One of my favorite traps of all times was a possible tpk trap. The thing is this trap was both very difficult and very simple at the same time. In the courtyard to the dungeon there is a statue. With a dc of 5, in other words anybody's passive perception oh, you would spot a compartment on the statue. Opening the compartment would reveal a key. Then when you got the entrance of the dungeon there are two Onyx doors that match the Onyx key you just found with a keyhole. The trigger for the Trap is on the door. The DC of the Trap itself is 40. How it works is this. The door appears to be unlocked. If the party use the key in the door the Trap is disarmed. However if the party opens the door in any other way than using the key the Trap is armed. At that point the floor is pressure-sensitive. The doors open inward. When the last of the party is past the doors oh, the door slams shut. If the party tries to open the doors they find they cannot. Close examination reveals that this is because the floor is now higher then the bottom of the door. Put it simply the door is put it simply the floor is now Rising towards the ceiling. It takes 5 minutes for the floor to reach the ceiling. There is an out. There is a escape hatch at the back of the room that is hidden behind the tapestry. Dc-15 to find. The party has 3 minutes to find an escape through the Escape hatch. If they do not the consequences are inevitable.
I should also cover the rooms description. Because the flares would notice this before they got through the doors. In the center of the room there is a stone sarcophagus with a black skeleton laying on it. This is a CR 4 monster. In the ceiling of the room there is a depression that is the exact size of the stone sarcophagus. If the party PetSmart the Trap as soon as the door slams shut the skeleton sits up and laughs at the party but otherwise does nothing. If the party uses the key in the door, thus keeping the truck from arming, dim the skeleton will attack the party.
One final notation. If the party does set off the Trap oh, while the skeleton will not attack, if the party attacked the skeleton it will fight them to its fullest extent. Time spent fighting the skeleton should be kept careful track of. This trap is designed for a group of level 4 characters.
@@joem1480 So what if one or more party members decide to pile into the sarcophagus? Will they have to fight the skeleton then if the trap is set off? (I mean it seems obvious that the trap probably resets itself for the next batch of victims yes?)
@@minnion2871 I think I am wrong in describing it as a sarcophagus cuz it doesn't actually open. It is just a protrusion in the shape of a sarcophagus that is solid with black skeleton lying on the top
No one else gonna point out he described the Star Wars Trash Compactor trap wrong? First, it was a relatively standard pit trap, but it was super deep so climbing back out wasn't an option. It was also full of garbage, so in D&D, the DM could ask for Constitution saves to resist disease. Second, one of the primary dangers of this pit was that it was magnetically sealed, which meant their weapons were reflected off the walls, risking injuring themselves or each other if they tried breaking the door down. Next, the monster didn't attack while they were being crushed. It actually fled the battle when it heard the crush trap get activated. "It let go of me and disappeared!" So the monster was a DM stall tactic to make sure the party didn't escape before the walls could trigger. They only escaped by using a ranged communicator to have R2 hack the system and shut down the compactor remotely.
I used to build traps for a LARP I played, which has greatly informed my table-top game traps. In the LARP I played, traps had a few simple requirements. They had to have a minimum size to "hold" the amount of damage they do, they had to be possible to disarm, and they had to be able to be set without triggering them. - As I use them in my games a trap needs to answer the journalism questions. Why is this trap here, who built it, what triggers the trap, when was it placed, where is the trigger and the damage happening, and how does it work. I added some options after watching news stories from Iraq. Command detonation is the idea that someone is watching the area protected by the trap (IED, IRL) and setting it off when the right kind or number of target(s) is in the area of effect. So imagine a goblin sitting on guard duty on a hidden ledge overhead who cuts the rope releasing the rock-slide when he sees enemies approaching.
Thank you for this! This was super helpful. I'm building my very first one shot campaign and I've been looking for videos that do step by step encounter building for traps combat and puzzles and this was the first trap video I saw that really gave me the simplest breakdown. Everyone seems to talk around these subjects of things to keep in mind but very few actually give you the step by step breakdown on how to build so thank you so much! New subscriber for definite!
8:56 Slight correction: Luke got attacked first, then the creature fled when it sensed the compactor had been activated. Then the walls started moving.
Double pressure plates rule. I'd set a DC for the first and a higher one for the second. You only get one roll, if it's not high enough yeah, you'll see the first plate, good luck falling into the pit after you jump over.
Trap Idea: The party finds a Chicken (Blood Hawk, CR 1/8) pecking the floor in a generic dungeon room; the trap only triggers if anyone damages or kills the chicken. When the trap is triggered, a 9th level Conjure Animals spell is cast and all the summoned Chickens swarm the character who damaged the Chicken.
What do you think of this as a "Trap" Zombie Pig: Basically the trap consists of a roasted pig sitting on a platter with an apple in it's mouth, the pig already has some slices taken out of it's shoulder and has a silver fork sticking out of it's shoulder where the slices were taken out. Laying on the platter next to the pig is a silver knife to match the fork. (Skill check to notice the rotten smell, and the rot grubs in the pig) Cutting into or otherwise disturbing the pig causes it to "Wake up" and now you have to fight a zombie pig.... (It makes a lot of noise and could alert the necromancer and his minions to your presence in his kitchen) Secondary to this I'd have some barrels containing "rancid crabs" (Stinky zombie crabs that have the troglodytes stench aura, which are contained within the barrels and can be smashed open by the zombie pig as it rampages around the kitchen thus unleashing more enemies for the players to deal with...)
When placing a trap in a dungeon, think realistically. If the trap could potentially be triggered by the dungeon's inhabitants, or builder, it wouldn't be placed in a location where they are likely to walk through on a regular basis, unless the trap is just an alarm. Nothing sucks worse than building a death trap and coming home drunk and forgetting to disable it. If your trap uses a magical sensor that won't trigger when the dungeon's inhabitants pass, then it's safe to put it anywhere, but if it uses a mechanical trigger, then it should be used to guard sensitive areas that the dungeon inhabitants don't regularly go.
How are the "dungeon's inhabitants" described to a magical trap? What are the exact words used? Does this sort of thing expect a fairly static membership, or might it need refreshing regularly as the population of the dungeon changes?
@@FrostSpike Well, that would be up to the DM to decide, but spells like glyph of warding and alarm say in their descriptions that you can choose to have any creature trigger it, specify which creatures can trigger it, or specify certain creatures which can't trigger it. So, the rules for magical sensors are already established in the books to allow the DM to create a trap that can't be triggered by certain creatures. Yes, it's possible the traps would need updating if new guards were hired for the dungeon. However, it could also be possible that the trap's sensor looks for any creature not carrying a specific object. Use something very mundane, not valuable, something the PCs will likely overlook, and suddenly you have magical security cards, and the PCs can try to figure out that these seemingly innocuous items actually bypass traps, and now it becomes a bit of a puzzle. My main point was to use a bit of logic when placing traps in your dungeons. If you own a building, and want a security system to protect it, you're likely going to use an alarm to alert guards if you plan to regularly use that building. However, if it's just a storage building you likely won't be visiting again for like a year, and you don't want to employ guards, then you might consider using more severe traps.
@@FrostSpike All the guards have a patch or token or ribbon, or something that identifies them as working there. If you kill one, and you loot the body, among the things you find, the DM WILL mention this item, which means it's significant. Pick that up, carry it through, and none of the traps will trigger, even if you find them, first. Alternately, all the guards are taught the password, which disables the trap for 5 seconds, long enough to dash through.
The GM described the statue of a blue dragons head roaring at the end of a narrow hallwhay. Imagine my suprize when i reached the trigger and the halwhay got shutt by segmented falingdoors with a guardian golem atacking my isolated and cornered halflingbuttox.
Here's a free idea for a trap that I'm using for an upcoming dungeon in my homebrew campaign. Door to a chamber in the dungeon, where the door itself is set to open into a 20ft pit where the player who triggered the trap falls in if they fail the initial dex save. Then after takin the 2d6 fall damage, that player sees that the wall back up is greased ad they have fallen into a Tiger pit.
So there's people/keepers around to feed/water the tiger between unfortunates dropping in? Is there a tunnel (or something) at the bottom of the pit to allow the tiger to come & go - maybe there's a cage/pen somewhere that the tiger goes to? Is there some sort of magic that petrifies the tiger between visitors (so it doesn't need food or get bored) and only releases it when another live creature of Small or larger size is in there? Or is a tiger magically summoned when someone falls in - and will vanish after a number of rounds? Creature traps need some further consideration.
@@FrostSpike I like the idea of a magically summoned animal, such as with the Onyx Dog, or some of the other magic items, that summon an animal when the command is given. As a bonus, if you solve the trap/puzzle properly, you not only escape, but can take with you the magical item to summon the animal.
What I did before, just to show my players "Hey, this ruin is trapped", was that in the entrance area there used to be a tripwire connected to 3 bolt guns behind a firing slit. Due to the age of the contraption, the walls composing the firing slit and the bolt guns themselves had somewhat broken down, so when my (really unattentive) players triggered the wire, one of the bolt guns released ITSELF from the wall, hitting him in the side
Haha! Brilliant! The first trap alerts them that there are traps. After that, it's up to the players to do their due diligence here. I like that the ruined trap is out at the front, where there's most damage from the elements, but inside, where it's protected from wind and rain, the traps still work properly.
i have made a live musgroom like trap. The thing is, you can see parts of it. It is an organism that grows on the ground and walls. On the ground it has capsules that cover victim in spores, and those spores makes spikes on the walls see you, and shoot you. The bigger the room, the more spikes it can have. If players gets into one, he rolls a die that represents room size (6-20) and makes dex saves equal to the number. Each number is a spike for 2d6 damage. My paladin didnt want to investigate too much and got like 94 damage. But those spores produce heat and steam in the room, so you know when you get to them
"Well of course it does, you simple-minded buffoon." ...I think the line is supposed to be _warthog-faced_ buffoon. What was that about Gary sounding like the rogue? ...I don't hear it. No way, the rogue's voice is shrill and kinda whiny, and when things go wrong he always says 'holy crap, we're screwed!' Something very important to consider when it comes to traps and puzzles: who designed it, what did they design it for, how do they bypass it, how does it get reset, and what evidence is left behind when it isn't reset? FOR EXAMPLE: • If this trap is intended to test whether or not someone is worthy to receive a sacred artifact, and *literacy* and *hopscotch* are not worthiness qualities for this artifact, having the characters hop across a floor covered in tiles with bas-relief carvings of letters on them filters people in or out based on criteria unrelated to worthiness. • If a specific order of monks or priests are supposed to be able to reach this artifact without too much difficulty, the aforementioned hopscotch puzzle is an example of "too much difficulty". • If stepping on a wrong tile causes that tile to collapse into a pit, there should already be collapsed tiles. If it triggers an explosion, there should be charred tiles and fragments of stone and burnt flesh apparent in the room. If it causes a gout of flame to burn the person, several of the wrong tiles should be covered in burn marks and melted flesh, and there should be nozzles for the flames to come through. Unless someone has recently cleaned it up and repaired it somehow, there should be plenty of forensic evidence for whatever happens when the trap is activated. Also, if a puzzle does require in-character literacy, make sure the literacy it requires is literacy in a language that exists in your campaign world. The environment tells a story. Make sure it doesn't contradict the one you're telling.
