6 Tips for Making Awesome Traps in Dungeons & Dragons
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มิ.ย. 2024
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In this video, I go over six ways you can make your traps better in Dungeons & Dragons. Developing the specific details of a trap is a very creative process, but there are general guidelines for building traps in D&D that can help make our traps more dynamic and fun for our players.
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Dear DM Lair I wanna ask a question and please answer
I am making a 20lvl (no rogue) 4-5players one off and they PC's they have to fight something like a boss and a lot of minions or monsters or whatever
but I don't know what to choose
A huge monster : the god of all predators the ultimate killer of the Races and the Non beast life
A angry demigod : the combination of the Death god and the Quinn of the biggest kingdom an crazy god/godess who is up against his/her mother for the crown
A ancient Dragon : the sacrifices of millions a huge dragon the father/god of the rest in a mountain of despaired heroes ,millions have died in a try to kill it but all failed
A Lich leader of the rest lesser liches a powerful mage able to destroy the angels of the sky with an idea for destruction and a commander to the undead army
A God : the apocalypse for our age the reason why we are gonna loose against Death, Our demise and your next target adventurers
The Embodiment of the planes : a creature made out of the limbo and the reason why the earth is dying from randomness and madness (rivers go red from blood, people mutating, limbo becomes on with the world
The demon/devil King : the king of evil want's to make everyone a slave and the earth his kingdom or a huge fireball made out from A war against him
your idea : ?
With my simple traps, I like to give my players an idea of what the presented mechanism of the trap looks like along with the effects of the trap if they find and investigate it. This way, it allows the party to use other skills and abilities outside of just Sleight of Hand or Thieves Tools to disable it. For example, I had a chest trapped with small explosive packages around the inner rim that would detonate if you attempted to raise the lid without taking other actions around the chest first. A player was successful on their Investigation check and spotted a mechanism through the lock of the chest which suggested that lifting the lid would specifically trigger something. In response, someone used Carpenter's Tools to cut a hole in the lid and remove the charges from the inside before opening it.
the DM Lair one of my favorite DM tricks is to have players make saving throws for almost no reason. For example i had a rouge going though a dungeon, he made a investigation check and rolled low. I had no trap planned so as he was talking I told him to make a dex save. He rolled really well and jumped to the side but nothing happened. This gets your players to jump and panic and keep suspense up with
the DM Lair “I don’t even see any darkness” hahah nice
Nikitas Zacharakis dear Mr. dungeon master Sr. Ply answer the question 😈
There is a trap that I love and its so funny, I found It in a Reddit post some time ago.
The players go in a room, it could be a empty room or have any forniture you want but all the doors of the room are locked, and they can't be open.
In the room is a button and when a PC push IT, the door they came through also closes and a count down begings.
If a PC push the button again, the count down resets.
When the countdown ends, all doors open.
Try it, and se your players fall in pánic for no reason jajaja
There was an animated spell book episode about that wasn't there?
@@GwynoftheMist yep
Isn't it basically just a waste of time though?
@@notMattGarska yep
Oh, man. I'm using that in the campaign I'm writing for my friends!
"Slow the trap down"
Great tip! Thanks! I think I'll add this to the next session. Makes the trap more of an encounter.
Yes, exactly. And then the players can actually do something about it instead of just roll dice and hope for the best.
"Barbarian... absolutely you keep smashing"
Ultimately, the best traps are the ones the players _realise are there_ but need to work out how to get past. The worst are just, "Save or take damage." The really interesting traps are the ones where they turn into an encounter, with the whole party interacting with a problem.
If this fails, one way I've heard of to "slow the trap" down - if only slightly - is called the "Click Rule". That is, if the players roll really badly on their Perception and walk into a trap, you say "Click". At that point, the players have a couple of seconds in which they can declare an action.
Maybe they throw themselves backwards. Throw themselves to the ground. Charge forward. Duck behind their shield.
Whatever.
This way, even if it _does_ come down to "save or take damage" the players _feel_ like they had an opportunity to do something. Like this wasn't just some random "HP tax", but something they interacted with.
So if the trap is a bunch of darts that shoot out at torso height, the PCs who ducked or shielded avoid it while the others make saves.
Totally agree. I strongly dislike the old school way of doing traps: save or take damage.
I discuss the click rule in my other trap video. It's one of my favorite ways to easily change a trap into something more fun than save or take damage.
I disagree, give them some sort of clue about the room based on their passive investigation or perception and let them check around or suffer.
"It reeks of acid" gelatinous cube
"The ground sounds hollow" pit
"You can see a raised tile" obvious traps ahead set off by certain tiles
"You catch a shiny glimpse of something up ahead" "mightve been metal, coin, something shiny... (if they ask without looking for it)" could be a tightly wound string or web or such.
And dont forget we have dexterity saves now, these were introduced specifically to avoid traps that were sprung on us, it's why it's the "reflex" save.
The only.time this becomes an "hp tax" is if they're not looking. Relying on passive perception doesnt show all traps, so yes some are going to get through the pcs high passive perception.
@@theDMLair the old school way I've seen... well orignally... was save or die, hell you didnt even have a reflex save until 2nd edition... you just DIED
@@elgatochurro
I definitely agree with the way you're describing the traps. For sure, the players should not be just handed the blueprints to the traps just because their passive Perception meets a certain threshold. You don't hand it to them on a platter
It should always be, "You notice a line of holes on the wall." or, "You notice an area of cobblestones that seems somehow different." The goal is, after all, to have the players interact with the game world as if it were a real world and their characters were real people in it.
What I'm saying is that we don't want either a return to the checking every inch of the dungeon with a 10ft pole, _or_ a situation where the dungeon feels "safe."
The goal should be an environment where the players feel challenged, but empowered to meet that challenge.
And don't worry about the "click rule" giving inattentive players an "out".
Inattentive players will _still_ be all, "Wait, _what_ just happened?" when you say "click."
Lots of amazing points in this thread! IMO the best traps provoke roleplaying and interaction with the environment in some way, just as you've been saying.
Agreed that having a high PP shouldn't result in the PC just automatically receiving all info about the trap. That leeches all the fun away from even having traps.
Well, I was drinking water at "... Or I should say, Whirly-gig damage" and I failed my CON save.
Now my laptop and my homework have both taken 1d4 spit-water damage with the laptop suffering from the "Wet" condition while my homework was vulnerable to Spit-water damage so it is rolling death saves.
