One of my favorite dungeons: characters enter the complex seeking a mcguffin for their employer, set off a trap that sprays them with a fine mist. Nothing happens. Puzzled, they continue. Next room features pressure plates that cause globes of intense light to flare, dazzling the characters and disturbing a nest of spiders. Lights seem harmless other than dazzling. Next trap triggers a flare of brilliant silver light, no apparent effect. Characters find the mcguffin and steal it. Employer thanks them, leaves. They later figure out employer is a vampire, who would have been very unhappy to encounter to spray of holy water, the sunlight globes, or the extremely empowered turning effect. Traps should definitely inform a clever player about Team Us, and also what they are expecting Team Them to be.
A thing I see a lot of people forget is that monsters in D&D can have immunities, Liches who trap their layer could literally have the entire dungeon filled with poison air or even no air at all. Fire giants could instead of having a door have a curtain of lava. Their biology is the way to bypass the trap as it were.
This is also why Beholder lairs make extensive use of verticality. And/or always-on magical hazards. Beholders don't just float, but project a cone of anti-magic in front of them. _They_ don't have to worry about getting around. That's for stupid, land-bound cretins with no anti-magic to worry about.
@@Bluecho4 but they also want their differently abled minions to navigate the lair without difficulty so their errands can b be accomplished in timely fashion. Maybe their inner sanctum is protected like that, but I'd imagine the majority of the lair is accessible (if tricky and trapped)
Exactly. The only reason not to do this is if it would literally make the dungeon unbeatable for some parties. Of course having the initial puzzle being the players figuring out how to survive in the dungeon could be fun. I found a nice compromise by running a dungeon owned by a mummy who had a huge tanker of liquid poison that would open behind the players once they were too far into the dungeon, slowly flooding it behind them. This puts the players on a time limit, now they can't take any long or short rests and the mummy is basically fine no matter what happens.
or that lethal poison is super illegal and expensive and hard to get? :D Or a poison that makes you turn purple makes you easy to identify. ( imagine bank putting real bombs instead of paint bombs in money xD )
I'd also consider a less lethal poison as a warning, "I'm not interested in killing you but I'm serious about keeping you out and don't care about your wellbeing. Consider yourself warned."
Leader working with bad guys doesn’t trust his underlings. Instead of poison, uses ink. If underlings try to steal from him, they’ll think they’re poisoned as the ink makes its way along the bloodstream. He sees the “ink stain “ and knows who’s been in his stuff.
Then either what's behind the trap also has a sell-by date or team us didn't think ahead, or team us all died unexpectedly and left the thing in a temporary location.
Favorite of mine: Door in the Thieves Den. Doorknob is engineered assuming most people are right handed. If the knob is turned clockwise, rods inside the door slam into place silmilar to a safe and guaranteeing the door won’t budge. An alarm also sounds. Members of the thieves band know to turn the knob counter clockwise to open it.
Sick. Love it - it'd be great to leave clues in notes, and that the big weakness of this lock is that people love to brag about it or make fun of those who set off the trap. "Old Gorn knew better, but his normal reflex kicked in and fucked up, and now his best robes are burnt to a crisp." Those'd be great clues. Nicely done.
But how do you know the way players turn it without asking them about it and so giving away the biggest clue? I mean, a person most likely will say "I open the door" or maybe "I turn the doorknob"
@@zozilin Once the knobs turned the traps either been sprung or not sprung. The sound of the rods slamming into place and the alarm sounding is a bigger clue.
@@zozilin You can reasonably assume anyone with basic intelligence will, out of habit, turn the knob to the right. Another way to do it would be to change it to a handle, and then assume everyone is pushing it down instead of up. I work at a hotel and lemme tell you - nobody thinks to turn the handle up. Doors get stuck all the time, it can be reasonably solved by turning the handle up. Safety doors tend to "stick" when you push on the door, and then turn the handle, as you basically force it to stay locked with pressure. Almost nobody attempts this. Admittedly, this might be a good time for a low-intelligence player to shine. If a player had an intelligence score under 10 and attempted to open the door, I might let them go through completely unharmed as they don't use any preconceived notions about how the door opens. More intelligent people would know which way you're "supposed" to open it, whereas less intelligent people might actually do it the wrong way. Even if the less-intelligent character goes through fine, it might be difficult to replicate what they'd done - or more likely, the players would think that door wasn't trapped at all. If you want to hide it, make them roll an intelligence saving throw after the trigger has been trapped. Until the players specifically speak about the handle, or nail an investigation check, you can reasonably assume they'd turn the handle the typical way. One way to sneak it in is to simply say that when they open the door they turn the handle. Dropping that little detail everytime they open a door seems like it might give it away, but that's subtle enough that most players wouldn't think twice about it. As soon as you describe the door as having a knob (or handle in some cases) they'll likely let their own real-life-prejudice get in their way. If you wanted to make a really unique check, everytime they open the door make an ultra low failure intelligence saving throw DC. For instance a 5. The trick is, that a success is actually a failure. If you succeed, you recognize how doors are supposed to open and use that knowledge. If you fail, you open the door "the wrong way" and it actually disarms the trap. It'd be enough to tip off your players something is going on with the doors, but not enough for them to figure it out, as their abilities that stack success actually are hindering them in this fashion. Until suspicion is seriously cast on the door, or the potential of turning the knob or handle the other way is brought up by the players via a History, Investigation, or similar check.... you don't have to say anything to hint, because it's very reasonable to assume players know how to open "typical" doors.
I like the idea of traps that make narrative sense. My favorite dungeon I've designed was an old abandoned wizard school; all the traps were glyphs of warding storing nonlethal spells, triggering if any non-professor opened the trapped container, because they didn't want to actually kill their students (stuff like a Levitate-for-a-few-hours trap, and one that cast Continual Flame on the thief's head). These were inconvenient, but any mid-level spellcaster could easily dispel the effects (but the students couldn't). I think my players thought I was going easy on them with the nondamaging traps until they figured out that every trapped chest they'd opened had booze in them, and I reminded them that this school generally taught teenagers.
I literally did this once at a wizards' academy. The player could have done the legwork to find the password for the arcane-locked door or brute-forced it, but instead they said "I forgot the password!" which triggered a Magic Mouth posing a riddle as the wizard's security question.
The doors of moria weren't supposed too be a riddle door. They were intended to be language lock. It was established earlier in the book that very few noldor/high elven speakers remained in middle Earth. Hollin, the elven nation that was built smack up against the walls of moria, was a noldorian nation, and the doors had been installed there for the sake of opening a trade route. And it makes utter sense to make the door open to the rare language of the people you want to trade with. (Plus, there was a garrason of guards stationed at the door when it was in use )
I've been toying around with the idea of a mix between having a language be a key by itself to open the door and being able to deduce what the key is if you know part of the language. I envision "modern" Elven basically having derived from a dialect of Sylvan. Today there's an obvious distinction between the two languages just like Latin and any romance language, but far back in time, ancient elven was much closer to Sylvan than it is at the time the adventurers discover the door. A character (or two, since it's fun when the party works together) who understand both Elven and Sylvan automatically understand the ancient Elven. if they only know one, they'll be given half of a puzzle and the players need some level of cleverness to fill out the blanks. Still working on how to make this work in practice, but it's a decent way to show through a puzzle that this ruin is very old (it's not like a language belonging to near immortal beings age or change quickly) and establish a tiny bit of world building by saying there's a connection between the Sylvan and Elven languages. I might even be able to reuse the puzzle in some form by saying that if you know a language that uses a specific alphabet like Dwarven, then you don't necessarily need to know Draconic to deduce what's written on a door. Of course, the shortcut to solving these riddles is the Comprehend Languages spell so I'm discouraged by putting too much energy into something the players don't need to solve because their characters have abilities that should make them automatically succeed on the challenge.
@@scottmcdivitt2187 True, but to the suspicious mind, it became a riddle. Agreed, the Elven language is the real key. Another favorite of mine comes from Foucault's Pendulum. The prompt for a PC password is, Do you know the password? The character knows the user is a Kaballah expert, goes through various permutations of God's name, then in frustration finally types "no" for the password. Which of course is correct.
@@oOPPHOo comprehend languages breaks so many things. I'm inclined to think some of those spells should be toned down a bit. Like comprehend languages or detect traps. I haven't really had that problem. I'm using the optional rule where a short rest is a night, and a long rest is a week. It makes people... cautious...of their spell slots.
In defense of Severus Snape, the theory I'm behind is that the "layers of defense" of the Philosopher's Stone weren't actually intended to keep Voldemort out of the inner chamber. They were intended to keep him focused on getting there and make him feel like it was his best shot at resurrection, so that he wouldn't leave Hogwarts and go after other, more practical ways of returning to life. If Dumbledore only wanted to keep him away from the stone then he could have left it in his desk cupboard and never told anyone.
