I made this post to highlight one of the many aspects why I love this game.
Traps are tools for the evil forces to hinder or straight up eviscerate the player. Because only a dead player is a good player. Traps make the dungeon an aktive player in the battle between good and evil, and trust me the dungeon is not on your side. Traps also help dungeons get a better rating on rent-a-lair.com.
I love how this game executes traps, most of the time they are fair but sometimes you just die before you realize what just happend. A good trap can be avoided, be it through some jumping around and get the timing right, or through a pipe that can just be opened with enough strength. A good trap should be a danger to the player and not just to slow them down(exept maybe if the goal is to catch a kobold). A good trap let's you have a chance to pass it alive without a trapper, but make it easier you for having a capable trapper. A good trap should reward you for running that dungeon 30+ times(mostly knowledge). A good trap does the same to a naive player as well as to a naive monster. A good trap shouldn't always be a good trap, somtimes it should just be an evil trap, that doesn't care about the players feelings and just transform the players body into a puddle of thick red fluid on the floor.
Here are 10 of my favorite trap Archetypes in no particular order.
And that are just a few examples, there are many more out there. A lot of older quest have mastered the art of torturing the player and I love it, the anticipation when the rogue crouches to the ordinary lever on the wall and the whole party waits a few steps, to see if somthing bad happens. I think a lot of games could learn somthing from DDO in the trap department. But I also noticed that the newer content has a lot less of those cool, silly or deadly traps, and with this post I kinda want to encourage the dungeon engineers in the dev team, to get some more deadly devices up and running for future content. The worst thing that can happen to the player is, that he has to try again and if they learned something I don't thing that's half bad.
A spellward that cast flamestrike or wail of the banshee, sounds good. A teleport trap that splits the party, an interesting manouver. A pressure plate that blasts you of a bridge into a moat full of acid and hellhounds, spicy. A trap gauntlet on a small path while archers raining arrows down on you, count me in. Or a tripwire that colapses the floor below your feet, to make you fall in a pit with spellwards that summen animated bolders that what to roll you over, Ohh boy this is gonna get wild.
Traps are tools for the evil forces to hinder or straight up eviscerate the player. Because only a dead player is a good player. Traps make the dungeon an aktive player in the battle between good and evil, and trust me the dungeon is not on your side. Traps also help dungeons get a better rating on rent-a-lair.com.
I love how this game executes traps, most of the time they are fair but sometimes you just die before you realize what just happend. A good trap can be avoided, be it through some jumping around and get the timing right, or through a pipe that can just be opened with enough strength. A good trap should be a danger to the player and not just to slow them down(exept maybe if the goal is to catch a kobold). A good trap let's you have a chance to pass it alive without a trapper, but make it easier you for having a capable trapper. A good trap should reward you for running that dungeon 30+ times(mostly knowledge). A good trap does the same to a naive player as well as to a naive monster. A good trap shouldn't always be a good trap, somtimes it should just be an evil trap, that doesn't care about the players feelings and just transform the players body into a puddle of thick red fluid on the floor.
Here are 10 of my favorite trap Archetypes in no particular order.
- The traped trapbox: A good way to scare an artificer of and way to underutelized. Can be found in Chains of Flames and in a bit different in Haywire Foundry.
- The monster trap: What do you get if you combine monsters and traps? A suprise party haha! A Very good example are some hags in Ravenloft Castle and the occasional Cube in Rainbow in the dark and The Coalescence Chamber.
- Reverse expectation: When when you think you have outsmarted the trap, but now you are just where the trap wanted you to be all along. An example is found in the Tomb of the Forbidden when you run through the middle of the corridor and you get sliced by a blade trap, you think twice and just go near the wall in the next corridor, just to get sliced up again by the next blade trap.
- The kill room: I hope the puny chest was worth it because you will only leave this room in bite sized pieces(and I don't mean dragon bites). Found in Through a mirror Darkly and Tomb of the Forbidden
- The Alarm System: Only the most rich antgonist can get one of those babies. With real robots in Soul Survivor or with normal guards in GTA
- The Tripwire: Despite it's name it doesn't actually trip you, but it can do other wounderous thinks instead. For example alarm the enemies in Obstructing the Orcs or make the floor cruble in Danger at Dunwater.
- Spellwards: They can everything you want them to be, or nothing because the Sorcerer dispeled it. Plus points if it animates everything around it, like in What goes Up.
- The Wouderous Trap: Ever got your head smashed in by two big tree trunks while stuck in a bear trap? Yeah me neither I don't think that trap in Smash and Burn works correct(or has a minimal hitbox). But at least it looks cool.
- THE boulder Trap: Every one knows it, it's a classic. Best used in Undermine but other good contenders are Kind of a big Deal and the Palace of Stone.
- The Broken Floor: Nothing screams more, adventure and old tome, than a crumbling floor that reavels a hidden path or some deadly spikes. You can find quite a few of them in The Haunted Halls of Eveningstar or in Bullywugs and Booby Traps.
And that are just a few examples, there are many more out there. A lot of older quest have mastered the art of torturing the player and I love it, the anticipation when the rogue crouches to the ordinary lever on the wall and the whole party waits a few steps, to see if somthing bad happens. I think a lot of games could learn somthing from DDO in the trap department. But I also noticed that the newer content has a lot less of those cool, silly or deadly traps, and with this post I kinda want to encourage the dungeon engineers in the dev team, to get some more deadly devices up and running for future content. The worst thing that can happen to the player is, that he has to try again and if they learned something I don't thing that's half bad.
A spellward that cast flamestrike or wail of the banshee, sounds good. A teleport trap that splits the party, an interesting manouver. A pressure plate that blasts you of a bridge into a moat full of acid and hellhounds, spicy. A trap gauntlet on a small path while archers raining arrows down on you, count me in. Or a tripwire that colapses the floor below your feet, to make you fall in a pit with spellwards that summen animated bolders that what to roll you over, Ohh boy this is gonna get wild.
