Hopefully they try to wipe off the mud before they turn the corner.
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Note from a DM: I've used this trap a few times with variations to every element. The group loved it every time and hasn't once realized it's the same deal. LoL. It's easy to make it all your own just by looking at all the different elements and making slight changes. That's why I left a lot up to you to fill in while also providing some ideas to get you started. I think this is only the second time I've ever posted to these boards, but I hope to make it more regular in the future. Any feedback regarding this or my other posts is appreciated. Criticism is welcome provided it's constructive. Thanks mates! (AND NOW THE IDEA) #1906 (I think) The PC's encounter a 5’ tall humanoid (determine type of creature based on the sort of ability you want it to have: petrification = medusa, etc) statue set into a 5’ diameter disc in the middle of an octagonal room. Whenever a light source is introduced to the room (and illuminates the statues 5’ area to any degree –i.e. even the shadowy region of a light source) the statue activates and the disc rotates. The disc rotates slowly so that the center of the statue’s “cone of vision” (60’ cone from the face of the statue) moves to one of its 8 positions every round (first round facing north, 2nd round facing NE, etc). Should a PC fall within the activated statues rotating cone, have the statue in their own field of vision, AND be able to see the statue, they are subject to its effects (should they fail the saving throw). Ability drain is an excellent attack for the statue as it doesn’t affect their hit points (which is what they’re used to) but will stress the expediency of the task. The key here is to learn how to escape the room while avoiding the statues effects. No light source is an obvious way thus darkvision would be useful. For that matter, ensuring the light never falls on the statues area would work too. Moving to always be in an unaffected area would also help. The PCs should be clever enough to figure some of this out (if not, drop a few hints in your own way). This probably should be combined with a task that takes time, uses a skill that can be retried within a few rounds, and thus runs the risk of a PC getting caught in the area. Trap disabling and lock picking to name a few. Fighting a baddie to get a key would be equally challenging (Is the other enemy immune to the statues effects, or can the PCs use the statue to their advantage?). It would be interesting to see how clever DMs could come up with ways to use various “retry-able” abilities. Some possible skills I’ve considered are: Craft, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Forgery, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Jump, Move Silently, Sleight of Hand, Spot, Swim, Use Magic Device, and so forth. VARIANT: The statue might gain a new ability with every full revolution. Perhaps its form changes to match its new ability thus giving the PCs an idea of what to expect. VARIANT: Perhaps each ability the statue uses comes with a way to deactivate it for (1d4) rounds. Maybe a casting of stone to flesh deactivates the statue’s petrification ability while turn undead deactivates its negative level attacks?
Feedback? Let me know. Hope you liked this one.
-As the party walks down the hall, they are stopped by a portcullis blocking their path. This portcullis is essentially crisscrossed iron bars forming a checker pattern. Between the bars they can see a lever, just within reach if they squeeze their arm through the bars. Pulling the lever (which they will most likely do) immediately causes a guillotine-like mechanism to slam through holes between the bars and causes a second very similar portcullis to fall behind them. Written on the bars of this portcullis is a rather cryptic message. "Twice more to open these doors!" If the party manages to pull the lever twice more, neither portcullis actually opens... I would have this do 1d8+2 in 4e or 1d10+4 for paragon and above.
-A rope hangs down from a cliff face, apparently the only way up, and as they touch the rope a magical wind is conjured, making climbing the rope very difficult but not impossible. However, as they climb about 50ft up the wind stops and focuses on a portion of the rope, forming almost a small tornado-esque force on about a 1 foot section of the rope, right above the highest player. The tornado like wind briefly flashes and dissipates. It cut the rope... 
Necro-bump! I was recently re-reading the thread, and found an early one where the party had to go through a room covered in oil while a torch descended slowly. This is my addition to it (To make it really sadistic). Include random patches of the room with Sovereign Glue on the bottom (Probably Party Size -1 or 2). Then have some alcoves around the area that each includes some Universal Solvent, enough to unglue one person. Remember, they have to unglue others and somehow get to the end of this room, which may contain a locked door...all before the torch drops and lights up the room. 
I'm kinda new to the game but I did come up with one. The PCs fall down your classic pit trap. They are then seperated into two groups, both evenly divided. They will land safely into two cages, one per group. Both cages contain a lever and are suspended over a pit of lava or some other dangerous trap. An inscription on the floor reads "pull the lever to save yourself but be warned doing so drops the other cage. PCs will get into a moral battle againest themselves until they come to a conclution. The catch is that the lava is actually an illusion and actually just conceals a treasure room. Also the group that pulled the lever becomes trapped in the cage, relying on their now richer and angrier companions to rescue them.
"Warning, Vanity may cause Insanity" Step 1. PCs walk through a linear series of mid size rooms, all of which are completely empty with two doors (one entrance and one exit). Every time the group walks through a door it gets sealed by a heavy stone slab, forcing them to continue. Step 2. They arrive in a room exactly like all the others except this one contains an old mirror which is covered by a dusty sheet. There are also three small keyholes in the wall behind the mirror but the players must do a search check to find these. Step 3. When a player takes the sheet off the mirror, the dust is revealled to be berserk powder causing that player to turn hostile towards his allies, increases his strength ridiculously, and forces him to charge uncontrollably at them. Solution #1. Have the newly empowered PC run into and smash the slabs that block your path back the way you came by standing in front of the door and then dodging at the last possible second. Solution #2 Smash the mirror to reveal a key to one of the three keyholes. Be warned, however, the wrong keyhole should cause another trap to go off, such as the room filling with water or poison that comes through the other two holes. 
The PCs enter a hallway.the floor and walls of which are comprised of small tiles.When the trap is sprung,a razor wire net entangles PCs in two adjacent squares dealing 1d6 points of slashing damage. Trying to escape deals more damage.Their weight deals 1 point per round.The counterweight must be found and disabled to let them down.This creates a time crunch and gives the rest of the party a sense of urgency. 
#2003 (We'll call it that)- Thought of when I saw #438- The players face an incline, with a roughly 10-10 room, however, there are groves in the ceiling, walls, and floor that seem to indicate that that an 11-12 foot ball can roll through this hallway. Thinking themselves smart, when they hear the call coming down the incline, they will attempt to hide in the corners, the save spots in the walls.
All well and good. Except the 2nd "ball".... it's actually a Square stone block with the grease spell on it, so it slides down the hallway, filling the corners that were "safe" when the ball rolled through. Give them a hard perception check to realize that the "ball" doesn't sound right to give them a chance. Unless a party member actually jumps INTO THE GROOVES that the ball just rolled through, they are hit by the massive stone brick... dealing however many d6 of damage is appropriate for the level, and sliding them a number of squares... well, until they make a save of some sort to move themselves into the grove square, or if they fail that spectacularly, until they fall into the hole at the bottom of the incline. Additional falling damage+crushing block of stone landing on top of them, also ongoing X damage until they save from getting the stone off of them. Make sure that the damage is threateningly lethal, but not an automatic kill unless they fail three saves (one to get into the grove, another to catch the ledge and not fall into the pit, and another one to escape the crushing weight of the rock.). If they fail all that, the trap should have about a 50% chance of killing the character(s) from all the damage that it does. I haven't used this one yet, but I will soon. It's just too hideous. 
Seems like this thread is slowing down. So I... A long time DM, but newcommer to the thread will post a couple I threw at my party. (most of my campaigns are 4e so these traps have been built for 4e)
1: The Gibbering Chandelier: After a reletivly long dungeon crawl, the party enters yet another room. In this room (unlike the rest) is a beautiful dinner table with 4 candlsticks (at each corner). Lining the walls are more candles. Above the dinner table Is a Large sized Chandelier. Every 6 seconds all of the candles on the walls flare up for a split second and you feel a little happier (the targets are dazed). Bottom line. Everything in the room is an illusion. The candles are pipes feeding hallucinagenic gas into the room. The Chandelier is a Gibbering orb, and the corner of the room is actually false, and also bieng hallucinated. (in the corner sits a wizard of some sort shooting spells out of the 4 candlesticks.) After a few insight checks, let some illusions drop. This is a simple on, add it to any room for a little fun 2 :One for the curious rogue: You see two doors. from on room to the other. One is a beautiful Golden door. On is a scrapped up wooden door. Opening the Golden door throw a fireball into the middle of the room. My rogues tend to prefer perception to detect magic. The wooden door is the way out. This one is more of an encounter than a trap... but ill throw it in anyway. 3: The D6 This room has 6 maps. Some sort of variable elemental monster in the middle. (I modded a genasi elemental dervish) Every round the room flips to a particular side. (roll a D6) 1. Floor: Dense clouds with storms. Party members wearing metal get an attack vs reflex. and some damage 2.Cieling: Ice patches. If you land on an ice patch you roll an acrobatics check, if fail then prone (2nd time slowed save ends, 3d time slowed until long rest) 3.Wall 1: Fire 4. Wall 2: Earth 5. Wall 3 6. Wall 4 .... Fill in whatever to your liking. 
*2005 -- Two Layered Trap / Battle
New to the thread, but I have been checking up on it for almost a year now. I came here again because I had a predicament: I had created a vault of incredible value, and SHOWN it to the players, but had no trap to guard it with, other than a simple pit trap with a small pillar to balance across and switches to hit and open it! This would never do! What would E. Ravenwood think!? So, I made it a little too difficult to cross at first, and allowed them to see a secret magical keyhole, alluding that they should try to grab the key before trying the trap. They then found a magical key on the corpse of the dungeon boss. That gave me enough time to think this one up, upon looking through the thread for an hour or so. I was inspired by the trap with the falling iron door! It cracked me up. The Trap: The main idea is to push half the party into a pit and cover the top. One half deals with a trap below, while another half fights a vicious battle above. The pinch is that the trap below sometimes triggers a something harmful for the group above, and the above group has to emerge victorious to try and free the group below before they are killed. The details: -- Upon entering the room, they see that a pit separates them from a vault that is guarded by a glass-steel wall. The wall can be seen through, but the images on the other side are smeared and blurry, and sound doesn't seem to penetrate the wall. -- Spanning the pit is a tiny (Almost ridiculously tiny) marble beam that they are meant to balance across to the other side. --The edges of the beam are incredibly sharp, at an almost molecular level, so any attempt to shimmy across will result in grievous wounds, followed by a slip and a fall. This also prevents them from attaching any sort of rope or chain from being used, as it will simply be sliced apart. -- The Magical Key can be used to widen the beam, making it easier to cross, via a hidden keyhole on the underside of the beam. Using the key causes the beam to snap out as it grows causing a small injury to any hand held there. At the same time, the key is blasted out of the hole, to fall down into the pit. (If the player manages to hold onto it, and they are on the wrong end of the trap, they will be sorry indeed) -- Thus, the players must balance across to a small ledge against the glass-steel wall. On the opposite side are a few (Half the party's number?) pressure plates that SEEM to be the key to unlocking the vault. Thinking that the challenge of the trap was to get ACROSS the pit, the players may try to step on the switches. -- Upon triggering the plates, the wall simply falls down on top of them, attempting to knock them back into the pit they just spent their effort crossing. Upon falling in, they may spot that each square on the floor of the pit has a magical keyhole on it's surface. ----- The magical key that (hopefully) fell down into the pit can be used on a keyhole for different effects: Including: - Causing the floor of the pit to raise of lower (threatening to crush them against the massive glass-steel wall, or, if they are strong enough, allow them to lift the wall up and escape) - Causing the room to flood with your choice of gas, liquid, or fiend! - Causing the room ABOVE the glass-steel wall to spawn more enemies for the other half of the party! - Causing the glass-steel door to dissapear entirely, effectively ending the trap. - A concussive blast, sending the key flying, bouncing around the pit to a random location! What fun! - Spikes, crossbows, shurikens! - A single note of shrieking sound. When two or three notes begin to resonate together, the massive glass-steel wall shatters and rains down on the group. Have some fun by having it cause sonic damage to the lower group, and causing the glass-steel wall to rapidly vibrate creating a difficult surface to fight on for the group above! -- I imagine that if they want to be smart**** and not use the key, you could have keyholes begin glowing and releasing continuous harmful effects until they give in and go turn it. -- Use to best effect by trying to get only HALF the party knocked into the pit, trapped underneath by the MASSIVE glass-steel wall, which has now completely covered the pit. -- The OTHER half of the party must now contend with the group of monsters springing up from inside the vault. Make these monsters durable, and able to push them away from the vault, and back onto the glass-steel surface, where traps triggered by the keyholes may effect them too! -- Some counter-measures may include detecting the nature of the pressure plates, rolling underneath the glass-steel wall as it falls, having the party ABOVE the pit disable the trap by fighting their way into the vault past the monsters, or having some way to prop the wall up. Since I am a nicer DM, I reward plenty of treasure for getting through this one. 
Hey, you got this up again!
No ideas at the moment but should post again soon, keep this alive. -Morgothra
Here's Another Once
2006*: Plate-Wearers, Beware Staircase. This is a two room trap. In the first room the party should find some sort of treasure. in the treasure room they should find a bunch of cool stuff. And some mundane metal stuff. (One of those pieces is a negetivly charged magnet. But the party doesnt know). In the next room they see a sprial staircase going to... wherever you want. As they make thier way up this dark staicase They see a Glowing metal jewel suspended by a chain in the middle of the room. As they pass the jewel its a Fort Save. Jewel pulls you off the stais into the middle. And down you go. They take a good chunk of damage... and let them figure it out. FYI its a Positivly charged magnet. To beat the trap, take the negetivly charged piece of metal and throw it at the mag, this will allow the party to make thier way forward. 
