room causes the crystal turn to face the
Fifty-eight of the most deadly traps for your
players to fall for!
1. A pit trap opens up beneath a character. At the
bottom of the bit they are falling into is a
button that drops a stone block on top of
them, covering the hole and smashing the
character.
2. A lever with a sign that says “Pull to open”
next to a locked door with an extremely poorly
hid trap door right under the entrance. Pulling
the lever surprisingly opens the door. If you
touch the door without pulling the lever, the
trap door opens.
3. A series of regal-looking interconnected
hallways are dimly lit with magical torches
suspended in sconces. The entrance that the
intruders come through suddenly closes itself
off, and the intruders sit in silence for a few
seconds. Looking down one of the other
hallways reveals a slowly encroaching patch of
darkness that snuffs out the torches as it
makes its way forward, which relight
themselves when intruders approach them
while the darkness is not nearby. The intruders
must search the various corridors while
simultaneously avoiding the patch of darkness,
which envelops and leaves no trace of
anything that enters it. Any attempts to do
combat with the darkness prove ineffectual, as
anything that enters vanishes, never to be
seen again. The darkness is semi-sentient, and
the intruders can interact with it by trying to
hide from it or get it to follow them. The key to
escaping the hallways lies with the magic
torches in the two impressively decorated
sconces that the darkness can’t seem to pass
by. By removing one of the special torches and
carrying it with them, an intruder can hold off
the darkness or even push it back. However,
confronting it for too long will begin to dim the
torch until it eventually snuffs out, forcing the
holder to escape the darkness in order for the
torch to relight. When the special torches
approach the darkness from both sides of a
hallway, it condenses and eventually fades,
leaving a shadowy door to the outside where
the last of it vanished.
4. A roughly cut gemstone hovers ominously over
a crude alter in a cavernlike room while a
malicious spirit floats up around the ceiling
and out of sight. New entities entering the
intruders, revealing that it is actually an eye of
some sort, containing a pupil that darts rapidly
between the intruders and the spirit. The spirit
immediately begins cajoling the crystal eye
into destroying the intruders, talking to it as
though it were a child in need of guidance.
After a few seconds of apparent listening, the
eye completely focuses on the spirit and pillars
of rock begin to rapidly erupt from the room’s
surfaces at points near the intruders. The
pillars, while initially inaccurate, begin homing
in on the intruders more and more the longer
they stay still, and do 5d10 bludgeoning
damage on a hit. The key to escaping the room
is the crystal eye in the center of the room,
which is being told by the spirit to kill the
intruders. By being more persuasive than the
spirit, intruders can convince the eye to stop
its onslaught and eventually target the spirit
instead, which will disperse after being hit
multiple times with pillars of rock. The eye is
very childlike in its considerations and will lose
focus if the intruders fail to convince it or
begin to act too impatient. Simplistic
approaches work well, and the eye responds
positively to constructive encouragement
when it targets the intruders (That was some
very good aiming, I could feel the wind rush by
me! Next time though, try to aim towards the
mean spirit instead, OK?). Once the spirit is
destroyed, a gentle suggestion that the eye
create an exit will convince it to pull a slab of
rock away from a wall and reveal a passage to
outside the room.
5. Walking through an area with “Dormant hives
of bees,” there is a queen bee figurine with a
stinger shaped like a key in a glass jar at the
opening of a room. The jar acts as a seal to
keep the pheromones of the queen away from
the rest of her hive. Once removed from the
jar to unlock a mysterious key hole, the once
dormant hives awaken to attack whomsoever
holds “their queen.”
6. A nearly invisible gelatinous cube encloses an
entire section of a hallway/corridor. Requires
strong perception check to even see. Will
immediately begin digesting any adventurers
who walk into it, tinging the clear jelly a slight
pink color.
7. A hallway with what appear to be dart traps, or
falling spike traps, or fire. There are several
different hallways in a succession of 3 (so
 imagine three hallways one after the other
with different traps, with a small room
between each that could hold 4-6 people. Each
hallway starts with 2 statues. The first hallway
deactivates the traps by grasping one of the
hands and turning it down. Once the next
hallway both statues have hands that turn, and
one activates the traps just cleared while the
other deactivates the ones ahead (but both
can’t happen so if the try to deactivate the
traps ahead it will still be active). And finally
the last hallway will deactivate the traps but
the floor is pressure sensitive. Illustrate this by
having the party see the hand start to turn
back when a member starts to walk across.