My advice to all GMs is to ban instant death traps unless you're running something like the Tomb of Horror where all the players know they're facing that kind of insanity. Save, disable, or die traps are just a whole lot of no fun and are a sign that the GM is of the kind who feel it's them versus the players rather than them facilitating the fun of the players. If you're going to use a trap that can kill, then it has to be designed in such a way that the players have ample opportunity to escape, avoid, or disable it. The meanest trap I ever used was one that was in a long (100 meters or so) dungeon hallway with a closed door at its end. 1/4 of the way down the hallway was a magical sensor. Anyone other than the caster passing the sensor triggered the trap. However, the trap didn't go off until they were halfway down the hallway, at which point, the floor began to get hot and eventually melted away into boiling lava. Anyone caught in the hallway had just enough time to escape but only if they ran for it in either direction. If they ran to the door at the end of the hallway they could escape into a 20 x 20 room with another door directly across from the entrance. Stepping into the room caused arrow traps to start shooting from left and right. The natural reaction to which is to try and open the other door to escape the arrow trap room, but that door was a false door with only a wall behind it, thus ensuring that characters wasted time trying to bust through a false door rather than disarming the arrow trap. The lava in the hallway started cooling after a few hours and the arrows eventually stopped shooting so overall it wasn't really that dangerous, but it certainly had my players in a tizzy for quite a while.
Agreed. Instant death traps suck.
I had an insta death trap, but I also included multiple levels of warnings that the security of the place they were stealing from used lethal force to protect their belongings if need be, which made them wary about randomly grabbing items and instead investigating first.
the best puzzle is where the players walk into a room, and you describe an apparatus of levers and spaces above the door, and describe as symbols above the door change as they flip the levers, but the actual solution is to just push the door open
Last time my party was creative they ate a troll foot
How'd that turn out?
What’s the story?
as in, like... the troll kicked them in the face, or they literally ate its foot?
Another fun “trap” is to make a wizards tower that in order to get out you have to go up and each level is focused on a different ability score... strength to pull and hold a chain that lifts the floor up (that player has to stay holding the chain), dexterity to avoid darts that fire out of the wall as you rock climb up to flip a switch to turn off the dart triggers and allow the floor to lock in place, intelligence and wisdom were based on a library of scrolls that seemed abstract but actually hosted the answers to the next level once the jackalweres came to escort (or put to sleep the unwilling) party members to talk to the lamia guardian who asked questions like a sphinx that were all riddles.
"You have found the trap, and know how to disarm it; there are 7 places where to push at the same time, and you don't fail to notice that you have the wrong amount of limbs to do it. What do you do?"
I like "after you" traps, traps that hit the second or third person to cross it, designed to take out those who take dungeon dwellers prisoner and have them walk in front as a means of avoiding traps, either they disable the traps or they die to them. Alternatively you can kill the healer/squishy wizard in the back. :)>
Heh. The amount of "Even the DM doesn't even know how to solve this puzzle"'s that I've put in my game lol.
One time I used a trap from Undertale. There's six buttons, five are in the 5-dot pattern on a dice, and one is below in line with the centre button. There's a stone tablet on the wall. It reads "Brave ones, foolish ones. Both walk not the middle road." There's also a switch one the wall. If you press the right buttons, the switch will unlock the door. If it's wrong, the door just won't open. (If you want to make it harder, just make the walls close in every time they get it wrong) You just have to step on the buttons that aren't in the middle. It took my players around ten minutes to get through an Undertale tutorial trap/puzzle. If you're wondering how this is a trap, they'd just let some enemies get away, and backup was on it's way.
My personal favorite trap is one that's set to be safe, and the players are given a lever or something to set off the trap themselves.
I've done it in every first dungeon in the campaign and it's worked twice without a fail, rather a favorite of mine as well since they set it off themselves despite possible warnings I give them.
The first one had this long ass chain through the room tightly bound and wound to a lever they could spin, by the wall where the chain went into the wall, there was a lever, they pull the lever and the givens metal ball crashed into the floor.
Second one was a trap able to be set up by those inside the dungeon, two levers before a door. On a decent investigation check I told them "it seems each side can be set individually but each side is meant to be set up this way on both sides." They release the levers and those in the middle of the room fell into a spiked pit trap... no enemies, no tricks, they did that to themselves as the rogue was prying the door open with a crowbar.
Again I really love it because its not a "keep people out" "punish invaders" sort of trap, its literally set up to be safe if left as is... but their investigative minds try to experiment and flip the switch before figuring anything out...
Honestly taking one kobold or goblin hostage and bribing or threatening them would tell them the truth pretty easily.
Idk what to call it personally, I'd love to have it named after ne like "Murphy orc trap" or "colville screw" but idk what kind of process or word even fits with the players themselves setting off traps in themselves that were otherwise non hazards, yes, actual non hazards, I wouldn't set it off itself.
Oh yeah that's an awesome idea dude I like it. I will probably be stealing that myself. Tricking the players into setting off the Trap themselves. Hundred percent gold.😈
@@theDMLair it could be... a bunch of gold or supplies that the people release by unwinding a tied rope.
Really it's just "some things set up and you can undo it".
We might be "weirdo's" but there's a kind of long tradition of this sort of thing at my Table...
We've often referred to this type of "trap" as a "Stoopie Switch" in conversation (outside the game)... Some of them are just a "gag" to rattle the PC's without actually causing any harm, and some create an alert for other monsters around the place (like pulling the lever releases a giant spring-loaded hammer to ring against a HUGE cymbal in the tower, calling every Orc within a 30 mile radius...) AND obviously, some of them create or trigger a very real hazard...
AND whatever the "punchline" is, the results are settled up, and everyone can appreciate "the newest stoopie switch" of the game. ;o)
That's cool. I love how things like that become a thing for groups and even get their pet names.
@@theDMLair {just in case you like "background stories"}
I'm in an area where a radio show, "The John-boy and Billy Big Show" is kind of popular... so we get a lot of side gags from their content, too... AND "Stoopie" is an often refered to "country twangy" term for "stupid"... thus if you can catch yourself in a trap with a switch... "stoopie switch" is where our group "coined" slash "stole-ish" the original context... and there was a string of "stoopie jokes" to go around while that pet name got etched into our Table... all for the lolz... and so many years ago, I can't even legitimately accuse any particular person nor take credit myself for that thing... none of us can remember. ;o)
You DID post "Please share any tips for making traps better!" {and yes, I paraphrased a little}
It really depends on how "serious" you are about your traps and the game... and then cover something about "realism vs. interesting"...
I'd HIGHLY recommend some actual resource books (non-fiction) on the subject. In GI Surplus stores (in the U.S. at least) you can get "obsolete" editions of things like "The CIA's Little Brown Book of Booby Traps"... I have one myself. It's declassified info' (as in too obsolete to be helpful on modern field work) so it's still worth a read... and occasional reference.
