Chill energies gather around you, coalescing in your mind and grasping for control of your body! Make a will save. *Clatter* 28. ...The haunt dissipates and you make your way onward.
This has been bugging me for a while, but maybe I'm just missing something. Cases like those one above, where the party encounters a trap or haunt, which goes off, and the party doesn't even flinch. How do you handle cases like this, do you reward XP (especially in cases of traps that don't re-arm themselves?) What about a haunt that could provide meaningful plot details to the party if they had been hit with it? Thanks in advance for any advice.
If it's a plot device, have them encounter it again later on.
Describe it beginning to take its course, giving off just enough exposition to tell the party what they need to know, and then have them turn the tide of the mental battle as their indomitable will staves off the dangerous effects, rending through the haunt before it can fully affect them.
what you can do is just to let the whole haunt happen with no ill effects. Like if there was a paladin in the party. like a scene unfolding for the character. I was bothered by the fact that a haunt can't effect a paladin but J. Jacobs said don't punnish the paladin for having a benefit. just unfold the scene for them like they are having a vision.
Thank you for the advice, but if I might ask for a little more. I get that I can do things like have the players see plot elements even if these don't necessarily come to pass. But, I'm also concerned about making a haunt like the one I mentioned be a worthwhile encounter. A fair number of haunts and traps go off once and then are done for the day or longer. But this to me isn't a very interesting thing for the party to encounter. On the one hand, no, I shouldn't use many "gotcha" traps like this, sure, but when this comes up, how can I make this a decent event?
if a party survives a trap/haunt at all, weather they avoid it completely or take the "swinging axes of flaming doom" to the face and survive, they get experience. dont worry too much about the traps and haunts having no physical or in game effects on the player. Give them a good description of whats going and it effect them mentally and really thats what matters.
Some of the best dungeons ive ever been through i walked out completey unscathed but utterly terrified of the dangers that I "narrowly avoided".