2007: Pit-trap premium edition.
A standard 10' *10' pit trap, 30 feet deep. Ten feet from the bottom of the pit is a ledge about a foot wide, running all the way around the four walls. Resting on the ledge is a Gelatinous Cube. When someone falls into the pit, they drop through the Cube (which cushions their fall but damages them in the process) and into the space at the bottom. How the hell are you going to get them out? If you lower a rope the Cube will eat it. If they try to climb out they'll be Opportunity Attacked to death by the Cube. If you kill the Cube, it liquefies into acid and floods the bottom of the pit, but at least they'll be able to get out that way. 2008: More fun with gelatinous cubes. Standard issue ten-by-ten dungeon corridor. Near the end, a ten-by-ten section of floor is a trapdoor, with hinges at the side, which drops out when stepped on, dropping one unfortunate PC into a shallow but deadly acid pool. This triggers the rest of the trap: The wall to the side of the trapdoor swings down, covering the pit, and releasing a Gelatinous Cube from behind it (which promptly sits on top of the pit covering, keeping one PC from getting out). Meanwhile, fifteen feet back down the corridor (positioned so as to catch whoever is bringing up the rear), the side wall of the corridor swings out of the way, revealing another shallow acid pit. Then the ceiling swings down sideways, sweeping whoever stood in that section of corridor into the newly-revealed pit (and closing it up behind them), and dropping a second Cube down behind the party (and if the PC in the way of the swinging ceiling managed to dodge it, the Cube will land on them). 2009: No Joy Whatsoever buzzer Door with a large keyhole. Large copper key, very poorly hidden. Putting the key in the keyhole and turning it unlocks the door, but also fixes the key in place and electrifies it. Whoever is holding it gets an almighty electric shock - but that's not the worst of it. The key stays electrified, and the current is high enough to put the victim's muscles in spasm and make it impossible for them to let go of the key (which is stuck in the door). Since the door is now unlocked, the monsters on the other side can open it and make short work of the PC who has one hand stuck to the door. If you're feeling less mean, or if electrical traps aren't in keeping with your game world, a simple trap could spray quick-setting glue from the keyhole and stick the PC's hand in place. 2010: Overkill The room is waist-deep in cold, murky water. Several burning torches flicker just inches above the water's surface. On a pedestal at the centre of the room is a large metal chalice, frost clinging to it and a faint haze of icy mist drifting above it. At the bottom of the water are several pitch-sealed wooden hatches. The trap can be triggered any number of ways - stepping on the hatches, disturbing the chalice, hidden tripwires, or maybe a lever manned by a Kobold overlooking the room through a hidden view-slit. When the trap is triggered, the hatches all snap open. They're covering several resevoirs of highly flammable oil, which immediately bubbles up to the water's surface (oil floats on water), spreads out, and is ignited by the torches. That's part one. Part two happens when the flames reach the chalice. It's full of Brown Mold - a particularly nasty substance which leeches warmth out the surrounding area, and grows extremely quickly when exposed to extreme heat - such as the flames. It spreads rapidly across the surface of the lake, dealing massive cold damage to anyone still above the water surface, and - the kicker - freezes the lake, trapping anyone who dived below the surface to escape the flames. Part three is optional, but could feature a rotating blade-covered pole moving slowly across the surface of the pool to mangle anyone who still has body parts stuck in the ice, or could just involve the Kobolds mentioned previously emerging from their hiding-place to finish off trapped adventurers. 2011-2020: Top ten ways to get someone to fall into a pit-trap without resorting to illusions or other magic: 1) Place a covered pit trap immediately on the other side of an open pit trap. Anyone who jumps the first pit will land squarely on the hidden one. An alternative way to catch out people who leap pit-traps is to have a thin wire suspended above it at neck-height. 2) Place an open pit trap just on the other side of a barred wooden door. Anyone who shoulder-charges the door to open it will overbalance and fall in the pit. 3) Place a shallow (like 10 feet deep) pit trap with an easily-discovered covering (or just open), at the bottom of which are some easily-avoided spikes and a skeleton with Obvious Loot (coin pouch, suspiciously sparkly sword, map, or what-have-you). This bottom is false, and when someone puts their full weight on it, it opens to drop them into the REAL pit trap, which is deeper and nastier. 4) Provide something to take their attention off the floor - like a monster or another trap attacking from above. 5) Put it somewhere the PCs will be running to - either because there's something nasty chasing them (like a rolling boulder or large monster) or because they're trying to get somewhere in a hurry (maybe because the door at the end of the corridor is very slowly closing?) 6) Have monsters walk across those tiles without any problems - the monsters, of course, have something which stops the trap from triggering for them. Maybe they're all Small creatures and the trap is carefully balanced to only open when something the weight of a human steps on it. 7) The pit is open, and has an uneven edge which was presumably once a concealed pit cover, and there's a solid-looking iron ring set into the floor next to it. At the bottom of the very deep pit, you can see something sparkling. Any sensible party will check the ring for sturdiness (it's fine) before tying a rope to it and climbing down the pit to see what the shiny thing is. Unfortunately for the sensible party, the rough edge of the pit trap conceals a series of sharp blades which will slowly saw through the rope. 8) The pit is half-way down a corridor with a door at the end. The covering on the pit is quite sturdy, and locked shut (observant trap-hunters will notice it sounds hollow). The door at the end of the corridor is a dead-end room (although probably one with some treasure or something), but opening that door unlocks the pit cover so it gets them on the way back out, when they're not bothering to check for traps. 9) Two open pits in succession, with a good-sized area of safe floor between them. The first one has a plank across it. The plank is perfectly sturdy and only requires a very simple Athletics check to cross. The other pit is the same width, so most groups will take the plank and bridge that one too. The far side of the second pit is loose - it's just sturdy enough to take the weight of one end of the plank, but not anyone on it. If you wish to inject a little humour, the bottom of the second pit should contain a small pile of dead adventurers and planks. 10) Kobold with a lever.
2021: So many Statues, So little time.
This is a fun one, reminds me of a kids game from YEARS ago. The party walks into an armory. Weapons all over the place. none magical. Remember to track weight! In the next room the party seems a HUGE pedastil with a couple of statues (i used 6). None of them are armed. They are standing as if they were holding weapons. (Act out thier stances use other visual que's if the party is struggling). When the party walks in the statues start spinning. The object is to arm the statues with the right weapons. If the platfrom makes a full circle before statues are armed, they send thier weapons flying. If a statue is give the wrong weapon 2 times, on the 3d time he will get angry and take the weapon he has and attach the party. When I ran this, they thought they got it right and they were supposed to fight him LMAO. These were the statues i used. I let the party take knowledge (history) or perception checks for hore hints Dwarf In Hides: Battle Axe Elf in leather: Two Scimitars Drow in Cloth: Spiked Chain Humanin in Chailmail: Mace and shield Half-Orc in Plate: Great Sword Halfling in Leather: 2 Daggers Damage: [W]+12 
2022: Gelatinous Sphere
The PC's enter a strange room in that it is fifty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and slopped upwards as the delve further into the room. The room is empty save for a large, glass sphere dangling from the ceiling at the end of the room. It looks as though it is filled with water, but the bottom is filled with thousands of coins and metal weapons and such. However, if the PC's try to get at the treasure through means of destroying the glass, they are in for trouble. The "water" is actually a gelatinous cube that has been trapped in the sphere and retained the shape of its container. It will retain the shape of its container after the glass is destroyed, so the PC's will see a falling sphere of "water", hit the floor, bounce, and begin rolling down the sloped floor towards the PCs, picking up speed the whole time!
2024 room 10 x 12 with 6 2x2 pillars along it. Perc checks to notice scratch marks along from 2 corners of each pillar and ruts in the ceiling.. Essentially they have to walk a long way around or risk triggering the 'pillars' crushing them against walls or other pillars. They attack on initivave (H+8/P+14/E+25) with a +10/+16/+28 vs reflex for 3d6+2/3d8+5/3d10+10 damage. They can be disabled by jamming them (requires some RPG reason and a DC22/29/40 check per pillar. 
Maybe this is more of an ambush than a trap but it was a memorable part of my campaign.
PC's traveling through a desolate area come upon a grizzly scene of death and destruction. One pc hears sounds of distress coming from a nearby ravine. Climbs down to offer assistance .... hidden Leucrotta about to deliver a nasty surprise ... 
Not sure if this is a trap per se, but failures release minions into the room, while successes help the PCs defeat the end boss...
I designed an adventure for my PCs that they are going to go through this coming weekend. I started with the "Belendithas of the Dusk" plot from FR Campaign Guide pg. 106. Per the starter plot, Belendithas required a human baby as part of his payment. Now, what he's doing with them is that he's feeding them to a ghastly magical machine he's uncovered. Each baby he's feed to the machine has powered it and bestowed power onto him. When the players finally combat against Belendithas at the end of the adventure they'll uncover that the machine is in the room with him (a huge crystal machine with gears, tubes, switches and huge metal maw that he feeds the babies to; inside the machine are swirling orbs of light of blue and red). The machine is holding the babies essences and other foul magic. It's up to the players to release the blue orbs - the "good" essences - from the machine or it will be a really tough combat. The machine grants the assassin +8 to hit/+8 to damage and resist all of 13. An (arcane) DC check of 20 will release a blue orb and reduce his attack bonuses by one. When the machine has released 8 orbs, the assassin's resist all will end. A failed DC check will release a 2 red orbs which manifest as 2 Wisp Wraiths. Not sure exactly how it will fare in the final battle. 
My favorite traps are those that short-circuit the players' usual response. Sure they may occasionally gather cries of "unfair" but I just point out that if rogues are common in the setting (common enough anyway) then dungeon designers will surely take into account their abilities. In AD&D there was even a special thief kit built around the idea! The Troubleshooter (from the Thieves' handbook).
Consider a lock where a plate above the pins is strongly electrified (or set against a vial of explosives or anything else that would be bad to touch). Normal key use doesn't push the pins high enough to set it off, but a lockpicking attempt would be disasterous, in fact there is no way to remove the trap through the lock without setting it off. Hope your rogue has a backup plan! I love to keep the players on their toes by assuming that anything that becomes "standard operating procedure" for most adventuring parties avoiding traps (IE the use of blades to cut tripwires, the ubiquitous 10-foot pole) will be recognized after some time and cease to be foolproof.
2028? (Are we even keeping track anymore?)
PCs walk into a room that are FILLED with reinforced iron/steel/adamantite crates, some ranging up to 10' tall, in a room with glowing runes all over the place. They see a door that is made of the same type of metal as the crates themselves; the door is 10 feet thick, set into the walls, essentially SO difficult to destroy that they won't even bother.. A VERY easy arcana check allows the players to realize that the runes all stem from a single magical ley-line; and if they cut off that ley line, they can actually disintigrate all the metal from the room. The Ley Line is, of course, on the ceiling, and the mage needs to stand ON a crate to be able to touch the ley line and cut it off, meaning he will likely need to be standing on one of the 10' crates. At tis point, everyone with metal equipment is likely going to run out of the room while the mage does his thing. They're usually peering from the 5' door that they came in from, as that is the "border" of the leyline effect. With another easy DC, the party is happy to find that all the metal in the room vanishes, opening the door to the other side. Unfortunately, the Mage is no longer standing on the crate, but is instead now standing on the INSIDE of the Gelatinous Cube that was inside the metal crate. 
#2029: Spring Room
Our brave PCs have just finished slaughtering a few low-level goblin guards and they need to rest for the night. Fortunately, the gaurds' dormitory is just next door. It's even got a helpful label saying SLEEPING ROOM. Still, there's something a little bit off about it. It's not an ordinary room; it's more of an iron box at the bottom of a very deep shaft. If the players don't get suspicious at that, they deserve what's about to happen to them. The entire room is mounted on top of a huge spring that would smash the room into the top of the shaft if it weren't for the iron bars holding it down. These bars are connected to the pressure plates hidden inside the beds. If the pressure plates are held down by a weight greater than that of a fat goblin for more than an hour, the bars retract. When the bars retract, the spring causes the room to fly upwards very fast until it hits the roof. The momentum of the players will cause them to hit the ceiling of the room very hard, inflicting level-appopriate damage. Worse, the players have no way to get down. If the players find and disable the pressure plates, they might think that they are safe. In fact, the trap can also be triggered by a hidden switch in the boss's throne. A gaurd patrol passes through the area every six hours. If they see the PCs sleeping in the spring room they will run to alert the boss. 2030: Elevator of Imprisonment Our noble PCs have come across a cliff, with the villain's stronghold at the top. They could try to climb the cliff, but it would be difficult, dangerous, and very time-consuming. So they'll probably try the elevator. The elevator consists of an iron cage, big enough for one person, attached to a long chain and a mechanical pulley system. At the flick of a switch, the cage begins to rise. It all goes smoothly until the cage is halfway up the cliff. At that point, the cage stops and the chain locks in place. The players will need a special key in order to make the pulley work. The rest of the party will have to go out and find the key to free their trapped friend. Of course, if they had just taken the time to analyze the pulley system, they could have avoided all this.
E._Ravenwood, I've used so many of your traps I feel I ought to pay you some royalties. In fact I have been considering adding an NPC with your name. Only with your blessing of course.