I'd also HIGHLY recommend personal IN REAL LIFE experimentation, just a bit... Even if you do NO more than set up and set off a few booby-traps in your yard with sticks and crap you can find around the house, this will give you some insight as to just how clever these kinds of things have to be... DO be careful, and work at scale... a reasonable "spring" source (for instance) to operate a perfectly functional "spring trap" is a fiber-glass tent-pole segment... yes, like one section of one of those flexible things from a pup-tent... AND you can get them from dead/dying or over-used tents at garage sales and open-air markets... they're durable, flexible, and surprisingly springy for a power source...
NOW... TIP's...
FIRST... Categorize your traps. I go by three categories, personally.
1. Offensive... These are entirely designed to injure or kill... that's what the stakes are... simple as the name of the category. Think "bear traps" and "Snap-traps" like old-school furriers used to catch small game...
2. Defensive... These are designed to slow you down, obstruct view or movement, or hinder progress... whether that's progress forward or back, is inconsequential... AND any injury or death is an "unintentional" side effect... not to be confused with "oopsies" but not the direct INTENT of this kind of trap. Think triggering the rockslide into the narrow chasm the party uses to get into the canyon with the hide-out so they have several hundred tons of rock to move before they can get back OUT...
3. Nuisance... These are probably MY most favorite kind. They're designed to distract, annoy, harass, and generally obfuscate the Party's license to make any progress. Any harm caused is purely coincidental, though it's not exactly considered a "deficiency" of the trap's design.
SECOND... Now that we have advice on categories down (for terminology's sake)... I highly HIGHLY recommend you (GM's) keep the OFFENSIVE trapping to the discrete minimals, except for where it's CLEARLY appropriate.
AND that' leads me into THIRDLY... MAKE SENSE!!!
Look, I'm a Player FIRST... I want to enjoy the game, and I don't much care what side of the GM Screen I'm on. BUT as much as I prefer Players who bring PC's to my table with a certain quality of making sense in the game and world we're creating, I prefer a GM who's ideas of "gotcha" also line up with some reasonable sensibility of trapping.
Finding the ONLY pot of quicksand in a desert for thousands and thousands and thousands of miles, because the evil magae set it in the Party's path... is just a touch "bullsh*tty"... It's a trap. Either there are BILLIONS of those things laid out all over the desert (making these some of the longest lived and most BORED magae in history) OR there's no sense in just putting one pot of quicksand out there.
Castles have MOATS for a reason, usually to keep invaders off the walls... so just making sense like that can really improve the game.
Nuisance traps can be ALARMS to get everyone alerted to intruders in the first place. It's a great system! It does NOT have to be loud or obnoxious, BUT that can help too. AND when PC's get in a big panic that causes more problems than the original trap... well... That's just BUTTER on the GM's toast!!!
Forth and finally...
VARIETY... is the spice of the game. Switch stuff up once in a while, just "because"... Take the game's figurative HORNS as the GM and run with them... If you normally run "save or suck" traps, RP'ing a springloaded puzzle can bring everyone at the table closer to the game, engage them for a group resolution (for better or worse)... AND if you're used to squishy RP-session trappings... once in a while calling for a Dex to dodge and dishing out damage WHACK! can be a dramatic smashing of hands on the table moment SURE to send your Player's into a tizzy!
There's no ONE Correct way to RPG, not even in D&D. Cut yourself and your Players a little slack and experiment... and of course, "Never EVER let the rules get in the way of the game!" ;o)
Those are amazing tips. I feel like I could turn your post into its own video! 😂
@@theDMLair You probably could... and even if you do, I probably will anyway... once I get enough material practice under my belt to have a decent work-flow for content.
I'm kind of a "Take what you like and drop what you don't" type... AND it's worth the consideration that I find most of these as "relatively common" knowledge, easily researchable and confirmable on their own merits. ;o)
what I personally like to do is, bring the DC of the checks down depending on the creativity (and accuracy!) of the methods that the players describe. This encourages roleplaying and still uses ability checks.
That's a cool idea.
@@theDMLair Btw, I loved the expression on the players' faces when they heard the "click", last session.
20:04 I bought a book with traps in it once. I took 28 fire damage when I opened it because I didnt disarm them.
I will share a trapped tower I setup for my Very Munchkin LMoP players. I made the Green Dragon VenomFang a lvl 5 wizard. Tower now has 4 levels. The flooded basement has some small chambers in including a passage to a crypt with access outside, incase players get stuck here, as the stairs up from it are blocked. The main floor above has a false middle (100lb trigger DC13 to spot)...no real damage, but from the two ghouls down below...I forgot to mention them. Venomfang has set up the main entrance with a couple rope snares combined with swinging spikes, this was meant to snare a couple Dragon Cultists who run in to fairly warn the PCs this will not be a stand up fight. In front of the stairs up, opposite the main door, Venomfang will use a Major Image of himself patiently waiting for PCs to talk themselves silly, or waltz across the weak floor. The stairs up lead to where venomfang sleeps and studies. The stairs continue the loft above, which opens to his upper porch. Both the loft and the square house next to the tower have an Alarm spell warning of entry. If it looks like PCs or whomever are correctly entering the weak old tower, the Green Dragon will Misty Step out the north window. What holds this all together is the pile of valuable spell books in the mid chamber, on which is a Skull sitting on a note. The Skull of Palien is a unique magic item which detects when a trap is engaged, and when triggered casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter (up to three times per day renews at dawn). The note congratulates the finder and prompts them to read the other side...the one with the Explosive Runes on it. (in a rickety tower, with ghouls at the bottom)
i had an idea of using special mimics like a ladder mimic, or having a bunch of small gelatinous cubes fall from the ceiling and join together to for a massive gelatinous, or as i just thought of this instead of acid in the pit its a gelatinous cube that will try to stretch out and grab them.
I have a book called Deadly Trappings, which is a collection of traps that have been published in Knights of the Dinner Table over the years, and there's some creative ones, such as the action of disarming a trap triggering another, trapping the treasure itself, or even something that give a benefit at first, but if used too much, it triggers a trap. Lots of good ideas in that one.
Sometimes players are blind to the most obvious traps. In one dungeon, my players found a dead adventurer hanging from a hooked chain from the ceiling. Rather than check for the obvious trap, our rogue announced he was going to take the body off the chain and loot his armor. I asked him, "You sure?" He said yes, and then got mad when the counter-weight activated and a large scythe swung down from the ceiling behind him and impaled him in the chest; nearly killing him. "Why didn't you tell me there was a trap?" Because you didn't even bother looking for one- even though it was obviously a trap? Especially in a dungeon filled with kobolds, a species well-known for making and using traps?