Essentially the first two hallways punish groups
that don’t follow right behind the rogue and
send him forward to handle traps, while the
last hallway punishes players who just follow
right behind the rogue, and are afraid to make
any distance.
8. A map is found on a skeleton wrapped around
an old skeleton key. The map shows traps, but
all the information is either half right or all
wrong. The key is able to open any door in the
dungeon, but attracts any undead within 10
miles. Take a hint, maybe the dead guy with
the map and key died for a reason.
9. When trying to open a door they have to pass
a DC x wisdom saving throw to open it.
Otherwise they feel compelled to ‘open’ the
next nearest thing. Causing them to attack the
closest person for y rounds.
10. A secret door that leads into a closet-sized
chamber whose walls and door are very thick.
Detect magic will reveal a faint aura where the
walls meet the ceiling. If any character steps
entirely inside and the door is not blocked, the
door will shut and meld into the stone of the
wall. There is a barrier of inch-thick
adamantium within the stone of the
walls/floor/ceiling: this must be dealt with in
addition to two feet of stone. The character
inside the chamber will begin to suffocate after
one hour and takes one level of exhaustion
after each additional hour.
11. Walking down a hallway, the party passes
through a large set of wooden reinforced
doors. Beyond these doors is another hallway
about 50ft long. In this hallway, there are 10
large sets of full steel armor with varying
weapons from daggers, long swords, flails,
whips, mauls, glaives etc (all of which are very
well made). They’re lined up along the walls of
the hallway 5 on each side. If any of the armor
or weapons are touched. Every single set of
armor will come alive equipping the weapons
they had, attacking the closest target
immediately. The doors will also be slammed
shut, slamming into anything in it’s way. The
doors will only unlock if the sets of armor have
been killed.
12. You enter a dungeon with an open pit in the
middle of the floor, runes that you can’t
decipher are around the hole. As you approach
you can hear the cries of a small child, and
when you look into the pit you can see a
human child covered in dirty rags. You’re able
to get the child out, but they say they can’t
cross the runes and you’ll have to lift them up
and over them. When you do, the child
(vampire) tries to feed from you, dealing
piercing damage.
13. You come to the end of a hallway with three
doors, each with a word in Common written on
them. The first door has Community, the
second door has Feast, and the third door has
Companion. If you open the first door a swarm
of cranium rats will descend upon you, alerting
you to a mindflayers’ presence. If you open the
second door three Spawn of Kyuss embrace
you. If you open the third door, two Shadow
Mastiffs lunge at you.
14. A trap that is very kobold related, but could
work for other creatures is this… Walking along
a cliff either in a mountain/volcano or on it, a
party member hits a pressure pad beneath
some rubble, or dirt (depends on the
environment). A harpoon shoots out and gets
the member in the leg. A kobold who was
waiting kicks a weight attached to a chain out
and it drags the member down the side of the
cliff to about 20ft above the next level
(assuming they don’t pass a strength check at
disadvantage). The ambush comes and there
are kobolds on the lower level trying to reach
the member while the party is ambushed and
distracted. They will have to decide who is
saving their friend and who is fighting, while
the member is dangling and until he gets
himself right side up is at a disadvantage to all
attacks. The weight unless removed from the
chain is going to disadvantage his climb (and
the pain from a hook in his leg will make the
climb a bit more difficult too). For ideas on
 how the chain looks, think of a fishing hook
with a weight on it.
15. Two animate armors standing across from
each other in a small room inviting the
characters to play racquetball with a sphere of
annihilation which the armor can catch.
16. A door that opens into a short hall, behind the
door is a poorly hidden log tied to the ceiling,
but opening the door didn’t cause it to swing,
must be a dud. Touching the door on the other
side causes the stone slab that was the floor to
slide into the wall, causing the player to fall
into a pit of brambles, and the false log trap
detaches and falls on top of them. Can be
solved by throwing a rock at the door on the
other side, the log will fall and create a safe
bridge across the brambles.
