Trap advice


Advice


Ok I'm making a trap that both splits the group in the same room one side is filling with water rapidly and the other side the roof is crushing them but how would the PCs get out of this?


P.s. I wanted something that both sides have to do in order for the walls holding them to open


Hm. Well if some kind of counter weighted is used then then plugging water in-flow or draining the water could stop/reverse roof fall.

OR, by bring down the barrier between the two compartments, the lowered ceiling might immediately displace the water, leading to a passage in the ceiling.

OR, maybe the the crushed room has furniture and other stuff that can float, and the escape involves a puzzle or brute strength to create a passage between both rooms, rejoining the party and allowing the buoyant materials to back flush into the water room at the last second before half the party is squished so they can all float/bubble up safely into a cavern - with a recently formed lake at its center... filled with a salamander bargaining with mud elementals for mithral ingots! Oops. Got carried away there.

Consider that "water rides" can cause folks to strip (and lose) armor, arrows to float away, spell components to spoil, food to spoil, bow strings to snap, leather becomes ruined... Good times. Also, while water can be deadly by itself, when it contains predators it is just terrifying (because we are basically like snails to the water born - slow and crunchy).

My armor is dragging me down, by buddies are being crushed and OMG! Devil Fish!


Stuff like this is why you play a Merfolk...

If any DM would ever allow it.


Party A might have to throw stone blocks through a small hole to keep water level down, while party B has to stack those received blocks into columns to stop the roof's decent.


Just be warned depending on the level of your characters, spells like stone shape or wall of stone can pretty easily break a trap like this (either shaping the stone to block the water coming in, or block the roof coming down.


As Tarantula has stated magic can seriously mess with traps in general.

What level are the PCs dealing with this trap? Is there a trapfinder in the group (and or someone with Disable Device) and how much magic does the group possess? What CR are you looking to achieve?


There are a lot of spells that will work: walls, melds, dimensional travel, etc. So give those some thought and see if you want to counter any of them (making the room a dimensional anchored force cube, for example).

One thought, if you want this to be lethal, you could put in a switch on each side that frees the members on the other side but guarantees their own deaths. Sit back and eat some Oreos while they debate.

Another would be to utilize a set of puzzles on each side and make solving them happen through skill challenges. If one side fails at a puzzle, it makes things go poorly on the other side (wall/water moves faster, eversmoking bottle uncorks, ice fog goes off, etc.) raising the DCs.


Alternatively, go Joker: Put in a switch on each side that frees the members on that side but kills the others.

Silver Crusade

Better yet make it magical stone that can't b stone shaped or simply have a small circle on each floor that radiates an antimagic field. Once the pcs figure out magic cant save them have them search for hidden levers or counterweights on the wall that came down between them . Perhaps someone triggered this wall coming down splittign the party by stepping on a stone or weight on the floor on each side or hwoever you wish to make it . These levels need a code to move them in a certain order or bad things happen to a side of the room as described above ie waterfilling faster or roof dropping down faster . Perhaps make it a diety thing where knowledge religion works on one side and knowledge dungeoneering on the other . Haave them be able t yell through the wall so they can work it out together . lol .. I may steal this for a home game now that I am honed in on it .


Stone shape just needs stone. You could as GM make some effect that makes it not shapeable... this doesn't solve the wall of stone/force solution though.

Antimagic field is only 10'. Unless you make it bigger as a gm. And still doesn't stop the wall of force.

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