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Players coming up with unexpected solutions is amazing. I put an enormous magic door and my players couldn't figure out the puzzle on it. Instead, the ranger cast conjure animals, summoned 8 miles, and just dug through the packed dirt underneath the door. I loved it even more than I would have if they had worked through the puzzle.
Actually, there's a weird logic to the idea that a barbarian isn't intelligent enough to FOLLOW a complicated ruse, and would accidentally see through even the most carefully crafted illusion or scam. "Me no understand.... All rogues look the same to me."
Im quite proud of the very first Complex Trap I designed, it was a room made to protect a grail of sorts (or any McGuffin), in this room, once you took the item in the middle, the altar would activate and spikes would start to slowly come down on you, if left alone, this trap would kill everyone in the room in 7 turns. In order to deactivate it you had to use a special item given by an NPC on the altar in a specific way, or just leave the room and let the ceiling fall, but there's a twist. The room in which the item was located was lower than the dungeon level, and there is a pressure plate at the end of the staricase which is invisible until the trap goes off, when it activates and, when you try to run away from the room carelessly, you'd step on it and the stairs would turn into a slope, turning a regular staircase climb, into a climbing test. While I am quite proud of this one, I still think there are ways to make it better, so, as anyone should be, I'm open for ideas
I love complex traps. I just need to be more efficient with them. Have a trap where if you don't roll a high enough investigation, you will actually arm it.
Traps (complex or otherwise) can also be a great way to complement a fight. Let's say the players are fighting automatons in a factory, perhaps they have to contend with conveyors belts carrying them towards an incinerator, or getting crushed by the rotating arms of a machine.
Where is the switch? There is a switch. Because the person who set the trap needs to pass through occasionally. But, the switch is on the other side of the trap and only disables it for a while. In a wizard's tower, the wizard might send unseen servant to operate the switch. Knowing where it is, he can do that with the switch out of sight. Now the rogue can succeed in saying it must have a switch, but can't disarm because he would have to go through, triggering the trap, to find the switch. Good luck.
Luke, you forget that: 1) Traps need energy to function, either through magical or mundane mechanical means. Players usually want to gather that with them. 2) Traps can be attacked directly. How fast will the whirling blade break when it hits a thick metal pole that the players properly installed? Also, shape stone and some other spells allow players to gut traps with impunity. 3) Traps need to be maintained. You enter a lost tomb of a pharoh that is filled to the brim with traps. Sadly, nobody oiled the traps in a few centuries so they don't work anymore. So, I think it is better not to create too complex traps, as you will spend a lot of time on something easily overcome by adventurers.
The traps can be maintained by creatures there, even the mummies can (you may not think they're smart enough, but undead are good at being commanded by others). Yes traps can be attacked, but that doesn't mean it's easy to do, that spinning blade is meant to cut through bone, bone is stronger then steel. I dont understand your first point enough to counter it
For complex traps and disabling, something to consider is multiple triggers. If something is important enough to warrant such an investment, they certainly wouldn't make a single trip-wire or pressure plate to be disabled or even missed by chance. It also keeps plays on their toes if they think they've disabled a simple trap, stride forward triumphantly, and hit a secondary trigger of what is in fact a complex trap. Finding and disabling/avoid every trigger could easily be a team effort, just as defeating a triggered complex trap should require everyone, or at least not the rogue rolling a couple dice. To use the Indiana Jones reference, in Lost Ark, there were pressure plates everywhere. While each plate only corresponded to one dart, it would be impractical to try and manually disable each and every plate (or at least enough to make a path through the corridor), and then there's the idol trap on top of it. Sometimes, that tension of knowing there are traps and how to get around them can be just as tense and rewarding to thwart as talking your way past enemies if you can make the players work for it, feeling like they outsmarted the creators.
You can give any amount of flowery, adjective laden, slowly stated descriptions you want... there is ONE sound my players dread coming from behind the screen more than any other. "...click..."