I got this one from "Sourcery" by Terry Pratchett:
A long hallway that is trapped - but with jokes. For example, a bucket of whitewash set to fall on the triggering PC, a hand that attaches "Kick Me" to someones back (and later a mechanical boot at butt height), etc. Then, when the PCs are starting to get blase and overconfident, the ceiling collapses. *Bwah hah hah* 
pcs enter a long room, along one side of the room are 6 alcoves cut into the wall. once pcs enter the center of the room the wall neerest the enterance beggins to move 5' per round to crush the players against the other side of the room. if any pcs jump into one of the apparantly safe alcoves and the wall passes over them, they soon find themselves being cut in half (or at least delt damage) by hidden blade being dragged along the alcove wall along a thin slit. the sliding wall will fall 5 feet short of actually crushing anyone at the end of the room, then move back to its starting position. perception checks to notice the small slit along the side wall as a clue to how the trap might actually function.
#2033: Well of Drowning 
A lot of these tricks and traps are great, but how would you scale them to PC's and reward them with EXP? Certainly any encounter/trap etc that has the potential to drain resources or even outright kill a PC needs to be rewarded somehow and not just treasure or a milestone.
When assigning EXP for defeating a trap, one should first seek to determine what level of encounter the trap was equivalent to. This is not easy when using unconventional traps like the ones described here. I recommend paying attention to how much your players suffer from an average encounter of each level and recording it in a notebook. Then you can assign EXP based on how much it took them to survive the trap. Don't be afraid to change the reward if the trap doesn't go the way you expected.
There's no hard and fast rule for scaling. Obviously you can adjust skill check DCs and damage inflicted, but that won't always work. So you'll have to be creative. For example, in my well of drowning trap, you could replace the metal plate with a wooden board in order to make it easier. Or a wall of force spell to make it harder. It isn't easy, and you need to have a good idea of what your group is capable of beyond simple combat. Good luck! PS: Glad you liked it, Eazy_E.
#2034: See The Light
Make sure you have an understanding group before using this one, since it's a bit obnoxious. Our valiant PCs have recently received a scroll inscribed with writing too small to read with the naked eye. So when, after a pitched battle, they come across a microscope in an abandoned laboratory they will likely think themselves lucky. But when they adjust the focus on the microscope in order to read, a device inside the microscope will cause a small piece of magnesium to come into contact with a droplet of water. An intense light will be created, inflicting great pain and permanent blindness upon the character looking into the microscope. The PCs probably won't let that dissuade them. They'll cast remove blindness and try to read the script again after completing the dungeon. So when they finally do manage to read the scroll, what does it say? It says: I prepared explosive runes this mornng. Your players will never look at scrolls the same way again. 
I don't know if they've already been mentioned, but here are some:
2035: Minefield. A 4x10 square hallway, where the floor itself is the trap. In each 4-square row, there are two dangerous squares, AKA 'mines'. If a player steps into one of those squares, they either take damage or suffer some de-buff. The entrance is (logically) on the 4-square side (no reason to make it easy). 2036: Illusion trap. The players see a lot more enemies than they expected, but in truth, most of them are just illusions that disappear when attacked (think something like Bunshin no Jutsu from Naruto (not to be confused with the actually used Kage Bunshin no Jutsu)). 2037: Explosive Puzzle. A large stone door with a special rune carved into it. The rune has been removed by carving out slabs of the stone door. If the players re-insert the slabs in the right places, the door will open. If they insert one in the wrong place, the rune explodes and deals heavy damage to all PCs. 2038: "Pattern Recognition doesn't help here". A battlefield where every round, lightning strikes the ground. Every round, roll 1d6. The higher your roll, the more lightning bolts strike (maximum six). Then randomly select a number of squares equal to the number you rolled on the die. A character should not take damage from this, unless dazed, but should be dazed if they get hit (save ends, of course. If they are already dazed, the lightning deals 2d6 lighting and thunder damage). 2039: Trebuchet. In a castle or fortress, near one of the walls, let some squares be the ammunition loaded onto a trebuchet. Every now and then, remove some of the squares (because they are launched at whatever may be nearby). Hand the player a new character sheet unless he can negate fall damage. 2040: Wild Mage's essence. In a tomb, let one of the buried people have been a Wild Mage (Paragon Path for Sorcerors who use Wild Magic). As stated in the PHB2, a Wild Mage cannot control his powers, so why should a dead one be able to if his power lives on?
E. Ravenwood hasn't posted in 7 months. Is he still around?
#2041: Wet Floor Our intrepid PCs have come to a long hallway where the floor is covered with about three centimetres of water. The water on the floor is very dirty and impossible to see through. About halfway down the hallway the floor ends. A sheet of wax paper replaces the stone floor for a stretch of about two metres. When a character steps on the paper he falls through and lands in another chamber below. What's in that chamber is up to you. #2042: Sponge Spike Our heroic PCs are walking down a hallway. Nothing special going on. That is, until a character puts his foot down onto a sponge spike. So what is a sponge spike? A sponge spike is an apparently normal floor tile that is actually made almost entirely of a compressible gelatinous substance. The only part of the tile that is actually made of stone is a small cone in the center. When a character steps on the tile the gel compresses while the stone does not. The result, obviously, is an impaled foot. The sponge spike doesn't do much damage, but it wounds the foot badly enough to impair movement. Especially sadistic DMs may wish to apply poison to the spike.
#2045: Lock Shock
Our dauntless PCs have just killed some guards and gained access to the BBEG's treasury. They got some keys off the guards, too. As they carry out the inevitable looting, they come across a small wall safe with a keyhole in the front. This isn't an ordinary safe. The inside is lined with rubber and a battery of some sort is set into the back. Two lines of copper wire connect the battery to the keyhole. When a metal key is inserted into the keyhole, it completes a circuit and sends a whole lot of electricity into the person holding the key. None of the keys that the guards had will open this safe. It can be opened with magic, a plastic key held by the BBEG, or some clever lockpicking with protection. What's in the safe is up to you, but I recommend you make it something good.
2046. The tomb of the Queen Bea
I know it's been a while since I've posted, life has a way with things. Anyway, to the trap! This is a side quest my pc's encountered in a desert, but can be used anywhere. One night while making camp near a river the pc's see an eerie light in the distance. In the morning they find a cave on the river that is the source of the green glow. Washed up on the bank is an old rotted launch. In the cave, they discover the source of the launch. A rotted keel boat sits aground just inside the cave and it appears it's been sitting there for decades. The QueeN bea it is called. The wood is early rotted through, but the vessel is intact. In the wheelhouse there is a thick, crumbling captain's log. The ceiling of the cave glows a phosphorus green from a thick layer of mold that creeps across its surface. There is a skeleton in the captain's quarters with a bolt through the lower jaw into the brain, a victim of suicide. Below decks is the crew's quarters are three more skeletons two wrapped up with a dagger in each hand stabbing the other, the other skeleton is underwater with the back of its skull smashed in. In the hold, which is underwater, the party discovers the treasure, three chests full of gold bars, however the sediment in the water has caused the bars to fuse and they are now going to have to be chiseled out which will take time. Meanwhile, the captain's log explains a few things. The crew of the Queen Bea were retrieving gold from their horde when they were attacked by raiders. They sought refuge in the cave to make repairs on the ship and wait until the coast was clear. Days later, two of the crewmen ganged up and murdered the other sailor, the one with the smashed in skull. Fearing for his life, the captain locked them below decks. The sounds of them killing each other1ill haunt him for the rest of his days. Then one day he hears voices outside of the cave, and he hid, wondering later why he didn't call for help. He hears people on the decks at night, shadows slide across the windows and speaks of hearing them below, they're inside now, he can hear them working around the clock, he can't sleep. The last page of the log is nothing but gibberish. The mold is mind altering, incurring a will save that grows exponentially every 24 hours of exposure. Failure causes a schizophrenic psychosis. The spores cover everything, and symptoms include hearing voices, seeing phantom movements in the cave, on the boat, in the water, thinking outrageous thoughts like the others are plotting against them, so on and so forth. It will take days to harvest the gold from the submerged hold. Will the pc's abandon the treasure, or fall victim like its last owners?
2047: Alternate Dimension Labyrinth. A labyrinth which exists on every single plane, except every plane has some changes to it, as well as several portals to send the PCs to other planes... not necessarily the ones they need to go to, though.
2048: Magical Firewall. Instead of having just a magical barrier to protect something, let the object seem to be protected by only an easily countered trap. When the PCs pick up the object, however, a large firewall appears around them to scorch them. This firewall is the same as the Wizard's Wall of Fire spell.
2049: High and Dry- The players round the corner of the dungeon to find a long (300ft) water filled corridor in front of them. If they test it they will find that the water goes down aout 15ft, so naturally they will attempt to swim across. Halfway across they will collide with a cobweb-like net, almost invisible to the naked eye, very strong and incredibly sticky. Unfortunately for them the pressure from hitting the net will trigger the water to drain away and the floor to drop, leaving the players suspended over a nasty 200ft drop. *For extra evillness, have the trap also set off alarms so tht creatures in nearby rooms come out to fire at them, causing even more damage.
Happy day. I thought this thread was dead, or at least resting. It's great to have you back, Mr Ravenwood, especially since you come bearing such an excellent trap.
#2050: Chained To The Ceiling Our unfaltering PCs have come to a large locked gate. Several chains dangle from a pulley above the gate, and it should be obvious to the players that in order to open the gate they have to pull downwards on the chains. When they do so, tell them that the odd, cage-like handles on the chains are only big enough for one hand. Lifting the gate should be very difficult for a single player but easy for several working together, so that there are several PCs pulling when the gate finally comes up. The trap is sprung as soon as the gate opens. The cage-like handles snap shut and trap the PCs' hands. The gate takes a while to fall, and while it stays up several bad guys come through. The players will have to fight with one hand chained to the ceiling. Impose whatever penalties you like, but try not to kill your players. This would be a lousy way to die.
Thank you! Now for my next trick...er, trap!
I think this might be from a KODT issue, so I apologize for any copyright infringement that may ensue. 2051. The one on the left is now on the right. I like this because I love traps that appear simple but can become more and more complex. The pc's spring a pit trap that will drop the floor out on all players. They fall down a chute and launch them outside and into a pond. They hit hard, and are all knocked unconscious. What they don't know is the water of the pond is imbued with magic that is creating a disguise spell on each pc. Each player should get a note with the warning its contents are confidential and you want to know what their immediate reaction is following an initiative roll. The note reads "you awake to see (number of pc's in your campaign minus the pc reading the note) x-amount of Orcs laying next to you' and ask them what their immediate action is before they can say anything to anybody. Of course it is the pc's disguised, but it only takes one paranoid player to start the dominoes falling. Have fun!
#2052: Sand Trap
Our fearless PCs have come to a large room where the floor is not visible under the thick layer of sand. A golem with large gems set into its body stands guard, and it attacks as soon as it sees the players. Once it moves, the trap is sprung. A whirlwind picks up, damaging the players each round. The golem's damage reduction protects it, so the fight should be tough. Once the golem falls below one quarter of its health total, it falls down and is quickly buried. The players will have a chance to dig the golem free and pry the gems from its body. Unfortunately for the players, the sand is poisoned. They will almost certainly have open wounds from the fight and so should receive multiple doses of poison from both the sandstorm and the digging that they will probably do. Don't make the poison too deadly, because the golem will get up after a minute or so and attack again. 
I apologize, I did not read through all the pages to see if any similar to this had been posted.
#2053: Inclined Floor Trap The group enters a hallway that is 10 feet wide, and 50 feet long. There is another enterway at the other end, so both ends are open. Whatever either end leads to is up to the DM. The floor, and walls of the hallway are made of good workmanship, the stone is well joined, no cracks or gaps. The ceiling could be of the same workmanship, not important to the trap I think, and is about 10 ft high. The trap is the hallway itself, it pivots about 1/3 the way in, or about 15 feet. The group may noticed a area of the ceiling about 5 feet in that appears damaged, this is a clue to the trap. DC at DMs discretion. As soon as anyone steps past the pivot point, which is unknown to them, as the mechanism is hidden beneath the floor, the entire length of the hallway pivots down, now creating an inclined floor. The weight of the floor is sufficient to lift the back end up to the ceiling, despite the number of PC standing on it, and blocks off that exitway. Proof of this for both DMs and PCs; far end of the hallway is 10'x35' or 350 sq ft, assuming the floor is 1 ft thick, thats 350 cu ft of stone, the weight of which is ~170 lbs/cu ft * 350 cu ft =~ 59,000 lbs. Enough to lift several PCs up with the back end. So now the PCs find themselves on a sharply inclined floor ~55 angle, and begin sliding down. They can't exit the way they came it, as its blocked. The far end of the hallway is now ~30ft below the far entryway and ~15 ft away from it, so jumping to it is quite difficult, if it not impossible now. The inclined hallway funnels them into a sloping passageway that was previously hidden, and leads them to wherever you desire. The width and height of this passageway is the same as the hallway, about 10 ft, so bracing themselves across it is difficult. The workmanship is such that catching any crack is difficult. They have little choice but to go where the passageway takes them. A fiery death, a spiked pit, right it front of a dragon, etc... DC to spot the trap would be rather high, as the entire mechanism is beneath the floor. The only possible clues would be the damaged area of the cealing, and possibly the paperthin gaps between the floor and the walls where is slides.
Got a simple one this time. Hopefully it's not too similar too a previous idea.
#2054: Putting The Trap In Trapdoor Our faultless PCs have come to a room with a trapdoor in the ceiling. Being PCs, they will probably try to open it. If they do, then they will discover that the trapdoor does not in fact lead to another room. It leads to a storage tank that contains a large quantity of liquid. The PCs will have to make Reflex saves or be doused, with a much higher DC for the one who opened it then for the rest. Possible liquids to pour upon your party with this trap include: Grease (Apply penalties to everything due to slipperyness) Acid (Straightforward damage and destruction of items) Sewage Water (Embarassing and makes you easy to track by scent) Diluted Poison (A more subtle attack) Gasoline (Harmless, unless it gets lit on fire) BBQ Sauce (Attracts monsters) 
This isn't a trap but a question about traps and hey, what better place to ask it than this awesome trap thread?
