I used some wisps to lure and ambush my players with a covered pit trap the other day. Using the above vtt they could see me moving the token so charged after it and once they got close to the pit a previously invisible wisp suddenly gave off bright light and momentarily blinded the nearest of them, I warned them that the surrounding area was now difficult terrain they decided to try hitting the light to put it out so blundered into the trap, they were kicking themselves a little for falling for it. As a side note a 3rd level bard with the college of creation can create a trap with their performance of creation ability (cant be a pit though as it needs to be on a surface)
When designing a trap: • Why was it built? (Defense, Hunting, Attacking, Ambushing, etcetera.) • Who built it? (Dwarves, Goblins, Elves, Devils, Shape Shifters, etcetera; each race builds traps of different complexity.) • What kind of resources and materials are available to this trap designer? (If the builder will carry surplus materials, they might upgrade the lethality/complexity/sensitivity, whereas the inverse happens when lacking material.) • How lethal will this trap be intended to be? (Will this trap be used to hunt Elephants? Purple Worms? Rabbits? Blink Dogs? Etcetera.) This literally got mentioned in the D&D 5e DMG, and you never mentioned it, even though you are mostly talking about combat-centric games like D&D or Pathfinder here; it's listed in the world building, kingdom building, dungeon building, and traps sections (let's be honest, D&D is not known for their ease of access to information contained within their manuals because of the lack of proper information clustering). I probably even missed a few factors too, such as traversal probability, detectability, ease of avoidance, etc.
Honestly, I find most of that information to be unnecessary. Players, in my experience, will accept that there are traps, and that they will be dangerous. I can appreciate that some people feel the need to add all of those details when they are making a trap, but my opinion is that anything that the players are not likely to interact with, is work the DM does for their own benefit- To help THEM believe in the secondary world. I fundamentally believe that any prep the DM does, should be player-facing.
@@AndrewStobb The materials available, the wealth of the kingdom, and the reason for the trap, as well as who built it: those are all things that directly affect the quality, strength, appearance, and durability of the trap, which is directly associated with the players, which is the people the Trap gets aimed at. Look at Tomb of Annihilation if you don't believe me: The enemy is super rich, and they're defending something they value immensely; they've got power, money, time, and they are super evil, so they built a base that would eliminate any unwelcome intruders as efficiently as possible, without requiring their own presence. It works because it makes sense, because it is built into the world; it isn't something that is thrown in to pander to your audience, it was something that was built with a purpose, and the player's characters might or might not be involved with that purpose. The Curse of Strahd module also has some really nicely made traps, there's a few particularly nasty ones located in the basement of Death House, and the Crypt of Castle Ravenloft. You've got some decent advice, but you simply failed to understand the system which is used to build the traps and why it was relevant in the first place.
Always struggled to implement traps in my game, thanks for laying it out so well
I hope you found it useful.
I used some wisps to lure and ambush my players with a covered pit trap the other day. Using the above vtt they could see me moving the token so charged after it and once they got close to the pit a previously invisible wisp suddenly gave off bright light and momentarily blinded the nearest of them, I warned them that the surrounding area was now difficult terrain they decided to try hitting the light to put it out so blundered into the trap, they were kicking themselves a little for falling for it. As a side note a 3rd level bard with the college of creation can create a trap with their performance of creation ability (cant be a pit though as it needs to be on a surface)
That's awesome! I don't think I've ever used wisps before. That might be an idea for my next game.
some good advice here Thx
No problem!
Zach being mentioned is incredible 😂
Good video. Good numbers breakdown. Thanks.
I’m glad you found it useful!
❤ very descriptive!
Big fan.
When designing a trap:
• Why was it built? (Defense, Hunting, Attacking, Ambushing, etcetera.)
• Who built it? (Dwarves, Goblins, Elves, Devils, Shape Shifters, etcetera; each race builds traps of different complexity.)
• What kind of resources and materials are available to this trap designer? (If the builder will carry surplus materials, they might upgrade the lethality/complexity/sensitivity, whereas the inverse happens when lacking material.)
• How lethal will this trap be intended to be? (Will this trap be used to hunt Elephants? Purple Worms? Rabbits? Blink Dogs? Etcetera.)
This literally got mentioned in the D&D 5e DMG, and you never mentioned it, even though you are mostly talking about combat-centric games like D&D or Pathfinder here; it's listed in the world building, kingdom building, dungeon building, and traps sections (let's be honest, D&D is not known for their ease of access to information contained within their manuals because of the lack of proper information clustering).
I probably even missed a few factors too, such as traversal probability, detectability, ease of avoidance, etc.
Honestly, I find most of that information to be unnecessary. Players, in my experience, will accept that there are traps, and that they will be dangerous. I can appreciate that some people feel the need to add all of those details when they are making a trap, but my opinion is that anything that the players are not likely to interact with, is work the DM does for their own benefit- To help THEM believe in the secondary world. I fundamentally believe that any prep the DM does, should be player-facing.
@@AndrewStobb The materials available, the wealth of the kingdom, and the reason for the trap, as well as who built it: those are all things that directly affect the quality, strength, appearance, and durability of the trap, which is directly associated with the players, which is the people the Trap gets aimed at.
Look at Tomb of Annihilation if you don't believe me: The enemy is super rich, and they're defending something they value immensely; they've got power, money, time, and they are super evil, so they built a base that would eliminate any unwelcome intruders as efficiently as possible, without requiring their own presence.
It works because it makes sense, because it is built into the world; it isn't something that is thrown in to pander to your audience, it was something that was built with a purpose, and the player's characters might or might not be involved with that purpose.
The Curse of Strahd module also has some really nicely made traps, there's a few particularly nasty ones located in the basement of Death House, and the Crypt of Castle Ravenloft.
You've got some decent advice, but you simply failed to understand the system which is used to build the traps and why it was relevant in the first place.
First