Then you have the rogue/sorcerer who sucks at disarming traps but can never admit it. He failed to disarm a trap on a door, but luckily didn't activate it on himself. Rather than inform the party, he told the dull-witted barbarian that it was safe to go ahead. One dead barbarian later, and the party made sure to make the rogue go first from now on. In his defense, he forgot the barbarian had been injured in the previous battle and assumed he would be able to soak the damage.
5:11 - When you seamlessly transitioned from pirate accent into "Slow the trap down", I must admit I was extremely disappointing that we weren't treated to a hearty round of your pirate singing, "Yo ho, slow the trap down..."
Slowing down the trap is something that is a lot of fun... I had a doppelgänger in a prison cell in a dungeon that looked like a lost kid from the local village. Next to him was a chest. Part of the party interacted with the shapechanger while the greediest PC opened the chest which was the trigger that had a little note inside taunting them.
The doors closed and then the wall behind the cell began to push towards the party. They freed the doppelgänger and realize the doors are locked and guarded by magic runes that cause fear to make it harder to unlock.
On the other side of the room opposite the closing wall that has locked up and the entire side of the room is moving closer to crush them, they hear shifting plates under the floor in front of the “safe” wall. The closer they get to it they realize that the entire wall has hidden covers that are above poison spikes pits but they PCs don’t know which squares are safe and which are hiding pits.
Initiative was clutch and no one died... But it was close!! The last player just made it as the crushing wall covered the doorway behind them. Greed - It kills ya.
Traps wise I've got 2 my group is coming up to...
1) a rope across a pit of rotating shredder blades apparently jammed up by a magic helmet(apparently left by the adventuring party that they're chasing) the rope actually has razor wire in it causing a con save to stay holding on. Falling on the shredder stands a chance of knocking the helmet loose and restarting the blades, looting the shiney will restart the blades, could possibly buy 1 round with the Indiana Jones switcheroo
2) same idea as the stones across the pit of acid except 2 of the stones are acid immune mimics who auto hit anyone who steps on them
great video!! that example you did with the spinning blades was entertaining and REALLY helpful; i've got all kinds of ideas for traps in my campaign now when i wasn't even thinking about them before
thanks a lot!!
You are very welcome! I'm always happy to help folks out.
Love the ma'al drakar in the background, I'm halfway through painting this sculpt.
I am new to DnD as a player, and because of lockdown in Scotland, as a DM as well (bought a starter kit, and some of the books, learning from one session as a player and bringing some of them ideas to my friends game i run). you have very good advice and its helping me out a lot.
for trap ideas, i got reminded of a UK tv show called the crystal maze, it was popular in the 90s, it involved small challanges for players in rooms to try win a crystal which gave them time at end of the show in final challange. there were 4 areas which the challanges were set in, one of them was Medieval, and i feel after watching old shows of that serries, quite a few traps or challanges could be made up for players lol
I gave the party a magical box. When one of the characters opened it they found a pile of puzzle pieces. The character that opened it could see the image and put it together, other characters just saw blank white puzzle pieces so they could help put it together but not see anything. To mirror this I took dollar store puzzles and glued my own images to them and recut them out. I had one for each player and a few extras. The images generated a lot of questions and still come up years later. Images of giant storm cloud daemons fighting armies of men, mysterious dark warriors, many thing I have laid out for far off story points.
Another thing I want to do and have been working in story is giving the players a giant puzzle box with multiple puzzles and layers. Some of the session/encounter ideas link directly to the puzzles on the box. The idea is to give the players a time limit before the session to solve a puzzle or two and gain a boon for the session. Otherwise as they play they should realize the link between the session and a puzzle finding the solve in the role playing. Ideally the players figure out all the puzzles on the box about the time the characters reach the main story climax and they can see in the box. It will have a miniature diorama of the final location. I just got my 3d printer a couple weeks ago so I things should be amazing.
No thief is an arcatype
#4 I used Tucker's Kobolds in a white dragon lair. The whole way in the party was dealing with the traps the Kobolds were employing and not killing a single CR 1/8th Kobold (they were level 12 at the time in the glacier that is/was a white dragon lair). They got to the "final trap" It was a 200' corridor when they got about halfway down the leader popped out at the end and hit a switch. Slabs of ice fell blocking the path forward and back, but that's not it also unleashed stored seawater (30 degree see water) so they started having to used the items they brought to fight the cold of the dragon to survive. The barbarian eventually shattered the blockage and they made it out, but soaked to the bone and a little exhausted. I was somewhat proud of that one.
Awesome stuff man. I have so many ideas for my campaign now.
Cool. Happy to help! 😁
@@theDMLair I would give details but they might read it before the dungeon.
Nice work on the video, great tips!
This was the best trap tip I've ever heard. Wow. This changes my take on traps in the future. Thanks Luke
No problem. Happy to help. 😁
The best encounter I have run where traps had a very important part, was not about the traps themselves, but about the players had to hurry past them.
Lets start from the beginning, the party is solving some murders in this town, and have scooped up some rumours about a gang war in the sewers. They choose to confront one of the gangs to hear what is going on. As they are getting into the gang leaders room (the violent way) he has all his people swarming them while he makes his get away through a hidden tunnel. As the players enter this tunnel they set off the first trip wire, and find out that this tunnel has several such installations. But they need to catch that gang leader to get some answers... That was a fun encounter with traps in my oppinion, since the traps wasn´t the encounter it self, but was taking their time, and they could just rush through and take the damage, or they could take their time, but potentially loose their lead.
I also like using traps as a way of setting the mood. Like a dungeon with acid pits, swinging sawblades and armors coming to live attacking the heroes would be setting a pretty dark mood before you have them face a lich or something while a bunch of mousetraps on the floor, a very obvious piece of rope being attached to a bucket of ballbearings, a bucket of glue on top of a door and some illusions of toondemons should make pretty clear that the gnome who was setting those up is not that devious but rather just doesn't like visitors.
these are really great suggestions, especially going slow
I really like your philosophy about traps
Thanks! 😀👊
My favourite traps are those that weren't designed to be traps but the wrong use of their mechanism turn them into dangers.
For example: In my last session I designed a room that worked as an enclosed aquarium. In order to Cross it the door had a Dwarven inscription for activating a room-specific "Control water" that would allow You to cross. But if you just opened the door you'd flood the room You were in and a swarm of qippers would attack You.
Awesome video, thanks!!
Extremely useful video thank you!
I love your videos, thanks for the advice
You bet dude! Happy to help. 👊
If Gandalf called it a thief, it has no bad connotation!