Since traps now make attacks, I got to thinking. Can traps have combat advantage against the character that sprung it? For example, if the PC has a condition were they grant combat advantage and they spring a trap.
Sorry Artemis, I don't know anything about 4th edition. Can't help you.
Anyway, this thread seems to have gone into hibernation again. I don't like that. C'mon people, you've got to have some ideas. That goes double for E._Ravenwood. #2055. Spring Wall Our flawless PCs have come to a flat steel wall at the end of a hallway. An inspection will reveal that the steel wall is not actually connected to the sides of the hallway. It is mounted on tracks. The PCs will likely realize that the wall can be pushed back. And so they will likely do just that. The DCs of the strength checks to do so should increase as the wall is pushed back. Behind the wall there is a large steel spring that is compressed as the wall is pushed back. A mechanism attached to the spring prevents it from uncoiling, even if the PCs stop pushing. But when the PCs push the wall to a certain point, two things happen. First, the mechanism holding back the spring is disabled. The wall will shoot forward, slamming the PCs back down the hall. Second, small blades will emerge from the tracks on the floor, ready to slice up anyone who is unfortuneate enough to be forced over them. This trap should do a fair bit of damage, but not a lethal amount.
2056. The Acutana Campaign aka Kobold Atoll Part 1. Before I begin, I have to disclose several things… 1) This campaign takes place in my Homebrew world of Croix, some history to run by you is this…The Gnomes in this area of the world have secluded themselves to an island off the coast known as the Jade Isle. They trade with the human kingdoms that dot the coast and have one of the best economy’s in the territories. And so it begins… The PC’s receive and invitation to a meeting held by the high council of Jade Isle. When they arrive they are brought to a hall where several dozen other adventuring parties await. The PC’s may recognize a few of these parties if they’ve had run ins in the past (this would also be a good time to bring back an arch-rival party of the PC’s). The parties are called to attention by a Gnome diplomat by the name of Tipton Sinclair. He explains to them they’ve been invited to participate in a great endeavor. He displays a large map of a large Atoll off the west coast of their island. Known as Acutana. It is a very narrow island, only five miles across and fourteen miles long, it’s interior is covered in thick jungle with mountains surrounding three sides, and on the south coast, the only plausible entrance to the island, a five hundred yard stretch of sandy beach. The island is crawling with Kobolds. The only reason they haven’t already eradicated these disgusting creatures is because they use the island to train their troops, using the traps and defenses the Kobolds use as training exercises. However, strange things have arose from the island. A few weeks ago, for the first time, a training party of Gnome soldiers didn’t return and are assumed dead. And for over a year now, Gnome merchant ships, especially ships carrying alchemical material, have been raided at an alarming rate. Since the Kobolds have not the means to get off the Island, the Gnomes are at a loss. They wish to move in to fully exterminate the Kobolds and finally be rid of them once and for all. They unfortunately have a problem, one being that they’ve only utilized the beach in their exercises, so no one knows what lies in the interior of the island, and two, the Kobolds are used to fighting the Gnomes, and vice versa, so the council is worried that if the Gnomes take the Kobolds on head to head it will dissolve into a stalemate very quickly. And that is why they’ve called upon you… Most parties flock to sign up, but several Dwarves are skeptical. Many have had first hand experience with Kobolds and know they are a greatly underestimated race. They eventually come around, since they only need to secure the beach. The PC’s load up and land on the beach in the middle of a thick fog. They suddenly see a line of bunkers at the beach’s edge where the beach and jungle meet, and are soon hit by a volley of arrows. This causes most of the NPC parties to surge forward in a charge, and so begin’s the trap springing. Beach Traps 1)As the PC’s rush forward the Kobolds launch small catapults on them, unleashing a barrage of… chum. PC’s and NPC’s alike are covered in stinking fish bits. At the point they’re wondering why is about the time people start falling in shallow pit traps, filled with crabs of various sizes. Screams emit as NPC’s (and PC’s) are swarmed by these hungry crabs as they try to feast. Not necessarily a deadly trap, but it will definitely keep them in firing range longer than they should be. 2) As they near the bunkers, they discover that thick wooden lean-to’s have been erected for cover. However, one should ask themselves why the enemy would put cover up for their own enemy to hide behind. Of course they might be too desperate for shelter from the arrows raining down on them. They will figure out fast enough when the lean-to’s begin to explode, blasting the NPC’s and PC’s back out onto the beach. Investigation will show that in front of the lean-to’s, barrels of alchemical fire have been placed, facing the bunker, and they are being targeted by Kobold ballista’s. Damage is up to the DM. 3) Lining the front of the bunkers are twenty foot deep pit traps about five feet wide. These are especially deadly because not only can they be spike traps, but the shaft is lined with Ditherbombs, and at the bottom of the pit is a pressure trigger that sets them off, blowing the sides of the shaft, collapsing the sand of the pit down on top of the PC, effectively burying them alive. The Kobolds won’t fight head to head for long, once the bunkers are overtaken they will retreat into through the tree line. This is when a surprise comes. Before the PC’s have finished securing the beach, they hear a terrible roar skyward. As they look up, they see a horrific sight. As the Gnome Airships have formed up to drop their troops, a huge Red Dragon has come swooping out of the clouds, and makes short work of the dirigibles, and then destroying the ships off the coast. It roars once again, and flies away, into the interior of the island. The PC’s and what is left of the NPC adventuring company’s gather on the beach to discuss their predicament after wondering at great length how the hell a dragon just butchered their back up and their only means of esape. Rescue won’t come fore a while, and they’re sitting ducks on the beach, especially with all the crabs still hunting for food. They find on the dead Kobolds that they are carrying Mithril weapons and armor and are covered in jewelry. The treasure is good, and they’ve got nothing safer to do, most vote to head into the interior of the island.
And to think I was wondering why you hadn't posted anything lately. Looking forward to the next episode.
working on it, trying to decipher my hand written notes into microsoft word is a lot trickier than I thought it would be, I'll have it up as soon as I can.
Some of the funnest traps are those that turn the party on each other, and the DM can just sit back and watch, with that in mind here are two room traps I found in a book awhile back.
Musical Tiles: First room is a room with square tiles, just large enough for a person to stand on comfortably. There are a number of switches on the opposite wall. Once the party is in the room the tiles all begin to fade, except for about six of them. The party is forced to get on one of the tiles each, or go tumbling into a very deep pit. The edges of the tiles are slippery and sharp so hanging on them is difficult. The tiles will reapear afterwards and they will be able to work the switches. Again the tiles will fade, but there will be now only 5 different squares for them to stand on. Not an issue really unless you have a large party. This will continue with the tiles fading and reapearing in different spots after they play with the switches, each time there being one less tile for them to stand on. Party members will have to make balance checks to share the same tile and come up with creative ways of doing so, (perhaps with rope leaning on either side) eventually there is only a single tile left, which all the party members will have to share. only then will the final switch be able to be used to en the trap. The fun part of this is watching the party fight over the squares. Will they be cooperative, or will they be tempted to push their fellow PC off, any tension in the group will come to the forefront during this. The group I tried it on there was a battle royal for the final squares. You can decide for yourself what the ones who fall into the pit suffer (just a pit, spikes, they have to fight a monster at the bottom, etc), I suggest that they get to climb out of the pit once the trap is finished. Be prepared for some rather irate members if they have been pushed in. The "winner" of this trap may just well end up the looser when all his friends who he pushed in climb back out. Another fun room trap is the scavenger trap. The enter a room, which locks behind them, on the wall is a picture of someone holding a candlestick, a goblet, a small statue, a knife, and a bottle (or whatever items you wish, so long as there is the same number of items as there are party members, my example assumes there are 5 people) The inscription under the picture says collect them all or die. An hourglass is set into the wall (with a 1 minute time). On the table is 5 candle sticks. Naturally they all grab onto a candle stick each, then when the hourglass runs out there is a blinding flash of light, which anyone with the right skill check will recognize as a teleport trap. Now on the table there are 4 goblets. The obvious thing here is that each of them must have a goblet in order to avoid the trap. Whoever doesn't have a goblet is teleported away when the hourglass runs out. And there is now 3 small statues. Then 2 knives, then one bottle. There is 2 ways to run this trap. The first method is whoever is teleported ends in the next room where there is a monster that they must fight, naturally they will get help when the next party member is teleported in to join them. The other way to do this is have them teleported to a safe room, no harm done. But whoever is the last person standing, a monster is teleported in to where the table was, and they must face the monster alone, vicious irony. 
Rolling Boulder Trap Encounter:
In infant stage of developement. The idea is that the players find themselves being chased by a giant boulder that gains speed each turn. The tunnel is filled with other traps along the way, mainly poison dart traps and pressure plates that create pillars right infront of the player. The idea is is that the players will move through spaces and if they hit a pillar trap they immediatly end their movement. If they get hit with darts they are slowed. Getting hit by the boulder is not an instant kill but does damage them. The boulder's speed will get faster and faster each turn, but will only be stopped if it hits a pillar trap that has been activated. If it enters the same place as a player it will push them 1 sqr. If no square is open to push them into the boulder does extra damage and is considered stopped. The amount of damage of the boulder is dependent on speed as well. The tunnel they're in should be long enough that this should last about 5 turns and the boulder should be able to move more than once a full combat round.
Some I have been thinking of adding for a while:
Burning Sand Trap (although it may be considered more of a stratagem, than an actual trap): The moment the PCs step into a pre-designated area, the area starts burning with flames warm enough to melt sand. (People who have read "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" may get an even better idea of how it works, as it was done by Dong Zhou's troops in the Battle of Hu Lao Gate). Fake Trap: The PCs can easily see holes in the walls or floor, or anything else that can indicate a trap. When they choose to go the long way around the obvious trap, they jump head-first into the real trap... and an ambush.
I don't understand the fascination with fake traps.
Most of the time players don't realize they're fake. It might as well be a real trap. Either they test it, try to disable, or just walk around. It actually seems like a lazy design philosophy, unless its used tactfully. Like the villain is hiding behind it or something.
You'd probably have to be in my group to understand. We tend to have at least one fake trap per session. and we always wind up triggering it despite having a perception of 10 more than required to find it. Usually, because it goes off when we try to disarm it.
This trap involves a large door blocking the players path - no hinges, knobs or pulls can be seen anywhere on the door, and busting it down is impossible due to heavy, solid, thick metal composure. The players notice 6-10 arm-sized holes in the door.
Players can use theivery to get an idea that there are levers at the end of each 2 foot deep hole within the door that are connected to counter mechanism that causes the holes to enclose as the levers need to be turned in a full clockwise rotation. Further checks will be necessary to learn that upon a lever rotation, the holes fully enclose around and arm and lock into place until the door is open Now, only a few of these levers actualy connect to thick deadbolts that unlock the door, while the rest are simply trapped causing a guillotine-like mechanism to enclose with the hole, severly cutting the entrapped arm for as much damage as you like. Arms can be pulled out with a successful athletics check, but each attempt causes the same amount of damage. If you are a kinder dm, you can allow a riddle to explain correct holes, or allow deeper theivery checks to tell. Enjoy
wow, I just came back to the forums to post some new trap idea's I'd been mulling over and realized my whole second half of the Acutana campaign never uploaded...hmmm...
I think I will have to rectify this situation soon, I feel like I left you guys hanging. I can think of clearly of what the next trap was I believe this will be number Acutana Campaign Part 2. The Tall Grass 2061. Terror Bird Trap The Pc's and NPC's move into the tall grass and slowly make their way into the interior of the island. The grass is almost a dozen feet tall and once the pc's enter it instantly confuses them as far as which direction is what, and can cause some of the players to become cut off from the rest of the party and become lost unless they stick close together. The trap comes when a pc's foot catches a trip wire that will be hard to spot in the grass and sets off a series of charges that blast a huge net (say 50'X50') over the party. Attatched to the weights are shrieking whistles blowing with the force of the fall, and soon the pc's are trapped with this net over them. The rope is heavy and has to be carefully cut, whacking at it only pushes it around, it won't actually cut the bonds. However, the whistles weren't just for aesthetic purporse, they served to call a flock of Terror Birds (fiend folio) who have been trained by the Kobolds to respond to the whistles much like Pavlov's dog. Now what was a minor inconvenience has become a race against time to escape the flock of hungry, large carnivorous birds. More to come.