17. A cannon with a spear inside, readilly aimed,
capable of changing its target. It has been set
to trigger on any new magic being cast (If it
was cast before entering its range then it
won’t trigger it).
18. A pitfall trap drops the poor adventurer into a
gelatinous cube. Said block of evil Jelly also has
animated swords in it that will blend the
adventurer. Alternatively, there’s a normal
floor trap, but disabling it drops the cube full
of swords onto the adventurer from the
ceiling.
19. A room with a large spiky chandelier covering
pretty much the entire ceiling and nothing on
the floor or walls. Once the trap is triggered,
gravity inverts in the room, dropping the
occupants up into the spike trap chandelier.
Afterwards, gravity returns to normal and
drops them back down the room into the
ground, followed shortly thereafter by the
Impaldelier.
20. A large square room, a small maze-like
pathway in between pressure plates is on the
the floor and leads to the other size. If a
pressure plate is stepped on, a giant cube
slime falls from above filling the whole room.
Players must take 1d4 acid damage every turn
of the slime until they escape.
21. In a narrow hallway, you have a part of the
floor that folds down when to much weight is
put on and springs back to its normal position
once the weight has been dropped. This
obviously leads to a pit, but in the pit is
nothing. It simply drops you 50ft leaving you in
like a 20ft square room that’s 50ft high.
22. A long, narrow corridor that slants downward
slightly. A large reservoir of quicksilver lies to
your south. Outrun the stream to avoid getting
impaled.
23. A stairway that has a closing metal door at the
top and bottom. The top door is a false door
and behind it lies a natural flow of lava. When
the top 3 stairs detect any pressure, the top
door has panels that open and let in the lava.
The bottom door is locked, and panels in the
floor at the bottom of the stairs open only
after the entire hallway has filled with lava and
the top door panels close again.
24. A well with a rope or chain that hangs to the
bottom. There is a grate about 100′ down that
goes nowhere. The walls of the well have small
holes all along its length, possibly from
climbing pitons. Once a certain amount of
weight is applied to the rope (equivalent to
two or three party members) a gelatinous cube
is poured from its cell behind the stones in the
wall, and seeps through the walls into the well
above the players. The gelatinous cube
paralyzes creatures when they touch it and fail
a save. The cube happily slides down the well
and consumes its prey until all organic material
is digested, then it seeps through the grate at
the bottom and it collected and replaced in its
cell behind the stonework.
25. A treasure chest in a 10′ square pit. The entire
pit is clean and smooth stone, making it
difficult to climb. If weight is added to the floor
of the pit (set to the weight of one or more
humanoid adventurers) the pit and 1 foot of
the pit walls is shot upward to the ceiling
cutting off all means of escape. The walls then
close in and collapse all humanoids unless they
pile on top of the chest, which is not crushed.
The treasure chest is a mimic but is magically
paralyzed until the walls fully collapse inward,
at which point he mimic is released from its
spell and the trap resets in 1d4 days.
26. A shield guardian with a stored spell of
invisibility blocks a hallway or doorway and
goes invisible before adventurers can see it.
The Guardian body blocks the path and
ambushes the first adventurer to bump into it.
27. A pitfall into a pond of ooze. As the adventures
move around the pond seems to start moving
of it’s own accord and slowly drags anything
on it’s surface into it’s depths.
28. A pitfall into with a pool of flammable oil. The
victims can climb out of the pool into a long
 corridor leading back to where they where.
Along the way are magical swinging candles,
mini flamethrowers, and minor fire
elementals.
29. A seemingly normal abandoned bathroom.
There is a tripwire coming out of one of the
stalls, that tightly seals the only door. Then,
contaminated water starts coming out of the
toilets. The adventurers must break the door
to escape, and if they touch the water, they
get sick.
30. A bedroom with enough beds for the party to
sleep on. There are pressure plates under the
mattresses, that open small holes in the walls.
Slowly but surely, a neurotoxin starts coming
out of the holes, and seamlessly fills the room,
while the adventurers sleep.
31. A rickety wooden bridge over a big dark pit,
with snakes on the bottom. There is a hole on
one of the side walls (requiring a passive
perception check to notice). The bridge itself is
relatively safe, but there is a thin tripwire
halfway through it, that activates the hole,
making it spill out a line of fire over the end of
the bridge.