I love Grimtooth's Traps! Those came out in the 80s I think. Each one was softcover book of about 60 or 80 pages, give or take. 6 books in all if I remember. I collected all of them. Wonderful books! Recently those were all re-released in one giant book/pdf that has a few bits of new stuff too. I hiiiiiiiighly recommend it!
But beware! Many of them are so insanely lethal that they could only result in a TPK. The trick is to take Grimtooth's ideas and then turn those TPK traps into something fun for the party to handle. Or just make your OWN new and improved Tomb of Horrors and unleash the full fury of Grimtooth on them all! (better warn them first, maybe even get their consent to play in such a meat grinder, lest you don't have them come back next week).
Okay, you had me at "Attacking the Darkness". It's always great to know that there is still life in that Skit.
There will always be life in that skit. 😁
Dude, I'm running Rise of Tiamat. Next section will be about getting into the white dragon lair. I'll definitely change the lair and put some of these nasty traps. Thank you man!
I have one for you from my 2nd Ed. Days. You didn't touch on magic traps. One of my favorites, though I use it sparingly is reverse gravity. I had a dragon lair that seemed to be a simple tunnel with an uneven fitted stone floor. Halfway along its length was a pressure plate that swung two 10 foot long panels down into a 12 foot deep pit. Anyone who fell to the bottom took 1d6 dmg, then automatically triggered the spell "reverse gravity," making them fall 22 feet from the bottom of the pit to the ceiling of the 10 ft tall tunnel... much fun ensued.
I also used a reserve gravity maze on the party, in which they fell upward into a tunnel in the ceiling and then into different channels going different directions eventually dropping them near where they started. The trick was they had to atch a side tunnel, while falling past it, to move forward
Regarding Tip 1, I like having four distinct categories of Traps. Random encounter, Minor encounter, Major encounter, lastly Deus ex machina.
The first are what I call the quick, small fun seized traps of annoying consequence. They are there to allow the characters who have the skills to "show" off or too "show" off why the lack of such skills can be annoying. They are quick in the sense that they come done to a few dice rolls or skillful dungeon master storytelling (aka arbitrary dungeon master decision). At the same time, the consequences of failure are minor, more annoying than harmful or very delayed. I like to keep my traps a bit realistic, so it usually depends on the situation (where is the trap, who or what made it, for which purpose, do the makers have to interact with it often?) but things like dissolving or making temporary unwearable non-magical clothing, causing them to stink like after a skunk attack, grease (they and where they touch become all slippery), temporary blindness/deafness and other status effects are my favorites. Those things often make great stories by themselves.
For the ones with more significant consequences, it can be something like a disease or poison that does not take immediate effect. So while the consequences can be significant, they do not immediately affect the plot and derail the story. They give the players and dungeon master time to deal with it/design and tell that specific story latter.
The second category are the minor traps, again with minor consequences that are intended to give atmosphere and add flavor, most commonly to a location or NPC. For example, instead of your usual Bandit ambush, that ends up just being another bog-standard fight. Have the Bandits set-up traps according to their style. Some snares or trip wires to hinder the PC from rushing bowmen, a few Puppets in the bushes to make it see as if there were more bandits and possibly soak up attacks. Nothing really lethal to your plays by themselves or something they really need to focus on interacting with. Just something to add flavor.
They can be force dividers/multipliers to balance things out. I dislike strong high challenge rating/level Monsters/NPC´s only showing up after long campaign, while at the same time weak Monsters/NPC´s seem to despair. I like using traps or terrain in conjunction with them, either for against so that I can have players encounter strong opponents earlier and having weak ones remain relevant.
The Major encounter ones are that either by themselves or in conjunction with terrain/plot or NPC´s provide a significant challenge to the PC´s that needs to be overcome, these are the types of traps I would consider the video being mostly about. Unlike the random's and minor, they are intended to be strongly interactive and allow all players to join in with dealing and overcoming them (or to be made useful against a OP enemy).
I would add a warning, know your players. Since the stakes are supposed to be higher with these traps, they (or not using them to the PC advantage) can often cause permeant instant death. I know players who have the tendency to not only get their characters, but if possible other PCs killed by such traps. You might not want that.
Also, for puzzle traps that full stop story progress until they are overcome, a hint system can be useful. For example, have containers that can be opened that contain hints, but each time a container is opened something bad happens.
Lastly, we have the Deus ex machina. These are story relevant Traps that have a specific story relevant purpose. For example, they might allow me to capture the PC´s and start am escape quest line, where they have to deal with the issue of not having their usual stuff or where they might need to use diplomatic skills to get out of the situation. In this category is also the regular NPC escape trap for Story relevant NPC´s.
I like making things personal between the Players and their Nemesis. While Pc´s are weak, I can have the nemesis turn up and make the PC´s flee, hide or just beat them and leave them. As the PC´s get stronger, a direct confrontation that does not kill the nemesis is harder to make happen. Traps are often much better at stalling PC´s than minions, so using them to facilitate the timely escape of the nemesis is usually much better. Another trap in this category are communication traps. When PC´s steal something from or enter the lair of a gone Nemesis. Have a communication spell activate. So that the Nemesis can see who is stealing/trespassing, but also so Players and Nemesis can talk with each other without needing to think or worry about fighting.
Deus ex machina traps are typically unavoidable and do their story relevant part without the players being able to stop them, even when they are sometimes interactive and can be overcome.
Why can't you challenge both your players and their characters? Give the players a set amount of time (to represent the amount of time before the trap kills/hurts them) to solve the trap/puzzle (say, 15 minutes). Then you say, "As the [trap] overtakes you, you have one last burst of inspiration. Roll Intelligence (or Dex, or Wis) to see if your burst of inspiration is enough." Then set a save DC which should be dependent on the difficulty of the trap, of course. Boom, you just challenged your players without necessarily blocking off part of an adventure to them because they personally aren't smart enough or whatever to figure it out.
Yeah I think doing both is a good way to go about it as well. And you're right I wouldn't want to block off an entire Adventure because they are clever enough to solve something. There needs to be some sort of backup plan or something to make sure that things can still progress. Maybe they don't get as good of a whatever if they can't solve a puzzle but they still good enough to continue on with the adventure.
So, look to the Grimtooth's Traps books for the traps of really outrageous scope and scale.
Sounds good to me.
"I use my Thieves' Tools to disable the gear mechanism!"
"i just described the gears as being made of stone, and weighing seven to twelve tons apiece. Are you sure your daintly little metal pins and needles are going to have much of an effect?" ;)
I don't pretend to have read the entire book ( it's huge) but from what I read it had lots of interesting traps. I might not implement all traps from there as is, but they for sure get the ball rolling.
