Taking into account they will be running for their life I don't think they will think about pulling a lever.
:3
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Put it in the world's first air-conditioned dungeon.Unfortunately, it also reacts with the water in the air, it's not going to stick around to be a trap.Stolen from a update for the Grimtooth's Ultimate Traps Collection:
A urinal with a block of lithium in it.
(lithium reacts explosively with water)
I am actually headed to a naturally "air-conditioned" cave complex in a few months. Called the Narusawa ice cave.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e6911.html
http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowUserReviews-g1165980-d1379003-r137512571- Narusawa_Ice_Cave-Narusawa_mura_Minamitsuru_gun_Yamanashi_Prefecture_Chubu. html
Running with this, a really slippery ice cave dungeon where you can easily be dumped in water so cold it does damage may... dampen their spirits.
Put it in the world's first air-conditioned dungeon.Unfortunately, it also reacts with the water in the air, it's not going to stick around to be a trap.Stolen from a update for the Grimtooth's Ultimate Traps Collection:
A urinal with a block of lithium in it.
(lithium reacts explosively with water)
I am actually headed to a naturally "air-conditioned" cave complex in a few months. Called the Narusawa ice cave.
Running with this, a really slippery ice cave dungeon where you can easily be dumped in water so cold it does damage may... dampen their spirits.
Chalk outlines immortalizing where (and at precisely what horrid angles) previous dungeon-crawlers fell.
With little tiny pieces of chalk just... floating... in the upper corners of the walls (held by lots and lots of unseen servants with a command to make outlines of fallen individuals...)
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THat is hardly a trap, a trap would be if the lever delivered 10d6 electrical damage to anyone that pull it.Taking into account they will be running for their life I don't think they will think about pulling a lever.All the better.
"Traps" shouldn't be fair.
Better yet, it's BOTH. The only way to get to the kobold wizard, BUT it also delivers the electrical damage.
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Favorite thing I put in a dungeon was a chain golem all strung up along a large rooms ceiling. There was a throne encrusted with gems in the room, and it was the ONLY other furnishing besides the chains, except those were 40 feet up and shrouded in shadow. I sort of thought no PC would be dumb enough to go and mess with the gem encrusted throne, I was wrong. Sufficed to say, one greedy drow PC ended up getting himself beat to hell, and getting his NPC love interest killed, that was a good day. Because any day you almost kill a PC drow, and hurt his feeling by killing her lovely human paramour (when is not Drizzt or Catti-Brie) is a darn good day.
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But why it would lead to the kobold wizard? that doesn't sound very smart from his part.Better yet, it's BOTH. The only way to get to the kobold wizard, BUT it also delivers the electrical damage.THat is hardly a trap, a trap would be if the lever delivered 10d6 electrical damage to anyone that pull it.Taking into account they will be running for their life I don't think they will think about pulling a lever.All the better.
"Traps" shouldn't be fair.
So he can get out of his panic room.
Golem kills whatever made him run to his panic room, then it opens up the panic room.
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Exploding Ruins-It blows a hole in the wall, then reappears right next to the hole. Great for mining and collapsing passageways. One spell level higher than Exploding Runes.
A dungeon with, at the end, a strange amount of righting on the walls and little differently colored orbs above the writing.
Trying to read the runes activates the trap. Roll randomly to determine which Random Encounter table you're using(which causes the orb over one writing rolls as well) then summon that encounter(lighting up the correct row on the list).
Rust lords, just after the item obsessed character has crafted their full set of magic items.
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I put some illusions of iron golems hiding rust monsters in The Cleaves, so I should include one typical iron golem, just in case someone read the topics.
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A room full of freshly-dismembered humanoid body parts...that has no connection whatsoever to anything else in the dungeon or anywhere else in your game. Watch your players turn the world upside-down in their quest for the mysterious butcher!
What if gremlins leave limbs next to one character and paint some blood on their hands? If it's an NPC guide the characters hired, they might jump to some conclusions. :)
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^They also put some extra treasure into the NPC's backpack.
^ Treasure is worth a lot, pity it is covered in contact poison.
Big fan of contact poison...