Acutana Campaign Part 3
The Interior After the Pc's make it out of the dizzying, deadly tall grass, they enter the interior of the island, which is covered with the thick jungle and laced with rocky canyons and outcroppings. There will be several encounters here with what might be mistaken as Lizardfolk, but are in fact Mutated Kobolds who are now roughly the size of dwarves and do not have the Strength and Constitution restrictions of regular kobolds (with a favored class of fighter) Along with these encounters are several traps that the PC's will run into as they hike up to the mountain. 2062. Drinking Vase The party comes upon what appears to be a stash of rations left behind by previous parties of gnomes. The tip off should be that Sinclair told the parties when they signed on that Gnomes never journeyed into the interior of the island. The stash contains jars of preserved fruits and meat, and a crate of, large, dark, wine bottles. The trap is that one (or several) of these wine bottles have been tampered with, and at the bottom of these bottles is a large lead ball bearing. When a PC tips the bottle up to drink, the bearing comes zooming down and slams the PC in the mouth causing several things to happen. 1...The PC is hit for 2d4 points of damage, no save, due to the trap being a suprise encounter. 2...There is a 50% chance that 1d4 of the PC's front teeth are knocked out, incuring penalties to vocal components if the PC is a spell caster. and 3...There is a 50% chance the PC gags on the bearing, causing him/her to asphixiate on the trap, Fort15 to hurl the ball up, +2 to the save if assisted by another player (hiemlich manuever), and because it is a suprise action, the PC can only hold their breath for the number of rounds equal to their constitution bonus (not twice the number, like usual to hold one's breath) 2063. Earth Shaker This is a very dangerous, lethal trap, and should not be used unless pc's are at full HP. Unless you want to kill them. I used it to get rid of quite a few of the NPC's that were still around from the beach. The Pc's have been roaming through the Jungle for about a day or so now, and are beginning to make their way higher up the mountain and out of the forest. The terrain is becoming a bit more rocky and trecherous. They are also encountering groups of kobolds who will attack and then disappear into the rocks as quickly as they struck when they come upon the ravine. This ravine is rather wide and abruptly stops at a dead end. At the far end of this ravine is a shrine to Kurtulmak. As the Pc's venture down the ravine towards the shrine, some may notice clay downspout-like pipes coming out of the rock (spot16) and some of them might also notice the fumes spilling out of the pipes (spot20). The shine has several items sitting on it, an electrum coin, a mithril dagger, several rings and bracelets, etc, but there is also a jar with a powerful looking magical amulet inside, detect magic shows that the amulet is indeed magical. There also seems to be a small amount of liquid in the jar as well, and the top is sealed shut, so the only way to get the amulet out is to break the jar. The small amount of liquid is alchemical fire. Not enough to actually even harm anyone, but enough to produce a small amount of flame, which happens to be enough to ignite all the natural gas being pumped into the ravine through the spouts. The kobolds living in the mountain have been using this piping to exude the dangerous gas from their caverns in the ground and turned it into a trap. If the ravine is ignited, the Pc's are about to witness hell on earth. All PC's must save versus; Deafness, blindness, and stunned, and take 10d6+30 points of fire damage. Falling rocks could also become an issue, , however, surviving PC's may find thems sevearl hundred feet from the blast sight when they come to. The massive explosion will also alert nearly all Kobolds on the island exactly where the PC's are. As deadly as this trap can be, if it is discovered, it could also be used as a offensive trap in the PC's favor. More to come.
Ravenwood has returned! And he has ressurected the thread!
Happy day. Anyway, I found an old thread (community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/758...) when I was checking Ravenwood's post history to see how long it's been since he last posted. If he doesn't object, I'll copy what's there over to here. This thread seems to have more staying power than that one.
sorry for the delay, but no, Sanctaphrax, I wouldn't mind it at all if the traps there were copied over. I only started that thread because I recieved a message that this thread had grown too large and was being stopped. By the time I noticed there was still activity on this thread, E. Ravenwood's Trap Manejerie had already been started.
Acutana Campaign Part 4:
2064. Fulgurites As the Pc's make their way up the mountain, they should realize that at some point there is no way to find an entrance (at least large enough for them) to get into the Kobold's lair, and after another run in with the Red Dragon, they are desperately looking to get underground. One of the ways they can enter is through chimney's that dot the mountain side that can be seen because of the smoke that rises from them. However, these chimney's are kobold made, and were created by filling tunnels with sand with a cable running through them attached to a balloon that was sent up into the clouds. Once struck by lightning, the electricity melted a jagged, lightning bolt shaped tunnel into the sand, effectively melting it to glass, creating a fulgurite. Because the kobolds know these chimneys can be used to breach their abode, they have a guard on them at all times who are more or less supposed to bait the PC's into following. Once in range, the Kobolds will fire on the PC's with ranged weapons then disappear down the tunnel. When the Pc's arrive, they find a trapdoor in the ground, but going anywhere near the door will cause the glass to collapse around them (hearing check to hear cracking to save) Any PC who wanders onto the glass that weighs more than 50 lbs will break through the class, and fall down the tunnel, which in turn starts a chain reaction that anybody else standing within 5 feet of them breaks through too, and so on, and so on. The 1st PC bears the brunt of the damage, taking 10d6 (or 3d20) points of slashing damage from the jagged glass tunnel. He is impaled with 2d100 pieces of glass that must be removed at 1/2 (half) a Hit point each. The 2nd pc takes 5d6 (or 3d10) points of damage and is impaled by 1d100 pieces of glass, 3rd Pc takes 3d6 damage and 2d20 pieces of glass, and every pc after that takes 1d6 damage and 3d6 pieces of glass. The good news is they are now inside the Kobold's lair. It should be mentioned at this point that all PC's might start needing to make will saves or succumb to PTSD, especially clerics helping with wounds. 2065. False Egg Hatchery I have to admit I used a lot of previously conceived traps for the interior of the mountain, and many of them work well. One in particular I made specifically for this lair. The PC's enter a vast room through a catwalk system, so they are actually walking above the floor of the room about 30 feet up. The catwalk is a sturdy rope/plank deal, and below are thousands of eggs. The PC's have stumbled upon what looks to be a hatchery, and many, after what they've gone through, are looking for revenge and want to destroy the eggs. The eggs are in fact decoys, many are made of thin glass or clay and are actually filled with acid or smokepowder, meaning that anything the PC's throw down to destroy the eggs will probably result in a fire, caustic explosion. With the bombs going off, one has to take into account the splash factor of the acid hitting the bridge, which might cause the PC's to be dumped into the pool of firey acid itself... After the trapped floors, the PC's make their way into the lower parts of the lair to find that the Kobolds have a massive pool of alchemical goo they are dipping in warriors (hence the mutated large fighters the PC's ran into) and the eggs that are drogon kith create actual dragons (with the gestation period of a kobold) The Kobolds were planning a major invasion of the Gnome's lands, and the PC's have thwarted it...or have they???
2066. A level 1 killer trap hallway (scale up attacks and damage as needed for higher levels)
Hallway is 10 squares long. Walking down the hallway, square 8 is trapped. Stepping on the floor there causes Trap 1 to go off, and primes traps 2, 3, 4, and 5, which are triggered by floorplates on squares 7, 6, 5, and 4 Trap 1: A bolt of force comes blasting from the end of the hallway the triggering creature is walking towards +6 vs Fort, on a hit, target takes 1d8+4 Force damage, and is pushed 5 squares back towards the beginning of the hallway. Half damage and only two squares push on a miss. Trap 2: +6 vs Reflex, on a hit, target is covered in a slippery grease, is knocked prone, and gains vulnerable 3 fire, save ends. Trap 3: burst 1 targeting trap plate, +6 vs Reflex, on hit, target takes 1d8+4 fire damage (+3 if vulnerable). Trap 4: burst 1 targeting trap plate, +6 vs Reflex, on hit, target takes 1d8+4 fire damage (+3 if vulnerable). Trap 5: burst 1 targeting trap plate, +6 vs Reflex, on hit, target takes 1d8+4 fire damage (+3 if vulnerable). If you want to make it even more lethal, you make the fire traps do ongoing 1 fire damage, save ends. Assuming all five traps are set off, PC is now prone, covered in oil, prone, and on fire. Assuming all five traps go off, PC Reckless is now PC Burnt and calling for help. I consider each trap is a level 1 blaster trap, and they go off each time there is a pc on their pressure plate, and they reset immediately after a pressure plate is released. Assuming all hits, even with minimum damage, you're dealing with 29 damage, minimum, at first level. That's not even including the way I normally run it, which is to have the vulnerable fire. Now, if your "tougher" PCs with a high fort are the ones that will just run through the trapped hallway, well, change the first trap to vs. Will, and call it a psychic effect (something scares them out of their mind so very much that they feel they need to run away or be consumed by Cthullu or something. First time I presented that trap hallway, it downed a PC (was only saved by everyone pouring their waterskins on the PC once he came back through the gauntlet, and even then, he was 4 away from dead total of 56 damage) 
I like puzzle traps.
Cool. More new stuff.
Anyway, now for my promised copy/pasting: Let me apologize in advance for the bizzare formatting. 1. Swirly The PC's come to a round room that they have to step down into. It would appear the floor has sunk over the years and that the room itself has filled with water. The walls are smooth, and the water (better make it murky water) is about waist to chest high. There is a door on the other side of the room, and if the PC's wish to cross, they must make their way across. As the PC's are walking across, they run the risk of tripping over a heavy chain (reflex save of 15 to miss) If they fail, they are tangled in it. They must roll another reflex save of 18 to untangle themselves without tripping the trap. If they fail again, the chain pulls a large stopper from the center of the room, and the room and water turn into a large malestrom as the water drains. The PC's cannot grab the smooth walls and are soon shot down the drain. At this point, you as the DM can add a number of things to incur upon the PC's. My personal favorite are blades in the pipes, a couple of right angle turns for the PC's to slam in to. And if you really want to be diabolic, have the room the piping empty out into be covered in spikes. Enjoy. 2. Swirling Blades The adventurers enter a room. It is a pretty open and empty room with a pedestal in the center with a coffin. As the adventurers get near they'll notice that it is probably a noble or important individual that resides inside the coffin. There are various pressure plates around the coffin and when stepped upon two blades will appear on each side of the coffin. These will move around in a square adjacent to the coffin cutting anyone it comes across. Swirling Blades Trap lvl5 XP200 Perception DC24 The character notices trigger plates around the coffin DC29 The character notices the hidden control panel Initiative +7, Speed 4 Trigger: When a character moves into a trigger square the swirling blades emerge from the coffin and attacks. Attack Opportunity Action, melee Target: Attacks any character in a space it enters Attack: +9 vs Reflex Hit: 3d8+3 and knock prone Special: If the blades ends its turn in a space with a character, it makes a second attack. Countermeasure A character can attempt a DC22 Athletics Check as an immediate reaction to leap over the swirling blades. A character can engage in a skill challgen to deactivate the control panel. DC24 Thievery. Complexity 2 (6 successes before 3 failures). Success disables the trap. Failure causes the Swirling Blades to act twice in the round. (roll a second initiative for the trap) A character can attack the coffin (AC16, other defenses 13; HP55, resist 5 all) or the control panel (AC14, other defences 11; HP35, resist 5 all). Destroying either disables the entire trap.
5. The doom spiral. (Buhm-buhm buhm!)
The players enter a round room with a spiral ornately engraved on it. In the center is a chest that, in order to open, takes a dc -- strength check. Upon doing so, they realize the treasure is -- rings (or whatever). The rogue (sp?) will scour the inside for traps, but find none. However, if the players move the chest, which, when opened, is shoulder-high, and metal, they find a pressure plate underneath, not quite weighed down by the chest. But most players wouldn't... When someone hops inside to grab the treasure, the pressure plate activates, letting the steel beams holding the plaform fall. This causes the spiral to fold down into a slide, with only the chest remaining flat. Stick whatever you like at the bottom. I prefer a greased slide that ends ubruptly (sp!) in a wall. Two main ways for the players to come out. Use something to grab the treasure, so no one has to get inside, or get everyone inside at once.
8. Spring is in the Air (literally) The PC's come into a room that has a set of spikes on the ceiling of all places. While exploring the room, a PC finds a sort of secret trap door, an actual portion of the floor (say 10X10 feet) sinks. The PC's find that if they push (str. check of 5) the portion of the floor sinks a couple feet at a 45 degree angle. The floor continues down the secret shaft for about 20 feet, but the strength check to continue pushing the floor goes up exponentially because a heavy spring is supporting the floor panel. They finally reach the bottom and find a secret corridor that leads to X (treasure room, BBEG's lair, etc). They must leave one at a time, however, causing the number of PC's holding the floor partition back to go down and the DC to hold it back go up. If the check is failed, the spring is released, hurling the PC's back up through shaft and into the ceiling, which is covered in spikes.
10. What the PCs see PCs entre a room that is 25x40ft and entrance door faces the 37th tile if you begin counting from the far left side of the room. The tiles in this room are distinctly seperated but not numbered. Almost every tile the PCs step on triggers something annoying but not too terrible. What the DM knows Everytime anyone steps on a tile that isn't a prime number on your counting scheme, something terrible happens (I had a random summon monster spell cast). The far door does not open unless one PC skips through all prime numbered tiles in this room. All the prime numbers before 40 are: 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 Comments If you make the room bigger or smaller, you'll need to double check that the tiles are jumpable. I carved this room out of card board and used a warhammer figure to check. I have two mathematicians as PCs so I cut out tile #1 to prevent any discussions whether or not 1 is prime number (which it isn't.) 11. unseen step: as the players are going down a dark stairwell, they go under a small water fall. although it doesn't hurt them, it puts out their torches and soaks them so they can't be re-lit. after a few dozen more steps, the stairs become a ramp that the players can't see in the darkness. 12. ad infinitum: the players come unto a spiral stairwell with a door that can only be opened from the outside. inside it lays flush with the smooth stone walls and cannot be easily seen. the stairwell goes up or down about six full rotations before an unseen portal loops the players back to the top/bottom. the door closes itself if light no longer shines on it. to escape they must realize that they are trapped before their air runs out, find the door, and destroy it. -if you want to be especial cruel ad an unseen step so they will fall down the stairs for a very long and painful time.