@@theDMLair I have all the old books, not the new one. Many of the traps are somewhat on the... unethical side, but many of the room and corridor traps - that take up the whole room or corridor - are great inspiration for the scope and scale.
Yes I agree. A few I saw were more like DM screwjobs. But if used as inspiration for something fairer let us say, they could be great.
@@theDMLair " ball rolling" ... I see what you did there.
LOL yes I found that when we're dealing with traps getting the ball rolling is always the best option. 😂
One thing I did with a huge pit of lava that really spiced up the game (and annoyed my players) was that there were invisible chains strewn across the hallway right above the pit, and some of them aren't very sturdy. The first guy, barbarian, tried to leap across it (it's only 15 feet wide), smashed into a chain and just barely managed to grab on to avoid falling into the pit. Next, the rogue went ahead to find a safe passage, the third chain he yanked on detaches from the wall and he falls... into the lava... cue Gollum inside Mt. Doom scene... Barbarian tried to save the Rogue, rolled a nat 1 on his Dexterity check, loses his grip and also falls into the lava, though he was beefy enough to survive, barely, losing both his legs in the lava. Party had to retreat and return 3 days later minus 800gp and with a Bottle of Infinite Water that they used to cool the lava.
As a dm I once designed a trap that worked as follows: first there is a door with a pit trap, behind it is a room, maybe with a few monsters, then another door, in front of it another pit trap is placed, in the next room there are some monsters And another time a pit trap in front of a door, behind this door there is a very strong opponent but no treasure, the treasure is in the third pit trap ... The players will probably notice the first and the second and overcome the third without any problems because they know about it, unknowingly that it's not a trap this time
What I am planning for a dungeon is a chest that is attached to a string, and that is attached to a bell, and the bell goes off when you open the chest, and that wakes up a beholder that asks them a riddle, and if they get it right, they can go free
My party was once going through I dungeon that they heard had a Shadow Dragon in it. they eventually come to a large corridor with holes in the floor and on the walls, a Death Knight on the other side. There were certain panels on the floor that would shoot up pillars of fire and if they got too close to the walls, fire would also shootout. it was one of the most fun encounters to build that ended up killing my friend's druid
What I would do is have a blade that slides along a rail on the ceiling, so if a player throws a grappling hook to swing across the pit of acid the blade cuts the rope. XD
At times I put an obvious rail or beam (that's fake) with bolts loosened just enough to make it give way when weight is put on it.
@@MalrexMontresor Yeah, that's what triggers the blade to slide by and cut the rope on their grappling hook.
Why would players use a grappling hook in the first place, seems highly situational
Well, if their light enough they can forgo the hook and use mage hand and fly everywhere...
You trigger the prressure plate, the wall opens up and out of the wall a Swarm of Swarms of Terasuqes runs out. Because when you really want to kill your players use a Swarm of Swarms of Terasques
There's a bunch are unique traps you can make and the 2nd edition Wizards of the Coast world builders guide. I altered one and made it to where whenever characters where in a room of standing mirrors if they looked into the mirror a perfect copy of that character came out of the mirror with all of their equipment and magic items and if they destroyed the mirrors with weapons or magic they aged 6D6 years and the copies still existed.
The hook was that copies didnt attack the mirrors because thay would be sucked back into it and the players had to use the mirror as weapons and shields.
I'm not a big fan of traps. If I'm running a module I'll often just swap any traps out for a puzzle that allows the whole party the chance to solve.
One recent one I did was a trapped hallway. The original trap was your basic pressure plate dart trap. The hall was described to have large stone doors at each end. The puzzle became a simple sallyport. For one set of doors to open the others had to be closed. A clue was hidden in the etchings in the walls. Surprisingly this took my players some time to solve as they were inclined to over think it.
I have a trap that challenges players in Pathfinder that I only pull off if a character has tremorsense.
Its an illusory wall that has a zone of silence layered on it, with a prismatic wall stuffed halfway inside that wall.
Tremorsense doesnt ping the walls, so that character gets to kniw that something is up.
I've been thinking, why not make some sort of trap/puzzle that *spawns* encounters if players get its solution wrong?
That'd be FUN trap! 😈
Well, why not put everyone that the trap would spawn right in the room?
I have a sound trap, it doesn't hurt anyone, but alerts the entire dungeon.
It serves as a stress trap basically, because the players hear the monsters, but cant see them.
Eveey trap consists of four things: A reason(why is there a trap), A trigger (wat activates the trap) an effect(the cool part) and last but not least a failsafe(how does the guy who set the trap avoid it)
very good advice. I am very surprised you did not bring the Grimtooth traps.
it might be before your time. Incredibly detailed traps. But I think anyone using them would have to follow your advice of slowing it down. Because most of them are pretty fast and instantaneous. But it definitely gives you lots of ideas. I think there’s about 10 volumes? It’s hilarious just reading it alone even if you do not plan to use.
very good advice. And I think I will actually take this advice. Although one thing I do differently is I give lots of hints something ain’t right.
to the point that my players got scared of a single gold coin in the middle of the hallway and nothing else around. That’s a long story and I was laughing my ass off for the rest of the day. No one wanted to go down that corridor…. I mean no one.
I even played it up With the random monster encounters also when they saw it tried to go the other way. Which was even more hilarious further supporting the players hypothesis
when the players sat and observed monsters coming around the corner stop and pausing and then going the other way looking very scared, this made the players even more scared.
there were two versions of that trap. The first one actually was a trap. The second one was just a gold coin in the middle of a hallway
update: I see you bring it up at the end the grim tooth traps. Thank you
Sometimes I will leave these books hanging around on the table for players to suddenly look at. Because I won’t use them, at least not as they are in the book. But it’s enough to make the players very very paranoid and I giggle at it. It’s all good setting up the mood.
Bog of eternal stench from the Labyrinth. It won't kill them but maybe cause a minor reduction to max hp and a major reduction to charisma checks. This could also lead to a quest line to get rid of the smell.
I like this and am going to use it.
Some great ideas and well said. Though I tend to disagree with you on several points they all come down to one thing. In almost every case you have reduced traps to obstacles. They are no longer traps to be avoided.
In the 40 years I have been playing the game, I have yet to have any player complain about traps being sprung on their characters. Quite the opposite is true and many memorable moments have been had involving traps.
I find that the fun of traps comes in the expectation they are there and the planning for their eventuality. Detection and disabling still occur but so does the dealing with consequences of a sudden trap. This is not to say that all traps are ruthless gut punches to the players.
Doing things such as slowing traps down, into what you make sound like turns worth of action, or making them all about puzzles removes their status as a trap and makes them more like cleverly contrived trees fallen over chasms or difficult rock faces.