Players entering a mine where the enemy is anticipating them after a previous battle the players ran away from. The entrance is a 20x20 room with a door to the south and one to the west, they enter from the east. They place themselves in the room and then roll perception. DC15 sees the trip wire. DC20 Sees it and gets to act in a "surprise round" of sorts. After the perception, the doors explode. They roll for initiative. Surprise round can act. They can potentially stop one of the doors from triggering with a DC 16 Acrobatics/Sleight of Hand/Athletics grabbing the wire and stopping it from pulling OR they can hide behind a barrel or run out. They roll initiative. Then the traps go off on initiative 20. 20ft cone from each door, important because there are things to hide behind. On Initiative 10, the wererats have heard the explosion and move from where they are towards the entrance.
I'm seeing complex traps as part of the "ecology" of a particular dungeon. Burial sites, hoards, bandit hideouts, thieves guilds, etc would be RIFE with traps. Traps are unpaid guards, and everyone likes "free work". Example: Imagine a cave complex discovered by kobolds/goblins. The air is highly toxic with spores or gases (constant). This gas or spore infection causes hallucinations, fear, confusion, etc. The kobolds/goblins have set up rockfalls to channel invaders into tripwires. (Dynamic) These tripwires drop suspended bottles and jars of acid or alchemist fire. (damage). However, the small humanoids had not realized this complex was already occupied by gas spores. Why gas spores? Because they're spawning from the Zombie Beholder that was infected/killed/animated by an aberrant fungus. the gas spores are further damage/dynamic elements, being living and moving traps themselves. The traps and toxic air may well have affected the kobolds/goblins, who panicked, set off their own traps and blew up one or more gas spores. Now you have a subterranean hellscape for players to try to escape, with hallucinating humanoids, gas spores, latent traps (that now sick humanoids may have forgotten because of their infection), and a zombie beholder. Now you have a low/mid-level dungeon that will challenge players and create paranoia. Add PCs to taste.
It's good to see that you're nearing 100K subs! So glad you're on the verge of reaching that milestone! With how often you upload, provide useful tips, and the amazing skits you have at the beginning of your videos, I'm confidently able to say that you being a criminally underrated UA-camr would not prompt a deception check from my dice. That's not even mentioning how many modules you've worked on. Really love your videos, keep up the good work, Luke! "LUKE HART DOESN'T SUCK!"
Traps don't always be enemies, they can also be allies. In a dungeon, my players found a trap and decided to ignore it for the moment. A room later or two they found themself in a combat encounter and decidet "Remember that trap before? Let's lure the enemies in that room and activate the trap from far away. Good dice rolls for them and bad for me later the enemies were traped in that room with a complex trap, doors shut and my players didn't have to worry about either of it.
"New" Rogue is just "Old" Rogue in disguise... Less is more I suppose... Honey, see? Maybe you should use less rouge too! ( I HAD to find a way to incorporate both words LOL )
I held sessions where all we did was design traps. I took ideas the players came up with and used them in the dungeons. They usually forgot how the traps they had designed worked and managed to set them off with the results they had come up with. Love the beholder reversing gravity 90 ft shaft with oil of slipperiness on the walls. Weight on floor, reverse gravity. Weight on ceiling, reverse gravity. Good luck.
I mean "Why would they make a trap so detailed and expensive if it could be disabled so easily?" Because they wouldn't? But in the same way if you put a $500 lock on a hollow core door that's sitting in a wall made of drywall. Defeating a trap may not have anything to do with the intended method of disarming it.
also traps may not work as well as they did when first installed. It's complex mechanism, probably custom made, that's been rusting away in some old tomb for a century or more. The antitampering mechanism may simply have rotted away.
It’s so funny this video popped up in my recommended feed today. I just finished a mansion filled with all kinds of traps two days ago. Everything from simple to complex. LOL
I recently designed a not as complicated trap, but one that should be fun nonetheless. The players are given a large gemstone without their knowing in one portion of the dungeon. A rune prevents it from being detected within a certain radius. Once they pass that boundary, then a starving Xorn will attack. The attack both creates a fight for the players and alerts others in the dungeon to their location.
I wish I found this a long time ago for my trap-infested corridor. In the end, the room was just blanket traps meant to deter people rather than draw them in to kill them.
I am always curious why traps aren't set up to capture, kill or in some other way disable completely, but to damage. If I were putting a trap in my dungeon, I'm not trying to "wear down" Invaders. I'm trying to disable completely or drive them out or whatever. I am no fan of save or die, but my threat will always be death, paralysis, capture, or something like that, but it will be obvious (lots of blood or skeletons or something).
