The dungeon bastard`s guide to traps

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The dungeon bastard’s
guide to traps
F A T
D R A G O N
G A M E S
The dungeon bastard’s
guide to traps
Credits
Author
Brendan LaSalle
Editor
Gary Wegley
Project Director
Tom Tullis
Cover Art
Jason Walton
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Interior Art
Bill Cavalier, William McAusland, Bradley K. McDevitt, Andy Taylor
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The Dungeon Bastard Web Series
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Created By
Tom Lommel
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Produced By
Cindi Rice
Executive Producer
John Frank Rosenblum
For more BADASS advice and gaming wisdom, visit the Dungeon Dojo:
www.dungeonbastard.com
Text and illustrations copyright 2013, Fat Dragon Games. All rights reserved.
‘The Dungeon Bastard’ and ‘The Dungeon Bastard’ logo are trademarks of
Epic Level Entertainment, Ltd. and are used here with permission. All rights reserved.
Some artwork copyright William McAusland, used with permission.
FDG8137
www.fatdragongames.com
Contents
Introductionç’•å±´ç’•å±´ç’•å±´
Abandon All Dopesç’•å±´ç’•å±´
Altar Egoç’•å±´ç’•å±´ç’•å±´
Aquarium Jackpotç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Back of the Front Doorç’•å±´ç’•å±´
By the Dungeon’s Red Glareç’•å±´)>>
By the Power of Numbskullç’•å±´)>>
Chandelier Doozyç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Elevator Umbrageç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Fleet Street Specialç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Freelik’s Follyç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Fuse and Far Betweenç’•å±´ç’•å±´
Half-Pipe to Hellç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Hansel and Gravel ç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Hush Moneyç’•å±´ç’•å±´ç’•å±´
If This Dungeon’s A-Rockingç’•å±´)>>
Krazy Kountdownç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Monster Yum Yumç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Once More Over the Ceilingç’•å±´)>>
Over a Barrelç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Perilous Peanut Galleryç’•å±´ç’•å±´
Say Hello to My Little Frondç’•å±´)>>
Skeleton Crewç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
Squeeze My Lizardç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
ULITMATE Gnome-Killer Trapç’•å±´)>>
The Wall Walkerç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
What’s In the Box?ç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
White Elephant Gambitç’•å±´ç’•å±´
Yoinks and Awayç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
The Dungeon Bastard’s Ultimate Party Wrecker )>> ç’•å±´
A Final Thought From the Bastardç’•å±´ç’•å±´)>>
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Introduction
I once talked a GM into letting my dwarf barbarian cut off his own foot and attach the Hand of Vecna to the stump, at which
point I picked up the Three Weapon Fighting feat and conquered all of Blackmoor over a three-day weekend dungeon binge.
I’m Adventure Coach Bill Cavalier, the Dungeon Bastard, 23rd level badass double-specialized in turning noobs into certified
hard-core dungeon raiders. I’ve whipped more sad dice sack monkeys into shape than you’ve taken hit points of damage
from dragon breath. And now... I’m going to do for the game runners what I have been doing for my players all these years.
I present The Dungeon Bastard’s Guide to Traps, a collection of deadly devices and hideous scenarios guaranteed to make
your players so paranoid they’ll start checking their chairs for pressure points before they sit down at your gaming table.
Now, you all know that the Dungeon Bastard coaches ADVENTURERS, those noble heroes who risk it all for a handful of
experience and the chance to behead a troll seven or eight times while someone looks up tinderboxes on YouTube to see
how long it takes to light a fire. Adventurers are my bag.
Well, there’s a reason.
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THE BASTARD IS TOO DAMN GOOD AT HIS JOB!
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So, unless you don’t have the sense Odin gave a raven, you are asking, Bill - what the hell are you doing helping writing a
book to help out the very same pathetic sadists you have been working to help us dungeon trainees take down for all these
years? Why would you betray your brother and sister players by helping those egomaniacal, extra-manticore-adding, stingywith-the-magic-gear, secret-door-trapping, much-too-liberal-with-the-slimes-and-oozes, grab assers?
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I’ve whipped so many players into shape that GMs are running scared. The graduates of my training program are lifting up
dungeons and shaking them until experience points fall out. I’ve got rangers picking GMs for their favored enemy and leaving their screens full of arrows. Dungeon level bosses are getting atomic wedgies from half-elf bards. HALF ELF BARDS,
do you hear me? It’s madness!
Helpless to stop the onslaught of badass dungeoneers, game masters turn to the only chance they have – that I will deign
to share some of my hard-won experience with them to give them a chance of standing up against the army of unstoppable
dungeon raiders I created.
And so the Bastard, reluctantly but with his head held high, shall grace the other side of the screen with the Continual Light
of his dungeon design brilliance. In this sacred tome of badassdom, you will find a collection of the most deviously cunning
designs, cruelest encounters, and abjectly humiliating situations to keep your players more nervous than a bunch of noobs
in the Tomb of Horrors.
BE WARNED! Once you start to learn the Bastard Method of Dungeon Design, you are going to want to take those wussy
dungeons you wrote back in freshman year study hall with the complicated role play and the red herring quests out into the
yard and lob fireballs at them.
THERE IS NO TURNING BACK!
GAME MASTERS: STRIKE FIRST! STRIKE HARD! BE THE EVIL BASTARD GM YOU WERE MEANT TO BE!
Yours in St. Cuthbert,
Bill Cavalier
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The Dungeon Bastard’s Guide to Traps
Abandon All Dopes
It’s almost too easy to fuck with Paladins. Do it anyway.
