Traps are a defining part of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons experience but can be hard to use well. An effective trap will instantly kill its target without being detected befor꧒ehand, but this isn't very fun for the player who triggered it and now has to sit out the session writing up a new character.

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Making use of traps in Fifth Edition is a balancing act between letting the players see and play around the threats they detect while still keeping the game moving at a good pace and maintaining an appropriate level of challenge that will be specific to the playstyle and personal🤡ities of your group.

How To Design Traps

Dungeons and Dragons: Tiefling and Dwarf Running from Boulder Trap
Tiefling and Dwarf Running from Boulder via Wizards of the Coast

There are two halves to the design process, with the first focused on the game mechanics and the second being the implementation into the world and setting. The Dungeon Master's Guide (chapter five, adventure environments) has some guidance on the first but leaves the implementation largely at the Dungeon Master's discretion.

The best place to start with is from the conce༒pt of what you want the trap to 🍸do and then work out how that would bear out mechanically. Consider the following questions:

  • Are the consequences for failing the trap an instant game over?
  • Could a person deduce how the trap works from examining it?
  • How can you as the GM signal the trap is present while still providing a challenge in identifying and disarming it?
  • Could the person who built the trap navigate past it without destroying or triggering it?

Designing The Mechanics Of A Trap

The DMG divides traps into four level bands, which result in a very broad range of effects depending on where the players fall within that. The weakest level one trap can💎 incapacitate a first-level player from full hitpoints but mildly iℱnconvenience a fourth-level character. If you want to use traps at these earlier levels, you still can but may want to weaken the damage dice accordingly from the d10 recommended at baseline.

Level

Damage Dice

1

D4

2

D6

3

D8

From level four and beyond the damage severity table works a lot better, and you can use them as listed. This adjustment focuses on avoiding that un-fun but memorable scenario of a player losing their first character within five minutes of starting the game. It helps that from fifth level, you have revivify and other healing tools to prevent or reverse instant deaths from traps.

For traps that can activate multiple times, you'll typically want to reduce the damage level by one rank. You can keep the save 🌜DC and attack bonus of the origiᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚnal rank.


Use this for traps that activate repeatedly when a cue is met (such as a burning floor trap that activates each time it is stepped over) or for traps that activate at set intervals (such 🌳as a spinning blade that hits everyone in an area at the start of a combat round).

There are other effects꧅ that you 🍸can apply to a trap besides a flat amount of initial damage:

Effect

Example

Mechanics

Persistent damage

A trap that launches alchemist's fire, dealing fire damage until extinguished.

A creature takes 1d4 fire damage each turn start until it makes a DC10 dexterity check to douse the fire.

Debuff

A glyph of warding contains a spell such as slow or hold person i꧂nstead of a damaging effect෴.

Apply the spell effect with the same saving throw DCs as the glyph creator (but without concentration).

Poisons

A dart trap might be coated in drow poison or similar toxins.

Apply the same saving throws and effects listed on the poison. For Dr🐭ow Poison that would be DC13 constitution or be poisoned for one hour (and unconscious if failing by fiveꦬ or more).


The initial damage of the dart could be setback level, but might have the attack bonus of a dangerous trap.

Alarm

A tripwire can set off bells or knock over objects to make noise.

Combat initiates after a few moments if enemies are in range to hear the alarm.


If the party did not detect the trap, they may be surprised.

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How To Use Traps

Dungeons & Dragons: In Imoen, Mystic Trickster by Alix Branwyn, a rogue disables a lock with magic.
Imoen, Mystic Trickster by Alix Branwyn 

Implementing Traps

Making the trapsღ you design cohesive to the setting, enjoyable to interact with, and having meaningful results for both evading and tripping them are all important considerations that a❀re not explained in detail in the Dungeon Master's Guide.

As the rules are written, a trap is only detected if the character is actively searching for it or takes actions that make it impo🐠ssible to conceal the trap. This can slow ga🎃meplay to a crawl if the players check for pressure plates underneath every rug and open every door using Mage Hand from behind a tower shield with attacks readied for an ambush.