So I'm running a game tomorrow morning that will feature a puzzle lock on a door in a beholder's lair. Thank you so much for pointing out how stupid that is at the perfect time, now there'll be a note saying something like "Stop leaving clues for yourselves!" and the hints hidden around the room by its various minions.
Finley McLaren That's actually a great idea of how to get around that plothole in an intelligent and funny way. After all, it's so human to do that, and that's exactly what would happen if some powerful being decided to put a complex puzzle lock on a door
Update: The fighter in heavy armour decided to scout ahead in the hub of the beholder's lair, alerting it and several of it's minions, turning the session into a four hour combat encounter. The party escaped but is now invisible, a giant owl, and a tiny spider statue reapectively (the fighter was petrified twice in the battle). No sign of a puzzle door.
YES! This needed to be said! My game has a wizard's tower. If you walk up to the door, a magic mouth spell tells you to "Go away, the master isn't in, you have no business here!" Written on the doormat is a moderately difficult riddle. The answer to the riddle sets off the glyph of warding on the door, injuring/killing the intruders and alerting the wizard's minions. He's forgetful though, so there's a spare key under his doormat.
I love it, it adds a layer of politics and 'large' scale warfare into the game as well as some awesome new magic items. There is also an adventure included. The art is amazing and the mechanics for all the different kinds of strongholds is awesome!
I was practically harassing my wife to catatonic rage (yes I know that don't work) with my persistent squee just from seeing the samples and lineup of artists in the backer updates. The book seriously gives some of the WotC core books a run for their money.
Just going to point out, my computer has a "password hint." Maybe hints to the password on a door isn't such a bad idea, so you don't forget what the password is.
Sure, but those secret questions tend to, again, be something you would know or not know just by being yourself. Mother's maiden name, first pet, childhood favourite toy, rather than puzzles anyone could potentially work out. A riddle or hint or what have you would serve less as a password reminder for someone in the know and more as a captcha in this context.
MonarchsFactory On the other hand, imagining what sort of locked doors a riddle or knowledge test etc would open, and why it would exist, is in and of itself an interesting exercise that creates all sorts of plot threads
@@MonarchsFactory Good point, but I think there would be some way of the person who created the trap to remember passwords or trap placement, some type of logic to it. Unless the person who created it is 200iq. People forget things, and they know they forget things. People also are in favor convince, hence why passwords are often really bad in real life. Mechanically I think we as DMs need to do better with traps to make them interesting for the players. I know when I play I don't find the repetitive nature of asking for trap checking over and over to be fun. Simply making 1 roll in order to disarm a trap is also pretty uninteresting. Something else to consider is how traps are constructed, maintained and reset. We should consider weaknesses in a trap's construction, maintenance and how if possible, a creature would reset a trap. Too often DMs want their traps to be too perfect and there is more to consider in a game other then completely abiding to realism. Another type of trap you didn't mention, is the one designed to inform about the entry. Something that isn't designed to prevent, capture or test an intruder, but rather mark the person who broke in, or leave signs of entry. Simple examples of these traps: A paper wedged between the door that falls when opened or the ink cartridges that explode they put on clothing or money packs to mark thieves and stolen goods.
@@MonarchsFactory Be VERY careful with that... Mother's maiden name and city of birth ay be public record, depending on country. First pet, childhood toy, and others are often on those "friendly" questionnaires going around on Facebook and Tumblr and other social media things. One very public politician in the USA got his personal email hacked several years ago because all the password reset question answers were public record or covered in news stories. This is why I recommend lying. Where were you born = "the sun". First pet = "T-Rex". Mother's maiden name = "none of your business". Make them consistent between sites so you don't forget the weird answers and it's something only you know. Also... my password hint for my computers are things like "it's your password, idiot" and "Random character set #5", which do tie in to the passwords I rotate between. Just nothing that would give anyone an actual clue about the passwords unless they are as deranged as I am. But back to the game. Many traps are designed to be puzzles for players to work out to give them something other than combat to entertain them in a dungeon. Breaks up the monotony and lets them do things without burning up daily combat resources. Depending on your players, it can be fun to have an unrealistic trap or door opening passphrase if they like working out the riddles, or it could be fun to have more realistic traps that they have to work around rather than figure out an answer that they wouldn't really get due to in game lack of knowledge. Depends on what you're going for and what the trap is meant to do. Dael's vid is great for the latter option, which is what I personally prefer.
When Dael was talking about triggering an alarm trap, but nothing happening seemingly, therefore increasing the paranoia, I personally like to ask my player to roll a DEX save in that moment. It doesn't matter what they roll, because you describe them attempting to dodge whatever threat they think they might have let loose, only for nothing to happen. It temporarily raises the tension as the try and figure out what they tripped as they roll, but then realizing it wasn't a "deadly" trap that feeling of paranoia then begins to set in. It helps to simulate that reaction much better I have found. Additionally, the players I have done that too have enjoyed the idea of what seems to be a pointless roll, as it helped to serve the atmosphere and immerse them more.
With respect, I think there are many situations in which a 'kill you dead' style trap e.g. the poison lock, not really being a lethal threat to an adventurer - DOES makes sense. Just because the builder of the trap would ideally WANT their trap to kill someone dead instantly, maybe they don't have the skills or materials to build such a trap. Maybe the best thing they have is a puffer full of spider's venom, but a puff of it is half as lethal as when it's stabbed into you. Or, perhaps they might have the means, but it's just not worth the full investment to create a powerful trap when a cheap/easy one will be sufficient to deter or kill the most likely people to try and enter: Amateur thieves or the over-curious, rather than a (relatively) hardened team of veterans helping each other. A simple car door lock deters 90% of people who would steal something valuable from your car, a car alarm 'trap' deters another 9% and that last 1%? Eh, it's probably not worth the cost of worrying about them, because even if you splurge on a fancy trap just for them, there's a decent chance that if they can bypass the alarm they'll bypass or survive whatever else you put in their way. Besides, if they persist after getting acid splashed all over them or some pretty severe burns from your flamethrower trap - Well, that's why you have multiple traps or monsters or minions behind that ddoor to finish the foolishly stubborn interlopers off!
One of the best traps I ever experienced as a player was where we were in the house of someone who we suspected to be working with an evil cult - there was a magical trap which basically caused each of the characters to see a completely convincing illusion of their worst fear. The only way that the character would break free of this would be to somehow force themselves to engage with this fear - my character - Larissa, a Tiefling Sorceress - had lost all her magic, and then found herself in a room, looking at the lifeless body of a fellow party member that she was secretly (to the other characters, not so much to the players) in love with, and written over and over on the walls, in blood, were messages from this other character asking where Larissa was. Larissa broke through this, when, on being attacked in the vision by zombies that she had no real defence against (no magic, and very poor with weapons), she made herself pick up the body of her companion before fleeing...
If you wanted to have a more vicious option, have it spray acid that would damage their tools and hands making further attempts problematic. Depending on how they describe picking the lock, you might want to give them a reflex save to not hit the face.
I think Snape left clues, because he knows he might be up against Voldemort and just die, making the stone trapped in there (which is not the purpose of those protection). Mostly, the only real purpose of those traps is to slow down any trespassers enough for Dumbledore to come and stop them. I am pretty sure the professor at Hogwarts could have set up deadlier traps and traps that eleven years old could not set off easily.
And now, I am wondering why Hogwarts does not have special classes for students showing really high potential, like the trio or Fred and George or Snape when he was a student.
Honestly, I think the real answer is plotholes and relatively shoddy writing at some level. We can assume that there's some level of meaning to it; it shows that Snape is important, closest to Dumbledore in his extracurricular activities and plans, the one he trusts the most, competent, and can presume the metaphor that Snape himself is a riddle is intentional. I find that reading in even more layers of meaning into Rowling is wooly and often a self-fulfilling art, especially when she herself makes her prior work and its interpretation look less than credible by making up new "old" interpretations from wholecloth now that the books are finished. It's easy enough to create such insights, I just made her into Trelawney and only started trying after realizing what I had done halfway through. She made a compelling, magical, fascinating world, but the execution of the plot and writing leaves things to be desired.
The trials to get to the stone were set so anyone that knew them could get through. It did not rely on all of them going, Snape's could have been set so if a person was being force by another wizard they could slip them the wrong answer.
ThePomoAa What do you think Dumbledore was doing allowing the Harry trio get away with almost anything they wanted and directing his professors to design traps that an eleven year old could figure out? All he cared about was that his mirror spell was so clever Voldemort would never get the stone anyway... The rest of the traps were for testing Harry, Ron, and Hermione! Pop quiz final from the headmaster! :-D
I haven't captioned nearly enough of them yet, but it's high up on my list -- some lovely community members have done a lot of work on them as well which I really appreciate. Glad to know they're getting used!