Some traps are designed to capture or maim intruders. Others are designed to kill. Still others are designed to hinder progress. It depends on several factors, who built the dungeon, who lives there, what their agenda may be, the disposition of the inhabitants, the psychology of the inhabitants. These are just the primary factors to consider when designing traps.
We used to have "save or die" traps and poisons. Some had high DC (using modern term) or roll to succeed. Combine that with the old school way was, if the PC died you handed in the character sheet and it was burned... "Save or die" became less and less of a thing.
Yeah. Unless you set it up so that their obvious to see but not entirely obvious how to overcome, they just don't do a lot for me unless their interesting in some way.
What I have and still do, is come up with a trap and let the players come up with the solution. Its fun to see just how creative your players can get with it.
All traps have a delay (which can be but need not be 0). A good Complex trap can incorporate a delayed reaction. This can be simple or complex. Say the PCs wander into a portion of the cave where O2 levels are steadily decreasing or are stratified and their passage (or combat with something seemingly trivial that requires lots of arm movement and swatting such as spiders, bats, rats, scorpions, etc.) stirs it up to decrease it. Or players unknowingly contact poison or a toxic or diseased substance or a substance with magical effects that has a delayed reaction that manifests itself several turns, minutes, hours or days later possibly at an inopportune time. They then have to fight and capture the witch that poisoned them to obtain the cure while simultaneously decreasing in fitness!
Last night my level 1 rogue showed up to the table with the observation feat and a passive perception of 20 . Today I awake to the this video ( evil laughter )
Also, just like any good Indy trap or Bond villain, provide ample clues/info to the would-be heroes/thieves/victims so that anyone with half a brain (Int 9+) can easily figure out how to disarm or avoid or otherwise defy them, and get to whatever it is the trap is designed to protect in the first place, because what would be the point if the trap actually did its job, right?
The best trap is one where the PCs think they solved the trap but actually didn’t. Say they think that they solved a cipher but used the wrong key (and the DM should leave clues that it is wrong) which lead them to a trap or they find a paper with a “decoded” cipher that is really instructions as to where to stand to cause maximum damage from a trap. Etc.
I think it's important to have very special items locked away by fancy traps be of a particular type that makes sense for your campaign. A legendary sword is just that, legendary. Are you the first party to successfully make it inside to claim it? Why was such a powerful item interned, instead of kept by the previous owner and used? If it was locked away because it's dangerous, is it there because it can't be destroyed? Or was it placed there as some sort of test or trial?
I really like that fear glyph idea, definitely using that one 😈 How do you feel about ruling that disarming takes more than a single action/round. Complex locks/traps requiring more rounds to disarm for a lower DC or speed disarm for a higher DC?
I run an undead campaign an one day while my players were being chased by a horde through the streets I decided to throw them the ol trip wire explosion trap
My favorite part in a game was when I actually had a trap where poison gas was flooding a chamber, and the rogue literally picked up his dice and said "I want to disarm the Trap!". My answer was a simple. "Ok, how do you want to try and disarm the trap?" And the Rogue player looked at me like I just told him the sky is red, water id dry and his name was actually fluffypuff. "I... I want to roll for my thieves tools!" "To do what?" "To Disarm the traps!" "Ok, how?" "WITH MY THIEVES TOOLS!!!!"
Indiana Jones traps aside (cuz yeah they all should be like that with the easier ones at the beginning of the dungeon. But the game should play like an old school Indiana Jones film.
You should allways remember a purpurse of the trap. It's not just prevent someone from reaching some spot. For this trap designer can just build stone wall all around and kill all the builders, so noone will know where to find it. Trap mostly have to keep tresspassers out (preferably by killing them) while some other creatures with right knowledge/skills/items should be able to pass it 100% safely. And players will probably expect such things to exists and will try to find the way, trap meant to be passed peacefully even without ability to do it themselves, as it will be the clue how to disable the trap.
Or maybe just maybe play Call of Cthulhu pulp, you know a game designed to actually feel and play like Indiana jones in the 20-30s. Or play Journey to Center of Earth, or play Savage Worlds, or play Xenoplicity. Play ANY of a number of games that are better fitted to what you want instead of trying to make D&D is the one-size fits all.
