Hi,

I'm writing my first home brew adventure for 3rd ed. which involves a trip underground into an ancient burial barrow. Now I plan to have a few traps in the tomb to deter would-be robbers but I wasn't sure the best way to reflect/model them using the system. Just treat each as an attack/challenge difficulty with an associated dmage if the attack suceeds/the PC fails the skill check?

Any thoughts (or examples of traps you've previously used) would be greatly appreciated.

I was reading the Signs of Faith adventure recently. Horror at Hugeldal. In the very beginning of the adventure there is a trap. I don't have the book in front of me right now, but I think it goes something like this.

The trap is 'caltrops on the road'. First the adventurers make an observation check to spot a trail. If they succeed they spot the trail and proceed. If they dont, the still find the trail, but fail to spot the 'caltrops trap'.

Then they roll another observation check. If the previous observation spot failed, they add another purple die.

Failing the second check means that they step on the caltrops. They take wounds (or fatigue, can't remember) and also roll a disease check because the caltrops were covered in filth.

When I get back home, I will post a more detailed description of the trap.

Yep, either a single or set of succinct skill checks against certain difficulties (you could generate some random damage using challenge or misfortune dice though if you wanted rather than a fixed amount, or have the trap cause a specific type of condition).

If you wanted it to be a bit more involved, such as a trap on a locked chest or something, you could have this set up as a progress tracker, with one token moving each round to represent how close the trap is to triggering and the another token representing the PCs attempts to disarm it, with successful skill checks moving that token along the track. A choas star could mean the trap triggers immediately!

There's plenty you could do with the different mechanics and trackers available to you, depends what you are looking for really?

Actually, I think that could work really well with certain kinds of traps. My mind immediately thought of traps you didn't know about, but some you are well aware of. A thief picking a trapped lock would be aware that he has to move a certain number of pins (or whatever) without triggering the alarm: a progress tracker could be a good way of raising the tension on something like this. Likewise a James Bond-esque attempt to disarm a ticking bomb could use a progress tracker the same way.

It's always nice to give players options and story opportunities when possible, not just dice-rolling excercises though, so better to let players describe how they want to achieve things and (for example) assign fortune / misfortune dice as appropriate. eg. Let them attempt to judge the character of the person who set the trap, and if successful they can deduce whether a conservative or reckless approach to solving the problem is more likely to work, boosting their chances of successfully disarming the trap.