Now that we have brought up the subject of traps it might be wise to discuss their use a bit. In my mind….and of course… I am always right….. there are only a few appropriate ways to use a trap:
- Confinement
- Channeling
- Injuring
- Killing
Confinement
Some traps should be used to catch your prey. This is useful if you intend to torture your delvers later at your leisure either to get valuable information or just because you enjoy it like I do. Either reason is perfectly acceptable. Cages, portcullis, falling blocks and falling walls do well for this sort of thing.
Channeling
Channeling traps are wonderful ways to feed your minions. Dropping iron walls, iron portcullis, stone blocks, rolling boulders are all good methods for forcing players to go places they might otherwise not choose to go. Sometimes I like to invite some particularly nasty friends to occupy certain quarters of my dungeons and then offer them free meals by forcing delvers to come visit them. It is a win-win situation if you ask me. My friends usually think so too.
Injuring
Injuring traps are useful on occasion. Sometimes it is just not prudent to slay everyone who wanders into the dungeon looking for treasure. Sometimes you want to question them before you put them to the sword. Arrow traps, pit traps, dart traps are useful for this kind of thing.
Killing
And these traps are of course…the really fun ones. Crushing rooms, flooding chambers, poison gasses, poisoned darts and arrows, crushing stone blocks and poisoned spike pits. These are absolute treasures. There is just nothing as exciting for a member of the undead as to see a freshly killed humanoid with surprise still on their face. It is a beautiful thing I assure you.
