Opinions On Concept

[*Strawberry Jam]

If you can avoid a trap by not just blindly rushing ahead then I don't think any effect is really out of bounds even instant death. You know like a crushing block that drops down from the ceiling every 30 seconds.

It's really context that matters, and for most ppl rushing to some of the strongest bosses with no preparation is also instant death.

[*Ariella]

Even in PnP, succeed or die traps are generally avoided.

Ahem.

It has taken so many good and foolish adventures. That's right walk through the pitch black door way, no one would be mean enough to put a sphere of annihilation on the other side.

[*Plaxy100]

Adrielle Tomb of Horrors was and will always be used as a referance for making extreamly Difficult Challenging modules to be defeated by those who claim to be Powerbuilders. you don't just RP those modules, you get a map out 4 players who claim to be badasses and attept to Horrify them.

[*rapsam2003]

Even in PnP, succeed or die traps are generally avoided.

Ahem.

I said "generally". There are exceptions. Tomb of Horrors-esque type of dungeons is not a common concept in the published adventures, even if it has been used as inspiration a lot by Homebrew campaigns.

[*Alersia]

Not? I used it for the mercuria interiors.

[*Gazoo]

I'll let this simmer and keep bumping it for opinions.. for a bit longer.

I put it up as I get an impression from many players that they quite prefer traps to be more of an atmospheric thing, than an actual bottleneck. I think it's better to understand the preference than to propose a bunch of things that would never get used.

For example:

I think on this note that maybe finagling with water breathing/drowning and maybe some underwater type caves and dungeons and maybe even elemental plane of water could be neat

Imho, something like this is much easier to do by making an area, design some parts of it to be "underwater", assign a heartbeat damage amount to PC and allies, etc but not to mobs. The end effect is the same and less scripting and possibly less strain on the server. In this case, the majority of the underwater effect is the area visual look, much of which can be atmospheric effects (almost no cpu resources).

It really makes no sense to make a mechanics trap for decoration if the goal is to bypass or sprint through to the next transition.

[*Ninefingers]

One thing to keep in mind with underwater areas is that there are many, many characters who will be quite happy to inform you that, per pnp rules, they don't actually breath. You wind up either a) ignoring them and having the effect apply universally, or b) create a situation where a potentially great threat is completely ignored by part of the population.

[*rapsam2003]

Not? I used it for the mercuria interiors.

There's not a lot of traps there?...