Con drain poison darts followed by guillotines is great for taking a really substantial amount of hp. A shame they can instantaneously die if they lose too much con and then get crit. Try it.
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Dungeons & Dragons: The Movie
(alternatively or additionally: the Dragonlance animated film)
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A series of rooms containing garish mannequins in nice-looking, but actually incredibly poor-quality, clothing; they stand and sit among strange furniture and mundane wares such as bookcases that appear to be filled with books that are in fact merely paintings of bookshelves against a solid background, empty cups that are fused to their saucers and teapots that are solid inside, beds that are just large rectangular blocks with painted-on sheets, and tables full of painted wooden foodstuffs - but what is most disturbing about these rooms is the walls: The southern wall in each of these rooms is completely absent, and the dungeon stares out into a gaping void. Occasionally, a giant eye on an enormous face hovers into view - and then a cyclopean hand reaches in and rearranges the mannequins, or just grabs them and waves them around....
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A series of rooms containing garish mannequins in nice-looking, but actually incredibly poor-quality, clothing; they stand and sit among strange furniture and mundane wares such as bookcases that appear to be filled with books that are in fact merely paintings of bookshelves against a solid background, empty cups that are fused to their saucers and teapots that are solid inside, beds that are just large rectangular blocks with painted-on sheets, and tables full of painted wooden foodstuffs - but what is most disturbing about these rooms is the walls: The southern wall in each of these rooms is completely absent, and the dungeon stares out into a gaping void. Occasionally, a giant eye on an enormous face hovers into view - and then a cyclopean hand reaches in and rearranges the mannequins, or just grabs them and waves them around....
If a baddie is there, the hands will pick up the baddie and the paladin, then hit them against each other. :)
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A series of rooms containing garish mannequins in nice-looking, but actually incredibly poor-quality, clothing; they stand and sit among strange furniture and mundane wares such as bookcases that appear to be filled with books that are in fact merely paintings of bookshelves against a solid background, empty cups that are fused to their saucers and teapots that are solid inside, beds that are just large rectangular blocks with painted-on sheets, and tables full of painted wooden foodstuffs - but what is most disturbing about these rooms is the walls: The southern wall in each of these rooms is completely absent, and the dungeon stares out into a gaping void. Occasionally, a giant eye on an enormous face hovers into view - and then a cyclopean hand reaches in and rearranges the mannequins, or just grabs them and waves them around....
Hrrrrg...
That one's giving me Illbleed flashbacks.
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An empty room. A completely empty room. Except the following: you never speak anything in absolutes. "It's always you find no traps," or "You don't think you see anything." Guaranteed to drive to players into a frothing, paranoid mania.
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The False Narrative.
Run the heroes through standard rooms, but leave innocuous objects in obvious locations in each room.
A statue of a duck on a pedestal. A crowbar outlined on the floor. A pair of freshly muddy boots in the room with the undead. A book on the artistic works of some obscure artist sitting open on a block, dogeared.
They'll construct a narrative for these things, or at least be bemused by them. Don't reveal the entirely mundane rationale (but make sure you think of it).
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A normal everyday animal, say a rat that sez "hello". It doesnt talk, it just has a spell.Is it Heinlein? Does it also say "I would like cheeze" and "go to hell"
Quick quiz: name that movie.
Also. As an evolutionist summoner I can now attack you with a gazebo.
Building an attack gazebo construct would work too I bet...
I wonder if there's a thread on the many ways to make an attack gazebo...
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A lone kobold in monk's robes sitting in silent meditation in a room all by himself.
Best used at higher levels and in a dungeon without other kobolds.
The obvious trap that is obviously a trap.
If doable, the big red button labeled "TRAP"
Abnormal aesthetic variations on mundane monsters.
I ran an Isle of One Eyed Sheep in Skull and Shackles. Ok, they were the size of cows, and may have been there because of a lonely cyclops shepherd with a cursed Mask of the Demon Mother... But seriously, monsters with too many or too few eyes can instantly set the party on edge.
Riffing on the potions thing earlier...