(Paladin Character + Role Playing Enthusiast Player = THE REASON KIDS TURN TO XBOX)
There are two ways to play a holy roller. One is as a fighter who is awesome against evil creatures. The other is as an infuriatingly upright baby sitter who won’t let you apply burning coals to a prisoner no matter how much fun it will be how much
useful information he might know. The former is an excellent character choice and a welcome addition to any party; the
latter pisses me off so bad I want to go back to an earlier time before they even invented the holy rolling bastards.
(We can all play first level Elves whose every weapon does a d6. Oh, the innocence of youth!)
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For all those role players out there who insist on holding the game up so they can try to make converts out of carrion crawlers, I give you a little roadblock I like to call the Abandon All Dopes. It’s like taking candy from a self-righteous, smug, armorpolishing baby.
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On the lowest level of the dungeon, the party finds a secret room with an imposing archway over a pair of riveted black
doors. Whoever carved this has gone all out – demons, flames, staring lidless eyes . . . it’s like the stonecutter tried to
squeeze in every reference to evil ever in a single archway.
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(“Who spends unknowable time and resources making dungeons decoratively gothic? WE DO! WE DO!”)
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The door also has an ornate carved motto: ENTER NOT LEAST YE BE PURE OF HEART AND CLEAN OF CONSCIENCE.
The paladin detects evil. He instantly gets a low grade headache as his evil meter is nearly overwhelmed.
Of course, no group with a paladin on point is going to let a little thing like a carved archway slow them down, right? No sir.
The paladin goes through followed by the party.
The Awesome Part: This archway is cursed with the worst possible curses. (Cursed like every odd-numbered Star Trek
movie cursed.)
Everyone who goes through has to make a save or be affected – except for Lawful Good characters, who are fully immune.
Anyone failing has their alignment changed as if by a helm of opposite alignment, to one of the evil alignments.
But that’s not all. The 30 x 30 room beyond holds an evil altar, and its walls are dressed in floor to ceiling mirrors. Anyone affected by the alignment curse appears to have grown horns, a bifurcated tail, and a demonic visage when seen in the mirror.
(Curse victims vowing revenge against the Yankees optional, but preferred.)
The paladin instantly sees the images in the mirror, detects evil, and finds that his friends have all gone over to the Dark
side. With any luck at all, the moral cripple’s instincts will just take over. Out comes the holy sword and the paladin just goes
to work.
At this point, either the paladin manages to whack everyone in the party, or they gang up and bring him down. Or – and
this may be the best possible result – the player with the paladin character sizes up the situation and decides that maybe,
for the sake of not ruining his Friday night, he should take that whole “role play” thing down a notch or two and try to work
something out with his new evil buddies. Of course, the newly minted evil ones may have something to say about that. Any
way it shakes out is a GM win.
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Altar Ego
Eventually, some new edition or wacko third-party player’s handbook will allow you to roll up a cleric that worships
Paramedica, the God of Non-Aligned, Non-Judgemental Healing and Buff Spells. No more clerical proselytizing, no
more alignment quests. All he does is heal and smack people with his heavy flail.
(Finally, an Edition actually worth going to war over!)
Until that happy day, you can use this trap to screw with that guy who plays a holy-rolling healer that spends more time
preaching the gospel than beating the hell out of zombies with his mace.
(A real cleric pays extra to cover his holy symbol in spikes.)
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We call this little gem the Altar Ego. Guaranteed to teach your role player the value of Roll Play. The cleric and his
precious little band of cure-light converts find a secret tunnel in the back of the dungeon that leads to a spiral staircase
that twists down a 30’ deep shaft until the suckers finally reach a macabre altar and sacrifice chamber. The altar is a
death metal wet dream of demonic glory. A huge satanic face, all wicked fangs and snarling, hangs over a stone altar
with built-in manacles and gutters to let the blood run into the floor and fill up shallow grooves – if you see the floor
from way above, it says something terribly evil and offensive.
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(“Everybody Polka?” “Let’s order from the light menu?” “See what’s on C-Span?”)
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The demon head’s tongue is six-feet long, looping around twice, stretching down as if to taste the blood of the unlucky
main course. Tell your cleric that the thing’s eyes seem to follow you about the room, and he can feel the evil oozing
off the altar like some satanic spray of syrup.
(Lay it on thick as Mrs. Beelzebubsworth)
Any cleric worth his holy water is going to declare that he is going to destroy it. And, of course, he’ll either smash,
shatter, or otherwise whack that tongue.
(Like a +2 potato gun of starchy destruction)
The Awesome Part: The altar face is the lowest part of a thousand-gallon reservoir of blood. It’s the blood of ten
thousand years of sacrifices. The blood is under colossal pressure so that when the tongue is smashed it turns into a
water-launched projectile and beans someone at random.
The blood shoots out so fast that within one round the deep shaft is three feet deep in blood. The blood rises two feet
per round until it reaches the top of the shaft thirty feet above. The blood makes the floor and steps slippery – folks
trying to run out have to make a check every round or they fall. If a body slips enough times while they try to get up
the stairs, they drown.
The immediate danger of drowning in blood is fairly slim. However, when your crew gets up to the top you become
a GM with options. There could be any number of underground things that couldn’t keep their tentacles off a bloodsoaked half elf. The party might leave bloody foot prints that then get tracked by a pack of gnoll rangers. Heck, they
might just get mistaken for monsters themselves and get slain by the next party of adventurers that makes their way
down in to the dungeon. BLOODY ADVENTURERS!
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The Dungeon Bastard’s Guide to Traps