So... this is just multiple simple traps with a shared trigger, right? Also, if choosing the level takes up so many assumptions, and is unlikely to reflect reality, why not skip that step? Just, pick damage that seems reasonable and threatening, and move on. Having a "level" for the trap feels superfluous.
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Players coming up with unexpected solutions is amazing. I put an enormous magic door and my players couldn't figure out the puzzle on it. Instead, the ranger cast conjure animals, summoned 8 miles, and just dug through the packed dirt underneath the door. I loved it even more than I would have if they had worked through the puzzle.
Depends...
The barbarian is right about the rogue's trickery once, and now he sees it everywhere
Actually, I believe the barbarian on this one too.
Actually, there's a weird logic to the idea that a barbarian isn't intelligent enough to FOLLOW a complicated ruse, and would accidentally see through even the most carefully crafted illusion or scam. "Me no understand.... All rogues look the same to me."
The ONE time the Barbarian rolls a 20 for Insight, and nobody believes him.
I am building a trap-heavy Portion for my next campaign, and here is Luke just in time. Thanks!
No, you don’t suck.
Same! Gonna run som Kobolds
@@kllmdd good times!
@@kllmdd someone told me the best way to set up a kobold lair is to have the party find a kobold caught by one of the traps near the entrance.
For a second, I thought you said “rap-heavy portion”
Im quite proud of the very first Complex Trap I designed, it was a room made to protect a grail of sorts (or any McGuffin), in this room, once you took the item in the middle, the altar would activate and spikes would start to slowly come down on you, if left alone, this trap would kill everyone in the room in 7 turns. In order to deactivate it you had to use a special item given by an NPC on the altar in a specific way, or just leave the room and let the ceiling fall, but there's a twist.
The room in which the item was located was lower than the dungeon level, and there is a pressure plate at the end of the staricase which is invisible until the trap goes off, when it activates and, when you try to run away from the room carelessly, you'd step on it and the stairs would turn into a slope, turning a regular staircase climb, into a climbing test.
While I am quite proud of this one, I still think there are ways to make it better, so, as anyone should be, I'm open for ideas
Add flaming oil dripping down the spikes
I love complex traps. I just need to be more efficient with them. Have a trap where if you don't roll a high enough investigation, you will actually arm it.
Traps (complex or otherwise) can also be a great way to complement a fight. Let's say the players are fighting automatons in a factory, perhaps they have to contend with conveyors belts carrying them towards an incinerator, or getting crushed by the rotating arms of a machine.
13:45 trap: I can slice, crush and/or burn you to death, even all at the same time.
rogue: why is there an on/off switch?
Where is the switch?
There is a switch.
Because the person who set the trap needs to pass through occasionally.
But, the switch is on the other side of the trap and only disables it for a while.
In a wizard's tower, the wizard might send unseen servant to operate the switch. Knowing where it is, he can do that with the switch out of sight.
Now the rogue can succeed in saying it must have a switch, but can't disarm because he would have to go through, triggering the trap, to find the switch.
Good luck.
Luke, you forget that:
1) Traps need energy to function, either through magical or mundane mechanical means. Players usually want to gather that with them.
2) Traps can be attacked directly. How fast will the whirling blade break when it hits a thick metal pole that the players properly installed? Also, shape stone and some other spells allow players to gut traps with impunity.
3) Traps need to be maintained. You enter a lost tomb of a pharoh that is filled to the brim with traps. Sadly, nobody oiled the traps in a few centuries so they don't work anymore.
So, I think it is better not to create too complex traps, as you will spend a lot of time on something easily overcome by adventurers.
The traps can be maintained by creatures there, even the mummies can (you may not think they're smart enough, but undead are good at being commanded by others).
Yes traps can be attacked, but that doesn't mean it's easy to do, that spinning blade is meant to cut through bone, bone is stronger then steel.
I dont understand your first point enough to counter it
For complex traps and disabling, something to consider is multiple triggers. If something is important enough to warrant such an investment, they certainly wouldn't make a single trip-wire or pressure plate to be disabled or even missed by chance. It also keeps plays on their toes if they think they've disabled a simple trap, stride forward triumphantly, and hit a secondary trigger of what is in fact a complex trap. Finding and disabling/avoid every trigger could easily be a team effort, just as defeating a triggered complex trap should require everyone, or at least not the rogue rolling a couple dice.