13. THE EPIC DROP:
the party sees a stone square pit deep set in the floor ahead of them. the victim looks into the stone pit and sees eight stone gargoyles, (animated, but bound to the wall.) staring back at him. He will cast detect magic, but there will be none except from the gargoyles themselves. thats the beauty of it, you see: when he jumps over the pit, there is a circular piece of glass set on an axle so it can turn right there, waiting for him. he will crash into the glass and take damage from the impact. the glass will then spin wildly, throwing him in with the gargoyles. the four in the corners will each shoot straight forward from their wands, where in rays meet there is a ball of energy. as the victim fall into the pit, the other four gargoyles on the sides will heft axes and claim their attack of opertunity as he falls down. He then bounces on the ball of energy, taking nasty damage, and more attacks of opertunity pummel him as he goes back up. flying upward, he will hit the now horizontal piece of glass, shattering it, and chipping away further at his hp. he goes back down and sees then the ball of energy is now a portal. a final attack of oppertunity welcomes him the the tunnel of spikes. sorry if that was wordy. 14. tunnel of spikes: part 2: the victim is falling fast through a vertical tunnel, with spikes facing inward on the walls. as he goes down, the sharp pieces of ballistic death will fly across the room, not to quickly, but still enough so some fancy mid-air twisting is needed. several problem players use dex as a dump stat, so several will humiliate him for his poor choice. at the bottom, he sees a huge mirror. above the mirror he sees a large stone hand with catlike claws, suspended in the air by some dark magic. he will, of course, land on that. from each of the five clawed fingertips a beam of energy like the gargoyles used will shoot out to meet on the palm, where the victim his. he will take damage from the zappy-style beans of energy, and the be teleported to the top again. no save. the trick? jump onto the mirror. as he hits the mirror, the trapped guy will see the glass begin to crack under his weight, and to make matters worse, armour far to big for him, (and covered with spikes, no less, but on the outside. no damage.), will start shooting out of nowhere and attach itself to the victim. at this time, baleful polymorph will have been cast, and victim can see his face distorted in the mirror, he body growing to fit the armour, baleful polymorph is cast on him, and then he is teleported back outside the pit. what was he turned into? demons make for intresting random encounters, let's say. 15. Wounding Bow This is a fine trapped item. The PC's will find this in a treasure horde, a composite long bow that radiates magic. However, the magic is in the trap that is inside the bow. When the bow string is pulled it triggers two metal blades that break through the wooden bow shaft and into the wrist, or arm of the PC wielding it. The blades lodge into the PC's flesh like a claw and deals 1d8 damage. It will take a Strengh check of 16+ to get it off (the affected PC will most likely not be able to get it out himself with only one hand) and it is at this point the PC realizes the extent of the magic of the bow. It was the blades that were enhanced, and enhanced they are with a Wounding effect. Keep in mind the PC will not use the bow until their next combat encounter, and when the trap is sprun during combat when assistance is not readily available, this Bow can be deadly, 16. Helm of the Aquanaut This is another trapped item, more of a cursed item, best if found in a horde of treasure on the head of a statue. It looks in all respects like a deep sea divers helmet and radiates strong magic. The PC's will eventually find that it is imbued with a Water Breathing enchantment and the ability to speak Aquan, which allows them to traverse aquatic environments and converse with aquatic creatures. However, after wearing the helm, the PC's will eventually start noticing little differences with themselves. For instance, they will start to crave the taste of sea food, become thirsty more often, and eventually notice they are growing webbed fingers and toes, and growing gills behind their ears. Every time the helm is worn, it slowly transforms the PC into the aqautic sub-type of their race, and they will need to seek the aquatic environment they need to live in or die, which can be kind of hard if they happen to be in the middle of a continent, they may have to settle for a small pond or stream. The Curse may only be broken by dispelling the curse or a Wish spell. If you decide to use this on a lower lever party, maybe allow a Break Enchantment break the curse as well.
17. eye for an eye:
the pcs enter a circular room where the roof is covered in a huge fresco, depicting a bloodshot, staring eye. a stone carving of the same eye spans across the floor. the wall is also ringed with painted eyes. a couple cyclopses enter the room now, and the battle starts. the trap? whomever attacks in this room gets the same attack set on them instead! after they figure this out, they have to bluff the cyclopses into attacking them, so the monsters take the damage they should be dealing. 18. Hop Skip and Jump This trap works best in a condemned dungeon. The PC's come to a section of the hall or walkway that is caved in, leaving a pit 40 feet deep into rubble, and a a 15 foot leap across. The other side looks crumbled and might not support the full weight of a PC, so they might need to over shoot the ledge and jump 20 feet or so to miss jumping on unstable ground. The trap is sprung at this point. If the PC's decide to jump further than the ledge, they realize that another portion of the flooring is missing as well, but has been covered with a slab of mirror, and the reflection of the ceiling is what the PC's see (maybe a spot check of 18 to notice) Over shooting the ledge and crashing through the mirror causes the PC to fall down a spiked shaft. I'll leave the falling and spike damage to you, the DM :D 19. Rockfalls. The pc's enter a hall with 3 areas which have boulders falling. ----;----;----;---- ;=rockfall. When the pc's try to jump, they find the middle 2 platforms are held by rope, so they swing when something lands on them. Time it so the players swing just in time for the rock to fall. *squish* ...does that make any sense? 20. Everyone dies. Name says it all. Pc's fall 101 ft. into a room that that begins to fill up with lava, then water, so the players fall, melt, get encased in stone, then if they survive, a Pao spell turns them permanently into mice, then dire cats are released. And so on, and so forth...(don't forget gelatinous cubes.) 21: Goggles of Sight This pair of unassuming goggles appears to be enchanted to allow its wearer to see much better than ordinarily allowed. This grants minor bonuses to the use of ranged weapons (at your disgression), and various other seemingly great, but otherwise negligable bonuses; however, if these goggles are worn too much, or too often, when the wearer removes the goggles (at a time you deem worthy), he finds that he can no longer see! This makes it so that the user of the item is no longer able to operate without the goggles, which slowly begin to lose their benefits, due to the user's poor eyesight. This effect may be removed via remove curse or similar spell/effect. 22: Thumb Ring of the Seeking Shot This looks like an ornate thumb ring, as that used in archery for the Mongolian Release. When fired against singular targets, it appears to grant the seeking ability to the arrows fired; however, when there are multiple targets (including allies), the arrows will seek out whatever target it desires, no matter where it is aimed. You could do this "self-aiming" on random chance, or otherwise. Alternatively, you could have it an intelligent item that attacks whomever it dislikes, which may include the wearer!
23: House into a Home
My kobold lives in a Daern's Instant Fortress. The door of it is inscribed with a spell glyph wich activates the "fall" command. Whether the command succeeds or not isn't important. What matters is the word "fall" is uttered, which happens to be the command word for yet a second Daern's Instant Fortress placed under my door mat. To make it all better, the second DIF has a Greater Spell Glyph which casts Harm. All of these can be averted with a simple password of course. 24. Slizzice THe PC's come to an old fashioned door in a hallway, the kind that looks like an old barn door where it is split in half in the middle so the top half can be opend if desired. There is only one knob, however, on the top half door, and a lock on the bottom half door, like you need a key to open the entire door. The top half door is completely unlocked, so PC's most likely will not take the time to pick the lock, rather open the top door and climb through. If the PC's open the top door, they have sprung a deadly trap. From the thin space that seperates the top-half from the lower half of the door a thin, mithril blade slices outward in one quick motion, dealing 4d8 points of damage to the PC, who will probably see his own guts hit the floor before he knows what has happened  25- Come on in! Assuming somehow the intruders figure out how to open the door, they will find that the interior has been fashioned to where all tunnels are small sized. They will also find that the hall they enter is filled with toxic gas(the specific type is one homebrewed by my DM, but any will work I imagine) The Medium sized intruders will have to sidle single file down the hall, where at the end is a bottle of air(I went with a real bottle of air, that way it would be more realistic, and work better as bait) Along the way, there is a mirror, that is also warded with a "fall" command. However, the floor here is covered with a ton of Sovereign Glue. The word fall once again happens to be a trigger command, for the Mirrors of Opposition that hang directly next to the trap, and down the hallway. As the intruder is forced to fight himself(twice), and assuming he managed his will-save, he will have to hope he moves first, or he will find himself stuck indefinately. Assuming somehow the intruders make it past, the bottle of air is laced with black lotus extract. It's also good to point out that there is no way to get to any next room, as my character simply uses stone shape to travel between rooms, or a teleport spell to just teleport to his bedroom, and happens to be lucky enough to have a necklace of adaptation. The other floors, just in case they realize they need to stone shape some stairs and a hole in the ceiling, are all just mazes of tiny sized tunnels, with a bunch of simple, yet tiresome traps. I also make a point to cover ever single floor I own(save for the floor my character actually sleeps on.) with marbles and caltrips, as they are relatively cheap(when compared to DIF's and Mirrors of Opposition.) 26: Scorpion's Sting Have a ballista (scorpion) in a highly advantagious positon during a pitched battle, which the players would obviously be able to use to their advantage. However, when the players choose to use the ballista (if they fail an insight/perception check of sorts), the weapon explodes from the stored tension. This explosion leads to shrapnel flying in a grenade weapon type spread, injuring any players, and/or enemies in the area. 27-sticky situation Have an area have a darkness spell of some sort cast upon it. Now, somewhere ideal, have a portable hole. The hole should then be covered with a shroud of disentigration, for extra fun, add a glyph of warding that casts command "halt." Now, assuming you've an npc, place sovereing glue(love that stuff), on the shroud. Alternatively, if this is to be a long lasting trap, place the glue in an extremely large and extremely fragile bottle on the shroud(i spose the shroud itself would have to be more firm this way.) Now, the player steps onto the glued, shroud of disentegration, and as he makes his short fall, the shroud wraps up around him, completely covering him. He now has quite a problem, as he's glued inside of a shroud of disentegration. 28-Fun-Size Snack This one relies somewhat on darkness, though it's not crucial. Assuming the prey for your party(me, in my case) is small, or tiny, then have an alcove that is tiny sized. This probably only works if there is a small person on your team. Have there be a tiny sized hall, that leads into a small-sized room, that is just big enough for a small-sized creature to stand. As the small-sized creature(a gnome in my case) crawls into this room, have the area he steps on be glued(love this stuff...did I mention that?) As he steps into the glue, it activates a glyph that would cast stone-shape, and block off the way he came in. There are now two other tunnels, both being tiny. Both options are simply Bags of Devouring. Their bellies look like darkness, which is the same as the rest of the place. The small character only has about 6 seconds to decide before being completely stuck forever, so he must move out of the glue, and the only places out of the glue are these "tunnels", which, given the darkness do look like tunnels. Needless to say, its either stuck for life, or eaten alive. Though, to the player, the second choice doesn't seem to exist.
29. The way to get past it? a simple strength check to hold the plate in place with ones hands while the rest of the party crosses (and then another from the other side to let the last member across). Of course you could always place razor blades on the inside edge of the plate, causing damage and an endurance check in order to prevent himself from letting go -and dooming the rest of the party! Variations are easy, a favourite of mine would be a small alcove in the wall in order to trap a player who walks too slowly in a corner where they will be minced in next to no time. The plan is to put this in a dungeon containing fairies, hence a trap which is only activated by the force of walking across it is perfect! Another favourite of mine is a cursed otilukes sphere, which holds the player until they panic enough that they are permanently claustrophobic, making it such that whenever they are immobilized in the rest of the campaign they will panic and do anything they can to get out of the immobilization, likewise for grabbing if you're REALLY mean. This one goes on the window of a house I don't want the players to get into... 30. Lollipop Laceration. The PC's find themselves in a hallway that is interupted by a steel door. The door slides open and then they enter a section of hallway about twenty feet long. There are shackles lining a wall, some hand irons, some leg irons. There is an open sliding steel door at the other end, and when they are about half way down the hall, they must roll a reflex save (about 13 or so) against a pressure plate in the floor. If the plate is triggered, the sliding doors slam shut and a noxious gas is pumped into the room. The PC's must roll a fort save of 14 which rises exponentially by 1 every round, if they fail they fall unconcious. When the PC's awake hours later, they find they are chained to the shackles, some by the hand, some by the leg. In front of each of them is a small plate with a very large lollipop on it. They can see that inside the lollipop are lots of tiny 'candy pieces' and a key for their shakles. The lollipops will not break against the floor or wall, trying to do so results in a flash of blue light and the PC taking 1d6 force damage. The only way to get the key is for the PC to lick through the lollipop to get it. This might seem all well and good until the PC's realize that the 'candy' pieces inside are actually bits of glass. Everytime the PC lisks they take 3d4 points of damage from the pieces of glass and each lollipop takes 6d5 likes to get to the center and pry the key loose. Each key can only be used to the coresponding shackle, so one person can't work free and unlock everyone else (although a rogue could get loose and try to pick the locks (dc 40) Oh, and also, keep in mind that the PC's probably won't be able to talk until healed, so verbal components for spells are not going to fly.
Perhaps this has been too long deeceased to ressurect and certainly it oughtn't be me doing it, but hey, I'm willing to pay some cleric for it. I've gotten enough mileage out of this so far that E_Ravenwood should probably be credited as "Executive Advisor to the DM" or something equally posh. I should probably give something back. Besides, I can only hope this catches on again; its a brilliant resource for all sorts of campaigns.
