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So I am trying to figure out how the intersection traps work in Xin-Grafar, the city on the Isle of Terror in the module The City of Golden Death. If you don't know the module I will explain how the traps are set up.
The avenues of the city, each 40 feet wide, are clear of debris making them the logical route to use to go through the city. There are 8 intersections in the city where 4 avenues meet in a cross formation. The area off of the avenues and intersections is the ruined city itself made up of collapsed buildings and destroyed furniture and the like.
The trap itself consists of a small canal, I'm thinking maybe an inch wide by an inch deep with runes carved into it. The canal runs across each avenue about 5 feet before entering the intersection. Due to that location, the canal also runs 5 feet into the ruins on either side of the avenue so that it can make a 90 degree turn and cross the next avenue that leads into the intersection. Once a party member crosses the canal, a summoning trap is activated with the creature appearing and attacking the person who set off the trap.
Could someone please explain to me why anybody would build a trap like this? Is there any party in existence that, even if they don't know for sure it's a trap, goes around it?
The trap only goes 5 ft into the ruins of the city. It costs the party 15 to 30 feet of extra movement to go around the intersection.
Now, my party is level 9 and I've been adapting the encounters as we've gone through this module. My plan is to make this a Summon Monster VIII spell so the Perception DC is 33. However, I've got one character who's got a +21 Perception check at this point. Even on the off chance that he doesn't make the Perception check to realize that this is a trap, the party would choose the safe option and just go around.
Wouldn't it be easy to cover the canals with an illusion? Maybe even add a Nondetection spell so that the trap is harder to find. This way no one knows the canals are there unless they actively search and succeed on a Perception check.
Sure, after the first intersection the party will go around ALL of the other intersections. That's okay. I may even choose to expand the area of the trap with each successive intersection or add traps around the edges of the trap area. But the way the trap is currently designed makes no sense to me at all.
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I don't get it.
On the main streets, there is an intersection.
That intersection has a hard-to-spot trap.
So, the first time they hit an intersection, they fight an elemental.
The channels (not canals) would look like drainage until you got close enough to examine them (and triggered the trap, according to the module).
The module gives a DC30 check to spot the trap. Boosting the DC by 3 to reflect that the PCs are 4 levels higher than the module expects seems underwhelming.
I would go for DC40 and a Greater Fire Elemental.
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That intersection has a hard-to-spot trap.
It's hard to tell it's a trap, agreed. However, it's easy to tell that it's SOMETHING out of the ordinary. As predicted, my party walked around it without even trying to find out what it was. What I have decided is that there used to be something in these intersections that is no longer there.
I would go for DC40 and a Greater Fire Elemental.
Based on the summoning trap creation rules, the DC of a summoning trap is 25 plus the level of the summoning spell.