Yes, the old school way is when a trap isn't found/disabled there is a saving throw and then folks take damage. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that, and I often do it that way myself, it's only one way to run traps. Running traps a variety of ways makes things more dynamic and interesting for players.
[sung in the classic pirate shanty style] I loves me good players who loves their PCs / Don't just slay hey slow the trap down / GM, don't just kill 'em with spikes and disease, "Give me some time to slow the trap down!" Lovely stuff, sir. Thanks for the tips!
My favorite way to run into a trap is when it's a) unexpected or b) guarding something, that run the risk of breaking as a result of the trap going off.
Or save to escape(but requires a 20 or something unlikely) the start making some characters tools unuseable as they are outside the trap (this assumes there is doors) or making a close escape if the party is low health and creating tension.
*you enter a room and suddenly a door shuts close
now you are locked in
*water starts slowly dripping in the center
*what will you do?
P1 see if i can dig the floor
*you notice some part off the floor is softer and start digging it
P2 see if theres a mechanism
*you start looking for hidden doors
*P1 you realize the softer soil forms a path from where the water lands to a hole in the wall
*but its gonna take a while to dig
*P2 you find a mechanism behind a door and it has a level
slow normal or fast and its set to normal now
[put it to slow]
*the water starts dripping slower
P1 has eventually finished digging it and can see something trough the hole filling up but its filling so slow that it will take to long with this dripping speed
P2 [goes to mechanism and puts it on fast]
*water starts flowing fast
*the thing fills up with water and the door opens again
(you won this trap puzzle)
or
do nothing and the room fills up with water until you drown wich is the trap part off it
So I ran a dungeon in my campaign recently that featured many wooden doors. My artificer/rogue checked every single door because the first door he opened in my game was rigged with an explosive. But he didn't check the only trapped door in the whole dungeon while climbing up a ladder. I even asked "You're not checking this one?" and he said "Nah, I'll just open."
Man took 6d10 fire damage straight to the face and he will never fully trust me ever again lol.
I just made a trap with 2 saves. One is a simple DEX 10, or a team STR 1 person it is 20, 2 or 3 people 30 together, and 4 or more 20 together. If the failed or no one takes the STR just a log drops and all the little kobolds get on there badgers or rats.
Cool. Group saves. 👊
While watching this video I got an idea for a slow trap.
"as you step into the brightly lit stone chamber, with a quick glance the first thing you notice is the shimmering purple orbs in the corners and middle of the room. Then your attention turns to the tall, lithe figure of a drow woman at the far end. As soon as she notices your presence she presses a pressure plate on the wall next to her. Roll initiative."
Follow this up by giving clues over the next couple turns as to what's about to happen and how you might avoid it.
"you notice a mechanical clicking permeating the room, like the shifting of gears and cogs."
"suddenly slits open in the walls, but you notice their not drawn on you, but on the orbs."
By now hopefully they realize what's about to happen and try to figure out how to stop it. The room is just big enough, and the orbs spaced just right so that the trap will hit the entire run EXCEPT the small alcove that the drow is standing in. Couple ways the party could handle this"
1- stand in the way of the darts so that they hit the players instead of the orbs (taking 3d6 damage is probably preferable to being slowed for a minute).
2- set off one of the orbs prematurely and then stack in the area where the orb was to avoid the rest of them going off (though that would make them easy pickings for the drow spell caster they're currently in combat with).
3- somehow force the drow woman out of the alcove and all stack in it. This way she gets hit by the spell instead of them.
4:22 - In 5th edition, "Rogue" is a class and "Thief" is a subclass of Rogue. They still use both terms.
I personally find it more interesting to use your Environment as "traps"
I once had a group of adventurers follow a group of Merman Pirates to a nearby waterfall
The Mermans can swim up the waterfall and into their Pirate Cove, which for some reason was up the waterfall (for protection reasons from the Mermans point of view)
The "trap" goes like this:
The group is standing on a nearby cliff, looking at the waterfall
The Waterfall is too loud and distracting for Spellcasters to concentrate and fly (of course a crushing wall of water IS distracting)
The walls near the waterfall are wet and slippery, so NO CLIMBING UP ALLOWED
Investigation of 12+
-> A slippery, wet small way leads up on the side of the waterfall, maybe you could make it up there?
Lower than 12
-> the loud crashing of the waterfall and splashing water is distracting you, maybe you could see something if you go closer?
-> nudging the players in the right way to solve it
Choosing the path up the wall:
Acrobatis Check 14+ (or higher, if you want to make it harder)
-> they make it up and behind the waterfall they come across a cave
Acrobatics Check 10 or less
-> You slip and can barely hold onto the ledge (go see Strength Check Help)
Acrobatics Check 11, 12 or 13
-> You have problems on the slippery path but arrive up anyway
-> you need to catch your breath from this experience (this player gets DISADVANTAGE on ANY of his next 2-3 rolls, afterwards he catches his composure and is back up to game)
Strength Check Help 10+
-> You help your fellow friend who slipped up, and nothing else happens
Strength Check Help of 9 or less
-> While you try help your friend up, you slip as well, holding on the ledge with one hand and your friend with the other
-> a fellow player COULD help both up, but has to make a Strength Check Help of at least 15 to help both up
If your players deside to use a rope to tie themselfs together before "climbing" up
this action will reduce the needed Strength Check Help by -2 per person tied together when one falls down,
making cooperating the objective of this "trap"
IF a person falls down, they land in the River / Ocean bellow and get washed up on the shore / riverbank further way
(maybe taking a bit of fall damage, a 1D8 or something like this) but nothing else happens
except they have to WALK ALL THE WAY BACK to the rest of the party
The game group I was in held 3 sessions where all we did was design traps. We came up with some of the most evil sure TPK traps imaginable. The only way to live was to not go down that hallway.
Cool. Sounds like my kind of traps. 😈
Wally DM has some great traps. He just put out a new book but has a ton of free ones on his TH-cam channel
I like your rune
And your videos
I was thinking about making traps sceciffically designed for the racials traits of the party: the solution is behind a wall of fire, so the PC with fire resistance is the key.
Or poison resistance, or the ability to fly or breathe underwater, or darkvision, or it may be a matter of weight or size
15:30 maybe you suddenly find out why those stepping stones have a scale pattern on them
You should make videos for Pathfinder 1e!
Luke: trap has initiative.
Me: Ooglies! DnD edition
The thing about puzzles is that there never is one answer. You may come up with the main answer, but there are several solutions that would get the party through the situation. Keep an open mind to the alternatives.
Geezer here....
Pits are the most interesting by far, that is where you find all the cool stuff left by the last groups characters.