There are a few ways to implement traps while retaining the challenge and puzzle and avoiding the slog of making players meti꧙culously describe the process of examining every flo⛎or tile before stepping on it:

Solution

Method

Effect

Roll For Them

When the players enter an area containing traps, make hidden investigation or perception checks on their behalf. Notify them of any traps found fro♌m these rolls.

This gives a prepared party good chances to spot traps ahead of time without requiring them to slow down and manually state they are investigating a scene. It also increases the value of feats ⛦that aid in detecting traps, such as alert.


It can increase the burden on the DM, especially if you are not using a virtual tabletop that has this functionally 🔯coded in 🌼automatically.


On a failed roll, the party will still feel blindsided by the traps because they were not aware they had failed the secret roll.

Foreshadowing

Telegraph that an area is going to include traps, either by having one already be sprung or having a stray🅰 rat get incinerated in sight of the party

This feels the fairest from the side of the players. They are told there is a threat for them to avoid, and they are given every opportunity to identify it or take countermeas▨ures.


You can incorporate this method into the gameplay by giving the players a wand of Find Traps and ꧂discussing that they use it at regular intervals without having to slow down the game and actively state they are casting the spell


This removes some of the tension of searching for traps, as the party will always know that th𓂃💮ere is at least one to find when prompted.

Traps Only Appear In Combat

Only use traps that interact during and as part of combat. During exploration, they are either inactive or the party is assumed to move slowly and carefully to not trigger them.

This forces decisions on when to spend actions looking for and disarming traps or to engage with the more direct threats posed by enemies.


Some traps might catch enemies in the crossfire, which is entertaining.


This favours the use of more complex traps that can be time-consuming 🐻to design 🐲and implement.

How To Describe Traps

Traps should be described as part of the environment, in a way that matches the aesthetic of the scene and the people using them. The floating skull of a demi-lich has better things to do than dig a twenty-foot pit through solid rock and fill the bottom with spikes.

The local cave troll isn't going to have the powdered gemstones needed to set up glyphs of warding around their lair. Using the right types of trap for the scenario can help i༺mmersion as well as gameplay: The players wi𒐪ll know what types of traps to look for depending on the architecture and enemies.

Trap Locations

Effects

Descriptions

Wilderness Ambushes

Snares, pitfalls and other single-use traps that limit or restrict movement.

Blends into and may potentially be crafted out of the local environment and foliage.

Urban Ambushes

Glyphs of Warding and other magical traps that can be programmed to only target a specific person.


Quick to set up traps like snares and tripwires, perhaps with a focus on incapacitating instead of killing the target.

A player scouting out the scene ahead of time might spot the spellcaster setting up these traps.


Most factions will avoid using explosive tripwires in a crowded marketplace, for example.

Dungeons

Complex traps that do not need to be reset manually.

Dart traps and spinning blades work well with the aesthetic of a dungeon and can be incorporated into the architecture.


This type of trap should have a way of bypassing or disabling it, used by the dungeon's inhabitants.

Boss Arenas

Glyphs of Warding that cast haste, protection spells and💫 provid♉e healing to the boss.


Complex traps that target specific positions on a battlemap, using a pattern that could be memorꦉised by the boss and his minions.

Glyphs of Warding allow a prepared combatant to evade the normal limitations on concentration spells.


A smart player might take advantage of complex traps by shoving enemies into them.

It can be somewhat immersion-breaking to describe a giant swinging log, spinning blade, or flamethrower that blasts into the ha꧃lfling rogue who prompt🌳ly springs back up because he had enough HP to survive.

If a trap description would logically result in a player instantly dying if it hit them, instead describe a failed saving throw as a near miss, grazing them or 🌟throwing them off balance with visible but surviಌvable injuries.

Hitpoints are an abstraction of a character's ability to avoid fatal injury and this means they can be lost without actively taking an injury. A🔜 trap that descriptively has failed to draw blood might still mechanically harm a character by shaking their resolve,🙈 damaging their armour, or inflicting minor injuries that make dodging harder.

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