My brother told me about a trap he had encountered, long ago. The party was in some old wizard's tower, and they KNEW it was trapped. They had been absolutely assured that the stairwell was trapped. Well, my brother looked at the stairwell, and saw that the stone stairs had been well used, for a long, LONG time, as they were worn in the center, but not around the edges. When his party members made to scootch up around the walls of the stairwell, avoiding the centers of the stairs, he stopped them. "Look," he said. "Someone lived here for a long time, and used those stairs, day in and day out. Yes, the traps have been here for just as long, but he didn't want to FUSS with them every time he went for a glass of water. You want to avoid the traps? Just walk right up those stairs like you own them." They disagreed him with, snuck in like sneaking thieves, and got hit by traps. He walked right up the middle after them, all the way to the top, completely unscathed, because obviously, he belonged there. You have to always consider that if the trap is placed in a location where people regularly live/work/otherwise spend a lot of time there, they WILL have an easy way to bypass it. There may be traps all over the place, and they may be nasty as all get out, but the person who lives there will have an EASY way to get past. It may be as simple as a magical command word, or it may be simple audacity, or it may be a hidden switch at either end of the passage. Whatever it is, it should be something that the person/people who are there frequently know, easy to access, but difficult to find without knowing about it. Something that BLENDS. Something that won't look significantly more worn than the rest of the stuff in the area, so it's not an obvious switch. Alternately, the traps could be set up to not go off while the mad mage is living in his tower, but he can set them up, whenever he leaves on a trip or something, so if the tower is empty, you're in trouble, but if you see lights at the top of the tower, just ring the doorbell or walk on in. Of course, he'll probably have guardians who dislike unannounced visitors.
In my postrift homebrew campaign, in one of my kobold mines I had the kobolds go almost full Vietcong. Tripwire nooses, wall spears, and false step bear traps. But the one trap that caught the party off guard was my toe popper bullet trap. The artificer made it away, but triggered the trap and took 1 piercing damage as he lost a toe. He had it healed back later, but he’s been more careful in dark places.
Cool, more trap related stuff. I especially enjoyed the other recently released video with the story of one of your players falling for a trap. As usual the videos are enjoyable dude.
One type of traps I like using is the one that locks the players into the dungeon untill they find a different way out or forfill a task in order to reopen the entrance. But I also like that final trap that protects the item they are supposed to get and that will start a sequence of skillchecks or initiate a final battle with a boss creature.
you forgot my favrot trap. the natrual trap, the kobolds have dark pools off water around there cave, and in the pools arre quippers, or poisonous snakes. or my favrot small lizards that when they get sceared they cast flip gravity till they calm down. or simple the skeleton coming down a corridor, that turns out to be a gelatinous cube
favorite trap i made by far is a kobold warren protected by a swinging vine trap with a wasp nest attached. NOTE ! a swarm of wasps can be deadly to a party low enough level to be tangling with kobolds. I decided the impact of the nest spread the wasp swarm into two half swarms which bonus got two PCS in line with the trap.
A pedalstool that holds a tome both important to character backstory and overall plot. The tome has glyph of warding on it with cloudkill stored. The floor around it is trapped with force cage. The trigger for both is grabbing the tome. Discover the trap or die.
Not sure if it technically counts as a "trap", but I had a flying manor, thousands of feet (more accurately, two rounds fall time, with predictable consequences upon acute deceleration) aboveground, guarded by a golem with clear instructions. It was an autonomous defenestrator. Its attack pattern was simple - grapple, drag, push out window. It was neither exceptionally swift or agile, but if it first managed to grab you, your long-term prospects were... not good. ;) There was also the Limbo Salt incident, back in the days of the third and a halfth edition, where healing potions were, ah, salted with the crystallized essence of the plane of Limbo - essentially causing the effects of the Warp Touch disease from the Book of Vile Darkness to whoever ingested what seemed to be a simple restorative...
Another fun one is an "obvious" pit trap with a well hidden acid pit trap right behind it. Thus if the character jumps over the obvious trap they fall into the second. If the throw their packs over first they lose all their stuff into the now seen acid pit. Fun times and a lot of cussing.
What most DMs fail to properly implement with traps is triggers and placement. What they fail to consider is that triggers for traps cannot be placed in areas with wandering monsters because the wandering monster will eventually trigger the trap. It is possible for a monster not to trigger a trap due to lack of mass with a pressure plate, but such circumstances will limit the wandering monster to certain types as well as the traps to certain types. Monsters cannot be effectively trained to avoid traps for the next reason for they are bound to eventually set the trap off. Traps cannot be practically placed in common traffic areas used by the opponents because the opponents are likely to eventually trigger their own trap eventually. If they are remiss or clumsy when passing their own trap, they may accidentally discharge the trap. Traps are indiscriminate in that they do not recognize friend, foe, or wandering monster. A trap can exist in a common traffic area, but this type of trap is more complex in that they will be disarmed until the opponents arm it during their retreat. This means that if the adventurers are quick enough or stealthy, they could bypass these traps before they are set. That means if the adventurers are chasing down their opponents as they retreat, someone at the choke point will have to actually arm the trap the opponents are passing by giving a clue to the adventurers. If the trap is already armed, then each opponent passing the trap will have to bypass it in someway, perhaps hopping over the tripwire, again, denoting its presence to observant adventurers. It is even possible that one of the opponents misjudges the trap and succumbs to it. If there is a lever that activates the pit traps down a hallway, keep in mind that the adventurers could find the same lever and deactivate the pit traps as well. Magical traps can determine friend or foe within limited abilities. They cannot recognize individuals, only generalities. They could be triggered for appearance of a creature that looks like an orc or to ignore quadrupeds. Magical traps could also be attuned to rune/passage stones in that anyone carrying one is immune to the trap, but then again this should be included in any defeated opponent among their gear and the adventurers can use the same rune/passage stone. Trap placement and triggers need to incorporate a verisimilitude about them in that not just their placement must seem logical, but that traps should be able to reasonably function without killing off the people who place them or the monsters that are in the area. Another thing to keep in mind is that mechanical traps, once sprung, will not reset without aid unless they can operate by gravity, which is only a few tilt/flip traps. Keep this in mind as well as this can sometimes be a clue that traps are ahead when one has been sprung in a dusty old tomb from a wandering monster or an unsuccessful explorer (like Raider of the Lost Ark). The goal is to make the traps seem believable, that their placement is logical, and that you are not just out to screw over the players with ridiculous traps that seem to only discriminate against the adventurers.
If the trap goes off, and you hear a "Tick tick tick tick tick" sound from the mechanism, it is re-arming itself, with a mechanical clock mechanism. Some traps ARE designed to re-arm, but they are, like you said, rather rare and specific. Tilt and flip traps, on the other hand, are instantly, and naturally, reset. They are the best mouse traps, because you just empty the can of water under the trap, and freshen the peanut butter. You let gravity and balance do all the work.
@@AuntLoopy123 Rearming traps are not realistic for they need someway to rearm/reload themselves. The amount of energy and intricacy involved in resetting a ballista or a crossbow trap so it can fire again are usually going to be beyond practicable and not very believable for this was never really a thing in our reality and unless magic is involved, nor should it be in even a fantasy setting. This on the level of credibility as perpetual motion machines. Tilt and flip trap are harder to create as they require more skill and talent to make and therefore should only be common in areas where civilization has evolved to this level of engineering. The reality of booby traps is that they were not that common in reality and those that relied on stored up energy tended not to be resistant to the passage of time. Wood weakens, sinew dries out, glue fails, rope becomes brittle, metal rusts, etc.. While stone tilt traps are more durable, even stone can suffer from water erosion and debris build up. However, if you play a more Hollywood or comic book style of D&D, then you might just hear a "tick tick tick tick tick" sound.
The best trap that I have ever thought of is a 30x30 or 40x40 and 40 or 50 foot high room with a magical trap. A trigger in the middle. Once the trigger activates the ceiling becomes the reset switch. And the whole floor becomes the secondary trigger. The trap itself is a Reverse Gravity spell that fills the room. Of course the ceiling, now a reset switch, shut off the spell. And the whole floor, now the secondary trigger. Reactivates the spell.
Passive checks are when the DM doesn't want the player to roll for whatever reason (hidden monster, repeated rolls to save time, etc). They can be used when the player asks to use a skill, so a player declaring a skill usage does not make it a non-passive check. It's entirely up to the DM when they want to use passive versus rolling and is not player controlled.
I disagree. They’re an ‘always on’ ability that dictates what your character notices just by walking into a room (per Jeremy Crawford). But everything in dnd is subject to the dm and their group. So if you don’t want to use it that’s fine, just let the players know before they invest in things like the observant feat.
@@MJ-jd7rs - It is explicitly stated as such in the rules, see PHB page 175, "or can be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, " Feel free to play it as you choose, like JC does, but that's what the rules say.
Most traps should either contain or kill intruders. It makes little sense for a dungeons defenses to merely deal a small amount of damage and let the intruders continue. Of course, PCs are tougher than regular people, so would probably survive a deadly trap or two, but it still shouldn't be something they can just shrug off and ignore. This means that as a DM there is more work to do, to put the emphasis on evading or disabling traps rather than triggering them. On the other hand, you need less ready traps to pose a threat to the party. And don't forget to include a way for the dungeon owner to conveniently bypass the trap. No good comes from dying every time you pop out to collect someone eggs.
I now want the adventurers to come across the rotting corpse of a person, holding a basket, with the remains of a bunch of broken eggs. With rumors of how "So-and-so used to come to town every week, and now, no-one has seen him for X-days. Maybe he went off to adventure, or maybe someone killed him and stole all his treasure. I was there, once, for tea, and you should see the valuables in his parlor!" Don't forget a bunch of emaciated chickens in their enclosure.
The nastiest trap I've encountered, A sleep spell in a room that's filled with toxic smoke. Lucky my party disabled half the trap, So they only fell asleep.
¿My nastiest trap? ... Two corridors forced the adventurer to divide in two teams of 3. A invisible and invincible wall prevented otherwice. If they wanted to go deeper, they needed to split. A few rooms later, with the teams separated so they do not know that they are facing identical challenges with their own traps and the like. Then, in the final room, called them all in. And told each team that a group of 3 monsters entered from the other side. They almost TPK themselfs.
Bucket of water resting at the top of a door. Only the water was acid. We had just completed a complex puzzle and were not expecting something so simple or singularly targeting.
Wanna really surprise the party? Don't make the trigger when the door is opened, make it when the door is closed behind the party. Even better, make the effect fairie fire. Then the baddies spring their ambush.
Hm. What I'd really like is a trap-making guide that focuses on the resources available to whoever set the trap in-setting. A group of monsters that doesn't have stone-shaping powers can't easily install the operating mechanisms behind stone walls, for example. At low level, one justification for easier trap-spotting might be that the trap mechanisms are more out in the open, and thus easier to see. Passive perception might come into play, there: The DM doesn't describe the trap, but may describe the odd carpet, moss, dirt, or whatever that's being used to try to hide the cord (or whatever) connecting the trigger to the trap.
This makes me want to open a store in a big city, called, "Traps R Us," where people who are building dungeons, manor houses, castles, sewers, and basically anywhere they want to protect can purchase a variety of "traps in a box," where you get all the stuff you need for a basic trap. So, you can get "poison cloud hidden behind stone wall," and it comes with its own "stone wall," that you install alongside all the other walls. IF you are lucky, the stone of the stone wall kit actually matches the other walls. If not, well, it might be fairly obvious that particular wall is out of place. Of course, for a premium price, you can bring in your building materials and have a kit made to match, or have your kit be enchanted with a glamour spell to make it match its surroundings. I doubt such a business would fare well in a place like Phandalin, but Neverwinter or Amn? Sure!