The PCs encounter a cupboard filled with unlabeled potions. Scratched into the inside of the door are vague instructions that the owner uses to keep track of what is what.
-"The Poison What Kills Instantly 'Pon Drinking is two down from the potion of Healing. Or maybe the other way around."
-"The Potion of Invisibility is furthest left on its shelf."
-"Below the Potion To Deflect Arrows is one that makes you clever as an owl, or summuch like that."
In reality, they're all nonmagical liquids (or poisons) with magic aura cast on them.
Walls of text.
Literally, there are large pieces of text that, layered one atop the other and in front and behind each other, create a "solid" wall by virtue of being so many, large, heavy, and numerous.
Bonus points if:
a) it's in an ancient "cool" language
b) it's part of ancient ruins important to the quest
c) it's just a meandering diatribe of back-and-forth insults 'tween two arguing jerks
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A blue and gold dress.
A blue and gold dress.
Hey! It's white and black!
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A blue and gold dress.Hey! It's white and black!
Shouldn't that be a blue and black dress? Or was it white and gold?
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When PCs insist on going beyond the prepared adventure area, they start to encounter folders with images and text files in them, programs in humanoid forms like in TRON, and websites. In other words they've stepped out of their computer game. :)
A blue and gold dress.Hey! It's white and black!Shouldn't that be a blue and black dress? Or was it white and gold?
(Exactly.)
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^That's just awesome. Of course, don't forget the Blue Screen of Death . . . .
Urgak became a pretty funny distraction in the game. One time, the party sorcerer fried him with a fireball, killing him instantly. Three months later, Uragk returned somewhat singed and battered. The funny thing was they were in a desert and could see someone chasing them just on the horizon and each day they checked the figure would seem closer, gaining on them. Finally after three days they could see that it was Urgak, back for more. They decided to set up an elaborate trap in the hopes of keeping him caged in a deep pit. The ranger who was 17th level created a pit trap that wold ensure that Urgak could never climb out. Of course, Urgak fell in without a fight and dies as a result of the fall. They buried his body thanks to the sorcerer and his earth based spells in hopes that the madness would end.
Fast forward 5 real months and one of the Player said that his character would be going to bed. Suddenly...URGAK ATTACK!! The little ankle biter was in the character's bed under the sheets, caked with desert dust. He always seemed to surface when the players just started to forget about him.
Good times....
I'm picturing him as a sort of "Dumb Ways To Die" composite being by the end of it.
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A graveyard, grouped in sets of four graves to a plot, naming adventurers and their style of combat.
The sign says "Trophy Graveyard of the Tucker Kobold clan."
Directly beyond is the entrance to a dark, mysterious cave...
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^The descriptions of combat styles for at least one of the sets of graves in the graveyard bear a disturbing resemblance to the combat style of the current PCs.
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"[Adventurer #1]: Made the mistake of using metal weapons."
"[Adventurer #2]: Shouldn't have tried to grapple."
"[Adventurer #3]: Aw, did he think we couldn't see him? That's cute."
"[Adventurer #4]: Create pit isn't seeming quite so clever now, is it?"
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If the party herds animals into the dungeon first, have the vampire turn them all into minions and have them attack the adventurers. :)
A savvy villain installs a special magical effect on some of his traps. Creatures conjured by spells with the (calling) subdescriptor must make Will saves or become effectively Dominated. Their first order? Kill the former master.
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A room containing a diminutive-sized door and a small table with little bottles labeled "Drink Me" and pastries with "Eat Me" frosted onto them. They're tasty, but don't do anything. The little door doesn't lead anywhere, but there is a small crevice on the other side containing a small but valuable treasure (a gem or a powerful scroll or an Ioun Stone or something). The door is trapped with a tiny fireball that deals 5d2 damage in a 5-foot radius burst.
Taking either the pastries or the bottles causes the door behind the party to either shrink down to miniscule size or grow above the ceiling, becoming virtually impossible to open.
If the party herds animals into the dungeon first, have the vampire turn them all into minions and have them attack the adventurers. :)
Vampire cows! And you know what that means . . . .
Humble monsters with very powerful and unbalanced templates that makes them far too strong for the adventurers.