To use the Indiana Jones reference, in Lost Ark, there were pressure plates everywhere. While each plate only corresponded to one dart, it would be impractical to try and manually disable each and every plate (or at least enough to make a path through the corridor), and then there's the idol trap on top of it. Sometimes, that tension of knowing there are traps and how to get around them can be just as tense and rewarding to thwart as talking your way past enemies if you can make the players work for it, feeling like they outsmarted the creators.
The barbarian must have 20 in wisdom and have the the observant feat to notice so fast
You can give any amount of flowery, adjective laden, slowly stated descriptions you want... there is ONE sound my players dread coming from behind the screen more than any other.
"...click..."
Killer Queen
Players entering a mine where the enemy is anticipating them after a previous battle the players ran away from. The entrance is a 20x20 room with a door to the south and one to the west, they enter from the east. They place themselves in the room and then roll perception. DC15 sees the trip wire. DC20 Sees it and gets to act in a "surprise round" of sorts. After the perception, the doors explode. They roll for initiative. Surprise round can act. They can potentially stop one of the doors from triggering with a DC 16 Acrobatics/Sleight of Hand/Athletics grabbing the wire and stopping it from pulling OR they can hide behind a barrel or run out. They roll initiative. Then the traps go off on initiative 20. 20ft cone from each door, important because there are things to hide behind. On Initiative 10, the wererats have heard the explosion and move from where they are towards the entrance.
I'm seeing complex traps as part of the "ecology" of a particular dungeon. Burial sites, hoards, bandit hideouts, thieves guilds, etc would be RIFE with traps. Traps are unpaid guards, and everyone likes "free work".
Example: Imagine a cave complex discovered by kobolds/goblins. The air is highly toxic with spores or gases (constant). This gas or spore infection causes hallucinations, fear, confusion, etc.
The kobolds/goblins have set up rockfalls to channel invaders into tripwires. (Dynamic) These tripwires drop suspended bottles and jars of acid or alchemist fire. (damage).
However, the small humanoids had not realized this complex was already occupied by gas spores. Why gas spores? Because they're spawning from the Zombie Beholder that was infected/killed/animated by an aberrant fungus. the gas spores are further damage/dynamic elements, being living and moving traps themselves.
The traps and toxic air may well have affected the kobolds/goblins, who panicked, set off their own traps and blew up one or more gas spores. Now you have a subterranean hellscape for players to try to escape, with hallucinating humanoids, gas spores, latent traps (that now sick humanoids may have forgotten because of their infection), and a zombie beholder.
Now you have a low/mid-level dungeon that will challenge players and create paranoia. Add PCs to taste.
It's good to see that you're nearing 100K subs! So glad you're on the verge of reaching that milestone! With how often you upload, provide useful tips, and the amazing skits you have at the beginning of your videos, I'm confidently able to say that you being a criminally underrated UA-camr would not prompt a deception check from my dice. That's not even mentioning how many modules you've worked on. Really love your videos, keep up the good work, Luke!
"LUKE HART DOESN'T SUCK!"
Thank you so much!!! :D
I like using trap elements basically as monsters, that's a cool idea.
Traps don't always be enemies, they can also be allies.
In a dungeon, my players found a trap and decided to ignore it for the moment. A room later or two they found themself in a combat encounter and decidet "Remember that trap before? Let's lure the enemies in that room and activate the trap from far away. Good dice rolls for them and bad for me later the enemies were traped in that room with a complex trap, doors shut and my players didn't have to worry about either of it.
"New" Rogue is just "Old" Rogue in disguise...
Less is more I suppose...
Honey, see? Maybe you should use less rouge too!
( I HAD to find a way to incorporate both words LOL )
the Rogue's race might be Changeling, but his player can only make one voice.
I'll be using these, and the whirling blades one sounds cool
I held sessions where all we did was design traps.
I took ideas the players came up with and used them in the dungeons.
They usually forgot how the traps they had designed worked and managed to set them off with the results they had come up with.
Love the beholder reversing gravity 90 ft shaft with oil of slipperiness on the walls.
Weight on floor, reverse gravity.
Weight on ceiling, reverse gravity.
Good luck.
I love the barbarian so much LOL
"Why nobody listen to me?