How to build traps: Heavy deadlifts and farmer's walks. How to build traps in DnD: An houglass to visualise their time running out, and lots of suspension =D
As a player, our dm had a spike pit trap in a dungeon. I jumped ofer the 1st that our monk fell in, thinking "there couldn't possible be another one immediately after." was wrong
I once made a trap that scattered powder over my players that reacted violently with water in the next room. I told them they could brush off the powder, and all of them did except for a player who said that "it was nothing." I informed them that it maybe was unwise to dismiss the powder, and that it could have long-term effects, and they still went onward. In the next room, which was flooded, the same player jumped into the water. Their character took enough acid damage to die, and to this day, they still blame me for "Having a bullsh*t unavoidable trap."
That's not a bad trap. That's a bad player. If the DM suggests that you might want to brush off the stuff, you should probably brush off the stuff. Especially if the DM follows up with "It might be unwise to dismiss the X" that he just dismissed. I LIKE that trap. What a twit player. You are not to blame. At all.
*Yeeeeaaaa [ kermit the frog ] .* *I love traps .* *My favorite ones , have multiple stages and can effect groups .* *Also video needs more cats 🐱 🐈 .*
@@theDMLair I love how much you love your cats. And they love you, which is a good indicator that you are a generally decent person, even if you don't believe that any encounter might be too dangerous for your party.
walkway trap. becomes an oiled slide down. at the end of the slide is a triggered gate spell, this sends the adventurers to a far away place... good luck getting home!
Take a shot every time Luke says "trap". Or dont, because you'll die. I like putting minor setback traps in combat encounters. A swinging board on top of stairs to knock the player down to the bottom and prone them, or even a classic bear trap. Something to spice up the situation rather than kill or do big damage.
Describing traps is so hard. How the triggers are even connected to the damage dealing parts just is beyond me. I would need actual blueprints of the whole mechanism. Therefore your vid is very welcome
It's all fun and games until the wizard casts Find Traps. Then it's still fun and games because that spell changes absolutely nothing about the situation.
Can you give any advice on how to create compelling character arcs for pcs who aren't particularly motivated to do anything other than what i put in front of them? In other words i guess how do you get the players to make their own decisions on what they wish to do in the campaign?
This is stolen but one of the best traps I have read one the walls in the blood. It says "Beartrap watch out" and you see bodies that have been cut open not from the feet but the belly. And they see a bear trap that is mechanically linked to the wall. If they dismantle it a wall moves and see a bear charging to hem BEAR TRAP
I like complex sequential trigger traps which can need the set to be disarmed in the proper order or when the last trigger is messed with, it triggers the entire set of traps. Yes, I am evil. Never trust a smiling DM. This DM smiles all the time.
I kinds want to make a dungeon that's so old, all the traps don't work or only half work. Pit full of snakes? All the snakes died out and you only see their skeletal remains. Spike launcher? It's so badly rusted it barely leaves the hole, perhaps gets stuck mid launch only poking out and everyone has to menuver around it.
I like this very much. Especially if it was built to be heavily trapped, so the party keeps finding these old and broken traps. And then once they've become really complacent, they discover the magical trap, that is magically preserved and still in excellent working order.
@@AuntLoopy123 Could play around with the idea that they blew the budget on one or two rooms near the end, which is where the magic trap comes in, the rest are either in disrepair or far too trivial to take seriously, haha.
What about a trap where if you break the tripwire, it blocks the entrance and has a wall of spikes that starts chasing down the party and they are forced to run to the exit. I'm just making it up based off of a trap that was used in Toy Story 2s beginning scene.
I need help with puzzles. I'm doing a monster hunting starfinder campaign so I'm trying to make puzzles for both natural environments as well as technological dungeons.
If in doubt, try buying an actual puzzle, such as a puzzle box (to represent what's inside the trapped chest?) or a small physical puzzle that can be solved in a few minutes. Give the players five minutes to solve it, and if they can't do it in that time, have them make a roll. However, if they do it by roll, they forfeit one of the things that was in the puzzle, such as the free inspiration for the person who solved it, or maybe some gem that "got crushed in your clumsy attempt to open it."
I like a trap that isn’t a trap. Like, it's a portal to another part of the dungeon, but that separates the party, & leaves most of the PCs terrified that the first character was disintegrated or something. That PC has to find the way back to the rest of the party. Better still, if a corridor becomes blocked, the party is trapped… except now they know they can use the portal to get to the other part of the dungeon. Trick, trap, & puzzle all in one.
@@Sceadusawol Technically, all skills have a passive option, but they almost never come up, so there's only a slot on the character sheet for Passive Perception. If you, as a DM, want to use Passive Investigation, I think that's cool, but you'll have to get that information from your characters, and maintain it, yourself. That sort of thing is one reason why I get a copy of the character sheets, every time they level up. I have a list of passive abilities on my DM screen, just in case. Usually it's Passive Perception, but sometimes, the smart guy, not the wise guy, is the one who will notice things, because they are something smart-based. Like, maybe they require some lore knowledge, history knowledge, etc. A Passive Nature check would be something to use a lot during forest campaigns, perhaps, while Passive History would be used, actually, in a lot of old places. I think Passive Investigation would be best for a mystery, such as a murder mystery or heist situation, where the adventurers are actually trying to solve it.
@@AuntLoopy123 That's the thing, isn't it? The only time we really see passive checks mentioned in the PHB is Wisdom (Perception). But the observant feat grants +5 to passive Intelligence (Investigation) as well. It's a bit of an oddity.
Question as I had this show up in a game. A player wants to poke about with a stick. I made said player roll perception. He wasn't pleased I didn't make it a automatic pass. So should there be ways of automatically passing the detect trap check without using spells such as detect magic/traps/wand of secrets?
one: is the trap activated by something that a stick could do? e.g. trip wire. If not, no amount of rolling will work, why would it? two: that sounds more like investigation to me, not perception, but ymmv
@@Silkspar It was Isle of the abbey so spoiler warning (or check for refrence) for ghosts of saltmarsh. To me the how he checked it was a flavor for him doing the skill check. pressure plates, trip wire and high level illusions leading to acid vat.
@@falionna3587 I think HOW a PC does something is important. If it is not important to a DM than a simple "I check for traps" "roll perception" succeed? true/false is all you need. I find that boring. Would that same DM allow a simple persuasion roll on a "I convince the farmer to give me his horse?" more directly to the auto-pass: was there a chance of failure? e.g. was bonus higher than, or equal to, the DC+1? if no than a roll is valid.
@@Silkspar True, the dc can change on how they approach the task. But so can a autopass become rather boring for things like traps. But yes there was a chance of failure. The illusion was made to fool senses, the pressure plate was made for humanoid weights.
I noticed you mentioned using passive perception to detect traps and said your opinion on that would be given later in the video, watched twice and still didn't notice your answer. I get that it seems you don't agree with this and they would have to actively search, that's what I do is it what you do?
Me: "icheckfortraps, icheckfortraps, icheckfortraps, icheckfortraps, .... " DM: "Take 4d6 points of damage! You didnt check for traps in that spot!!!!" True story. It actually made me so mad, I have never played a rogue since. I bring it up now in hopes to inspire before do a how to deal with traps video. "icheckfortraps" requirement is one of the top shelf items in how to bad gm collection. It is repetitive, monotonous and only serves to slow the game down. There is no excitement when it is found, only frustration when missed. I told my gm on that game I would never say am doing it again, told him to roll for me cause fine. I check every lamp, every floor tile. I had more fun just ignoring the traps and letting them go off. And this has been my house rule in regards for checking traps for over 20 years. I even did it the following way for pathfinder society because I hate "icheckfortraps" so much. What I do is when I create the trap, I do it as a secret unmodified GM roll and note it with the trap. Whomever is leading the group or moves to chest? I apply that roll with the situation. If it is them moving unhurried or searching? I apply secret GM roll as if they stated they are actively looking. If hurried or not acting cautious, then I go by passive. What does this do? For one, it lets the players, particularily trap finder focus on roleplay instead of a monotonous repetition everybody has to hear. Second is it lets me make the trap more interesting. ", you notice just ahead some branches strangely piled on the side of the road." They dont know what it is. But immediately the players now have something they can investigate and learn/discover what it is in a fun, roleplay way. Or can just listen to, "icheckfortraps...icheckfortraps...icheckfortraps..."
Alternately, at the beginning of a dungeon or wherever there are traps, your DM can tell the usual trap-checker "Make X rolls." Then, the DM writes down those rolls, adds the appropriate modifiers (because of course the DM has a copy of the character sheet, right?), and already knows if the player succeeded or failed. If the player succeeded, then the DM can say, "While checking for traps, you notice..." After that, your party can deal with the fact that their trap-checker just found a trap. If the player failed, then the DM can say, "CLICK! Roll for initiative!" Everyone has one round to act, and at the end of the round, the trap goes off. For funsies, and because you don't want people to say, "Well, I rolled five times, and we had five traps, so I guess we're safe now," make them roll several more times than there are actually traps. So, if you rolled X times, then there are X-3 traps. Heck, you could even roll a d4 or d6, to find out how many extra times they must roll. Of course, that only works, if your character declares that they are checking for traps when they start the dungeon. If they just plow right in, then they haven't done their due diligence, and it's down to passive perception and luck. And lots of clicks. That said, if they declare that they are checking for traps as they go through the dungeon, they should be moving at half-speed, only. If they speed up (because of combat or something), then they are no longer checking for traps. This would also reveal secret doors and stuff like that. Basically, you're are "in search mode," automatically, until you get out of it, or you exit the location. The DM knows how many secrets there are to find, and you don't, so having to roll a set number of times will work fine. I have also seen DMs set up a chart, and have EVERY player roll their dice ten times at the start of a session. Then, they fill out the chart with ten rolls for each player, and using their copies of the character sheets, they know what modifiers to apply, whenever they need to use the next roll. Whenever a situation happens, when they would need such a roll, such as "I've been checking for traps this whole time," then the DM takes the next roll on the chart, adds the appropriate modifiers, and compares it to the current DC of whatever they're facing. Everyone is surprised and doesn't know what will come next, but they do know that they rolled for it. Basically, it's used for any time they would need a passive whatever, including passive history or arcana checks, passive nature checks, and other such things that they might "check," as they encounter a variety of obstacles, but the DM doesn't make them interrupt the play to make the check, since they already rolled in advance. "You read the glyphs, and recognize them from a book you read three months ago. It says..." Or "You see the glyphs and they look vaguely familiar, but you just can't figure them out right now." Those two statements indicate a successful, versus failed, arcana check. Or, you can say, "Look, DM, I will be checking for traps all along, unless I am actively running. So long as I'm moving at half speed, I'm checking for traps. Tell me when I need to actually make a roll," and only roll when there's actually something to find. Of course, asking for a roll pretty much screams "There's a trap!," but it could also be a secret something. Alternately, you can just use passive perception throughout, but with a bonus modifier for whenever they are moving at half speed, and "actively checking for traps." So, if the passive perception is 12, they can spot things of DC 12 and below, at normal speed. But, if they are moving at half speed, their passive perception jumps up to 17, and they can spot most traps and secret doors, or at least spot that maybe there's something there that warrants more investigation. "You get a feeling that something not quite right over in that direction." "OK, I check for traps." NOW you use your roll and real perception check score. There are various ways to handle it. It just boils down to what works for your group. I agree, though. Telling you that you must check for traps on every 5' square is ridiculous and boring as all get-out.