32. A wall with three stone doors. There is a paper
on it, saying that two of the doors lead to a
treasure, while another kills whoever is passing
through. Going through those doors is not
necessary for the adventure. If a player
decides to try their luck, roll a d6 to see what
happens.
33. A treasure room, filled with open and empty
chests. There is only one closed container. If
the adventurers loot it, the trap is deactivated.
If they try to leave without touching it, a loud
sound is heard, waking up all of the mimics.
34. The adventurers must go through a door.
There is a paper on it, with the words: “Be
polite”, and a happy face. The door leads to an
abandoned workshop, filled with statues and
gargoyles. They have to shake the hands of
every gargoyle before leaving the room,
otherwise they will attack the party.
35. This is a standard pit-trap with a twist. At the
bottom of the pit, and for ten feet up the
walls, everything is coated in pitch. Pitch may
be sticky, but in quantity it also acts like any
other oil-based liquid – a lubricant. Climbing
up a rope becomes extremely unlikely for
whoever fell down the hole. But that’s not the
worst bit. A couple of rounds after the pit trap
is activated, the Kobolds, warned by a bell
attached to the pit trap’s trigger, will show up
with lit torches. And one of them will start
combat by throwing a torch into the pit –
igniting the pitch!
36. Oil floats on water: You all know the scene. In
the middle of the vast dungeon is a lake. At
one edge of the lake is a boat. The heroes have
to pile into the boat and row across the lake to
the next section of the dungeon. Well, this
particular lake is guarded by kobolds with
spyglasses. And a few barrels full of lamp oil.
And a torch. Be sure to wait until the party is
most of the way across the lake before the
kobolds start pouring lamp oil on the water.
37. Kobolds are light, and armor is heavy: A well
prepared Kobold always has an escape route.
And his escape route is generally one only a
Kobold can use. While most Kobolds choose to
make tight passages that only a Tiny creature
can squeeze into (thanks to their ability to fit
into unlikely places), some rely on the fact that
their pursuers are generally heavier, and in
larger numbers, than themselves. Choose a
corridor, and undermine it (dig a tunnel under
the floor, but with too little material acting as
floor/ceiling). Leave it just enough strength to
handle the weight of a Kobold or two. Fill the
corridor below with something nasty, and have
it lead somewhere nasty. As a finishing touch,
make sure there’s a collapsing ceiling in the
upper tunnel as well to ensure that the heroes
can’t climb back out after you.
38. Gold melts at a surprisingly low temperature:
Did you know that you can melt gold in a
candle flame? It would probably take about an
hour to do so from room temperature, but you
can. More importantly, if you keep your gold
coins at a hot enough temperature, they’ll
melt very quickly if exposed to a very potent
heat source – like say they might melt within
seconds if they were doused in lamp oil and lit.
This is an interesting thing to note if your
chosen method of storing gold coins is in a
wire-mesh cage attached to the ceiling.
Especially if such a cage is kept at very high
temperature, and is trapped with various kinds
of flame traps (flame traps that trigger onto
the gold). Unfortunately, while the
temperature might be relatively high
compared to the meltin point of most metal,
it’s still more than enough to cook any flesh it
comes in contact with (and STICK to that flesh,
as molten metal tends to, causing the WORST
 sort of burns). And of course, the easiest way
to get at the gold itself is from directly below
it. Be sure to note to the party how hot it is in
the room with the gold while they’re standing
under it. If they’re clever enough to figure out
the trap beforehand, hopefully they’re also
clever enough to notice the hidden drains in
the floor before all that molten gold runs (very,
very quickly) down those drains.
39. At the end of a hallway is a fake door. When
the doorknob is turned, a latch is released, and
the spring mounted door flies out at whoever
opened the door. Since the door takes up most
of the hallway, there is no chance to dodge it
at all. The person who attempted to open the
door takes 2d6 points of damage, and anyone
standing within 5 feet of the door will take 1d6
points of damage.
40. Anyone weighing more than 150 lbs. will cause
a lid to a pit to open. The pit is 25 feet deep.
41. The character steps into the trap and the gem
eyes from a roomful of statues shoots rays at
him. The PC is zapped and appears to be
disintegrated. A skeleton appears in his place.
