How might we reform the pit trap trope?

Blind them first

They'll never see it coming

>put a horizontal portal at the bottom of the pit, linked to a gloryhole somewhere in town
They'll never see it coming.

>I'm progressive because I change things, regardless if they're for any benefit

But why? Pit traps are boss!

Replace the spikes with landmines.

I guess this is about how can you do multiple pit traps.

One idea is to have a somewhat poorly disguised pit trap, with a very well disguised pit trap afterwards. The party will see the mediocre pit trap and assume the traps are dealt with before plunging into the better one. If they don't see the first one anyway, well there you go.

... why not just make it a single 80-foot pit?

My DM once tried something like this. Only instead of a lazy pit, he but bullion in it. We saw it, and we sent our rogue down there to get it. She nearly turned into a red stain on the floor. What we didn't know was that there was a gravity trap as well. After that close call, we put a pole across the trap and formed a winch, which we used to lower the rogue down again. This time, she managed to get the bullion and get back up safely.
My GM can be a bastard.

Or even one with a skeleton impaled on spikes, the first tomb raider who attempted to enter "catacombs of treasure"

where's the fun in that?

I assume the point is to teach a lesson with the first pit, then penalize them for continuing to not be cautious.

Change, as such, tends towards better ends.

Turn them into a PC race. Imagine the stealth.

>"Silly players, don't you know to watch the floor for pit traps?! Best you watch out as you continue forward, these passages can be dangerous!"

>"AHAHAHA! Little did you know, there was a SECOND pit trap inside THAT PIT TRAP! Unfortunately as newbies with fresh characters, you die! I did TELL you to watch yourselves, after all!"

Personally, this would make me leave a DM's group.

a) because it gives them a brief moment of hope that it won't actually be so bad before promptly crushing it again
b) because depending on edition two falls might do more damage than single fall of twice the height

youtube.com/watch?v=5MGBEbo1gmA

Nobody ever said it was a good thing, user.

>i wnat 2 win pls dum the gaem down 4 me *pout*

I recall reading about native Americans (maybe?) using a much simpler to construct ankle trap. Roughly a foot deep, these holes would receive three or so spikes in the sides of the walls at angles such that they would dig into a victim's leg when they tried to pull it out. Think Chinese finger trap of death for your foot.

Fair point, I was just extrapolating from your line of thought.

Hmm, interesting.

So that's a no on making a third pit right after the first two?

inverse gravity well. no way to adhere yourself to the space containing a cleverly hidden gravity well? enjoy flailing through the stratosphere.

Large circular blades that jut out from the walls of the pit. The momentum of falling forces them through progressively closer blades, pizza cutter-ing them into ribbons (or whatever their skeletons allow).

>traumatizing your players into believing they need to take 20 searching every single hallway, room, floorboard, staircase, basement, bar stool, bath tub, cabinet, pair of underpants for pit traps

Good luck making it out of the first dungeon in under 5 years of campaign time I guess.

>"Sorry guys, I didn't think it would take you this long to realize that it's actually a Titan's staircase to the basement level"

Replace spikes with dildos.

There is a book/audiobook that I've taking a liking to called 'NPCs'. In it, the minions who build the dungeons for the bigger folk tend to make secret passages through the pit traps and the like so they can move more easily around the dungeon as they do their work.

So, like any good DM, I promptly stole the idea and use it in my games occasionally.

>You failed your spot and dexterity rolls?
>Please roll again, I need to consult my anal circumference houserule tables...

I prefer my traps to be natural, organic traps. It forestalls questions like 'who in their right minds would build such an incredibly labour intensive structure just to render it inaccessible with a multitude of pointy things'. Plus it's environmentally friendly.

Cast invisibility on the bard.
They'll never see him coming.

>falls into pit trap
>they hit the ground and die
>floor collapse soon after
>B2 floor is scavenging monsters that eats their corpse

destroy the evidence

No real need to I reckon. It's just all about spicing up your usage of it.
>DMing for some friends
>level 4 exploring a sandy desert tomb, shit if full of traps yo
>one player, the group's Fighter, trips a pit trap and drops himself and the party Sorcerer into it
>"Anons, both of you are skewered on two foot long spiked with large barbs at the end, what do you do?"
>Fighter "I'll just pull myself off it, easy."
>"But it has a large barb at the end, perhaps you could figure another way out?"
>F "I'mma just muscle through it"
>Fighter proceeds to tear the barb through his leg, dealing double the amount of damage he took on falling onto it, dropping him (including the other damage he'd taken from tripping EVERY TRAP IN THE TOMB) to just below half health
>Sorcerer devises a surprisingly good solution around heating the metal at the base with Firebolt, and then freezing it with Ray of Frost, two of his cantrips.
>I allow it because hot damn what fucking great roleplaying
>Sorcerer is free within five game minutes with no extra damage and is helped out by party as Cleric heals the Fighter
>Fighter ends up dying and party lives because he kept running into situations like that. Good RPing if nothing else

>How can we reform the wheel trope?