Help me more expierenced DM's; I am had a small discussion with a player about a trap. He had a 19 on an arcane trap that hid behind the wall. So I told them that he didn't see any trap, but the hairs on his neck got upright and he starting having this six sense. After the players tried some things and couldn't find the source, they moved on and the trap was triggerd. The roque wanted to argue that he would be knowleged about arcane traps, since he is a roque. And I said that Arcane traps (especially of this level) are not his speciallity as he is an Assassin Roque and had nothing about magic in his backstory of till this day. So the DC was 17 and he rolled 2 higher. So I played it like he had a bad feeling, but doesn't understand why. Was I wrong in this situation? I expected the players to use detect magic or just an arcana roll. I tried to learn them a lesson of only making the roque scout, by adding a different obstacel. How would you guys have handeld this before and after the encounter?
If I understand this correctly the trap was hidden behind a wall... How does the trap trigger ? From your wording it's a bit hard to give you advice. I think the rogue should have been able to tell it is a trap based on the location and he would have seen some magic writting where the trap his but he wouldn'y have been able to understand what the trap does just how it triggers and that it's propably magic in nature.
@@sirxarounthefrenchy7773 Ah yes. So basically the mechanism and writing was behind the wall. And if someone entered the area in the hallway where the players arrived it would trigger. The entire hallway is misty (normal and arcane mist in trap area). So think of it like Infra red (If I understand that right). Something enters this magical mist, triggers the sigil behind the wall to activate the mechanism. Floor starts going up and down and a noise goes off. So except the mist, I had decided that there wouldn't be a visual sign that an not arcane-know-it-all would see.
@@BrotherHood-xh9sg you would benefit from a perception check to notice some arcane markings triggering an arcana check instead of hiding everything out of sight. If it is hidden, there should be multiple clues that there is more and the players need to keep looking. When the trap is completely hidden it feels bad for the players if the consequences are harsh. If the consequences are minimal then maybe you can get away with it but not often without it being annoying to the players.
@@davidrose7938 I see. Then how do you suggest to make dungeon crawling more enjoyable for the other players? Right now I see that the roque would scout ahead and the other players would simply tune out till something happens, that will involve their characters. So I try to put obstacles that need a STR check or need teamwork (like a button combination that requires communication). But even with those things it goes like; You are walking in a corridor, Roque; I check for traps, he rolls, we move on, etc. and eventually we reach a fight or a divers obstacle and the other people look up and now have a turn. Short Question; How can I give other classes their fair share of the time to shine during dungeon delving?
@@BrotherHood-xh9sg “Hey player whom is not the rogue, you notice this thing that makes sense for your class to know. It reminds you of this thing you saw in a previous room. Perhaps it foreshadows what is to come. “ If the Rogue walks into it after that, then so be it. It was shown and foreshadowed and the group figured it out after they walked past all of that and straight into it. The table should erupt in cries of “it was all right there, we should have connected the dots”. Ultimately, as DM you place everything in front of them. They should have multiple options for success. If there is only one option that one of the players could do then its coming real close to railroading.
If a player built their character to have a high passive perception, they did so under the assumption that it will pay off in being able to find secrets/traps without them having to 'call out a check'. My recommendation would be to decide this EARLY and let them know if those investments will be worthwhile, or if the stats/feats would be better spent somewhere else. Otherwise it's a case of 'not giving the player knowledge their character would know', something I refer to as 'reverse metagaming'.
@@MJ-jd7rs thanks! The problem I would find on relaying in passive perception is that they might stop investigating and just run into the dungeon careless. But I think that's solved by increasing the DC sometimes. I appreciate your comment even though, and I think I will do that. Thanks!
@@alejogarciainesta1434 Well, keep in mind some 'other' rules when it comes to passive perception. Mainly in dim light you are at disadvantage to perception checks (that rely on sight) which translate to -5 to your passive perception score. Likewise if 'moving quickly' (aka, you're not moving at half speed), you're at disadvantage as well. So a character with 20 passive perception in darkness (with dark vision) only has an 'effective' passive perception of 15. So sure, he'll detect low level traps, but not the big ones. Now a character with 28 passive perception (like my ranger with the observant feat (+5 passive perception) and the eyes of the eagle - advantage on perception checks (+5 passive perception)), they CAN move carelessly as much as they like, but that's a SIGNIFICANT investment.
Most annoying place for a trap...aka the best place. Right on the other side of a door. That way they look for traps on the door find none, open and step directly onto the trap mechanism. Of course you could set a trap in front of the door, then trap the door, and put one on the other side, or any combination of that to really mess with them. I have definitely had fun with ones that separate the party. You just need to be careful with those since they can make the game slow way down if you don't balance things to do for both sides without it being too much to do.
For even more fun, substitute feather for the second part, then add a kobold telling a trio of trolls "The agreed upon giant chickens have arrived in time for your dinner."
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"If you were to punch someone in the face the nose is a good target, you don't have to pick an original one." The Barbarian wrote that (excellent) advice.
A wise DM once said that there are three kinds of PC death: the death the players blame the dice for, the death the players blame themselves for and the death the players blame the DM for. The first is okay, the second ideal and the third to be avoided at all costs.
I think this applies in spades to trap design. If the players think the trap is fair and it was just a bad dice roll, meh. If the players realise they were given every opportunity to avoid the trap and they screwed it up, great. If the players think the DM just killed a PC by fiat, the campaign is almost certainly doomed.
I agree.
That's a really good statement Nick. That has me thinking: " _How do I make a trap that the players will blame themselves for falling for_ ?" I'm not good with traps.
Maybe I'm a soft DM, but in my long campaign (now 1,5yrs running, at session 35) I would never let the players die purely based on bad dice rolls. Bad plan/decisions + bad rolls is a deserved death, but if they are trying their hardest, making good rational and tactical decisions etc., I would never let them die on a bad roll. I would totally let someone randomly eat it in a short game or oneshot, but if you're playing for such a long time so commitedly, I personally would blame myself if they made all the good desicions and still ate dirt because of some bad rolls. Feel free to argue hard against me, I'm curious about how people run their games and I am not easily offended =)
@@elendiel I would say that as a general rule, the DM should never set up a situation where a single bad roll can kill a PC. Obviously things can happen when you didn't realize the PC would only have 10 HP when they needed to make the roll, but in general a PC death should be the result of a cascade of failures rather than a singular mistake. (Excluding things like "I jump off the cliff for lolz", of course.)
It's probably just because of the type of campaigns I run, but I don't find PC death adds much to the game outside of really dramatic circumstances like "Run! I'll hold the line!". Having character continuity improves both the story and the players' investment, I feel, which in my view actually increases drama. For example, I don't ever have enemies use "make this save or die" spells, because if the PC succeeds it doesn't feel dramatic and if they fail it feels unsatisfying and cheap. Likewise with really crippling "permanent until you pay a Cleric to make it go away" effects. "Make this save or be incapacitated for the rest of the fight" is much more fun in my experience, because it creates a problem for the players to solve (fighting with a man down) without sacrificing months of character investment or making the affected player feel shortchanged.
@@michaelramon2411 Completely agree. I never wanna kill my players in a long campaign, unless they sacrifice themselves, or make a bunch of really silly decisions. On the other hand, there has to be a credible threat, and consequences, so maybe they don't die, but they get a severe injury/curse that they have to live with. Maybe they lose some of their hard-earned loot. Maybe a beloved NPC dies, because they weren't able to stop the hunting party of orcs. My rule of thumb is, that they should have a 90% chance of success in encounters (if they play reasonably well), but they should feel like they have about a 40% chance. I don't want a character to die, but I do want the players to shit their pants sometimes :D
I think the best trap I ever designed was one that was not meant to cause any harm at all, or no immediate harm. The rogue managed to find the trap but failed on the disarm check so it triggered. All that happened to him though was a strange goo spurt out and covered him. It did no harm to him, or curse him or anything else to him except make him smell bad. He thought it was just a dud. Meanwhile, the main boss of the dungeon now had a way of tracking him. The monster was a Minotaur and I just had it move randomly about the dungeon using a d6 to determine the way it went. I would allow him to hit walls if that was the direction it rolled. However, after the trap had been sprung, instead of going to a wall, he went in the direction of the player. You should have seen the players face when the realization of what happened came over him. "He smells me!"
Shout out to the dwarven fighter in my game that saw the pressure plate and scratches by the wall, deciding that it was just going to release some creature. So he stepped on it.
Just before the wall panel slammed him in the face.
lol
Theres mechanical and magical traps sure, but what about natural traps? A worn out pillar or unstable rock formation could make for a dangerous and noisy encounter, potentially even separating players from each other. Last thing you want in a cave full of sleeping serpents is a broken leg because a rock crushed it while cutting off your escape route.
Agreed. I would consider it an actual trap like that to be a subset of mechanical traps.
Natural hazards are not detected by the find traps spell either.
I usally use these as it makes more sense to me, the same way dungeon are scares in my world it feels more natural
@@TerryAVanguard same. Natural traps should be large, common and non-lethal. Deadly traps that are constructed as deadly traps should be a rare thing used either by a watchful hunter or as a part of fortifications during a war.
My party has adopted the "click" rules for basic traps. The party rounds a corner, DM describes the scene and what they see down the hallway or in the room, player says they step forward, the DM says "click" and waits for a response, the player that triggered the click has only a couple seconds to tell the DM what they do in response to the click. Something like "i drop prone" or "i press myself against this wall". Then if the trap would miss them based on that action they successfully dodge the trap, if not then they fall victim to the trap. Additional saving throws might be required in order to escape the trap after they are caught in it depending on the circumstances.
My party likes it, its adds a bit of excitement and action and dramatic quick thinking to the situation to spice things up rather than just "roll a dex save to see if you dodge the arrows coming out of the wall" "oh no..." (starts rolling)
I do a 'telegraphing' trap system, which I find helps to make the traps a bit easier to involve in a combat. For perception I make it part of passive perception.
Initiative-The trap declares it's action at the top of the initiative order. This allows the players to react. At the bottom of the initiative or initiative zero, the trap's effect goes off.
Example-A slot on the wall opens to reveal a bunch of flame jets. It looks like it will spray in a line effect, 40 ft long. I then draw this on the battle mat with a red marker and an arrow to indicate range and direction. Players fight, do things, some get out of the way, some can't because the enemies box them in. At the end of the initiative, the flame jet goes off, everyone in that line makes a reflex (or dexterity for 5e) save for half damage.
Next round, perhaps a different jet opens while the first closes to reload. But same idea.
It's great for effects like a swinging blade going back and forth, or a trap that can adjust it's direction. I even used it for spiders who had boulders stuck to the ceiling and were cutting them loose to drop on players. Think of it like throwing a grenade. You pull the pin and throw it. After a short delay it goes off. What to people do? Clear the area or get caught in the blast.
NOTE-This is for traps that I want to have an impact on the combat. Out of combat I use the standard trap rules. They typically replicate hazards in video games, like the spinning fire in Mario, or the rolling boulder traps in Dark Souls.
The DM Lair guy shows just how much he has no proficiency in kitty cat language: the cat's insight on traps was quite ingenious! He should own the channel. XD
I mean, my cats ARE taking over my channel...
Had a dungeon with several traps for the party to solve, what I didn’t tell them directly was that the traps were already disarmed and puzzles were already solved. >.> they weren’t the first people to go through the dungeon as the quest itself was tracing the steps of a missing party
I came across a trap on a homebrew wiki some time ago, and I really liked it and hope I can put it in an adventure if I ever get to play a game.