It’s important that the PC’s don’t get a chance
to detect this trap or they’ll quickly find a
solution (Search DC30). The character is
teleported to a sealed tomb filled with the
skeletons of various victims. A black pudding,
CR equal to the party, attempts to engulf the
teleported PC and turn him into a skeleton
with its acid. When the trap goes off, one of
these skeletons is instantly teleported to
where the PC was standing, making it appear
like he was disintegrated. Make a Search DC 25
to notice the skeleton (pile of bones) is not the
same makeup as the PC (DC 20 if the size
category of the PC is one larger or smaller than
medium). After six teleportations, the “living”
victims (or their remains) are teleported back
to the trap area. Defeat the trap by moving
statues into the area so they can be
teleported, eventually sending out “victims.”
42. A room of freezing ice orbs that stick to the
skin and slow the characters down
significantly. Add monsters/other challenges to
taste.
43. A long passage of murky, depthless water. Two
boats are tied up at the entrance- one that
looks rickety and has a little water in the
bottom, and one that is new looking, gilded on
the edges and looks really watertight. Turns
out the “new” boat is actually an illusion, and
it disappears in a puff of smoke about halfway
through.
44. A long maze of gooey yellow sponge passages
just large enough for one person to crawl
through. The maze starts to shrink and harden
if players take too long to get through.
45. A long hallway of absolute darkness. If the
adventurers try to bring light to it the darkness
itself lashes out at the party.
46. They enter a room, and there are five doors.
They are labeled 1, 2, 4, 5, 6. There is no door
#3.
47. A long, dimly-lit hallway. Candles light the way,
and occasionally there are wisps of wind.
Occasionally have a player step on a block that
depresses a little, and tell them a puff of air
just shot out of the block on the wall to their
immediate left or right.
48. A seemingly wooden door that says “Knock”.
Knock on the door to enter. ALTERNATIVELY: a
seemingly wooden door, badly worn; it seems
as if it could just be destroyed. Players can see
the other side, in fact. Catch? Nobody but the
weakest among any group that approaches it,
can open it. It cannot be destroyed by
anything.
49. A badly written sign in [the language of
whatever people made the dungeon] that says
“beware”; the area is somewhat stinky. It leads
to a small hallway with another likewise-
made/written sign that says “turn back”. It’s
getting smellier now, and much more damp. If
the party continues, they find themselves at
the bottom of the underground shithouse.
Bonus: if they made it this far, and if they get
clever and can’t smell anything and want to
risk being a social pariah for the next several
days, they can climb the spout to the room(s)
connected, above.
50. Magic runes that activate when a character
steps into and area, casting floor of ice. To
move characters must roll dexterity or fall
probe and take damage.
51. While travelling along a path towards a
popular location or city, the PCs hear a voice so
soothing and enchanting that they are
compelled to move towards it. On failing a DC
15 Wisdom check, they walk towards the voice
which leads to a hag nest. The voice emanates
from one of the hags. On a successful check,
PCs can still hear the voice but are able to clear
their minds long enough to break free from the
 hold of the song. Lots of footprints are seen
going in that direction.
52. A flameskull is slightly buried underneath some
dirt. The soil around it has been disturbed. As a
player (or two) steps closer, they fall through
the soil into the gelatinous cube below, and
the flameskull rises striaight into the air.
53. While travelling to a popular location or city on
a path that is obscured (such as forest or cave),
the party hears cries of help from a woman.
These cries emanate from a hidden kenku
group that ambush the party when they
approach the voice.
54. A stone bridge over a section of an otherwise
normal river, the “water” under which is
actually a grouping of gelatinous cubes in wait
to surround any passers, running water hiding
their already transparent bodies.
55. A literal CATapult, triggered by a wire. If
activated, a Cat is flung at the PC who
triggered the trap. This cat will get an attack of
opportunity with its claws while being flung,
and will enter combat with the party
afterwards.
56. A ceiling trapdoor opens letting out a swarm of
poisonous snakes as well as a giant poisonous
snake.
57. Three chests sit in a room. A sign on the wall
reads “DANGER! MIMIC!” There is no mimic,
but there is a rug of smothering under each
chest.
58. An animated armor using a flying sword. After
the armor is defeated, the sword begins to
fight.