2097 (by my count); Rather simple thing to do in a dungeon set at the snowy upper reaches of a mountain. Hide a precious stone, some gem, behind several clever traps (mix and match with the aforemtnioned 2096 ). The stone should rest either on an altar or with some other way to provide the phrase "Ice and snow come to my posessor), preferably not in common. The stone also should make the air around it cold. The PC in my party tried taking it out everywhere. Ice sculpture? It helps solidfy and reinforce the artwork. Water flow? Freezes. He tried everywhere. Eventually, as the PC's leave the dungeon, the brilliantly curious fellow again attempts to provoke a response, and a decent distance away an avalanche begins. Ice and snow, after all, come to the posessor. It's one of those traps that brilliantly punishes PCs for being naturally greedy and curious. It also makes for a great sense of urgency as PCs struggle to make it back to whatever method of transport they used to get there. 
I love this. My only query is which direction the statue spins to if there are several PCs in range of it. Random roll perhaps?
Rehashing a classic from the Tomb of Horrors, I used this in the BBEG's fortress in my most recent campaign.
The party enters a large, ruined courtyard (100x100) through a gargoyle-shaped doorway. Around the edges of the room are numerous other gargoyle statues, each one identical. True Seeing reveals that each statue/door contains a Sphere of Annihilation (or other instant-death producing effect), with the exception of the entrance and one other statue, which holds a teleport circle. Scattered about the room--especially between the PCs and the teleport circle--are piles of rubble. As the players make their way toward the exit, each pile rises up as a Ruin Elemental (3.5 MM5, easily converted to later editions)--which begin using their Shock Wave ability to hurl the PCs toward the deadly effects in the trapped gargoyle statues! Increase the trap CR by adding more Elementals, or decrease by changing the damaging effect in the trapped statues to something less instantly-deadly. 
2098.
The Price of Cleverness
2099.
They're getting away! After them! Oh Snap,WTF!!The party enters a room unknowing that the scene playing out before them is just an illusion. A true seeing spell would negate the effect. A few rounds of studying the room would allow a DC 25 will save for disbelief. The room can have a door or not it isn't important unless it would make sense in your dungeon setting. Use common sense to fill in the blanks. The room has a 20 foot high ceiling, it is 40 feet wide and 60 feet long with a darkened doorway/passage at the other end of it. The adventurers see humanoids(other humans, orcs, goblins, bugbears, etc.) in the middle of the room scurrying around trying to gather documents, scrolls, valuables, or anything that would catch the party's interests, when the party interrupts them. The illusion is strong enough to create noise of movement as well as light sources or lack thereof depending on your humanoid. As soon as someone passes through the doorway or opens the door the illusions all stop and notice the party and one may say something arrogant or aloof such as "you'll never get what your looking for!"(whatever that may be) to goad the party to follow them as they run away through the back doorway seeming to disappear quickly into the darkness. The party should chase in haste if you were clever enough in enticing them to do so, and once they hit the middle of the room they discover(as they are falling) that the middle of the entire room is a deep bricked chasm about 40 feet deep and 20 feet across, with 3 feet of water at the bottom which cushions the fall a bit. Anyone falling in will suffer possible disease of your choice (malaria styled disease,flesh eating bacteria, so on), from the bacteria growing in the stagnant water so they immediately have to make a fortitude save to resist disease and these results may take days to affect them...if they survive to endure it. Furthermore, there are pressure plates in every square which triggers a water trap, which should happen on impact. When triggered, from right to left, the right wall at the end of the chasm quickly rises straight up while the left wall at the adjacent end of the chasm falls straight down and a rushing river of water comes shooting forth from the right side and pushing the adventurers through the now open left end of the chasm. If they can't anchor themselves or get out quickly they will find the fast moving river is 30 feet deep within 2 rounds and is moving magically fast as though water from a pressurized hose. The first round they can make a DC 20 reflex save to anchor themselves to the wall and then DC 18 str checks each round to hang on and move up as the water rises. Any fail results in a slip and an additional DC 25 reflex save is required to gain another hold as the water is at full force now. The trapped PC's will be swept through and down a steep slope of about 40 feet and into a round chamber about 20 feet in circumference and 20 feet deep with about 10 feet of headroom above the surface so that they can catch their breath. One round later the PC notices that the water is rising rapidly at 1 foot per round so it is now 9 feet. Changing this headroom by making it more or less than 10 feet can allow more or less time for your PC's to escape, at your discretion. Also, they discover something dispicable in the water with them. This could be an undead alligator or a swarm of leeches or w/e. They have 9 rounds to defeat the water monster before the room is completely filled. At any time they can search (dc20) to find a lever along the wall(under the water) which opens a stone slab on the roof providing another way out when the water reaches the top. Otherwise they may suffer a terrible drowning. However when activating this a shower of chemical dust falls down into the water seemingly causing it to instantly boil while creating an acidic gas that lingers thick above the waters surface. The acid cloud deals 2d4 acid damage a round(or worse). The PC can swim under water to avoid it until they can reach the opening where a sturdy ladder leads them up 80 feet and out into another hidden room. Watch out because the acid is coming up the passage and one of the rungs near the middle of the ladder is actually a hidden lever made to look like a normal rung, which, if triggered, will close the opening above, trapping the PC's between the water, acid, and the top. Panic may insue and character sheets may be balled up and thrown in your face, but never fear! There is a release rung lever at the very top of the ladder which will open the porthole and allow an easy escape. At this point feel free to reward them if they survive with a valuable treasue of some kind. Or perhaps they just entered a room filled with slow creeping undead with no way out except back into the pit. Lesson learned...don't believe everything you see, invest in true seeing at higher levels. get ****ed. The only problem is that your PC's may not trust anything they see in your world. LMAO
3000.
What goes down must end up?!Along a hallway the party sees a hanging cage with its bottom made of thick iron and attached to black iron bars leading up and into the ceiling. The ceiling is roughly 15 feet high and the hallway is 10 feet wide or so. Along the ceiling inside of the cage there is a flat black iron plate with long 3-foot spikes and hidden hinges that only open inward. A DC 20 spot check will show that the plate on the ceiling isn’t actually attached to the cage and that the bars seem to have a thick pasty oil slick on them. The cage is big enough to hold a man of average size easily with dimensions of 4 feet by 4 feet and 6 feet deep. For effect you could add several of these along the way that look very similar but this one is inherently different. Below this cage is a trapped floor with an invisible wall on the other side. There are a few feet open on either side of the invisible wall allowing for a sly PC’s passage. However, right under the cage in a 5-foot square a trap door awaits the unwary. As soon as the PC places both feet on the trapdoor it triggers a screech from behind him and the bottom falls out a split second later. This will allow them time to turn around and look to hold them in place or send them leaping forward face first into the wall. The only saving grace is if they jump backwards and that is only if they specify that they are doing so. A DC20 Reflex save along with a worded action to jump backwards will spare them. The sides of the trap door become slicked and are impossible to climb up or hang on to. The drop is 30-feet down, and the bottom looks like a crackling, sparking circle of electricity and actually works as a portal. This fall takes one second so only a free action or partial action can be taken. The PC falls into the hinged plate and lands in the cage above and taking fall damage. 1D4 rounds later, long enough to let them go WTF, the cage begins forcing itself up toward the spiked plate as the bars begin to slide into the ceiling above. The easy way out of this is to anchor a rope to another cage and lower someone or something down that is heavy enough to trip the door leading into the cage and to hold it open while the PC inside climbs up and out and back to safety. Otherwise the PC dies a horrible death.
#3001
Catnap SurpriseThe PC’s see an open arched doorway, with colorful light spilling out from it, up ahead along the right side of a short decorated hallway. The hallway has Egyptian style paintings along either side of it depicting cats, cats held by women, and women with cat faces. Upon reaching the archway and looking in, the details of the room become clear. The room is circular, and about 40 feet in circumference, with 4 ornate alabaster column supports around its edge. Hanging from and around each column are yards upon yards of exquisite silk fabrics colored of purple, blue, yellow, and red, purely for decoration. Along the walls are murals of stalking cats catching greedy mice that are stealing crumbs from their masters. Hanging majestically in the middle of the room is a true masterpiece of a chandelier. It is made of polished Mithril with a thousand perfect crystals hanging about it like a magnificent heavenly rainfall. Magical light gently illuminates the crystals individually, which provides an extremely unique array of colorful brilliant lighting, which serves to highlight what is lying beneath it. Below the chandelier and atop a pedestal, sits a solid gold statue of a small, domesticated cat with shimmering emerald eyes. A detect magic spell will clearly show that the cat statue is magical as well as the chandelier. The cat is lying comfortably on its side and with its head raised and ears sticking straight up and looking towards the door. Spread out on the floor around the middle where the cat sits, in approximately a 10 foot area, lies hundreds of solid gold mice. As soon as anyone touches a mouse or the cat, the cat animates. Immediately it’s emerald eyes flicker with green flame and it is up on its paws, arching its back wildly and letting out a terrible screeching hiss. It's shriek lasts for one round and acts as a surprise. Anyone in the room must make a will save but this is only to make them feel as though they had a chance as the curse has no save.The curse turns them into a small rat/mouse. They are still themselves but their abilities and ability scores have changed to that of a Rat in the Monster Manual 1 page 278 with the exception of the intelligence score, which should be raised to 10, the same rule applies to the cat. For fun ask them what their characters favorite color is and make them that color. Or randomly make them a color of one of the silk sheets. They can take actions as a rat only. They are without any of their items because they will find themselvs cast into the cat’s world until the game is over. This is a small extra-dimensional space, no more than 50x50 feet, created by the cat where he turns into a spritely orange tabby cat with green eyes, long whiskers, and a shiny thick coat. The game commences. This game could be anything from a simple chase through a maze with a cheese at the end that allows escape for whomever takes a bite of it. This is the part where you as a DM can be as creative as you like. The first person to save themselves from becoming cat food, becomes a symbol of affection for the cat for forever and a day, when the encounter is finally over. If anyone is caught they are turned into a golden mouse and become part of the cat’s collection.You don't really want this to happen as the PC's had no chance in the first place outside of ignoring the room altogether. This is for some lighthearted fun you can laugh about later and they get to collect a nice prize in the form of golden mice and rare fine silks if they so desire. Upon completion they are returned into their regular forms with all of their magical items and clothing at their feet leaving them standing naked and ashamed. The cat itself will serve its master as an animal companion would serve any master. The cat and its chosen master share a telepathic bond allowing it to communicate at any distance. The cat can become golden and rigid or appear in its tabby form on command. You can give it additional perks if you like or have it serve as an exceedingly annoying curse as it is indestructible and is possibly always purring and rubbing at its masters legs, even during a pitched battle or while the PC is sleeping. The cat doesn't need to eat or sleep. You could have it serve a further purpose to aid the party in getting through the dungeon. Again, use your imagination here to add more fun and whimsy.
Mirror Mirror: To be or not to be?To venture further into a dungeon the PC’s must take a portal where they will enter a room with no doors. Before them is a grand banquet providing them with good food and drink and a +2 circumstance bonus to all saves and skill checks for 2 hours after partaking. After an hour the table and food disappears and 4 slabs appear in the middle of the room forming a diamond or square shape, leaving a 5-foot square in the middle of them. They are facing out and away from each other. The focus is to get the mirrors/slabs to face inward toward one another. The slabs are solid iron 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide and covered in a mithril veneer with magical inscriptions covering the back. They hover in place a few inches off of the ground. The front side is smooth but unreflective. When a mirror targets a PC, targeting whoever is closest and in direct line of sight, it will turn in place to follow them wherever they go in the room. If a PC gets within 10 feet of a mirror they begin to see an image of themselves that turns into an evil depiction 1 round later. The evil counterpart has similar abilities and is bent on destroying its target. The counterpart can occur only once for each target. The mirror will only change targets if its target dies or its target’s counterpart is destroyed. If the mirrors become turned inward on each other at the same time all counterparts are destroyed and the puzzle is solved. At this time the slabs fall backwards, in unison, 30 degrees and triggers a jagged obsidian pedestal to rise up from the floor. The pedestal stops 5 feet up and has a flat smooth top and is about 1 foot in circumference. One round after the pedestal stops the mithril veneer becomes liquid-like and begins to stretch away from the now visible plain iron slabs and toward the top of the pedestal where it forms a large ornate mithril key. The key is 1 foot long. It’s handle looks like the body of a spider with long spider legs fused together in an almost straight line forming the key’s spine and two large spider fangs hanging along the underside of the key. The back end of the key has the face of a gorgeous scowling drow female. Minute runes cover the key entirely giving it an etched look, which catches light like a million tiny, perfect diamonds. The key is magical and works to produce a doorway when pushed into a wall and turned to the left. It will create a magical keyhole for itself. It will create an opening up to 1000 feet long or until it finds an opening on the other side of most any wall or surface. As of now the key has only 3 uses and will be used to get out of this room.