The trap is a magnetic floor, smooth and unassuming. The trigger is a lever or button mechanism either on the other side of the room or behind a wall where an enemy is watching the party. Upon activation, if the party is carrying any metallic weaponry, they must make a DC 15 strength save or have their weapons pulled to the magnetized floor. On a success, they maintain hold of their weapons but will be attacking with them at disadvantage for as long as the floor is active.
If they are wearing metal armor, such as plate, the DC is (if I recall correctly) a 25. If they fail, they are knocked prone and considered restrained unless they make another strength save to attempt to stand. On a success, they remain standing but their movement is halved for the duration of the trap.
Obviously you can lower or raise the save DCs at your leisure. It doesn't even have to be a floor. You could magnetize the ceiling if you wished. I just thought it would be a fun little devious trap, especially for particularly intelligent kobolds.
The ceiling. One of my daydreams is sticking my enemies to the ceiling, and leaving them there, until I have cooled off enough to come back and ask if they're ready to apologize.
This is a really cool trap.
"You're prone. On the ceiling."
One of my favorite traps of all times was a possible tpk trap. The thing is this trap was both very difficult and very simple at the same time. In the courtyard to the dungeon there is a statue. With a dc of 5, in other words anybody's passive perception oh, you would spot a compartment on the statue. Opening the compartment would reveal a key. Then when you got the entrance of the dungeon there are two Onyx doors that match the Onyx key you just found with a keyhole. The trigger for the Trap is on the door. The DC of the Trap itself is 40. How it works is this. The door appears to be unlocked. If the party use the key in the door the Trap is disarmed. However if the party opens the door in any other way than using the key the Trap is armed. At that point the floor is pressure-sensitive. The doors open inward. When the last of the party is past the doors oh, the door slams shut. If the party tries to open the doors they find they cannot. Close examination reveals that this is because the floor is now higher then the bottom of the door. Put it simply the door is put it simply the floor is now Rising towards the ceiling. It takes 5 minutes for the floor to reach the ceiling. There is an out. There is a escape hatch at the back of the room that is hidden behind the tapestry. Dc-15 to find. The party has 3 minutes to find an escape through the Escape hatch. If they do not the consequences are inevitable.
I should also cover the rooms description. Because the flares would notice this before they got through the doors. In the center of the room there is a stone sarcophagus with a black skeleton laying on it. This is a CR 4 monster. In the ceiling of the room there is a depression that is the exact size of the stone sarcophagus. If the party PetSmart the Trap as soon as the door slams shut the skeleton sits up and laughs at the party but otherwise does nothing. If the party uses the key in the door, thus keeping the truck from arming, dim the skeleton will attack the party.
One final notation. If the party does set off the Trap oh, while the skeleton will not attack, if the party attacked the skeleton it will fight them to its fullest extent. Time spent fighting the skeleton should be kept careful track of. This trap is designed for a group of level 4 characters.
Interesting. I'm not the one to appreciate tpk traps, but this seems interesting
@@joem1480 So what if one or more party members decide to pile into the sarcophagus? Will they have to fight the skeleton then if the trap is set off? (I mean it seems obvious that the trap probably resets itself for the next batch of victims yes?)
@@minnion2871 I think I am wrong in describing it as a sarcophagus cuz it doesn't actually open. It is just a protrusion in the shape of a sarcophagus that is solid with black skeleton lying on the top
No one else gonna point out he described the Star Wars Trash Compactor trap wrong?
First, it was a relatively standard pit trap, but it was super deep so climbing back out wasn't an option. It was also full of garbage, so in D&D, the DM could ask for Constitution saves to resist disease.
Second, one of the primary dangers of this pit was that it was magnetically sealed, which meant their weapons were reflected off the walls, risking injuring themselves or each other if they tried breaking the door down.
Next, the monster didn't attack while they were being crushed. It actually fled the battle when it heard the crush trap get activated. "It let go of me and disappeared!"
So the monster was a DM stall tactic to make sure the party didn't escape before the walls could trigger.
They only escaped by using a ranged communicator to have R2 hack the system and shut down the compactor remotely.
What are you talkin about I never make mistakes. I'm perfect. LOL
@@theDMLair I'm sure you were distracted by Little Guy, while you were watching the scene, so that excuses it.
I used to build traps for a LARP I played, which has greatly informed my table-top game traps.
In the LARP I played, traps had a few simple requirements. They had to have a minimum size to "hold" the amount of damage they do, they had to be possible to disarm, and they had to be able to be set without triggering them.
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As I use them in my games a trap needs to answer the journalism questions. Why is this trap here, who built it, what triggers the trap, when was it placed, where is the trigger and the damage happening, and how does it work.
I added some options after watching news stories from Iraq. Command detonation is the idea that someone is watching the area protected by the trap (IED, IRL) and setting it off when the right kind or number of target(s) is in the area of effect. So imagine a goblin sitting on guard duty on a hidden ledge overhead who cuts the rope releasing the rock-slide when he sees enemies approaching.
The saves here are important. You always want to avoid the players feeling like you just decided they'd die.
Thank you for this! This was super helpful. I'm building my very first one shot campaign and I've been looking for videos that do step by step encounter building for traps combat and puzzles and this was the first trap video I saw that really gave me the simplest breakdown. Everyone seems to talk around these subjects of things to keep in mind but very few actually give you the step by step breakdown on how to build so thank you so much! New subscriber for definite!
ITS A TRAP
Nice
Obviously.
*Cue space battle over Endor theme*
May the force be with you Admiral
It's always a trap.
Oh you Admiral Ackbar. Your Investigation score is the highest of them all.
8:56 Slight correction: Luke got attacked first, then the creature fled when it sensed the compactor had been activated. Then the walls started moving.
Double pressure plates rule. I'd set a DC for the first and a higher one for the second. You only get one roll, if it's not high enough yeah, you'll see the first plate, good luck falling into the pit after you jump over.
Tried-and-true. :-)
Trap Idea:
The party finds a Chicken (Blood Hawk, CR 1/8) pecking the floor in a generic dungeon room; the trap only triggers if anyone damages or kills the chicken. When the trap is triggered, a 9th level Conjure Animals spell is cast and all the summoned Chickens swarm the character who damaged the Chicken.
What happens if they adopt the chicken?
What do you think of this as a "Trap" Zombie Pig:
Basically the trap consists of a roasted pig sitting on a platter with an apple in it's mouth, the pig already has some slices taken out of it's shoulder and has a silver fork sticking out of it's shoulder where the slices were taken out. Laying on the platter next to the pig is a silver knife to match the fork. (Skill check to notice the rotten smell, and the rot grubs in the pig) Cutting into or otherwise disturbing the pig causes it to "Wake up" and now you have to fight a zombie pig.... (It makes a lot of noise and could alert the necromancer and his minions to your presence in his kitchen)
Secondary to this I'd have some barrels containing "rancid crabs" (Stinky zombie crabs that have the troglodytes stench aura, which are contained within the barrels and can be smashed open by the zombie pig as it rampages around the kitchen thus unleashing more enemies for the players to deal with...)
I love DM’s squint/frown expression as his PCs are discussing the trap. So dang relatable.
Video idea: how to use op creatures like beholders or aboleths
Love the video dude! Super useful 😁👍
Thanks happy to help!
When placing a trap in a dungeon, think realistically. If the trap could potentially be triggered by the dungeon's inhabitants, or builder, it wouldn't be placed in a location where they are likely to walk through on a regular basis, unless the trap is just an alarm. Nothing sucks worse than building a death trap and coming home drunk and forgetting to disable it.
If your trap uses a magical sensor that won't trigger when the dungeon's inhabitants pass, then it's safe to put it anywhere, but if it uses a mechanical trigger, then it should be used to guard sensitive areas that the dungeon inhabitants don't regularly go.
How are the "dungeon's inhabitants" described to a magical trap? What are the exact words used? Does this sort of thing expect a fairly static membership, or might it need refreshing regularly as the population of the dungeon changes?
@@FrostSpike Well, that would be up to the DM to decide, but spells like glyph of warding and alarm say in their descriptions that you can choose to have any creature trigger it, specify which creatures can trigger it, or specify certain creatures which can't trigger it. So, the rules for magical sensors are already established in the books to allow the DM to create a trap that can't be triggered by certain creatures. Yes, it's possible the traps would need updating if new guards were hired for the dungeon. However, it could also be possible that the trap's sensor looks for any creature not carrying a specific object. Use something very mundane, not valuable, something the PCs will likely overlook, and suddenly you have magical security cards, and the PCs can try to figure out that these seemingly innocuous items actually bypass traps, and now it becomes a bit of a puzzle.
My main point was to use a bit of logic when placing traps in your dungeons. If you own a building, and want a security system to protect it, you're likely going to use an alarm to alert guards if you plan to regularly use that building. However, if it's just a storage building you likely won't be visiting again for like a year, and you don't want to employ guards, then you might consider using more severe traps.
@@FrostSpike All the guards have a patch or token or ribbon, or something that identifies them as working there. If you kill one, and you loot the body, among the things you find, the DM WILL mention this item, which means it's significant. Pick that up, carry it through, and none of the traps will trigger, even if you find them, first.
Alternately, all the guards are taught the password, which disables the trap for 5 seconds, long enough to dash through.
The GM described the statue of a blue dragons head roaring at the end of a narrow hallwhay.
Imagine my suprize when i reached the trigger and the halwhay got shutt by segmented falingdoors with a guardian golem atacking my isolated and cornered halflingbuttox.
I grabbed your traps pdf off of there and they are really great. Thank you, nice compilation
Here's a free idea for a trap that I'm using for an upcoming dungeon in my homebrew campaign.
Door to a chamber in the dungeon, where the door itself is set to open into a 20ft pit where the player who triggered the trap falls in if they fail the initial dex save. Then after takin the 2d6 fall damage, that player sees that the wall back up is greased ad they have fallen into a Tiger pit.
So there's people/keepers around to feed/water the tiger between unfortunates dropping in? Is there a tunnel (or something) at the bottom of the pit to allow the tiger to come & go - maybe there's a cage/pen somewhere that the tiger goes to? Is there some sort of magic that petrifies the tiger between visitors (so it doesn't need food or get bored) and only releases it when another live creature of Small or larger size is in there? Or is a tiger magically summoned when someone falls in - and will vanish after a number of rounds? Creature traps need some further consideration.
@@FrostSpike I like the idea of a magically summoned animal, such as with the Onyx Dog, or some of the other magic items, that summon an animal when the command is given.
As a bonus, if you solve the trap/puzzle properly, you not only escape, but can take with you the magical item to summon the animal.
Sometimes a trap could release a monster or ones to confuse the players. Also great video today.
Agreed, and thanks!
ah yes... the bear trap
I also have made Thieve's Tools proficiency a separate skill.
It basically is already. Using the tools calls for a Dex (Theives' Tools) check.
It is a separate skill. Tbf, 5e handled Tool proficiencies very poorly imo. But all Tool sets have their own independent Proficiencies
“What Dungeon Master school did you graduate from!?”
The one he was high at since joining.
What I did before, just to show my players "Hey, this ruin is trapped", was that in the entrance area there used to be a tripwire connected to 3 bolt guns behind a firing slit. Due to the age of the contraption, the walls composing the firing slit and the bolt guns themselves had somewhat broken down, so when my (really unattentive) players triggered the wire, one of the bolt guns released ITSELF from the wall, hitting him in the side
Haha! Brilliant! The first trap alerts them that there are traps. After that, it's up to the players to do their due diligence here.