Your videos are just wonderful. Even an old dog like myself can get good new ideas...thanks for the concrete examples from stories, as well. (I love the way you think about goblins as well. I may adopt that!)
One of the most memorable moments from my current campaign was when our rogue successfully disarmed the trap on a small box, only for us to find out later that the trap was Power Word Kill! (Also, in that same underwater ruin, THE EYE OF VECNA was just on the floor in a jar, lol)
This whole video is great, but the first 1.5 minutes are some of the best content on the internet. I watch your videos just as much for banter as I do for fantastic inspiration.
Amazing, but you forget a little used trap -- the triggered one! These can be useful insights into Team Us but also introduce other interesting bits of your campaign world. You might find the skeleton of a long dead thief caught in a trap.Or you might find a trap corroded by something...clever way to break a lock with acid....or... rust monster? As a side note, keeping a tiny rust monster grub contained in a wood or glass case makes for a kind slow but effective lockpick btw. Just don't let them get too big. If so, sell them to lycanthropes as they are always in the market for them. Or so I hear.
One thing I will add. The best use for a booby-trap (ie a harmful one) is to initiate an ambush. If your comrade steps on a land mine, you should expect machine gun fire seconds later. So if your party triggers a magic mouth, why not have that followed up by arrows and fireballs immediately?
Us and them is such a good way to think about traps. I will definitely use what you talked about here to improve my own traps. I especially love the idea of triggering a trap that gives the players no indication of what its effect was.
I like the idea of an old dwarven stronghold which was once defended from an army of elves. The trap makes a big saw appear 5ft above the ground. It would just miss any wee dwarf - but a sneaky elf would lose their head!
One of my favorite traps - it''s one of those sliding tile puzzles. You've got to rearrange the tiles to complete the picture, which unlocks the door. And when the picture it completed, it forms a sentence. "I prepared explosive runes today."
holy shit is this the person that gave a lecture about the significance of Helen's initial introduction as Elastigirl in the 2004 instant classic 'The Incredibles' (Dir. Brad Bird) in a Big W department store!?!?!
Ok I found you yesterday and I've been binging on your D&D stuff. I've been playing for ages but I have only just started DM. I have to say, your videos are so heckin valuable. Really well researched, full of fresh ideas, AND entertaining. The quality of what you do is striking especially considering how much stuff there is about RPGs on youtube these days. Keep going girl and thank you
I also like Matt Colville's idea about traps that split the party. Trapdoor opens, and one or more of the party members is down a hole. Alarm also sounds to let the goblins know you're there, and goblins appear, either in the pit below, or up above with the remaining team members. EDIT: But I'm definitely stealing your ideas. Love the Team us/team them principle.
THIS! THISTHISTHIS! PERFECT take on traps and how to view them when adding them to your game, D&D or otherwise. Adopting this method for myself since it makes so much dang sense. Thank you Dael! (Hope you feel better soon).
Hello!! I have been an off and on DM/player, for many games of all shapes, sizes and systems for many years. I recently got back into DMing spontaneously and blew the dust off my old resources. Looking around RUclips for help, I've stumbled upon you and your fantastic content! Thank you for sharing with all of us what you've learned, even when you're feeling sick. I really enjoy your videos and have utilized lots of your advice. Keep it up!!
First time I've seen any of your videos. Have to say I'm quite impressed, you've earned a new subscriber lol. It's rare to find people who actually try to logic DND stuff, and it's what I usually do for the games I run. The idea of the little hammer trap is glorious lol.
Fantastic video, I always look forward to hearing what you have to say. Breaking down the different purposes and goals and origins of the traps was helpful for taking things step by step. I think one of my favourite traps I've done was at the end of a Trial to Prove Worthiness situation. The God who created the island wanted only those of clear wit, ingenuity and a sense of wholesome camaraderie to pass, as they were the God of spreading joy (often through laughter and pranks). The earlier ones had been riddles, creativity, teamwork, and the final was trust. (I was trying to have my players grow closer together through the Trial). The final one was to speak a secret that they had been unwilling to share amongst those present. The Trap could discern truth/lies and could tell whether the secret being told filled the criteria or not. It had no punishment, it simply wouldn't let people through, and leave them to stew and bicker amongst themselves as to why their words hadn't worked. Theoretically, this is the easiest of the traps, but it's where both the party, and the people they'd been following both tripped up.
Movie traps that impressed my group of player was from the Dungeons and Dragons movie. The heros were searching the bad guys camp, looking for a map and on the floor was what looked like a persian rug. When one of them stepped on the rug, it turned out to be a quicksand trap painted to look like a rug. My friends all yelled and said, now that's a trap.
The in/out-group knowledge thing reminds me of the questions in Only Connect: if you recognise the first one or two clues, you can get the answer (and the points), but if you need a fourth clue you aren't likely to get it. Only Connect also likes red herrings a lot so you could play with that structure of four clues where the first two are the in-group clues, giving the true answer, while the third and fourth identify the out-group by misleading them down another path.
ANother great video as always. This has inspired me to make a yes/no flow chart for "Trap or Trial" to work out what trap or puzzle type is best for each situation.
Depending on which door with a password you are speaking of from LOTR, the one that says "Speak Friend and enter" was about how the door was never a fortress but rather an open door that everyone was expected to know the passcode for.
My favorite trap was always installing a false door with a complex lock that doesn't actually unlock. Then enchanting it to show magical auras when viewed but not be "defeated" by unlocking cantrips, as well as strengthening and mending against damage. Loads of fun for many a PC. And that one door that they failed to open will keep nagging on their minds as they progress. Especially if it's near the 1/4 point of a long dungeon of some kind. You can even suggest via leftover notes that something significant was behind that door :D
In one of my games, I have a master artisan/artificer who makes his grand living by making safes, vaults, holds, and dungeons. He tests the security of his designs by offering a bounty to any who can successfully fetch a valuable bauble from within. Of course, he fails to mention his occupation and with that the fact that they are mere test subjects. A couple groups have come really close to figuring it out, but not quite yet. One of the best dungeons I put them through totally used the paranoia idea you mentioned; they keep setting off 'traps' but don't know what they do. What they're actually doing is causing new traps to be set on the way out. For example, stepping on a plate in room #8 removes the bracing from the floor in room #1, which they must pass back through in order to get out. With the bracing removed, the floor drops out as soon as someone or something crosses the mid-point. Multiple areas around the dungeon have similar effects. The deeper in one travels, the more they must encounter on the way back. While the puzzles and minor encounters going in are challenging enough to reward the party and allow them to level up once, the challenges escaping are worse and though not designed for a TPK, they tend to require multiple rests and the party may even level up a second time just getting out.
You don't get enough views/credit for the work you put into your videos. They are, by far, my favorite and I often listen to them while I am prepping sessions. I've never used a trap in a session because they have NEVER made any sense to me RAW. This has really helped me and I'm now excited to use some of these more practical traps.
For the goblin alarm trap something did come to mind. In addition to the bells maybe if the leader is a magic-user there's also magic mouths that appear all throughout their cave and they hurl insults or are just ominously chanting "we're coming for you" perhaps a bit cheesy but I think it'd ramp up the tension even more.
Yes thank you Dael! This is a video I've been hoping on and the exact thoughts of this video went through my head as well. Thanks for sharing all these ideas with us, it will absolutely help my campaign.
Thank you youtube alchorythm. I'm in love with this channel already! I like the "poison that drains your strength so you can't lift the thing you wanna steal" but don't kill the cleaner who you hired. But Do you ever feel like you over think things? ^^" most traps are there to be one of 5 encounters between long rests. other traps are there because people don't have money to build deathspell traps. Most of my traps are there to deplete the stuff out of my players batman belt, got antipoison? I got a poison trap. Got antifreeze? I got a freezething. Love the vid.
A trap I loved both narratively and flavorfully(?) is the trapped door from the infinite bank of Yre from Kill Six Billion Demons. It's a door with a lock (big door), and in the middle of that door is a face. Ten seconds after the "lock" is picked the face starts screaming, loud, loud screaming. The only way to open the door and the real lock (the screaming face), is to feed it. It's so insidious because even if would-be thieves did feed one of their number to the door it immediately puts that seed of doubt into all the remaining members of the group. The hint of betrayal, and eventually dooms them to self-destruction.
Love the wire that snaps and doesn't appear to do anything obvious, definitely using that. Although my party is probably already paranoid enough..... nah, that could use some more paranoia. I love inserting things that they get to hear half of what is going on, it kills them to not know the whole of what is happening.