>How can we reform the wheel trope?

You mean a sleigh/sled?

Fuck

A track. That is mobius strip.

It's a linked portal to somewhere else in the dungeon

>DMs advocate that pit traps are an actual thing, like something people really fucking build in a dungeon
>rather than just having the whole place be crumbling apart, so some floors collapse when you put too much weight on them

Ankle-high fog covering the whole floor of the dungeon is the best drinking buddy of the pit trap.

Fill pit trap with adventurers own abandoned children. Make them fear for their wallets.

Hell no it doesn't. Just look at the state of the world.

Viet Kong also did that. Pretty common one I think.

>do it twice

You say that but in england they just made it illegal to use a whistle to signify the end of lunch in school because it is too aggressive. Now you have to hold up your hand and hope children are watching.

You weren't even alive at any time where the world was changine LESS rapidly than now. Civilization has been racing blindly into black water in a storm at night since the industrial revolution.

Classic Pit Traps are an ingredient; one that doesn't really need reformation on its own, provided it's used in a good way. A good pit trap (and by extension, most traps) should do most or all of the things below:

>Test Player's observation skills in a more meaningful way beyond "we check every section of floor, wall, and ceiling before proceeding"
> Be lethal enough to matter
> Present interesting options in other situations, like having a fight around the pit

That's more fundamental stuff. Ideas for making pit traps more weird:

> Mirror on floor; people who fall through mirror get ganged up on by all mirror duplicates
> Pit is full of screaming faces; screaming faces are actually an ooze monster that rapidly melt people who fall in

>How do we fix something that isn't broken?

Or

>How do we adapt something to a different system?

Which is it OP?

Gooks also smeared the sticks with shit to improve odds of infection.

youtube.com/watch?v=ToOFVdQutzg
think smaller.

add a slide shute into it

Bring back the quicksand trope.

cast an illusion to make it appear there is a pit trap instead perfectly safe flooring

Isn't the point of a pit trap that it is simple and easy to make? If you want to build a fancy trap, why make it a pit trap at all?

Best laugh I had all day.

I keep having to wonder who feeds retards like you such bullshit. Because I want to join in, it sounds like fun.

add cartridge

The fighter could have RP'd all he wanted, but being IC doesn't suddenly make liquid nitrogen and a industrial blowtorch appear when his only options were to literally do what he did.

Quads of fucking truth

It's one school that did it. But it is true.

Oh god, does anyone have that list of various booby traps? shit's hillarious

filled to the brim with gelatinous cube.

The world that's more peaceful and prosperous than it ever has been? I don't agree that change is always good, but this argument isn't doing you any favors.

This one?

Fuuck so much flavor. I enjoy the little psychological trick the old man uses to avoid PTSD

totally stealing this idea

I prefer to use a pit with a shallow layer of acid in the bottom. It makes it slippery and therefore difficult to get out of, while continuing to damage my enemies.

Goes great with this
youtube.com/watch?v=MDcxFm02bPE

Make it a Rope Trap Pit?

...

Are your pit traps made out of glass?

Actually, that might not be such a bad idea. Cracking, splintering glass spikes and acid.

Here's the real shit.

Punji stakes were also usually smeared with waste to cause infection.

I like 4e's encounter traps though, there's nothing fun or interesting about a regular trap. It's basically "hey, by the way, roll this die and if you don't get it high enough take 2d6 damage"

Traps aren't made for the damage they do, they're made because they're scary and they fuck with you so you slow down and make mistakes.

Punji stakes work as an obstacle too.

>He doesn't want an avant-garde pit trap.

"And lo, the Lord did look upon him and said...Bitch"

So has almost any desperate army, when using piercing/slashing weapons instead of bullets. The former don't fragment, so they really aren't as lethal as pop culture makes out.

no, change just changes things, it doesn't mean it will absolutely be for the better

...

The players walk into a room. The door locks behind them.

Then from out of the darkness, the lead actor of World War Z appears, wearing lipstick and a dress.

I meant to post with oops

That's some fucked up shit.

The other good one was the grenade in tin can one. Pull the pin, hold the lever down, stick it in a can, tie a string to the handle. Fuse ticks down, trip the wire, grenade explodes.

Or get one of the three-prong Russian grenades and drop a backpack on it. When they pick the pack up it goes off.

Grenade in a glass balanced on top of a door
door opens, glass falls
glass break, 'nade goes boom

This.
Poison-tipped ones.

They're not supposed to be lethal. The point (hah) was too maim and demoralize your enemy. An injured soldier is also a logistic burden and slows down the rest of the company.

Trolling or idiocy?

Because once they're already in a trap, they probably won't look for a trap you put in the trap.

So your BullShit about making it illegal was exactly that?

bern victim most likely

It's not my bullshit. I live in the UK and have all my life. This shit is endemic everywhere. It's one example, but I can guarantee you I can point to a hundred other examples. I'm trying to move to the US as soon as I can because the state of this country is causing me physical pain due to despair and stress.

...

>not even a (You)

I didn't see it coming.