I like that the ruined trap is out at the front, where there's most damage from the elements, but inside, where it's protected from wind and rain, the traps still work properly.
i have made a live musgroom like trap. The thing is, you can see parts of it. It is an organism that grows on the ground and walls. On the ground it has capsules that cover victim in spores, and those spores makes spikes on the walls see you, and shoot you. The bigger the room, the more spikes it can have. If players gets into one, he rolls a die that represents room size (6-20) and makes dex saves equal to the number. Each number is a spike for 2d6 damage. My paladin didnt want to investigate too much and got like 94 damage. But those spores produce heat and steam in the room, so you know when you get to them
"Well of course it does, you simple-minded buffoon."
...I think the line is supposed to be _warthog-faced_ buffoon.
What was that about Gary sounding like the rogue? ...I don't hear it. No way, the rogue's voice is shrill and kinda whiny, and when things go wrong he always says 'holy crap, we're screwed!'
Something very important to consider when it comes to traps and puzzles: who designed it, what did they design it for, how do they bypass it, how does it get reset, and what evidence is left behind when it isn't reset?
FOR EXAMPLE:
• If this trap is intended to test whether or not someone is worthy to receive a sacred artifact, and *literacy* and *hopscotch* are not worthiness qualities for this artifact, having the characters hop across a floor covered in tiles with bas-relief carvings of letters on them filters people in or out based on criteria unrelated to worthiness.
• If a specific order of monks or priests are supposed to be able to reach this artifact without too much difficulty, the aforementioned hopscotch puzzle is an example of "too much difficulty".
• If stepping on a wrong tile causes that tile to collapse into a pit, there should already be collapsed tiles. If it triggers an explosion, there should be charred tiles and fragments of stone and burnt flesh apparent in the room. If it causes a gout of flame to burn the person, several of the wrong tiles should be covered in burn marks and melted flesh, and there should be nozzles for the flames to come through. Unless someone has recently cleaned it up and repaired it somehow, there should be plenty of forensic evidence for whatever happens when the trap is activated.
Also, if a puzzle does require in-character literacy, make sure the literacy it requires is literacy in a language that exists in your campaign world.
The environment tells a story. Make sure it doesn't contradict the one you're telling.
My brother told me about a trap he had encountered, long ago.
The party was in some old wizard's tower, and they KNEW it was trapped. They had been absolutely assured that the stairwell was trapped.
Well, my brother looked at the stairwell, and saw that the stone stairs had been well used, for a long, LONG time, as they were worn in the center, but not around the edges.
When his party members made to scootch up around the walls of the stairwell, avoiding the centers of the stairs, he stopped them.
"Look," he said. "Someone lived here for a long time, and used those stairs, day in and day out. Yes, the traps have been here for just as long, but he didn't want to FUSS with them every time he went for a glass of water. You want to avoid the traps? Just walk right up those stairs like you own them."
They disagreed him with, snuck in like sneaking thieves, and got hit by traps. He walked right up the middle after them, all the way to the top, completely unscathed, because obviously, he belonged there.
You have to always consider that if the trap is placed in a location where people regularly live/work/otherwise spend a lot of time there, they WILL have an easy way to bypass it. There may be traps all over the place, and they may be nasty as all get out, but the person who lives there will have an EASY way to get past.
It may be as simple as a magical command word, or it may be simple audacity, or it may be a hidden switch at either end of the passage. Whatever it is, it should be something that the person/people who are there frequently know, easy to access, but difficult to find without knowing about it. Something that BLENDS. Something that won't look significantly more worn than the rest of the stuff in the area, so it's not an obvious switch.
Alternately, the traps could be set up to not go off while the mad mage is living in his tower, but he can set them up, whenever he leaves on a trip or something, so if the tower is empty, you're in trouble, but if you see lights at the top of the tower, just ring the doorbell or walk on in.
Of course, he'll probably have guardians who dislike unannounced visitors.
In my postrift homebrew campaign, in one of my kobold mines I had the kobolds go almost full Vietcong. Tripwire nooses, wall spears, and false step bear traps. But the one trap that caught the party off guard was my toe popper bullet trap. The artificer made it away, but triggered the trap and took 1 piercing damage as he lost a toe. He had it healed back later, but he’s been more careful in dark places.
Cool, more trap related stuff. I especially enjoyed the other recently released video with the story of one of your players falling for a trap. As usual the videos are enjoyable dude.
I don't know why I love your barbarian character so much.
Because he's so sweet and adorable and childlike?
Hmmm... Traps! and, uh, Cats! Now... I must make the ultimate Cat Trap! Step on a pressure plate and release the Dire Kitties!
Read "The Dark Lord Bert" for a wonderful trap, involving adorable kittens. It was glorious. So many people fell victim to the adorable kittens.
One type of traps I like using is the one that locks the players into the dungeon untill they find a different way out or forfill a task in order to reopen the entrance.
But I also like that final trap that protects the item they are supposed to get and that will start a sequence of skillchecks or initiate a final battle with a boss creature.
you forgot my favrot trap. the natrual trap, the kobolds have dark pools off water around there cave, and in the pools arre quippers, or poisonous snakes. or my favrot small lizards that when they get sceared they cast flip gravity till they calm down.
or simple the skeleton coming down a corridor, that turns out to be a gelatinous cube
How do I make my videos to 20 minutes?
3 minute skits at the beginning of every episode.
I like em, keep it up. I'm just joshing
I love your D&D content and also your well-loved cats.
Wait, was this comment not thirsty? Damn...
Thanks! :D
favorite trap i made by far is a kobold warren protected by a swinging vine trap with a wasp nest attached. NOTE ! a swarm of wasps can be deadly to a party low enough level to be tangling with kobolds. I decided the impact of the nest spread the wasp swarm into two half swarms which bonus got two PCS in line with the trap.
A pedalstool that holds a tome both important to character backstory and overall plot. The tome has glyph of warding on it with cloudkill stored. The floor around it is trapped with force cage. The trigger for both is grabbing the tome. Discover the trap or die.
I like the trap. I also like "The IT Crowd." Have you seen it?
Not sure if it technically counts as a "trap", but I had a flying manor, thousands of feet (more accurately, two rounds fall time, with predictable consequences upon acute deceleration) aboveground, guarded by a golem with clear instructions. It was an autonomous defenestrator. Its attack pattern was simple - grapple, drag, push out window. It was neither exceptionally swift or agile, but if it first managed to grab you, your long-term prospects were... not good. ;)
There was also the Limbo Salt incident, back in the days of the third and a halfth edition, where healing potions were, ah, salted with the crystallized essence of the plane of Limbo - essentially causing the effects of the Warp Touch disease from the Book of Vile Darkness to whoever ingested what seemed to be a simple restorative...
Another fun one is an "obvious" pit trap with a well hidden acid pit trap right behind it. Thus if the character jumps over the obvious trap they fall into the second. If the throw their packs over first they lose all their stuff into the now seen acid pit. Fun times and a lot of cussing.
Oooooooh!
How DO they bypass/disarm the trap, though?
@@AuntLoopy123 That is up to you as the DM. A small ledge that they have to balance check to cross is one idea.
What most DMs fail to properly implement with traps is triggers and placement. What they fail to consider is that triggers for traps cannot be placed in areas with wandering monsters because the wandering monster will eventually trigger the trap. It is possible for a monster not to trigger a trap due to lack of mass with a pressure plate, but such circumstances will limit the wandering monster to certain types as well as the traps to certain types. Monsters cannot be effectively trained to avoid traps for the next reason for they are bound to eventually set the trap off.
Traps cannot be practically placed in common traffic areas used by the opponents because the opponents are likely to eventually trigger their own trap eventually. If they are remiss or clumsy when passing their own trap, they may accidentally discharge the trap. Traps are indiscriminate in that they do not recognize friend, foe, or wandering monster. A trap can exist in a common traffic area, but this type of trap is more complex in that they will be disarmed until the opponents arm it during their retreat. This means that if the adventurers are quick enough or stealthy, they could bypass these traps before they are set.
That means if the adventurers are chasing down their opponents as they retreat, someone at the choke point will have to actually arm the trap the opponents are passing by giving a clue to the adventurers. If the trap is already armed, then each opponent passing the trap will have to bypass it in someway, perhaps hopping over the tripwire, again, denoting its presence to observant adventurers. It is even possible that one of the opponents misjudges the trap and succumbs to it. If there is a lever that activates the pit traps down a hallway, keep in mind that the adventurers could find the same lever and deactivate the pit traps as well.
Magical traps can determine friend or foe within limited abilities. They cannot recognize individuals, only generalities. They could be triggered for appearance of a creature that looks like an orc or to ignore quadrupeds. Magical traps could also be attuned to rune/passage stones in that anyone carrying one is immune to the trap, but then again this should be included in any defeated opponent among their gear and the adventurers can use the same rune/passage stone.
Trap placement and triggers need to incorporate a verisimilitude about them in that not just their placement must seem logical, but that traps should be able to reasonably function without killing off the people who place them or the monsters that are in the area. Another thing to keep in mind is that mechanical traps, once sprung, will not reset without aid unless they can operate by gravity, which is only a few tilt/flip traps. Keep this in mind as well as this can sometimes be a clue that traps are ahead when one has been sprung in a dusty old tomb from a wandering monster or an unsuccessful explorer (like Raider of the Lost Ark). The goal is to make the traps seem believable, that their placement is logical, and that you are not just out to screw over the players with ridiculous traps that seem to only discriminate against the adventurers.
If the trap goes off, and you hear a "Tick tick tick tick tick" sound from the mechanism, it is re-arming itself, with a mechanical clock mechanism. Some traps ARE designed to re-arm, but they are, like you said, rather rare and specific.
Tilt and flip traps, on the other hand, are instantly, and naturally, reset. They are the best mouse traps, because you just empty the can of water under the trap, and freshen the peanut butter. You let gravity and balance do all the work.
@@AuntLoopy123 Rearming traps are not realistic for they need someway to rearm/reload themselves. The amount of energy and intricacy involved in resetting a ballista or a crossbow trap so it can fire again are usually going to be beyond practicable and not very believable for this was never really a thing in our reality and unless magic is involved, nor should it be in even a fantasy setting. This on the level of credibility as perpetual motion machines.
Tilt and flip trap are harder to create as they require more skill and talent to make and therefore should only be common in areas where civilization has evolved to this level of engineering.
The reality of booby traps is that they were not that common in reality and those that relied on stored up energy tended not to be resistant to the passage of time. Wood weakens, sinew dries out, glue fails, rope becomes brittle, metal rusts, etc.. While stone tilt traps are more durable, even stone can suffer from water erosion and debris build up.
However, if you play a more Hollywood or comic book style of D&D, then you might just hear a "tick tick tick tick tick" sound.
You should check out the book "Deadly Trappings" from Kenzer and Co. It's system neutral and has a ton of great traps.
The best trap that I have ever thought of is a 30x30 or 40x40 and 40 or 50 foot high room with a magical trap. A trigger in the middle. Once the trigger activates the ceiling becomes the reset switch. And the whole floor becomes the secondary trigger. The trap itself is a Reverse Gravity spell that fills the room. Of course the ceiling, now a reset switch, shut off the spell. And the whole floor, now the secondary trigger. Reactivates the spell.