Thanks for the video, it helped a lot. I've been struggling with trap lethality for a while now, and this video inspired me to finally come up with a solution to traps that should kill. It forgoes damage in favor of death saving throws. Now bear with me this is gonna be long-ish. If the players say they check for traps, and succeed, I point out the trap and trigger. If they fail, they can't see the trap, hence they can't disarm it, but I tell them that there is a trap nearby (they intuitivelly sense it). Only if they critically fail will I say nothing. Now, when triggering traps, I roll trap attack vs target's dex saving throw. If it hits, I make the target roll Death Saving Throws, and even if they pull through, I leave them with permanent stat deduction (depending on trap type). However, if the trap critically hits it is instantly fatal (but players still dodge it if they critically succeed on the dex saving throw). Sure the traps are very lethal, but the players are always fairly warned about them. Also, if you're gonna do this, make sure to talk to your players about it before the campaign, give them a fair warning that your traps are extremelly dangerous.
Concerning your suggestion to improve the Leap Of Faith: actually, the camouflaged bridge begins a bit below the ledge where Indy is standing, so when he's stepping out, he falls about 30cm before hitting the bridge. This way, anyone testing the air beyond the ledge will in fact find nothing, unless they crouch down very low, while still allowing the bridge to be connected to that side of the chasm. Also, Indy would surely have fallen to his death in your variant, as he didn't actually _leap_, but simply take a step forward. But well, he did not take a leap as instructed, so that's probably what should have happened ;)
Nicely done. I have always had what my players said were overly dangerous or adventure stopping traps, because, as you said, if a trap doesn't try to stop the target in some way then why bother having it. But even so, you gave me some things to think about.
First video of your's I've seen, and been thinking of making a Kobold trapper character, so this actually gave me several ideas and brought up a good point of the "us vs. them" idea. Thank you
Tolkien's "password"door works because it was NOT a password door. The CHARACTERS we follow saw it as a "riddle", but it wasn't built as such. They only saw it that way because the word used to open the doors of Durin were lost to time, at least to any manner of record keeping. At the time they were built, those meant to know how to get in (those particular elves they were friends with, that is why the message was written in their language, not dwarvish) they would know the word if they needed. Most of the time, they wouldn't, as the doors were usually open, with just guards checking who comes and goes. It only became a "riddle" due to the loss of knowledge and the death of the original inhabitants, not while it was still in use, and that is pretty realistic. Originally, the "riddle" was really more of a greeting and instructions to the elves, and a symbolic gesture (to them, the doors would always be open[able]).
One of my favorite traps I set up in a dungeon, the triggering mechanism was a permanent line of Detect Magic, and it basically served two functions. 1, if it detected a feint magical aura, it would douse the victim with water. The thought behind this was damage the Wizard's spellbook, as in my setting, Spellbooks give off a feint magical aura but the wizard does not. If it's just a fighter with a fancy sword, he'd just get wet and annoyed. The second person was that if it detected a STRONG magical aura, as in a living magical being, these darts would shoot out full of dispel magic, and they would temporarily cut off a spellcaster from their magic for 2d4 hours, essentially forcing the party to decide if they want to take a long rest or not for their spellcaster to regain their magic. The first mechanism worked very well with a second trap where if it still detected a feint aura, after being doused with water, it would electrocute the victim for 2d6 (crit for x2 is target is wet.) The whole thematic purpose for this dungeon was it was the hideout for this order of assassins that specialized in killing spellcasters, specifically Arcane spellcasters. In this party we had a Wizard, a Rogue with a magical pair of daggers, and a cleric who are the important ones. The rogue spotted the trap and when trying to disarm it, he accidentally triggered it by trying to use his dagger as one of his tools, this caused the water to douse him. The cleric, feeling confident against a little water, decided to walk through the trap before the rogue finished and got hit with the dispel dart, only got 4 hours worth. The Wizard was naturally all "hellz no I ain't going through there" even after the rogue disabled it. Thankfully the rogue caught the lightning trap and disabled it.
Whenever I run a game with goblins I love making them frustrating. All of their traps are loud and whilst fighting them they will spend their time laughing at you and mocking you. Each trying their best to impress their friends with the funniest insult. They will even avoid dealing the killing blow if they can do something that would irritate or humiliate the character
A good trap for a wizard trying to awe intruders could be a glyph that summons/constructs a magical being that is entirely overpowered, yet bound to remain at the trap, so the intruders can run away, properly cowed. A note to include, which may or may not be addressed depending on how smart you want the trapper to be: the being would be bound by the exact commands of the summoner, so depending on what those commands were determines what the players need to go though in order to get by. For example, whether or not the being can return fire, or hunt down those that snipe it from outside its bound space.
I love your take on horrifying goblins. My characters are approaching mid-tier and I've never bothered to throw goblins against them ... but this video's got my brain brewing some dark stuff.
Dael Kingsmill, there's one more species of trap that I can't recall if you mentioned; the trao that doesn't injure the person who sets it off but that destroys the items being sought. A trap that burns the crucial documents that the players are trying to obtain for example.
Additional idea to the trap with no effect. Trap with a insignificant effect. Fires a dart with like, 1d6 damage. Actually triggers major alarm elsewhere, but the players may just go "oh, that was nothing. Lol." Sit back and wait for their faces when they turn the corner.
a two part authentication works really well, too - like the key you find only works if you're wearing the right magic cape / ring / necklace / what have you. And going forward, if they're still wearing that item, maybe some of the traps won't trigger. This can be even more fun if you don't leave enough magic capes for the party
Snape potion puzzle: potions should have a hidden interaction, if you take the protective potion before the poison, you enter a different room trough the doorway(need to be dragged exactly halfway to the shadowlands before severing yourself from translocation magic or something).Door riddle: filters wildlife from those that share your culture. Good if you did not get the chance to tell the password to others, bad if you install it as the only line of defence.
One of my favorite dungeons: characters enter the complex seeking a mcguffin for their employer, set off a trap that sprays them with a fine mist. Nothing happens. Puzzled, they continue. Next room features pressure plates that cause globes of intense light to flare, dazzling the characters and disturbing a nest of spiders. Lights seem harmless other than dazzling. Next trap triggers a flare of brilliant silver light, no apparent effect. Characters find the mcguffin and steal it. Employer thanks them, leaves. They later figure out employer is a vampire, who would have been very unhappy to encounter to spray of holy water, the sunlight globes, or the extremely empowered turning effect. Traps should definitely inform a clever player about Team Us, and also what they are expecting Team Them to be.
This is a brilliant idea!
A thing I see a lot of people forget is that monsters in D&D can have immunities, Liches who trap their layer could literally have the entire dungeon filled with poison air or even no air at all. Fire giants could instead of having a door have a curtain of lava. Their biology is the way to bypass the trap as it were.
Truth. Love that thought.
This is also why Beholder lairs make extensive use of verticality.
And/or always-on magical hazards. Beholders don't just float, but project a cone of anti-magic in front of them. _They_ don't have to worry about getting around. That's for stupid, land-bound cretins with no anti-magic to worry about.
@@Bluecho4 but they also want their differently abled minions to navigate the lair without difficulty so their errands can b be accomplished in timely fashion. Maybe their inner sanctum is protected like that, but I'd imagine the majority of the lair is accessible (if tricky and trapped)
Or a goblin lair with pit traps that only activate if you’re a medium or larger creature.
Exactly. The only reason not to do this is if it would literally make the dungeon unbeatable for some parties. Of course having the initial puzzle being the players figuring out how to survive in the dungeon could be fun.
I found a nice compromise by running a dungeon owned by a mummy who had a huge tanker of liquid poison that would open behind the players once they were too far into the dungeon, slowly flooding it behind them. This puts the players on a time limit, now they can't take any long or short rests and the mummy is basically fine no matter what happens.
It could be that the poison trap is ineffective because it was set so long ago that the poison has passed its sell-by date.
Or that it's enough to kill a commoner (like 8 HP max, right?)
or that lethal poison is super illegal and expensive and hard to get? :D Or a poison that makes you turn purple makes you easy to identify. ( imagine bank putting real bombs instead of paint bombs in money xD )
I'd also consider a less lethal poison as a warning, "I'm not interested in killing you but I'm serious about keeping you out and don't care about your wellbeing. Consider yourself warned."
Leader working with bad guys doesn’t trust his underlings. Instead of poison, uses ink. If underlings try to steal from him, they’ll think they’re poisoned as the ink makes its way along the bloodstream. He sees the “ink stain “ and knows who’s been in his stuff.
Then either what's behind the trap also has a sell-by date or team us didn't think ahead, or team us all died unexpectedly and left the thing in a temporary location.
"and hey, maybe that feeling you wanted them to feel is death"
-Dael Kingsmill 2018
Favorite of mine: Door in the Thieves Den. Doorknob is engineered assuming most people are right handed. If the knob is turned clockwise, rods inside the door slam into place silmilar to a safe and guaranteeing the door won’t budge. An alarm also sounds. Members of the thieves band know to turn the knob counter clockwise to open it.
Sick. Love it - it'd be great to leave clues in notes, and that the big weakness of this lock is that people love to brag about it or make fun of those who set off the trap. "Old Gorn knew better, but his normal reflex kicked in and fucked up, and now his best robes are burnt to a crisp." Those'd be great clues.