I mean "Why would they make a trap so detailed and expensive if it could be disabled so easily?"
Because they wouldn't? But in the same way if you put a $500 lock on a hollow core door that's sitting in a wall made of drywall. Defeating a trap may not have anything to do with the intended method of disarming it.
also traps may not work as well as they did when first installed. It's complex mechanism, probably custom made, that's been rusting away in some old tomb for a century or more. The antitampering mechanism may simply have rotted away.
Or, as lock picking lawyer has shown, cash amount has nothing to do with disabling resistance
It’s so funny this video popped up in my recommended feed today. I just finished a mansion filled with all kinds of traps two days ago. Everything from simple to complex. LOL
i realy needed this video because i am starting an egyptian themed campaign soon.
DM: you just cant disable all traps in the hallway in one turn
Halfling blonde Transmutation wizard: hold my anime scene...
I recently designed a not as complicated trap, but one that should be fun nonetheless. The players are given a large gemstone without their knowing in one portion of the dungeon. A rune prevents it from being detected within a certain radius. Once they pass that boundary, then a starving Xorn will attack. The attack both creates a fight for the players and alerts others in the dungeon to their location.
Great video, been thinking about throwing some multi stage traps at the party, and this helped me understand the steps better.
Just got into watching these. Thank you for your time and effort
One of my personal favorites is the spring loaded door, it’s a simple door trap, it’s dangerous, and it dosent force a combat encounter like a mimic.
I'm super keen to have a hoard guarded by a complex trap while the owner is away, for my party to raid. Thanks for the tips!!
I wish I found this a long time ago for my trap-infested corridor. In the end, the room was just blanket traps meant to deter people rather than draw them in to kill them.
Great stuff. Going to work something in on an upcoming adventure!
I am always curious why traps aren't set up to capture, kill or in some other way disable completely, but to damage. If I were putting a trap in my dungeon, I'm not trying to "wear down" Invaders. I'm trying to disable completely or drive them out or whatever. I am no fan of save or die, but my threat will always be death, paralysis, capture, or something like that, but it will be obvious (lots of blood or skeletons or something).
Some traps are designed to capture or maim intruders. Others are designed to kill. Still others are designed to hinder progress. It depends on several factors, who built the dungeon, who lives there, what their agenda may be, the disposition of the inhabitants, the psychology of the inhabitants.
These are just the primary factors to consider when designing traps.
We used to have "save or die" traps and poisons.
Some had high DC (using modern term) or roll to succeed.
Combine that with the old school way was, if the PC died you handed in the character sheet and it was burned...
"Save or die" became less and less of a thing.
Thanks for the video Luke! Haven’t built a complex trap yet but this is gonna help me take a swing at it soon 👀
The DM lair has the right mindset!
This is some great information A+ on this video. So much so I will be looking into your Lair Magazine
I dont find traps very fun unless it tells a story. If its just hp-tax its kinda lame. Thank you for the tipps, Luke.
Yeah. Unless you set it up so that their obvious to see but not entirely obvious how to overcome, they just don't do a lot for me unless their interesting in some way.
What I have and still do, is come up with a trap and let the players come up with the solution. Its fun to see just how creative your players can get with it.
All traps have a delay (which can be but need not be 0). A good Complex trap can incorporate a delayed reaction. This can be simple or complex. Say the PCs wander into a portion of the cave where O2 levels are steadily decreasing or are stratified and their passage (or combat with something seemingly trivial that requires lots of arm movement and swatting such as spiders, bats, rats, scorpions, etc.) stirs it up to decrease it. Or players unknowingly contact poison or a toxic or diseased substance or a substance with magical effects that has a delayed reaction that manifests itself several turns, minutes, hours or days later possibly at an inopportune time. They then have to fight and capture the witch that poisoned them to obtain the cure while simultaneously decreasing in fitness!
Great stuff! Thanks Luke, much appreciated!
Last night my level 1 rogue showed up to the table with the observation feat and a passive perception of 20 .
Today I awake to the this video ( evil laughter )
I compaire my own character to Indiana Jones, in that he goes back and forth between being a professor and an adventurer.
Tfw The Oldman calls you a moron, RIP, back to back character deaths
Also, just like any good Indy trap or Bond villain, provide ample clues/info to the would-be heroes/thieves/victims so that anyone with half a brain (Int 9+) can easily figure out how to disarm or avoid or otherwise defy them, and get to whatever it is the trap is designed to protect in the first place, because what would be the point if the trap actually did its job, right?