Being dead they do not need it.
Wasting is bad.
Game on.
@6:41 Literally Hardwon from NADPod
The problem with challenging the player instead of the PC is this:
DM: "Explain how your PC gets past the trap."
Rogue (Int 17): "Can't I just roll Disable Device?"
Wizard (INT 24): "Hmm I'm not sure..."
Barbarian (INT dump stat of 5): "Aha, we should each step on one corner of the pressure plate, because the angle it's at means it surely must use leverage from weights suspended from below. Then we can use the magic rope to move the bronze idol onto it, because it's weight by volume is about equal to that of the three of us plus our gear."
I'd take bad roleplaying anyday over zero roleplaying and just rolling dice though.
I am starting to think that bringing up "I attack the darkness" is a rite of passage.
14:39 Something else with pit traps, is instead of them being below, why not one above, that uses some sort of magic construct or mechanical limb to try and snatch and abduct a party member (look up the first boss of a Gamecube game called Geist for a rough idea of what it does), since a pit trap doesn't need to kill or harm,
not to mention people would expect the pit to be below them so seeing the Rouge in front all of the sudden get grabbed and dragged into the roof would be a interesting twist on a classic trap, another idea would be from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, namely Phantom Blood with Jonathan vs Tarkus when they have those collars on,
just instead it's purpose is to drag the PC it catches through other traps, in the room, through a mechanism on the roof, (essentially a giant Roomba that goes pretty damn fast (for a Roomba) with a ball socket on it and a chain attached to the ball in the socket).
Lol "Geist" simply means "Ghost" it's german
FIRE BREATHING STATUES!!!!!!!
I think why they changed thief to rouge was because thief made it seem like they all were thieves even though some might have been an assassin or a spy I also think that people tend to play a bit of a cleptomaniac (maybe subconsciously) but hey that's just my opinion
btw if you think I'm wrong I'm open to hearing your opinion so please don't attack me :)
15:15 ...or the tiny steping-stones have jaws with tons of sharp teeth - becaue they are extremophile acid-resistand crocs...! ;-)
...i know, i'm nasty...! ;-)
15:50 ...humming the 'Jaws-theme' makes a pit much more interesting fot the players...
...especially when they cross it by swimming and just reached the middle...! ;-)
i like "trapception" , putting in a trap , in a way of an other trap. Acid pool , well okay. but what if on one of the "island" , you place a pressure plate , wich call a nice air push , for all the people who haven't started to cross the things ,
Slowing the trap down sounds like lots of fun for roleplay, my only rebuttal is, if a trap is so slow, the dim witted barbarian has time to think... It's not a very effective trap. Like, I never saw the Ewoks on Endor giving those AT_ST's 30 seconds to do shit before they got smashed by logs... Just sayin.
Changelings can be the ultimate trap.
"this isn't live and I can edit to add spoiler alert but I'll just say sorry afterward... yeah that seems nice!"
lol, you can't hide from spoilers forever. besides he didn't seem to think it was that important to protect people from spoilers regardless of how you feel about it.
What did I spoil in this video again? Been awhile...
@@theDMLair you mentioned a trap from the revamped tomb of horrors. I don't think it was a big deal at all.
Thanks for the tips! You don't suck! (youtube, please note this) :)
My group... we really need to, but don't really roleplay Traps... -_-" We're too used to just "find traps, remove traps" via Rogues as opposed to roleplaying it. *sigh* I'm guilty of this on both sides, as DM and a Thief (my favorite kind of Rogue) player. No details or anything. Just... a trap on a door of some sort, and if it's disabled before they go through the threshold, details are just dismissed because "what does it matter, it's not working anymore". As said, balance is needed, and the dice rolls-only method is... not good for traps.
Yeah, I like to go in more detail on traps. I describe a pressure plate. Rogue wants to disable, I ask a simple "how?" Then the role playing begins. But I get how it's easy to just gloss over the details.
I would give vague details about what they see ahead...
A big consideration is that if you only put webs and gargoyles around where there are spiders and living gargoyles, your images will EXPECT the trap... but if you throw in a bunch of skeletons around normally, they wont expect each group of skeletons to be undead lying in wait.
Even for gelatinous cube recently I told a player "you smell something strongly acidic ahead, and the dog quivers and backs away from the smell."
He thought it was acid pit traps and was going to undo the tiling on the floor... decent enough guess tbh.
Really you need to be able to describe the traps in recent enough detail that it doesn't give it away but might give pause to search or be cautious. I do this with succubi in dungeons filled with monsters, humans chained to walls while others "chained up" are actually shapechangers (demons, hags, etc), you should try setting it up as a bait.
As for "find traps" not all hazards in dungeons need to be traps. A 200 ft drop from a mist covered door is just a 200 foot drop from a misty door. Maybe one door just opens to a poisonous and noxious smelling gas that's just been there. Maybe a sequence of pressure plates is how the door to one room opens, not necessarily a trap and even when found by the spell, it's up to the players to figure out the pattern there
All great points, gato! 👊
Dear DM Lair I wanna ask a question and please answer
I am making a 20lvl (no rogue) 4-5players one off and they PC's they have to fight something like a boss and a lot of minions or monsters or whatever
but I don't know what to choose
A huge monster : the god of all predators the ultimate killer of the Races and the Non beast life
A angry demigod : the combination of the Death god and the Quinn of the biggest kingdom an crazy god/godess who is up against his/her mother for the crown
A ancient Dragon : the sacrifices of millions a huge dragon the father/god of the rest in a mountain of despaired heroes ,millions have died in a try to kill it but all failed
A Lich leader of the rest lesser liches a powerful mage able to destroy the angels of the sky with an idea for destruction and a commander to the undead army
A God : the apocalypse for our age the reason why we are gonna loose against Death, Our demise and your next target adventurers
The Embodiment of the planes : a creature made out of the limbo and the reason why the earth is dying from randomness and madness (rivers go red from blood, people mutating, limbo becomes on with the world
The demon/devil King : the king of evil want's to make everyone a slave and the earth his kingdom or a huge fireball made out from A war against him
your idea : ?
If you're equally excited about each one roll a die to pick which one you want to do. Otherwise, pick the one you think is coolest. I think they all sound pretty sweet.
@@theDMLair thank you very much and the roll is............The angry demigod
I really appreciate you answer to my call
and this quick!!
No problem, Sugar! Have fun murdering the PCs. 😂
@@theDMLair thank you and I will do
I've had a party manage to kill every enemy, trap, and puzzle in a dungeon. Literally kill.
"the point here is..." How to TPK your party with an acid puddle and other traps alone.
5:38 whose joe?
n0