Nicely done.
But how do you know the way players turn it without asking them about it and so giving away the biggest clue? I mean, a person most likely will say "I open the door" or maybe "I turn the doorknob"
@@zozilin Once the knobs turned the traps either been sprung or not sprung. The sound of the rods slamming into place and the alarm sounding is a bigger clue.
@@zozilin You can reasonably assume anyone with basic intelligence will, out of habit, turn the knob to the right. Another way to do it would be to change it to a handle, and then assume everyone is pushing it down instead of up.
I work at a hotel and lemme tell you - nobody thinks to turn the handle up. Doors get stuck all the time, it can be reasonably solved by turning the handle up. Safety doors tend to "stick" when you push on the door, and then turn the handle, as you basically force it to stay locked with pressure. Almost nobody attempts this.
Admittedly, this might be a good time for a low-intelligence player to shine. If a player had an intelligence score under 10 and attempted to open the door, I might let them go through completely unharmed as they don't use any preconceived notions about how the door opens. More intelligent people would know which way you're "supposed" to open it, whereas less intelligent people might actually do it the wrong way.
Even if the less-intelligent character goes through fine, it might be difficult to replicate what they'd done - or more likely, the players would think that door wasn't trapped at all.
If you want to hide it, make them roll an intelligence saving throw after the trigger has been trapped. Until the players specifically speak about the handle, or nail an investigation check, you can reasonably assume they'd turn the handle the typical way.
One way to sneak it in is to simply say that when they open the door they turn the handle. Dropping that little detail everytime they open a door seems like it might give it away, but that's subtle enough that most players wouldn't think twice about it. As soon as you describe the door as having a knob (or handle in some cases) they'll likely let their own real-life-prejudice get in their way.
If you wanted to make a really unique check, everytime they open the door make an ultra low failure intelligence saving throw DC. For instance a 5. The trick is, that a success is actually a failure. If you succeed, you recognize how doors are supposed to open and use that knowledge. If you fail, you open the door "the wrong way" and it actually disarms the trap.
It'd be enough to tip off your players something is going on with the doors, but not enough for them to figure it out, as their abilities that stack success actually are hindering them in this fashion.
Until suspicion is seriously cast on the door, or the potential of turning the knob or handle the other way is brought up by the players via a History, Investigation, or similar check.... you don't have to say anything to hint, because it's very reasonable to assume players know how to open "typical" doors.
I turn knobs counter clockwise first, and I am right handed.
I like the idea of traps that make narrative sense. My favorite dungeon I've designed was an old abandoned wizard school; all the traps were glyphs of warding storing nonlethal spells, triggering if any non-professor opened the trapped container, because they didn't want to actually kill their students (stuff like a Levitate-for-a-few-hours trap, and one that cast Continual Flame on the thief's head). These were inconvenient, but any mid-level spellcaster could easily dispel the effects (but the students couldn't). I think my players thought I was going easy on them with the nondamaging traps until they figured out that every trapped chest they'd opened had booze in them, and I reminded them that this school generally taught teenagers.
I absolutely love that idea. Mind if I steal it for a One Shot?
@@Student-mo3zh dnd is basically communal idea sharing. go for it.
"Riddles on doors make no sense."
Me: looks at computer password hint. *sweats*
Password Hint: "Rymes with... Assword."
I literally did this once at a wizards' academy. The player could have done the legwork to find the password for the arcane-locked door or brute-forced it, but instead they said "I forgot the password!" which triggered a Magic Mouth posing a riddle as the wizard's security question.
Riddles in Tolkien books are a worthiness check, like "are you an elf?" Captcha
@@andresbolanos9158 Great idea to have the riddle in Elvish... if the entrance is for dwarfs
@@TheVelvetTV_Riesenglied Wasn't that one to show the significance of the friendship between Elves and Dwarves?
I feel like the lollipop was essential to the entire feel of the video. 10/10
“Vague and provocative” oh wait, she said evocative.
The doors of moria weren't supposed too be a riddle door. They were intended to be language lock. It was established earlier in the book that very few noldor/high elven speakers remained in middle Earth. Hollin, the elven nation that was built smack up against the walls of moria, was a noldorian nation, and the doors had been installed there for the sake of opening a trade route. And it makes utter sense to make the door open to the rare language of the people you want to trade with. (Plus, there was a garrason of guards stationed at the door when it was in use )
The "Us, not Them" concept really applies there, I think. And such an Elven thing to do, to wrap the password reminder in a gentle riddle.
@@GaryKlineCA but it wasn't a riddle. The password was literally written on the door, if the reader knew the language it was written in
I've been toying around with the idea of a mix between having a language be a key by itself to open the door and being able to deduce what the key is if you know part of the language.
I envision "modern" Elven basically having derived from a dialect of Sylvan. Today there's an obvious distinction between the two languages just like Latin and any romance language, but far back in time, ancient elven was much closer to Sylvan than it is at the time the adventurers discover the door.
A character (or two, since it's fun when the party works together) who understand both Elven and Sylvan automatically understand the ancient Elven. if they only know one, they'll be given half of a puzzle and the players need some level of cleverness to fill out the blanks.
Still working on how to make this work in practice, but it's a decent way to show through a puzzle that this ruin is very old (it's not like a language belonging to near immortal beings age or change quickly) and establish a tiny bit of world building by saying there's a connection between the Sylvan and Elven languages.
I might even be able to reuse the puzzle in some form by saying that if you know a language that uses a specific alphabet like Dwarven, then you don't necessarily need to know Draconic to deduce what's written on a door.
Of course, the shortcut to solving these riddles is the Comprehend Languages spell so I'm discouraged by putting too much energy into something the players don't need to solve because their characters have abilities that should make them automatically succeed on the challenge.
@@scottmcdivitt2187 True, but to the suspicious mind, it became a riddle. Agreed, the Elven language is the real key. Another favorite of mine comes from Foucault's Pendulum. The prompt for a PC password is, Do you know the password? The character knows the user is a Kaballah expert, goes through various permutations of God's name, then in frustration finally types "no" for the password. Which of course is correct.
@@oOPPHOo comprehend languages breaks so many things. I'm inclined to think some of those spells should be toned down a bit. Like comprehend languages or detect traps.
I haven't really had that problem. I'm using the optional rule where a short rest is a night, and a long rest is a week. It makes people... cautious...of their spell slots.
In defense of Severus Snape, the theory I'm behind is that the "layers of defense" of the Philosopher's Stone weren't actually intended to keep Voldemort out of the inner chamber. They were intended to keep him focused on getting there and make him feel like it was his best shot at resurrection, so that he wouldn't leave Hogwarts and go after other, more practical ways of returning to life. If Dumbledore only wanted to keep him away from the stone then he could have left it in his desk cupboard and never told anyone.
that makes sense and would be consistent with each of their characters going forward, but i don’t think JKR is that good of a writer
I was scrolling through comments looking for someone else who thought this!! Thank you! 😂😂
So I'm running a game tomorrow morning that will feature a puzzle lock on a door in a beholder's lair. Thank you so much for pointing out how stupid that is at the perfect time, now there'll be a note saying something like "Stop leaving clues for yourselves!" and the hints hidden around the room by its various minions.
Finley McLaren That's actually a great idea of how to get around that plothole in an intelligent and funny way. After all, it's so human to do that, and that's exactly what would happen if some powerful being decided to put a complex puzzle lock on a door
Update: The fighter in heavy armour decided to scout ahead in the hub of the beholder's lair, alerting it and several of it's minions, turning the session into a four hour combat encounter. The party escaped but is now invisible, a giant owl, and a tiny spider statue reapectively (the fighter was petrified twice in the battle). No sign of a puzzle door.
“And a player died... AND IT WAS SICK!!!! .... and heartbreaking...” I love that
YES! This needed to be said!
My game has a wizard's tower. If you walk up to the door, a magic mouth spell tells you to "Go away, the master isn't in, you have no business here!" Written on the doormat is a moderately difficult riddle. The answer to the riddle sets off the glyph of warding on the door, injuring/killing the intruders and alerting the wizard's minions.
He's forgetful though, so there's a spare key under his doormat.
I love today. I finished Critical Role, I skimmed through Colville's Strongholds and Followers right into a Dael Kingsmill video.
The Day of D&D
How is Strongholds and Followers?
Today was a good day.
I love it, it adds a layer of politics and 'large' scale warfare into the game as well as some awesome new magic items. There is also an adventure included. The art is amazing and the mechanics for all the different kinds of strongholds is awesome!
Im soooooooo far behind on crit!
Colville shirt on the day I get Strongholds and Followers? Excellent. +2 charisma and advantage on thumbs up.
I see you're a man of culture as well.
Is the PDF good so far?
It's SO. PRETTY.