The Yoyo room. Old school. Works well along a stretch of corridor too.
Bouncy bouncy!
Passive checks are when the DM doesn't want the player to roll for whatever reason (hidden monster, repeated rolls to save time, etc). They can be used when the player asks to use a skill, so a player declaring a skill usage does not make it a non-passive check. It's entirely up to the DM when they want to use passive versus rolling and is not player controlled.
I disagree. They’re an ‘always on’ ability that dictates what your character notices just by walking into a room (per Jeremy Crawford). But everything in dnd is subject to the dm and their group. So if you don’t want to use it that’s fine, just let the players know before they invest in things like the observant feat.
@@MJ-jd7rs - It is explicitly stated as such in the rules, see PHB page 175, "or can
be used when the DM wants to secretly determine whether the characters succeed at something without rolling dice, " Feel free to play it as you choose, like JC does, but that's what the rules say.
Most traps should either contain or kill intruders. It makes little sense for a dungeons defenses to merely deal a small amount of damage and let the intruders continue. Of course, PCs are tougher than regular people, so would probably survive a deadly trap or two, but it still shouldn't be something they can just shrug off and ignore.
This means that as a DM there is more work to do, to put the emphasis on evading or disabling traps rather than triggering them. On the other hand, you need less ready traps to pose a threat to the party. And don't forget to include a way for the dungeon owner to conveniently bypass the trap. No good comes from dying every time you pop out to collect someone eggs.
I now want the adventurers to come across the rotting corpse of a person, holding a basket, with the remains of a bunch of broken eggs. With rumors of how "So-and-so used to come to town every week, and now, no-one has seen him for X-days. Maybe he went off to adventure, or maybe someone killed him and stole all his treasure. I was there, once, for tea, and you should see the valuables in his parlor!"
Don't forget a bunch of emaciated chickens in their enclosure.
I really don't like the intern, but his stabby version is great.
I absolutely love traps!
The nastiest trap I've encountered,
A sleep spell in a room that's filled with toxic smoke.
Lucky my party disabled half the trap,
So they only fell asleep.
¿My nastiest trap?
...
Two corridors forced the adventurer to divide in two teams of 3. A invisible and invincible wall prevented otherwice. If they wanted to go deeper, they needed to split. A few rooms later, with the teams separated so they do not know that they are facing identical challenges with their own traps and the like.
Then, in the final room, called them all in. And told each team that a group of 3 monsters entered from the other side.
They almost TPK themselfs.
OOOOOH! Nasty!
Are there plans for having one of the chonkers do a cameo as fat cat?
That's a great idea I'll need to figure out a way to make that work. Most of my cats do not like getting picked up. LOL
Bucket of water resting at the top of a door. Only the water was acid.
We had just completed a complex puzzle and were not expecting something so simple or singularly targeting.
Good trap video
I like using traps
Thanks dude! :-)
Wanna really surprise the party? Don't make the trigger when the door is opened, make it when the door is closed behind the party. Even better, make the effect fairie fire. Then the baddies spring their ambush.
Yes, beautiful. When the door closes. :D
Sir, I shall pay you with the most hugest respect.
"Watching your videos while I eat"
Well thank you very much. I usually watch Game of Thrones or something on Netflix while I eat. LOL
Hm. What I'd really like is a trap-making guide that focuses on the resources available to whoever set the trap in-setting. A group of monsters that doesn't have stone-shaping powers can't easily install the operating mechanisms behind stone walls, for example. At low level, one justification for easier trap-spotting might be that the trap mechanisms are more out in the open, and thus easier to see. Passive perception might come into play, there: The DM doesn't describe the trap, but may describe the odd carpet, moss, dirt, or whatever that's being used to try to hide the cord (or whatever) connecting the trigger to the trap.
This makes me want to open a store in a big city, called, "Traps R Us," where people who are building dungeons, manor houses, castles, sewers, and basically anywhere they want to protect can purchase a variety of "traps in a box," where you get all the stuff you need for a basic trap. So, you can get "poison cloud hidden behind stone wall," and it comes with its own "stone wall," that you install alongside all the other walls. IF you are lucky, the stone of the stone wall kit actually matches the other walls. If not, well, it might be fairly obvious that particular wall is out of place.
Of course, for a premium price, you can bring in your building materials and have a kit made to match, or have your kit be enchanted with a glamour spell to make it match its surroundings.
I doubt such a business would fare well in a place like Phandalin, but Neverwinter or Amn? Sure!
"Bad guys don't go making traps just for the fun of it"
Kobold: and I took that personally
How to build traps: Heavy deadlifts and farmer's walks. How to build traps in DnD: An houglass to visualise their time running out, and lots of suspension =D
As a player, our dm had a spike pit trap in a dungeon. I jumped ofer the 1st that our monk fell in, thinking "there couldn't possible be another one immediately after." was wrong
I once made a trap that scattered powder over my players that reacted violently with water in the next room. I told them they could brush off the powder, and all of them did except for a player who said that "it was nothing." I informed them that it maybe was unwise to dismiss the powder, and that it could have long-term effects, and they still went onward. In the next room, which was flooded, the same player jumped into the water. Their character took enough acid damage to die, and to this day, they still blame me for "Having a bullsh*t unavoidable trap."
That's not a bad trap. That's a bad player.
If the DM suggests that you might want to brush off the stuff, you should probably brush off the stuff. Especially if the DM follows up with "It might be unwise to dismiss the X" that he just dismissed.
I LIKE that trap. What a twit player.
You are not to blame. At all.
In my head the trap was a plate of pizza thusly why the was no saving throw for barbarian.
That would make total sense. LOL
I'm waiting for fat cat DM now
*Yeeeeaaaa [ kermit the frog ] .*
*I love traps .*
*My favorite ones , have multiple stages and can effect groups .*
*Also video needs more cats 🐱 🐈 .*
Come for the dnd advice
Stay for the cat
good call. The cats are far better at being adorable than I am at being a DM. :D
@@theDMLair I love how much you love your cats. And they love you, which is a good indicator that you are a generally decent person, even if you don't believe that any encounter might be too dangerous for your party.
walkway trap. becomes an oiled slide down. at the end of the slide is a triggered gate spell, this sends the adventurers to a far away place... good luck getting home!
Take a shot every time Luke says "trap". Or dont, because you'll die.
I like putting minor setback traps in combat encounters. A swinging board on top of stairs to knock the player down to the bottom and prone them, or even a classic bear trap. Something to spice up the situation rather than kill or do big damage.
Wonder sights of blurs
Did I say trap a lot? Was this video about traps? LOL
Slow down there Kevin McAllister
Describing traps is so hard. How the triggers are even connected to the damage dealing parts just is beyond me. I would need actual blueprints of the whole mechanism. Therefore your vid is very welcome
Plot twist: the warlock has enchanted everyone so only the barbarian notices the Rogue’s voice
Look up "Grimtooth's Traps".
It's all fun and games until the wizard casts Find Traps.
Then it's still fun and games because that spell changes absolutely nothing about the situation.
did u know u can find traps in a contract with it?
Can you give any advice on how to create compelling character arcs for pcs who aren't particularly motivated to do anything other than what i put in front of them? In other words i guess how do you get the players to make their own decisions on what they wish to do in the campaign?
I love Tuesdays and Fridays
Why's that?
Great video!
This is stolen but one of the best traps I have read one the walls in the blood. It says "Beartrap watch out" and you see bodies that have been cut open not from the feet but the belly. And they see a bear trap that is mechanically linked to the wall. If they dismantle it a wall moves and see a bear charging to hem BEAR TRAP
The bear is the trap!
I like complex sequential trigger traps which can need the set to be disarmed in the proper order or when the last trigger is messed with, it triggers the entire set of traps.
Yes, I am evil.
Never trust a smiling DM.
This DM smiles all the time.
I kinds want to make a dungeon that's so old, all the traps don't work or only half work.
Pit full of snakes? All the snakes died out and you only see their skeletal remains.
Spike launcher? It's so badly rusted it barely leaves the hole, perhaps gets stuck mid launch only poking out and everyone has to menuver around it.
I like this very much. Especially if it was built to be heavily trapped, so the party keeps finding these old and broken traps.
And then once they've become really complacent, they discover the magical trap, that is magically preserved and still in excellent working order.
@@AuntLoopy123
Could play around with the idea that they blew the budget on one or two rooms near the end, which is where the magic trap comes in, the rest are either in disrepair or far too trivial to take seriously, haha.
What about a trap where if you break the tripwire, it blocks the entrance and has a wall of spikes that starts chasing down the party and they are forced to run to the exit. I'm just making it up based off of a trap that was used in Toy Story 2s beginning scene.
When barbarian died, I was kinda hoping for DM to do his maniac laugh.
I need help with puzzles. I'm doing a monster hunting starfinder campaign so I'm trying to make puzzles for both natural environments as well as technological dungeons.
If in doubt, try buying an actual puzzle, such as a puzzle box (to represent what's inside the trapped chest?) or a small physical puzzle that can be solved in a few minutes.
Give the players five minutes to solve it, and if they can't do it in that time, have them make a roll. However, if they do it by roll, they forfeit one of the things that was in the puzzle, such as the free inspiration for the person who solved it, or maybe some gem that "got crushed in your clumsy attempt to open it."
Nastiest trap I ever designed (in 3rd ed) was a simple pit trap (10x10x10) that had already been triggered.
...By a gelatinous cube!
I like a trap that isn’t a trap. Like, it's a portal to another part of the dungeon, but that separates the party, & leaves most of the PCs terrified that the first character was disintegrated or something. That PC has to find the way back to the rest of the party.
Better still, if a corridor becomes blocked, the party is trapped… except now they know they can use the portal to get to the other part of the dungeon. Trick, trap, & puzzle all in one.
No mention of passive investigation?
Next week, perhaps? (I have an Observant Ranger who confuses my group.)
Passive perception will be mentioned in next week's video.
@@theDMLair I didn't say perception. I said passive *investigation*. Only seems to be mentioned in the Observant feat.
@@Sceadusawol Technically, all skills have a passive option, but they almost never come up, so there's only a slot on the character sheet for Passive Perception.
If you, as a DM, want to use Passive Investigation, I think that's cool, but you'll have to get that information from your characters, and maintain it, yourself.
That sort of thing is one reason why I get a copy of the character sheets, every time they level up. I have a list of passive abilities on my DM screen, just in case.
Usually it's Passive Perception, but sometimes, the smart guy, not the wise guy, is the one who will notice things, because they are something smart-based. Like, maybe they require some lore knowledge, history knowledge, etc.
A Passive Nature check would be something to use a lot during forest campaigns, perhaps, while Passive History would be used, actually, in a lot of old places.
I think Passive Investigation would be best for a mystery, such as a murder mystery or heist situation, where the adventurers are actually trying to solve it.
@@AuntLoopy123 That's the thing, isn't it?
The only time we really see passive checks mentioned in the PHB is Wisdom (Perception). But the observant feat grants +5 to passive Intelligence (Investigation) as well.
It's a bit of an oddity.
I got killed in Tomb of Horrors by two traps, one while my intelligence was dropped to 1. All and all, that was a success.
Or it could be molten hot tar maybe a drainage pipe from something always my favorite
That helmet has SCA heavy written all over it.
