Need a stairway trap

[Voadam]

I need a quick stairway trap for a pbp game I'm running. The 16th level party is investigating the mansion of a sadistic raskshasa they killed and the arcane trickster just disarmed a symbol of pain on the lock for a hidden door that leads to a basement dungeon (with evil prisoners who have plot information). Having disabled the symbol and sprung the lock the exultant AT then lead the way down the stairs with the paladin following.

I was planning on having the stairway trapped and use something from Traps and Treachery but didn't have time this weekend to look up anything appropriate.

Any suggestions? Mundane or magical, either type of trap would work.

 

[Huw]

Some golden oldies:

1) Invisible bar at either head height or shin height
2) Stairway goes through portal to other plane - and just keeps going. True exit is secret door part way down
3) Stairs are made of a magical material - one dispel magic/Mord's Disjunction/etc. and *POOF* they've gone. Another symbol might encourage this to happen
4) Mimics on the steps

 

[diaglo]

Some golden oldies:

1) Invisible bar at either head height or shin height

which leads to the victim tumbling down the stairs setting off a series of other traps.

 

[Rpjunkie]

Think M.C Escher or harry potter and the moving stairs with reverse gravity etc..

cool!

RPJ

 

[Cedric]

Illusionary set of two steps that have a 40' pit below them that is filled with water up to 10' deep and has slimy walls that are extremely hard to climb. Also, 10' above the waterline there is a veil of permanent darkness and silence.

There's no place to secure a rope on the steps so the players would have to hold it and help out anyone who fell in (if the tank is in the lead, good luck treading water in all that armor until they can engineer a rescue attempt).

DC 35 climb check to get up the walls.

DC 25 spot check (or DC 20 search check if they are looking for something like this) to note that there is one old piton still in the stone and a few holes where pitons existed before to note that someone has climbed out of this before.

If the players are using a staff or polearm to check the step in front of them, they note this immediately and are able to determine that there are two illusionary steps.

However, the third step, which is quite real, is also covered in a thick, slimy grease like substance. So if they jump down to the third step, dc 20 reflex save to avoid taking a minor tumble (no damage), if they fail by more than 5, they fall backwards into the pit). (DC 25 spot check to note the greasy step before they jump, which would allow them to jump to the 4th step...dc 10 jump check with dc 10 balance check).

EDIT: If they PCs become adventurous and explore the pit, feel free to seed the bottom with some treasure from previous adventurers/explorers who "fell" for this trap. Also, there is a grate at the bottom that if removed, will allow them to swim to another area of the keep/castle/dungeon/tower and access an area they might not otherwise have found because its behind a secret door which is obvious from this side.

 

[Wycen]

I pulled this out of thin air last night for my group of 17th level players. The barbarian and rogue decided to investigate the secret door leading down a set of stairs without the rest of the party, without searching for traps. And flying while grappling an ogre mage.

They fley past 2 small idols. The idols blasted them with cones of brilliant colors. Lose 2d6 points of a random stat, Reflex save for half. I randomly set the DC as 20 and the CR of the trap is irrelavent since my party is so high level it would be miniscule xp involved.

 

[AuraSeer]

An old standard trap is the one where some steps are on hinges, and collapse when weighted. That means a Reflex save to avoid an unceremonious tumble down the steps.

An alternate form of this is one where all the stairs are hinged, but locked in place so the staircase appears normal. One step near the top is a trigger which causes all the steps to collapse at once, turning the staircase into a long slide. For extra bastard points, sharpen the upper edges to turn the whole thing into a cheese grater.

 

[MarkB]

Give the party some reason to take the steps in haste, such as an illusion of a fleeing figure below, then cast grease on the stairs.

Or put the entrance to the dungeon halfway down the stairs, through a hidden door or illusion-cloaked passage. If the party continue down the stairs, they come out in what looks like an appropriate dungeon, but is in fact a trap- and monster-filled red herring. Triggering any trap in this area has the secondary effect of raising the staircase, thus sealing the area.

 

[Storyteller01]

T&T has an evil mundane trap that turns a step into a mini-pit trap. The leg falls through the step into a one foot deep hole lined with small blades. The blades are poionted down, so the victim suffers more damage when they try to remove the leg. Spread some of these randomly on your stair case.

Have some of the stairs trigger a spring mechanism five stairs up. Have to mechanism lob a thunderstone coated in glass, scrap metal pieces, or some other nasty fragmentation. Line the inside of the outer layer with a poison.

When a character steps on a given step (maybe using a modified alarm spell?) the next step flys opens, allowing a Mirror of Opposition to slide up in front of the character.

Have random steps weakened to give way, or that pull the core of the step into the wall leaving only a thin shell of laquer when armed. Your foot falls through, crushing a glass sphere filled with the same substance as a tanglefoot bag.

Stepping on one step triggers a crossbow under another step, which happens to be chest high for a medium critter.


How evil do you want these traps to be, by the way?

 

[Sejs]

Oh man, what was that one spell? Distance Distortion?

The one that makes an area loop on itself endlessly?

Do that.

"Man, these stairs sure go down quite a ways."



...and then make it so that bypassing the distortion triggers something else. If nothing, big block of stone or iron drops into place blocking the exit. If you're -supposed- to be there, you'd either know the password or be on the approved list that'd make the distortion stand down without triggering the block.