@@MonarchsFactory no u
I was practically harassing my wife to catatonic rage (yes I know that don't work) with my persistent squee just from seeing the samples and lineup of artists in the backer updates. The book seriously gives some of the WotC core books a run for their money.
Just going to point out, my computer has a "password hint." Maybe hints to the password on a door isn't such a bad idea, so you don't forget what the password is.
Sure, but those secret questions tend to, again, be something you would know or not know just by being yourself. Mother's maiden name, first pet, childhood favourite toy, rather than puzzles anyone could potentially work out. A riddle or hint or what have you would serve less as a password reminder for someone in the know and more as a captcha in this context.
MonarchsFactory On the other hand, imagining what sort of locked doors a riddle or knowledge test etc would open, and why it would exist, is in and of itself an interesting exercise that creates all sorts of plot threads
@@MonarchsFactory Good point, but I think there would be some way of the person who created the trap to remember passwords or trap placement, some type of logic to it. Unless the person who created it is 200iq. People forget things, and they know they forget things. People also are in favor convince, hence why passwords are often really bad in real life.
Mechanically I think we as DMs need to do better with traps to make them interesting for the players. I know when I play I don't find the repetitive nature of asking for trap checking over and over to be fun. Simply making 1 roll in order to disarm a trap is also pretty uninteresting.
Something else to consider is how traps are constructed, maintained and reset. We should consider weaknesses in a trap's construction, maintenance and how if possible, a creature would reset a trap. Too often DMs want their traps to be too perfect and there is more to consider in a game other then completely abiding to realism.
Another type of trap you didn't mention, is the one designed to inform about the entry. Something that isn't designed to prevent, capture or test an intruder, but rather mark the person who broke in, or leave signs of entry. Simple examples of these traps: A paper wedged between the door that falls when opened or the ink cartridges that explode they put on clothing or money packs to mark thieves and stolen goods.
Tho if my computer was threatening to kill me if I forgot my password, I'd make damn sure to remember it.
@@MonarchsFactory Be VERY careful with that... Mother's maiden name and city of birth ay be public record, depending on country. First pet, childhood toy, and others are often on those "friendly" questionnaires going around on Facebook and Tumblr and other social media things. One very public politician in the USA got his personal email hacked several years ago because all the password reset question answers were public record or covered in news stories.
This is why I recommend lying. Where were you born = "the sun". First pet = "T-Rex". Mother's maiden name = "none of your business". Make them consistent between sites so you don't forget the weird answers and it's something only you know.
Also... my password hint for my computers are things like "it's your password, idiot" and "Random character set #5", which do tie in to the passwords I rotate between. Just nothing that would give anyone an actual clue about the passwords unless they are as deranged as I am.
But back to the game. Many traps are designed to be puzzles for players to work out to give them something other than combat to entertain them in a dungeon. Breaks up the monotony and lets them do things without burning up daily combat resources. Depending on your players, it can be fun to have an unrealistic trap or door opening passphrase if they like working out the riddles, or it could be fun to have more realistic traps that they have to work around rather than figure out an answer that they wouldn't really get due to in game lack of knowledge. Depends on what you're going for and what the trap is meant to do. Dael's vid is great for the latter option, which is what I personally prefer.
When Dael was talking about triggering an alarm trap, but nothing happening seemingly, therefore increasing the paranoia, I personally like to ask my player to roll a DEX save in that moment. It doesn't matter what they roll, because you describe them attempting to dodge whatever threat they think they might have let loose, only for nothing to happen. It temporarily raises the tension as the try and figure out what they tripped as they roll, but then realizing it wasn't a "deadly" trap that feeling of paranoia then begins to set in. It helps to simulate that reaction much better I have found. Additionally, the players I have done that too have enjoyed the idea of what seems to be a pointless roll, as it helped to serve the atmosphere and immerse them more.
With respect, I think there are many situations in which a 'kill you dead' style trap e.g. the poison lock, not really being a lethal threat to an adventurer - DOES makes sense. Just because the builder of the trap would ideally WANT their trap to kill someone dead instantly, maybe they don't have the skills or materials to build such a trap. Maybe the best thing they have is a puffer full of spider's venom, but a puff of it is half as lethal as when it's stabbed into you.
Or, perhaps they might have the means, but it's just not worth the full investment to create a powerful trap when a cheap/easy one will be sufficient to deter or kill the most likely people to try and enter: Amateur thieves or the over-curious, rather than a (relatively) hardened team of veterans helping each other. A simple car door lock deters 90% of people who would steal something valuable from your car, a car alarm 'trap' deters another 9% and that last 1%? Eh, it's probably not worth the cost of worrying about them, because even if you splurge on a fancy trap just for them, there's a decent chance that if they can bypass the alarm they'll bypass or survive whatever else you put in their way.
Besides, if they persist after getting acid splashed all over them or some pretty severe burns from your flamethrower trap - Well, that's why you have multiple traps or monsters or minions behind that ddoor to finish the foolishly stubborn interlopers off!
One of the best traps I ever experienced as a player was where we were in the house of someone who we suspected to be working with an evil cult - there was a magical trap which basically caused each of the characters to see a completely convincing illusion of their worst fear. The only way that the character would break free of this would be to somehow force themselves to engage with this fear - my character - Larissa, a Tiefling Sorceress - had lost all her magic, and then found herself in a room, looking at the lifeless body of a fellow party member that she was secretly (to the other characters, not so much to the players) in love with, and written over and over on the walls, in blood, were messages from this other character asking where Larissa was.
Larissa broke through this, when, on being attacked in the vision by zombies that she had no real defence against (no magic, and very poor with weapons), she made herself pick up the body of her companion before fleeing...
reminds me of the doctor who episode "The Doctors Wife" when Rory and Amy get separated while the Tardis is being controlled by House
If you wanted to have a more vicious option, have it spray acid that would damage their tools and hands making further attempts problematic.
Depending on how they describe picking the lock, you might want to give them a reflex save to not hit the face.
Ohhh, that is mean, I love it!
I think Snape left clues, because he knows he might be up against Voldemort and just die, making the stone trapped in there (which is not the purpose of those protection).
Mostly, the only real purpose of those traps is to slow down any trespassers enough for Dumbledore to come and stop them.
I am pretty sure the professor at Hogwarts could have set up deadlier traps and traps that eleven years old could not set off easily.
And now, I am wondering why Hogwarts does not have special classes for students showing really high potential, like the trio or Fred and George or Snape when he was a student.
P.S. : I loved the video, I totally agree with you and I think most of the time traps don't make sense enough...
Honestly, I think the real answer is plotholes and relatively shoddy writing at some level. We can assume that there's some level of meaning to it; it shows that Snape is important, closest to Dumbledore in his extracurricular activities and plans, the one he trusts the most, competent, and can presume the metaphor that Snape himself is a riddle is intentional. I find that reading in even more layers of meaning into Rowling is wooly and often a self-fulfilling art, especially when she herself makes her prior work and its interpretation look less than credible by making up new "old" interpretations from wholecloth now that the books are finished. It's easy enough to create such insights, I just made her into Trelawney and only started trying after realizing what I had done halfway through. She made a compelling, magical, fascinating world, but the execution of the plot and writing leaves things to be desired.
The trials to get to the stone were set so anyone that knew them could get through. It did not rely on all of them going, Snape's could have been set so if a person was being force by another wizard they could slip them the wrong answer.
ThePomoAa What do you think Dumbledore was doing allowing the Harry trio get away with almost anything they wanted and directing his professors to design traps that an eleven year old could figure out? All he cared about was that his mirror spell was so clever Voldemort would never get the stone anyway... The rest of the traps were for testing Harry, Ron, and Hermione! Pop quiz final from the headmaster! :-D
Professor Dael Kingsmill strikes again (seriously, you as a content creator combined as a teacher, killer combo)
ooh, that "tripwire and nothing happens" is amazing
silent alarm
thanks for putting accurate captions on your videos!
I haven't captioned nearly enough of them yet, but it's high up on my list -- some lovely community members have done a lot of work on them as well which I really appreciate. Glad to know they're getting used!
It is 1:43 in the morning here in California but I'm still here because I enjoy your insight for roleplaying. Please do this more often.
On Potter trap sequence: Particularly poor potions student blows up Snape, the stone is now beyond retrieval. Love the video.
put on a firefighter's jacket and sprint through the purple flames?
That last tip where the traps should tell you something about Team Us is super! Great chance to telegraph abilities and motives in a subtle way!
Your videos are just wonderful. Even an old dog like myself can get good new ideas...thanks for the concrete examples from stories, as well. (I love the way you think about goblins as well. I may adopt that!)
I just wanted to let you know that I saw this comment at the end of a very long and exhausting night of work and it made my heart happy :)
One of the most memorable moments from my current campaign was when our rogue successfully disarmed the trap on a small box, only for us to find out later that the trap was Power Word Kill!