Question as I had this show up in a game. A player wants to poke about with a stick. I made said player roll perception. He wasn't pleased I didn't make it a automatic pass. So should there be ways of automatically passing the detect trap check without using spells such as detect magic/traps/wand of secrets?
one: is the trap activated by something that a stick could do? e.g. trip wire. If not, no amount of rolling will work, why would it?
two: that sounds more like investigation to me, not perception, but ymmv
@@Silkspar It was Isle of the abbey so spoiler warning (or check for refrence) for ghosts of saltmarsh. To me the how he checked it was a flavor for him doing the skill check.
pressure plates, trip wire and high level illusions leading to acid vat.
@@falionna3587 I think HOW a PC does something is important. If it is not important to a DM than a simple "I check for traps" "roll perception" succeed? true/false is all you need.
I find that boring. Would that same DM allow a simple persuasion roll on a "I convince the farmer to give me his horse?"
more directly to the auto-pass: was there a chance of failure? e.g. was bonus higher than, or equal to, the DC+1? if no than a roll is valid.
@@Silkspar True, the dc can change on how they approach the task. But so can a autopass become rather boring for things like traps. But yes there was a chance of failure. The illusion was made to fool senses, the pressure plate was made for humanoid weights.
I noticed you mentioned using passive perception to detect traps and said your opinion on that would be given later in the video, watched twice and still didn't notice your answer. I get that it seems you don't agree with this and they would have to actively search, that's what I do is it what you do?
My players almost farmed fireball beans, but they ate one and they did not like the results.
Me: "icheckfortraps, icheckfortraps, icheckfortraps, icheckfortraps, .... "
DM: "Take 4d6 points of damage! You didnt check for traps in that spot!!!!"
True story. It actually made me so mad, I have never played a rogue since.
I bring it up now in hopes to inspire before do a how to deal with traps video.
"icheckfortraps" requirement is one of the top shelf items in how to bad gm collection. It is repetitive, monotonous and only serves to slow the game down. There is no excitement when it is found, only frustration when missed. I told my gm on that game I would never say am doing it again, told him to roll for me cause fine. I check every lamp, every floor tile. I had more fun just ignoring the traps and letting them go off.
And this has been my house rule in regards for checking traps for over 20 years. I even did it the following way for pathfinder society because I hate "icheckfortraps" so much.
What I do is when I create the trap, I do it as a secret unmodified GM roll and note it with the trap. Whomever is leading the group or moves to chest? I apply that roll with the situation. If it is them moving unhurried or searching? I apply secret GM roll as if they stated they are actively looking. If hurried or not acting cautious, then I go by passive.
What does this do? For one, it lets the players, particularily trap finder focus on roleplay instead of a monotonous repetition everybody has to hear. Second is it lets me make the trap more interesting.
", you notice just ahead some branches strangely piled on the side of the road." They dont know what it is. But immediately the players now have something they can investigate and learn/discover what it is in a fun, roleplay way.
Or can just listen to, "icheckfortraps...icheckfortraps...icheckfortraps..."
I-check-fort-raps
Alternately, at the beginning of a dungeon or wherever there are traps, your DM can tell the usual trap-checker "Make X rolls." Then, the DM writes down those rolls, adds the appropriate modifiers (because of course the DM has a copy of the character sheet, right?), and already knows if the player succeeded or failed.
If the player succeeded, then the DM can say, "While checking for traps, you notice..." After that, your party can deal with the fact that their trap-checker just found a trap.
If the player failed, then the DM can say, "CLICK! Roll for initiative!" Everyone has one round to act, and at the end of the round, the trap goes off.
For funsies, and because you don't want people to say, "Well, I rolled five times, and we had five traps, so I guess we're safe now," make them roll several more times than there are actually traps. So, if you rolled X times, then there are X-3 traps. Heck, you could even roll a d4 or d6, to find out how many extra times they must roll.
Of course, that only works, if your character declares that they are checking for traps when they start the dungeon. If they just plow right in, then they haven't done their due diligence, and it's down to passive perception and luck. And lots of clicks.
That said, if they declare that they are checking for traps as they go through the dungeon, they should be moving at half-speed, only. If they speed up (because of combat or something), then they are no longer checking for traps.
This would also reveal secret doors and stuff like that. Basically, you're are "in search mode," automatically, until you get out of it, or you exit the location. The DM knows how many secrets there are to find, and you don't, so having to roll a set number of times will work fine.
I have also seen DMs set up a chart, and have EVERY player roll their dice ten times at the start of a session. Then, they fill out the chart with ten rolls for each player, and using their copies of the character sheets, they know what modifiers to apply, whenever they need to use the next roll. Whenever a situation happens, when they would need such a roll, such as "I've been checking for traps this whole time," then the DM takes the next roll on the chart, adds the appropriate modifiers, and compares it to the current DC of whatever they're facing. Everyone is surprised and doesn't know what will come next, but they do know that they rolled for it. Basically, it's used for any time they would need a passive whatever, including passive history or arcana checks, passive nature checks, and other such things that they might "check," as they encounter a variety of obstacles, but the DM doesn't make them interrupt the play to make the check, since they already rolled in advance. "You read the glyphs, and recognize them from a book you read three months ago. It says..." Or "You see the glyphs and they look vaguely familiar, but you just can't figure them out right now." Those two statements indicate a successful, versus failed, arcana check.
Or, you can say, "Look, DM, I will be checking for traps all along, unless I am actively running. So long as I'm moving at half speed, I'm checking for traps. Tell me when I need to actually make a roll," and only roll when there's actually something to find. Of course, asking for a roll pretty much screams "There's a trap!," but it could also be a secret something.
Alternately, you can just use passive perception throughout, but with a bonus modifier for whenever they are moving at half speed, and "actively checking for traps."
So, if the passive perception is 12, they can spot things of DC 12 and below, at normal speed. But, if they are moving at half speed, their passive perception jumps up to 17, and they can spot most traps and secret doors, or at least spot that maybe there's something there that warrants more investigation. "You get a feeling that something not quite right over in that direction." "OK, I check for traps." NOW you use your roll and real perception check score.
There are various ways to handle it. It just boils down to what works for your group.
I agree, though. Telling you that you must check for traps on every 5' square is ridiculous and boring as all get-out.
Help me more expierenced DM's;
I am had a small discussion with a player about a trap. He had a 19 on an arcane trap that hid behind the wall. So I told them that he didn't see any trap, but the hairs on his neck got upright and he starting having this six sense. After the players tried some things and couldn't find the source, they moved on and the trap was triggerd. The roque wanted to argue that he would be knowleged about arcane traps, since he is a roque. And I said that Arcane traps (especially of this level) are not his speciallity as he is an Assassin Roque and had nothing about magic in his backstory of till this day. So the DC was 17 and he rolled 2 higher. So I played it like he had a bad feeling, but doesn't understand why. Was I wrong in this situation? I expected the players to use detect magic or just an arcana roll. I tried to learn them a lesson of only making the roque scout, by adding a different obstacel. How would you guys have handeld this before and after the encounter?
If I understand this correctly the trap was hidden behind a wall... How does the trap trigger ? From your wording it's a bit hard to give you advice.
I think the rogue should have been able to tell it is a trap based on the location and he would have seen some magic writting where the trap his but he wouldn'y have been able to understand what the trap does just how it triggers and that it's propably magic in nature.
@@sirxarounthefrenchy7773 Ah yes. So basically the mechanism and writing was behind the wall. And if someone entered the area in the hallway where the players arrived it would trigger. The entire hallway is misty (normal and arcane mist in trap area). So think of it like Infra red (If I understand that right). Something enters this magical mist, triggers the sigil behind the wall to activate the mechanism. Floor starts going up and down and a noise goes off. So except the mist, I had decided that there wouldn't be a visual sign that an not arcane-know-it-all would see.
@@BrotherHood-xh9sg you would benefit from a perception check to notice some arcane markings triggering an arcana check instead of hiding everything out of sight. If it is hidden, there should be multiple clues that there is more and the players need to keep looking. When the trap is completely hidden it feels bad for the players if the consequences are harsh. If the consequences are minimal then maybe you can get away with it but not often without it being annoying to the players.
@@davidrose7938 I see. Then how do you suggest to make dungeon crawling more enjoyable for the other players? Right now I see that the roque would scout ahead and the other players would simply tune out till something happens, that will involve their characters. So I try to put obstacles that need a STR check or need teamwork (like a button combination that requires communication). But even with those things it goes like; You are walking in a corridor, Roque; I check for traps, he rolls, we move on, etc. and eventually we reach a fight or a divers obstacle and the other people look up and now have a turn.
Short Question; How can I give other classes their fair share of the time to shine during dungeon delving?
@@BrotherHood-xh9sg “Hey player whom is not the rogue, you notice this thing that makes sense for your class to know. It reminds you of this thing you saw in a previous room. Perhaps it foreshadows what is to come. “ If the Rogue walks into it after that, then so be it. It was shown and foreshadowed and the group figured it out after they walked past all of that and straight into it. The table should erupt in cries of “it was all right there, we should have connected the dots”. Ultimately, as DM you place everything in front of them. They should have multiple options for success. If there is only one option that one of the players could do then its coming real close to railroading.
Forgot to mention detecting traps with active perception vs passive. Will you get to that.... later or have I been trapped lol
You said later on you would discuss the use of passive perception in finding traps but it seemed like you never did. Did I miss it?
Yeah, sorry, that will be next week. Messed the script up.
@@theDMLair Bummer. I have totally been going back and forth in my game on how to treat that. Well I'll look forward to it then.
So, would any of you recommend to detect traps with the passive perception?? Thankss!
If a player built their character to have a high passive perception, they did so under the assumption that it will pay off in being able to find secrets/traps without them having to 'call out a check'.
My recommendation would be to decide this EARLY and let them know if those investments will be worthwhile, or if the stats/feats would be better spent somewhere else. Otherwise it's a case of 'not giving the player knowledge their character would know', something I refer to as 'reverse metagaming'.
@@MJ-jd7rs thanks! The problem I would find on relaying in passive perception is that they might stop investigating and just run into the dungeon careless. But I think that's solved by increasing the DC sometimes. I appreciate your comment even though, and I think I will do that. Thanks!
@@alejogarciainesta1434 Well, keep in mind some 'other' rules when it comes to passive perception. Mainly in dim light you are at disadvantage to perception checks (that rely on sight) which translate to -5 to your passive perception score. Likewise if 'moving quickly' (aka, you're not moving at half speed), you're at disadvantage as well.
So a character with 20 passive perception in darkness (with dark vision) only has an 'effective' passive perception of 15. So sure, he'll detect low level traps, but not the big ones.
Now a character with 28 passive perception (like my ranger with the observant feat (+5 passive perception) and the eyes of the eagle - advantage on perception checks (+5 passive perception)), they CAN move carelessly as much as they like, but that's a SIGNIFICANT investment.
@@MJ-jd7rsmuch clearer now! Thanks for your time :)
I'll be discussing my thoughts on passive perception in next week's video. (I don't use it.)
Most annoying place for a trap...aka the best place. Right on the other side of a door. That way they look for traps on the door find none, open and step directly onto the trap mechanism. Of course you could set a trap in front of the door, then trap the door, and put one on the other side, or any combination of that to really mess with them. I have definitely had fun with ones that separate the party. You just need to be careful with those since they can make the game slow way down if you don't balance things to do for both sides without it being too much to do.
My favorite trap is to spray the party with a sticky web-like substance and then follow that up with a jet of flaming oil.
For even more fun, substitute feather for the second part, then add a kobold telling a trio of trolls "The agreed upon giant chickens have arrived in time for your dinner."