Can you assist in how to apply XP awarded for getting through one of these complex trap situations.....Thanks!
The best trap is one where the PCs think they solved the trap but actually didn’t. Say they think that they solved a cipher but used the wrong key (and the DM should leave clues that it is wrong) which lead them to a trap or they find a paper with a “decoded” cipher that is really instructions as to where to stand to cause maximum damage from a trap. Etc.
I think it's important to have very special items locked away by fancy traps be of a particular type that makes sense for your campaign. A legendary sword is just that, legendary. Are you the first party to successfully make it inside to claim it? Why was such a powerful item interned, instead of kept by the previous owner and used? If it was locked away because it's dangerous, is it there because it can't be destroyed? Or was it placed there as some sort of test or trial?
So it turns out my "puzzles" are just really complex traps
Totally recommend Luke's site for DM resources and also Lair magazine is full of awesome stuff!
Thank you!!! :D
I really like that fear glyph idea, definitely using that one 😈
How do you feel about ruling that disarming takes more than a single action/round. Complex locks/traps requiring more rounds to disarm for a lower DC or speed disarm for a higher DC?
No one is gonna not get at least half dead by the trap I'm cooking up.
Dscyb has decent maps, crossroads and more...
Hi Luke. Is there anyway to contact you ? I have something to ask you.
I run an undead campaign an one day while my players were being chased by a horde through the streets I decided to throw them the ol trip wire explosion trap
New rogue is such a handsome fella
Yeah...they all kind of are...
My favorite part in a game was when I actually had a trap where poison gas was flooding a chamber, and the rogue literally picked up his dice and said "I want to disarm the Trap!". My answer was a simple. "Ok, how do you want to try and disarm the trap?" And the Rogue player looked at me like I just told him the sky is red, water id dry and his name was actually fluffypuff. "I... I want to roll for my thieves tools!" "To do what?" "To Disarm the traps!" "Ok, how?" "WITH MY THIEVES TOOLS!!!!"
People like that play too many video games lol
Depending on the player this is either a good tactic or the DM being a pill.
Indiana Jones traps aside (cuz yeah they all should be like that with the easier ones at the beginning of the dungeon. But the game should play like an old school Indiana Jones film.
Fun times
You should allways remember a purpurse of the trap. It's not just prevent someone from reaching some spot. For this trap designer can just build stone wall all around and kill all the builders, so noone will know where to find it.
Trap mostly have to keep tresspassers out (preferably by killing them) while some other creatures with right knowledge/skills/items should be able to pass it 100% safely. And players will probably expect such things to exists and will try to find the way, trap meant to be passed peacefully even without ability to do it themselves, as it will be the clue how to disable the trap.
5:00
One word
Grimtooth’s
ahhh dash my hopes for the raise of Monk Luke. T_T
I SAID HE'D FIND A WAY
The Rogue always finds a way...
he doesn't suck!
I really like this idea! But also....this seems a bit like torturing the players just for fun LOL
Or maybe just maybe play Call of Cthulhu pulp, you know a game designed to actually feel and play like Indiana jones in the 20-30s.
Or play Journey to Center of Earth, or play Savage Worlds, or play Xenoplicity. Play ANY of a number of games that are better fitted to what you want instead of trying to make D&D is the one-size fits all.
Caustic refers to a base so caustic acid is a oxymoron
Comment for the algorithm
He doesn't completely suck.
Yet another not-quite-as-late comment for the algorithm to let UA-cam know that Luke Hart doesn't completely suck.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
So... this is just multiple simple traps with a shared trigger, right? Also, if choosing the level takes up so many assumptions, and is unlikely to reflect reality, why not skip that step? Just, pick damage that seems reasonable and threatening, and move on. Having a "level" for the trap feels superfluous.
Someone thumbs downed? Lmao why?
He was my face. It's always my face. I'm just not ruggedly handsome enough I guess. LOL
Algorithm
How does such a good youtuber have such an annoying intro lol
So annoying that many people love it. Go figure. :D
@@theDMLair to each their own I guess. Regardless, ur vids have great advice
First
Don't.