(Also, in that same underwater ruin, THE EYE OF VECNA was just on the floor in a jar, lol)
This whole video is great, but the first 1.5 minutes are some of the best content on the internet. I watch your videos just as much for banter as I do for fantastic inspiration.
“Maybe the feeling you want to make them feel is death” really got me. Gave me the best laugh I’ve had in a while. Thank you.
I see a Colville shirt, I thumbs up. Simple.
S&F is out!
@@tecguySD oh yeah man, all over it!
Have you ever been to Colville, WA?
Hell, I'm thumbs upping the whole damned conversation :D And @Timothy Carter, S&F is great, got the PDF, can't wait for the physical book to ship!
Amazing, but you forget a little used trap -- the triggered one! These can be useful insights into Team Us but also introduce other interesting bits of your campaign world.
You might find the skeleton of a long dead thief caught in a trap.Or you might find a trap corroded by something...clever way to break a lock with acid....or... rust monster? As a side note, keeping a tiny rust monster grub contained in a wood or glass case makes for a kind slow but effective lockpick btw. Just don't let them get too big. If so, sell them to lycanthropes as they are always in the market for them. Or so I hear.
One thing I will add. The best use for a booby-trap (ie a harmful one) is to initiate an ambush. If your comrade steps on a land mine, you should expect machine gun fire seconds later. So if your party triggers a magic mouth, why not have that followed up by arrows and fireballs immediately?
Soooo great! First video of yours that I have seen but I really enjoyed your take on the subject. Thank you!! Please keep on creating :)
I love how you just use a lollipop as a pointer. And the random intros are my favorite.
I like the pace of this video, and thank you for explaining the Harry Potter references. Extra points for Pass the Pigs on the shelf behind you.
Us and them is such a good way to think about traps. I will definitely use what you talked about here to improve my own traps.
I especially love the idea of triggering a trap that gives the players no indication of what its effect was.
I've been stumped trying to work on a campaign for about a month now, and this video was exactly the inspiration I needed. Excellent content!
I like the idea of an old dwarven stronghold which was once defended from an army of elves.
The trap makes a big saw appear 5ft above the ground. It would just miss any wee dwarf - but a sneaky elf would lose their head!
One of my favorite traps - it''s one of those sliding tile puzzles. You've got to rearrange the tiles to complete the picture, which unlocks the door. And when the picture it completed, it forms a sentence. "I prepared explosive runes today."
I think this was probably your best D&D advice yet! It made a lot of sense and made me think about traps very differently.
As a Theatre major, that opening looked like the realest case of "I'm sick but I have lines to learn" that I've ever seen
I was also a theatre major, where do you think I learned it ;)
Every D&Dael episode is pure gold ❤️
Excellent points, this completely nails it. Yes traps (and puzzles) can make sense and it's nice when they do!
holy shit is this the person that gave a lecture about the significance of Helen's initial introduction as Elastigirl in the 2004 instant classic 'The Incredibles' (Dir. Brad Bird) in a Big W department store!?!?!
I laughed unreasonably long and loud at this
Uhm... I need to know what was said for reasons.
@@mercyvanzyl316 Same
Pffft hahahahha
Ok I found you yesterday and I've been binging on your D&D stuff. I've been playing for ages but I have only just started DM. I have to say, your videos are so heckin valuable. Really well researched, full of fresh ideas, AND entertaining.
The quality of what you do is striking especially considering how much stuff there is about RPGs on youtube these days. Keep going girl and thank you
The riddle is like a reminder. Like a "Oh, looks like you forgot the password. Here's a reminder."
I also like Matt Colville's idea about traps that split the party. Trapdoor opens, and one or more of the party members is down a hole. Alarm also sounds to let the goblins know you're there, and goblins appear, either in the pit below, or up above with the remaining team members.
EDIT: But I'm definitely stealing your ideas. Love the Team us/team them principle.
THIS! THISTHISTHIS! PERFECT take on traps and how to view them when adding them to your game, D&D or otherwise. Adopting this method for myself since it makes so much dang sense. Thank you Dael! (Hope you feel better soon).
Hello!! I have been an off and on DM/player, for many games of all shapes, sizes and systems for many years. I recently got back into DMing spontaneously and blew the dust off my old resources. Looking around RUclips for help, I've stumbled upon you and your fantastic content! Thank you for sharing with all of us what you've learned, even when you're feeling sick. I really enjoy your videos and have utilized lots of your advice. Keep it up!!
First time I've seen any of your videos. Have to say I'm quite impressed, you've earned a new subscriber lol. It's rare to find people who actually try to logic DND stuff, and it's what I usually do for the games I run. The idea of the little hammer trap is glorious lol.
I like your idea about goblin traps. Really great idea about them wanting players to know they were trapped. Kudos!
Fantastic video, I always look forward to hearing what you have to say. Breaking down the different purposes and goals and origins of the traps was helpful for taking things step by step.
I think one of my favourite traps I've done was at the end of a Trial to Prove Worthiness situation. The God who created the island wanted only those of clear wit, ingenuity and a sense of wholesome camaraderie to pass, as they were the God of spreading joy (often through laughter and pranks). The earlier ones had been riddles, creativity, teamwork, and the final was trust. (I was trying to have my players grow closer together through the Trial). The final one was to speak a secret that they had been unwilling to share amongst those present. The Trap could discern truth/lies and could tell whether the secret being told filled the criteria or not. It had no punishment, it simply wouldn't let people through, and leave them to stew and bicker amongst themselves as to why their words hadn't worked. Theoretically, this is the easiest of the traps, but it's where both the party, and the people they'd been following both tripped up.
Oooooooh, dope! Also makes me think of that one Adventure Time song.
@@MonarchsFactory Oh I'm not familiar, didn't have that cartoon where I grew up. What's the name of the song?
Makes more sense in the context of the full episode and I THINK I can post links because it's my channel so ruclips.net/video/yRgjMtUBKFU/видео.html
@@MonarchsFactory Thanks for the link!
I really like the “us vs. them sorting mechanism” abstraction that’s a really cool idea
Movie traps that impressed my group of player was from the Dungeons and Dragons movie. The heros were searching the bad guys camp, looking for a map and on the floor was what looked like a persian rug. When one of them stepped on the rug, it turned out to be a quicksand trap painted to look like a rug. My friends all yelled and said, now that's a trap.
This was really helpful, thanks! Love the way you centered texture and feel of traps in the video.
This video is PHENOMENAL. In particular, your sentiments on traps that... TRAP YOU!
It really helped me.
Always makes my day when I wake up to find a new video posted by Dael!
The in/out-group knowledge thing reminds me of the questions in Only Connect: if you recognise the first one or two clues, you can get the answer (and the points), but if you need a fourth clue you aren't likely to get it.
Only Connect also likes red herrings a lot so you could play with that structure of four clues where the first two are the in-group clues, giving the true answer, while the third and fourth identify the out-group by misleading them down another path.
MCDM shirt, building things for a specific feeling and reason and working backwards to it - already love it and this are the first few minutes.
Great insights. I am developing a competition put on by the thieves guild and you have kickstarted my brain. Thank you!
Dael, your dnd-videos really are amazing and is a huge reason why I started worldbuilding myself. Cheers!
This was a validation on my thinking behind traps/puzzles. My grandmother totally enjoyed this video too.
ANother great video as always. This has inspired me to make a yes/no flow chart for "Trap or Trial" to work out what trap or puzzle type is best for each situation.
Depending on which door with a password you are speaking of from LOTR, the one that says "Speak Friend and enter" was about how the door was never a fortress but rather an open door that everyone was expected to know the passcode for.
My favorite trap was always installing a false door with a complex lock that doesn't actually unlock. Then enchanting it to show magical auras when viewed but not be "defeated" by unlocking cantrips, as well as strengthening and mending against damage. Loads of fun for many a PC. And that one door that they failed to open will keep nagging on their minds as they progress. Especially if it's near the 1/4 point of a long dungeon of some kind. You can even suggest via leftover notes that something significant was behind that door :D
In one of my games, I have a master artisan/artificer who makes his grand living by making safes, vaults, holds, and dungeons. He tests the security of his designs by offering a bounty to any who can successfully fetch a valuable bauble from within. Of course, he fails to mention his occupation and with that the fact that they are mere test subjects. A couple groups have come really close to figuring it out, but not quite yet. One of the best dungeons I put them through totally used the paranoia idea you mentioned; they keep setting off 'traps' but don't know what they do. What they're actually doing is causing new traps to be set on the way out. For example, stepping on a plate in room #8 removes the bracing from the floor in room #1, which they must pass back through in order to get out. With the bracing removed, the floor drops out as soon as someone or something crosses the mid-point. Multiple areas around the dungeon have similar effects. The deeper in one travels, the more they must encounter on the way back. While the puzzles and minor encounters going in are challenging enough to reward the party and allow them to level up once, the challenges escaping are worse and though not designed for a TPK, they tend to require multiple rests and the party may even level up a second time just getting out.
