So I'm gonna run a dungeon that is no enemies, just traps. And the rolls are gonna be rare; no bullshit "Detect traps". I describe the room and they have to figure it out and disarm it or avoid it by their wits and occasional rolls for things like running or jumping.
My question is: What equipment should I make available to them to buy before I put them in there? What tools or items would be helpful in this sort of situation?
>What equipment should I make available to them to buy before I put them in there? What tools or items would be helpful in this sort of situation?
Anything they can think of that's reasonable. If they want to buy a net, steel chain, 20 foot pole, ladder, a thick steel rod 1 foot long, etc. let them. They might surprise you with their creativity.
Disposable minions
let them buy any kind of relatively weighty, cheap animal, and as many as they want.
then watch as they release them into your trap dungeon, and enjoy the wacky results
Condoms.
>What tools or items would be helpful in this sort of situation?
Long poles, iron spikes, and hirelings are essential.
Mirrors and gauntlets would come in handy.
Anything else they can think of might come in handy.
If you know what they're using ahead of time, you can tailor some traps around that.
>So I'm gonna run a dungeon that is no enemies, just traps.
Traps work better with enemies. Even if it's just weaksauce enemies in small numbers.
Not sure ho big you're planning on, but a handful of (extra cowardly) goblins would do wonders.
Why do traps work better with enemies?
Chalk. If I knew there were no monsters, a canary.
Puts pressure on you, or distracts you from the trap.
You get a lot more mileage out of a lot less traps.
And it allows the players to get creative with environmental kills.
This, I played a conjurer once with at will weak as fuck summonings which I used as cannon fodder for traps
If this is 5th edition then I'll remind you that Unseen Servant is a ritual spell. I'd say you should include a few enemies but have them be "trap" monsters like mimics. Maybe some undead who are stuck in the traps themselves forcing the players to figure out how to get past the trap without letting the undead out.
Antitoxin
But user, traps can't get pregnant!
My favorite kinds of traps in dungeon are seemingly innocuous hazards.
>an old wooden staircase has rotted away, and any adventurer over 180 pounds (with gear) will cause it to collapse
>there is toxic mold on the walls
>the room has very poor ventilation, so your tar torches smoke up the whole place with toxic smoke
>there is crap all over the ground... don't trip!
>the key to a locked door has been destroyed or lost
>a large colony of harmless wild bats live here, raising the air temperature to 110 F. Take care to avoid heat stroke, and watch out for the corrosive bat droppings.
>That lava in the obligatory lava level is actually the temperature it is supposed to be
>There is a single caltrop/d4/lego in one of the rooms left behind from a previous encounter.
Make sure you include a bunch of red herrings.
>unlocked door
>after someone opens it, ask which hand they were using and write it down
>locked door with a hole in the wall next to it that one could easily reach through to unlock it
>"You just reach through and start groping around for the lock? Uh, okay."
>empty room
>after entering, ask everyone what their Constitution or Perception scores are and roll dice behind the screen
Trap was actually a mummy with gentle repose. Roll FORT.
Oh. And a slam attack...
What's your AC again?
I would have some enemies but maybe make them all just animals or monsters so that they seem like part of the trap, like cages of wolves that are opened on a trip wire, but the tripwire is is after a trap designed to make the party bleed so they are easier to sniff out. Maybe put the wolf cages in plain sight early on, have the only way to disarm the trap be killing the wolves while they are trapped.
In contrast, this ruins a lot of otherwise fun traps. I'd recommend putting something in to actively discourage this, such as making the entrance to the dungeon require scaling a cliff face or going down a mine shaft (both of which are also great places to add some initial traps).
Generally speaking, you want to provide tools for detection, evasion and deconstruction of the traps.
Detection includes things such as magnifying glasses, mirrors, small bags of marbles or weights, the classic 10 foot pole, or small animals such as caged canaries. Larger animals are an option too but I'd try to avoid letting the players send countless animals to their deaths. Either give the dungeon an aura of unnatural fear that repels animals or use traps that require human weight or manipulation to trigger, such as a needle trap built into a doorknob.
Evasion can include ropes, boards, climbing tools and harnesses, anything players can use to get around or over the traps without triggering them.
Deconstruction tools are mostly building materials; axes, shovels, hammer and chisel, shears, files, hacksaws, clamps, tree pruners, crowbars, etc. Anything that could be used to disable or alter the trap so as to be harmless. Things like acid or explosives go here too but I'd try to keep that away from your players or at least clarify that significant structural damage will likely collapse the whole place on their heads.
if that mummy looked like a trap, then he's the one who's gonna be taking "slam attacks"
if you know what I mean ;)
>if you know what I mean ;)
1d6+STR?
Good trap-builders understand the most common methods an intruder might try to bypass them (such as 'bag of squirrels') and build ways to prevent that. This might be traps with minimum weight or height triggers so random curious wildlife won't set them off. They might even be able to reset themselves. Also could be funny when the halfling goes in first to check, finds nothing -and then the tall, heavy orc walks in. Small summoned animals and skeletons could easily be too light to set them off. This also means you can put in a nest of killer weasels or something goofy if you wanted.
I can also see an area with a number of easy to spot/trigger decoy 'traps' that will go off when the bag of squirrels technique is applied. Dumb intruders might think they got them all and just walk right into the real ones. Smart ones might keep looking and be rewarded for their thoroughness by not being skewered. Of course there should always be ways to defeat these traps, but if the builder was doing his job well they shouldn't be cheap and easy (or else he'd be out of a job).
Of course these sort of dungeons are suited to low-magic settings (or low level if there is). A lot of systems just have too many spells that just bypass everything or characters so strong they can just bust down every wall between here and the treasure room with something like an adamantine pickax.
One of my favorite Grimtooth traps is just the button in a hole the wall that cuts off fingers.
The solution is just to use a damn stick but so few think to.
My favorite was a length of rope with razor-blades woven into it, put your weight on the rope and it gashes your hands.
The solution is to bring your own rope, the main issue is detection.
This reminds me of an old superstition that after building a house, before entering it you let inside a chicken or a dog so any potential curses would fall on the animal instead of you.