!Money Mummy!The PC’s enter a desert dungeon/tomb of a pharaoh designed to confuse and trap would be grave robbers. At the beginning of the actual dungeon, inside the pyramid or w/e, there is a hallway about 30 feet long and leading to a recessed doorway ahead and two circling hallways leading to the left and right of the recessed doorway. The passage to the right bends to the left and the passage to the left bends to the right and after 100 feet or so both passages lead to yet another levered doorway. As the party pulls levers and ventures through the doors they realize that when a lever is pulled the door opens to a new corridor leading to yet another door and lever. The problem is that when one door is opened all other doors are closed. Each passage has 3 doorways connected by short hallways to go through, but the third door is a portal. It looks like another hallway but when passing through the doorway the PC’s find themselves back in the initial hallway and looking at the recessed doorway. The key is to pull all three levers at the same time. When doing so it will activate a portal behind the center recessed doorway. The recessed door will be the only one that opens this time. When it opens the PC’s can enter into it and if they do they will see a hallway leading to a larger room that wasn’t shown before. Seeing into the room, there are visual hieroglyphs and murals painted in the Egyptian style with a large sarcophagus decorated in gold and blue and white glass sitting up on a 3 stepped platform and in between 2 large pillars. There are 2 raised fire pits on either side of the room standing about 3 feet high, 3 feet long, and 2 feet wide, and casting an eerie glowing light into the room. The hieroglyphs, with a DC 10 intelligence check, tell a tale of the people offering gold and precious gems to the pharaoh to honor him. When the PC’s enter the room a 10 round countdown begins and on the 10th round a dusty jet of air pushes out from the sarcophagus, then the door slams down behind them, and it starts to slowly open. One round later the sarcophagus is fully open and the PC’s see a mummy in perfect white wrappings, which have a slight mundane sparkling quality. A DC 20 spot check shows that the mummy’s wrappings have fine golden threads embroidered in them. The mummy stands around 6 feet tall and has white glowing eyes. The mummy takes 10 lumbering steps forward and down the steps to the floor where he will stop and reach out his arms, elbows bent at his sides, and a golden offering plate appears in his hands. He then extends his arms and the plate out forward awaiting an offering. The mummy waits. If the PC’s try to attack the mummy he will fight until he is defeated then he will dematerialize where he will then reappear 10 rounds later just as he had before. They can continue killing him several times if they wish, gaining less and less xp each time until the 5th time when he enrages and does whatever grand evil I wish to declare upon them as a punishment for stalling. The obvious point here is to give an offering that will appease the mummy and he will open the way for further exploration. If an offering worth 1 thousand gold pieces is placed on the plate, he will toss it into one of the fire pits and then return to his sarcophagus. Upon doing so the pits will burst into wild flames and light the room making it much brighter. During the mummy's return the door will again open allowing for a safe exit and the floor in the middle of the room will rise. Rectangle columns two feet thick and 3 feet wide each now begin to move. Each column raises in a line first 6 feet, then 5 feet, then 4 feet, then 3, then 2, and 1. A hidden stairway is uncovered that leads down into the darkness of the tomb. This is a fun way to open up a dungeon or to have a difficult way to actually get the treasure at the end of the dungeon, however you choose to use this simple entrance puzzle.
Well.... let see if any has any new ones, I think everyone had a couple of years to think. This one is simple but fun.
3004) There are tow parts of this trap, one in two seperate hallways. This can easily be used in a spiral style dungeon (square shaped, so all right turns..lol, really messes with PC's) When walk down the first hallway of this trap,(lets say 50' hallway) at 25" it looks like it comes to a dead end. The closer they get they see a square hole on the ground. It is currently filled with clay like mud. There is a rope tied the the edge of the hole and leads in the mud under the wall. In order for the party to move forward they have to go in and fully submerge themselves. The DM can choose what is needed to roll for holding breath. They will emerge on the other side of the wall but completly covered in the mud clay. The next right leads into a normal dungeon hallway with statues of warriors sporaticlly placed. With a standard spot or listen check (DM's choice) the hallway has a continious flow of warm air. The mixer with the air will harden the clay. And now the DM has new figurines...lol. NOTE: The hardening can happen 1D6 rounds. The rolls can consist of a strength check, or reflex save if one tries to hi the other PC. You can be as evil as you want here. 
We do a lot of "burning building" situations because there happen to be a lot of that sort of thing in our scenarios. It's as simple as an environmental encounter where you take a character and have them either have to burst through/out of a burning area and/or jump over a burning pit (and the like). I'm not sure why this happens so much in our games. It could be that the group is fond of fire or somethign like that.
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3005) I used this one a couple of weeks ago.
There is a long hallway, any length would work. Halfway down is lone door that is easy to unlock. Once it is unlocked and the group steps inside there are three glass display cases inside. It doesn't matter what is in 2 of the cases. I wanted to scare my low level party, so one case had a 3 silver tipped stakes on a black silk cloth. The middle display case appears to be empty, except for a small hole about the size of a fist in it. The trap itself was sprung once the door was unlock. The "empty case" had a Gelatinous Cube in it which escapes down the drain and back into the hallway the group just came from. As a DM you have the option of having the Cube come towards the party or be chasing the party. Mine was chasing the party, as my group has a knack for not paying attention to anything behind them. But it is up to you as to how your dungeon/castle/evil wizard tower is laid out.
Hopefully nothing too similar is already in the list. Avarice (3006) - The party finds themselves trapped in a plain room 25',25' ish, in the center of the room is a wooden pedestal. On tha pedastal is a rare gem. Upon the first party member touching the gem all party members are dominated. A booming voice speeks to all of the party members. The voice demands a show and promises reward for a good preformance. Every round the party is forced to make an attack against another party member. Before the attack a party member may choose to attempt a saving throw against the domination. Players take 1/4 damage. At the end of the event the players recieve the damage they dealt in gold multiplied by 10(ish?) (IE 23 damage = 230 gold). Players also find that the voice has wormed it's way into their mind, for every attack they made, the chracter takes1d6 damage Kinda situational, but if you have a greedy party or a party of less than high moral standards, It gives the players a chance to roleplay through their characters decision. Funniest Csae is the pascifist leader who never makes the saving roll and nukes him/herself once they make a save.
3007 -
This room has a control pannel on the southern wall. 4 levers, 3 switches, 2 buttons, and 1 slot. On the ground in the center of the chamber is a stone block. On the block are two tankards of scummy water. Wrapped around the bottom of the block is a chain. In the corner of the room is the bust of an orc with an eyepatch. The bust is made out of a milky crystal. Spot check of DC 16 will notice a coin in the center of the bust. Breaking the crystal will release a poison gas cloud in the face of whoever breaks it. 2d4, save for half, poison does 1d4 every day until healed. The normal sized door is actually a mimic in disguise. Mimic - (52 hp) (15 AC) (Slam 1d8+4) (CR 4) Putting the coin in the slot will open up the wall on the western side of the room into another chamber. Of course the locations of the doors and what not can be changed to suit your dungeon. I put this in against a low level party that was half dwarves. Knowing full well they would smash the bust as soon as they knew it was of an orc. Again can be tailored to your PC.
I am only about half way scrolling through all these traps, and my PC are in for some nasty surprises in the up coming weeks.
But ... I know this sounds strange, but if anyone here remembers the Dragon's Lair game ... has anyone thought about making the traps that are in that game? I realize some won't work, and most of this comes from memory ... I am going to break the game out tonight and get some trap ideas ... but the mechanical horse room/trap, granted that could be used if someone gets seperated from the group. Until then : 3008 - The Fake Dragon's Breath In a cave the path narrows down to the point where only one person can fit through at a time. It slopes upwards getting more and more narrow. Then it drops off deeply, only about 15 feet, to avoid any massive falling damage. The PC will feel something akin to broken pottery on the ground and hear the clinking of coins every now and then while searching around. This drop off in the cave is a natural methane pocket. If anyone lights a torch it will ignite the methane causing an explosion. (damage to how you see fit) The fireball then jets out of the hole that the first PC climbed through to get in and streams like a fire jet onto those outside. (again damage as to how you see if) 
This is a simple one, yet can be fun, depending on your players. Used it in one of my adventure for quick easy brain teaser. It can be adapted for any situation for a simple riddle, whether it is a pair of talking doors, statute or two spirits giving conflicting answers.
Two Spirit Guardians standing by two one-way unmarked portals where players are stuck for whatever reason and must choose. Gate #1 leading to where PC wants to go (home etc). Gate #2 leading to a very bad place. (abyssal plane etc) One Spirit can only tell the Truth. Other Spirit can only tell Lies. Which does the PC listen to? "Is portal #1 where I want to go?" Truth spirit: Yes. Lie spirit: No "Is portal #2 where I want to go?" Truth spirit: No. Lie spirit: Yes "Are you telling me the truth?" Truth spirit: Yes. Lie spirit: Yes. It is simple though, but added layer of entertainment. 
This one isn't really a "trap" per say, but there's an inn in a major city in my world called "The Kickgut". It's called that because of it's famed Kickgut Ale, which is literally magically delicious - players who drink it must actually roll will saves to not take another drink automatically when drinking it. It is very difficult not to get blasted drunk and end up vomiting like you've been kicked in the gut. The dwarves in your party are in for a treat. This can lead to great drunken-party situations. 
3009
On the left side at the end of a hallway is a gaint carved frog face with wide nostrils and open mouth. To the right side, across from the frog, is a staircase going down 40 feet. At the bottom of the stairs is a 15' x 15' room with a rune covered door, the door has some minor trap that is easy to detect and disarm. However, there is nothing on the other side of the door. If the rune-door is opened, the frog at the top of the stairs begins spraying hundreds of gallons of thick mud down the stairs into the room. Attempting to climb the mud coated stairs is an athletics check of {hard for the PC's level} +8 for each 10 feet. Attempting to swim in the mud is an athletics check of {hard} +3. The mud sprays untill the bottom room is compleatly flooded, and the dungoneers must fight hard to avoid drowning in it.
I've got the best one because you can make it whatever is best for the situation
You walk into a strangly uninteresting hallway. Cobwebs hang from the grey stone walls but something red catches your eye. You look a bit closer and see it, a small red button with inscriptions above it reading "do not push". . . . and insert whatever you want to happen if the PC's push it or don't
3010 - Elemental Sphere of Dwarven Creation
Once the first two PC enter this room the entrance seals up with an iron door and an anti-magic field. On the outside of the door appears a swirling shape. After 5 rounds the shape solidifies into a dwarf face and then swirls again before splitting up into 15 parts that fly into room the PC just entered from. DC 23 WIS to get the parts back together in the right order. In the room which is round has on the wall all the way around four bands of colors. Starting at the bottom is red, brown, blue, then white. After the dwarf face flies off the door four symbols appear glowing on the floor. They are dwarven rune: fire, earth, water, and air in a cross pattern F A W E In order to open the door the dwarf face must be placed on the door and the runes must be stepped on in order they appear on the wall. If they are stepped on in the wrong order that element will blast through the walls. Fire - flames shoot out doing 2d10 Damage Earth - stone spikes shoot out of wall, 2d10 damage Water - rays of frost shoot out of the wall, 2d10 damage Air - large gusts of wind blast out, DC 20 Str, or get slammed into the wall 1d10 damage The damage will repeat until the runes are stepped in order, or if stepped on before the dwarf face is put back on the wall. (adjust damage as see fit)
3011 - Tree of Pain
In this room is a large stone with a chunk that has been hacked out of it. The missing section is broken it 3 sections on the floor. Putting the sections together and in the large stone cause it to raise to the ceiling. Once it reaches the top it "clicks" into place. Small holes, about quarter inch around, appear in the stone. Then tree branches slow "grow" out of the holes. The tree branches have a faint magical glow about them, and no nature check can identify them. An arcanna check of DC 25 will reveal that are from an ancient tree known as the "Tree of Pain". Touching the Tree of Pain will curse whoever touches it. The curses don't show up right away, instead they appear over the next 1d10+1 rounds. First curse - Eye Bleeding: Happens once with a Fortitude save DC 18 to resist. The character’s eyes bleed, causing blindness for 1 day as well as 1d4 Constitution damage. Second Curse - Gnarled Teeth: Fortitude save DC 18 to resist. Can be dispelled with a DC 14 Heal check or remove curse. Causes -2 on Perform skill checks involving vocalization. Final Curse - Stop Hitting Yourself: Will save DC 18 to resist. Character deals one round's worth of damage (counting all possible attacks of the character) to his or herself once per day. May be removed with a remove curse spell. 
3012- That Armor Didn't Help Now Did It?
Firstly let me thank each and every one of your brilliant Ideas, Secondly I did not read every single trap, so if this is a repeat trap let me know. The Trap: Goblins have been raiding a town/city and stealing many mundane objects, with one remarkable aspect... They are all made of metal. Note this often and make sure the PCs don't forget it. Make sure that they know that after killing a group of the little buggers they see a bent up sword, a candleholder, an Iron boot or gauntlet, a big pot, whatever suits the setting of the story. Do Not Mention that all of the items are Magnetic! Tell them it is made of metal or iron or steel but do not point out anything related to magnitism! This is important later on... As they get farther into the dungeon crawl have the Adventurers find hammered bits of the metals, all crudely bent into conical shapes, kind of like arrowheads... the goblin archers are using these as arrowheads so use that to trip them up even more... While the adventurers are fearing a large raiding group of bow-wielding goblins they come to a set of big thick Barred Wooden Doors, so of course the rogue checks the doors for all sorts of traps. There are none. So when the meathead is enlisted to lift the thick wooden bar the bar lifts off of a lock on the trap beneath the fighter's feet. A pressure plate. All of a sudden the fighter is yanked backwards off of his feet, slamming into the wall. The wall is covered in an overpowered magnetism trap. so the meathead will be joined by the Paladin and possibly the cleric... the mage and possibly the rogue are being knocked in the head by the big wooden bar in the Fighters hands... then they hear a faint clinking noise, then a sound like a pile of gold coins falling over... then they see the door across from them fly open followed by a bunch of these conical Iron projectiles (hundreds if your nice...) which procede to slam into the wall and helpless adventurers dealing XdX points of damage... Allowing a Reflex Save for the Mage, Rogue, Druid... (anyone not wearing metal, or carrying a large amount of it) ---This is the first trap I ever designed, I worked it into a campaign about thieving goblins with a clever goblin Cleric/Tinker--- Feedback would be great... Thanks for reading 
I like that one. It's wacky and it's functional. Works as a joke and as a serious encounter at the same time.
Which is part of the appeal of traps, to me.
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