I think this is maybe one of the best videos about traps I've ever seen
You don't get enough views/credit for the work you put into your videos. They are, by far, my favorite and I often listen to them while I am prepping sessions. I've never used a trap in a session because they have NEVER made any sense to me RAW. This has really helped me and I'm now excited to use some of these more practical traps.
Great content. Thank you and keep on doing what you're doing!
For the goblin alarm trap something did come to mind. In addition to the bells maybe if the leader is a magic-user there's also magic mouths that appear all throughout their cave and they hurl insults or are just ominously chanting "we're coming for you" perhaps a bit cheesy but I think it'd ramp up the tension even more.
Thank you. I find your videos vague and evocative. Very on-brand.
Yes thank you Dael! This is a video I've been hoping on and the exact thoughts of this video went through my head as well. Thanks for sharing all these ideas with us, it will absolutely help my campaign.
This video is so true!!! I love when elements in D&D make narrative sense! When they don't, it's one of my biggest pet peeves. Excellent video!
I've always struggled with a reason to have solvable puzzles and traps, this is a good video to help with that
Thank you youtube alchorythm. I'm in love with this channel already! I like the "poison that drains your strength so you can't lift the thing you wanna steal" but don't kill the cleaner who you hired. But Do you ever feel like you over think things? ^^" most traps are there to be one of 5 encounters between long rests. other traps are there
because people don't have money to build deathspell traps. Most of my
traps are there to deplete the stuff out of my players batman belt, got
antipoison? I got a poison trap. Got antifreeze? I got a freezething.
Love the vid.
A trap I loved both narratively and flavorfully(?) is the trapped door from the infinite bank of Yre from Kill Six Billion Demons. It's a door with a lock (big door), and in the middle of that door is a face. Ten seconds after the "lock" is picked the face starts screaming, loud, loud screaming. The only way to open the door and the real lock (the screaming face), is to feed it. It's so insidious because even if would-be thieves did feed one of their number to the door it immediately puts that seed of doubt into all the remaining members of the group. The hint of betrayal, and eventually dooms them to self-destruction.
I always have trouble using traps in my games and your analysis really helped me generate some ideas, thanks!
Love the wire that snaps and doesn't appear to do anything obvious, definitely using that. Although my party is probably already paranoid enough..... nah, that could use some more paranoia. I love inserting things that they get to hear half of what is going on, it kills them to not know the whole of what is happening.
Thanks for the video, it helped a lot. I've been struggling with trap lethality for a while now, and this video inspired me to finally come up with a solution to traps that should kill. It forgoes damage in favor of death saving throws.
Now bear with me this is gonna be long-ish. If the players say they check for traps, and succeed, I point out the trap and trigger. If they fail, they can't see the trap, hence they can't disarm it, but I tell them that there is a trap nearby (they intuitivelly sense it). Only if they critically fail will I say nothing. Now, when triggering traps, I roll trap attack vs target's dex saving throw. If it hits, I make the target roll Death Saving Throws, and even if they pull through, I leave them with permanent stat deduction (depending on trap type). However, if the trap critically hits it is instantly fatal (but players still dodge it if they critically succeed on the dex saving throw).
Sure the traps are very lethal, but the players are always fairly warned about them. Also, if you're gonna do this, make sure to talk to your players about it before the campaign, give them a fair warning that your traps are extremelly dangerous.
Concerning your suggestion to improve the Leap Of Faith: actually, the camouflaged bridge begins a bit below the ledge where Indy is standing, so when he's stepping out, he falls about 30cm before hitting the bridge. This way, anyone testing the air beyond the ledge will in fact find nothing, unless they crouch down very low, while still allowing the bridge to be connected to that side of the chasm. Also, Indy would surely have fallen to his death in your variant, as he didn't actually _leap_, but simply take a step forward. But well, he did not take a leap as instructed, so that's probably what should have happened ;)
Nicely done. I have always had what my players said were overly dangerous or adventure stopping traps, because, as you said, if a trap doesn't try to stop the target in some way then why bother having it. But even so, you gave me some things to think about.
First video of your's I've seen, and been thinking of making a Kobold trapper character, so this actually gave me several ideas and brought up a good point of the "us vs. them" idea. Thank you
Tolkien's "password"door works because it was NOT a password door. The CHARACTERS we follow saw it as a "riddle", but it wasn't built as such. They only saw it that way because the word used to open the doors of Durin were lost to time, at least to any manner of record keeping. At the time they were built, those meant to know how to get in (those particular elves they were friends with, that is why the message was written in their language, not dwarvish) they would know the word if they needed. Most of the time, they wouldn't, as the doors were usually open, with just guards checking who comes and goes. It only became a "riddle" due to the loss of knowledge and the death of the original inhabitants, not while it was still in use, and that is pretty realistic.
Originally, the "riddle" was really more of a greeting and instructions to the elves, and a symbolic gesture (to them, the doors would always be open[able]).
One of my favorite traps I set up in a dungeon, the triggering mechanism was a permanent line of Detect Magic, and it basically served two functions. 1, if it detected a feint magical aura, it would douse the victim with water. The thought behind this was damage the Wizard's spellbook, as in my setting, Spellbooks give off a feint magical aura but the wizard does not. If it's just a fighter with a fancy sword, he'd just get wet and annoyed. The second person was that if it detected a STRONG magical aura, as in a living magical being, these darts would shoot out full of dispel magic, and they would temporarily cut off a spellcaster from their magic for 2d4 hours, essentially forcing the party to decide if they want to take a long rest or not for their spellcaster to regain their magic. The first mechanism worked very well with a second trap where if it still detected a feint aura, after being doused with water, it would electrocute the victim for 2d6 (crit for x2 is target is wet.) The whole thematic purpose for this dungeon was it was the hideout for this order of assassins that specialized in killing spellcasters, specifically Arcane spellcasters.
In this party we had a Wizard, a Rogue with a magical pair of daggers, and a cleric who are the important ones. The rogue spotted the trap and when trying to disarm it, he accidentally triggered it by trying to use his dagger as one of his tools, this caused the water to douse him. The cleric, feeling confident against a little water, decided to walk through the trap before the rogue finished and got hit with the dispel dart, only got 4 hours worth. The Wizard was naturally all "hellz no I ain't going through there" even after the rogue disabled it. Thankfully the rogue caught the lightning trap and disabled it.
Whenever I run a game with goblins I love making them frustrating. All of their traps are loud and whilst fighting them they will spend their time laughing at you and mocking you. Each trying their best to impress their friends with the funniest insult. They will even avoid dealing the killing blow if they can do something that would irritate or humiliate the character
A good trap for a wizard trying to awe intruders could be a glyph that summons/constructs a magical being that is entirely overpowered, yet bound to remain at the trap, so the intruders can run away, properly cowed.
A note to include, which may or may not be addressed depending on how smart you want the trapper to be: the being would be bound by the exact commands of the summoner, so depending on what those commands were determines what the players need to go though in order to get by. For example, whether or not the being can return fire, or hunt down those that snipe it from outside its bound space.
I love your take on horrifying goblins. My characters are approaching mid-tier and I've never bothered to throw goblins against them ... but this video's got my brain brewing some dark stuff.
just found this channel, loving what you're doing so far!
I don't know why I enjoyed that little jeopardy rant so much.
Dael Kingsmill, there's one more species of trap that I can't recall if you mentioned; the trao that doesn't injure the person who sets it off but that destroys the items being sought. A trap that burns the crucial documents that the players are trying to obtain for example.
Additional idea to the trap with no effect.
Trap with a insignificant effect.
Fires a dart with like, 1d6 damage.
Actually triggers major alarm elsewhere, but the players may just go "oh, that was nothing. Lol."
Sit back and wait for their faces when they turn the corner.
Silent tripwire...how DEVIOUS.
You've given me wonderful food for thought--or trap.
a two part authentication works really well, too - like the key you find only works if you're wearing the right magic cape / ring / necklace / what have you. And going forward, if they're still wearing that item, maybe some of the traps won't trigger. This can be even more fun if you don't leave enough magic capes for the party
Just found this channel. Subscribed and charmed as soon as I clicked play.
This an incredibly iconic video; we absolutely stan.
Man I love Monarchsfactory your are just naturally happy and up beat you don't put on a fake facade like a lot of other people
Hey! Just wanted to thank you! I DMed my first game last night and your video really helped me figure out a good philosophy for traps.
Snape potion puzzle: potions should have a hidden interaction, if you take the protective potion before the poison, you enter a different room trough the doorway(need to be dragged exactly halfway to the shadowlands before severing yourself from translocation magic or something).Door riddle: filters wildlife from those that share your culture. Good if you did not get the chance to tell the password to others, bad if you install it as the only line of defence.