Dungeons

Dungeons are deep, dark pits filled with subterranean horrors and lost, ancient treasures. Dungeons are labyrinths where evil villains and carnivorous beasts hide from the light, waiting for a time to strike out into the sunlit lands of good. Dungeons contain pits of seething acid and magic traps that blast intruders with fire, as well as dragons guarding their hoards and magic artifacts waiting to be discovered.

In short, dungeons mean adventure.

The Dungeon as Adventure Setting

The term “dungeon” is a loose one. A dungeon is usually underground, but an aboveground site can be a dungeon as well. Some DMs apply the term to virtually any adventure site. For this discussion, a dungeon is an enclosed, defined space made up of encounter areas connected in some fashion.

The most common form of dungeon is an underground complex built by intelligent creatures for some purpose. Physically, such a place has rooms joined by corridors, stairs connecting it with the surface, and doors and traps to keep out intruders. The archetypal dungeon is abandoned, with creatures other than the builders now occupying areas within it. Adventurers explore such places with the hope of finding treasure either left behind by the original inhabitants or in the hoards of such squatters.

Types of Dungeons

The four basic dungeon types are defined by their current status. Many dungeons are variations on these basic types or combinations of more than one of them. Sometimes old dungeons are used again and again by different inhabitants for different purposes.

Ruined Structure: Once occupied, this place is now abandoned (completely or in part) by its original creator or creators, and other creatures have wandered in. Many subterranean creatures look for abandoned underground constructions in which to make their lairs. Any traps that might exist have probably been set off, but wandering beasts might very well be common.

Areas within the ruined structure usually contain clues to their original intended use. What is now the lair of a family of rust monsters might once have been an old barracks, the rotting remains of the beds and other furnishings now arranged to make nests for the creatures. An ancient throne room, adorned with the tatters of once-beautiful tapestries, might be empty and quiet⁠—the ancient curse that struck down the queen still hanging in the air before the verdigris-encrusted bronze throne.

A ruined structure dungeon is a place that cries out to be explored. Adventurers might hear tales of treasure still lingering in the abandoned labyrinth, leading them to brave the dangers to uncover it. This is the simplest and most straightforward of the dungeon types, and it usually balances danger (the inhabitants) with reward (the treasure). The creatures dwelling in a ruined structure aren’t necessarily organized, so PCs can usually come and go as they please, making it easy to start and stop an adventure.

Occupied Structure: This type of dungeon is still in use. Creatures (usually intelligent) live there, although they may not be the dungeon’s creators. An occupied structure might be a home, a fortress, a temple, an active mine, a prison, or a headquarters. This type of dungeon is less likely to have traps or wandering beasts, and more likely to have organized guards⁠—both on watch and on patrol. Traps or wandering beasts that might be encountered are usually under the control of the occupants. Occupied structures have furnishings to suit the inhabitants, as well as decorations, supplies, and the ability for occupants to move around (doors they can open, hallways large enough for them to pass through, and so on). The inhabitants might have a communication system, and they almost certainly control an access to the outside.

Some dungeons are partially occupied and partially empty or in ruins. In such cases, the occupants are typically not the original builders but instead a group of intelligent creatures that have set up their base, lair, or fortification within an abandoned dungeon.

Use an occupied structure dungeon for the lair of a goblin tribe, a secret underground fortress, or an occupied castle. This is one of the most challenging types of dungeons for adventurers to enter and explore, if the occupants are hostile. The challenge comes from the organized nature of the inhabitants. It’s always harder to fight a foe on his own terms in an area he knows well and is prepared to defend.

Safe Storage: When people want to protect something, they might bury it underground. Whether the item they want to protect is a fabulous treasure, a forbidden artifact, or the dead body of an important figure, these valuable objects are placed within a dungeon and surrounded by barriers, traps, and guardians.

The safe storage type of dungeon is the most likely to have traps but the least likely to have wandering beasts. The crypt of an ancient lich may be filled with all manner of magic traps and guardians, but it’s unlikely that any subterranean monsters have moved in and made a part of the dungeon their lair—the traps and guardians will have held them at bay. This type of dungeon normally is built for function rather than appearance, but sometimes it has ornamentation in the form of statuary or painted walls. This is particularly true of the tombs of important people.

Sometimes, however, a vault or a crypt is constructed in such a way as to house living guardians. The problem with this strategy is that something must be done to keep the creatures alive between intrusion attempts. Magic is usually the best solution to provide food and water for these creatures.

Even if there’s no way anything living can survive in a safe storage dungeon, certain monsters can still serve as guardians. Builders of vaults or tombs often place undead creatures or constructs, both of which which have no need for sustenance or rest, to guard their dungeons. Magic traps can attack intruders by summoning monsters into the dungeon. These guardians also need no sustenance, since they appear only when they’re needed and disappear when their task is done.

Natural Cavern Complex: Underground caves provide homes for all sorts of subterranean monsters. Created naturally and connected by a labyrinthine tunnel system, these caverns lack any sort of pattern, order, or decoration. With no intelligent force behind its construction, this type of dungeon is the least likely to have traps or even doors.

Fungi of all sorts thrive in caves, sometimes growing in huge forests of mushrooms and puffballs. Subterranean predators prowl these forests, looking for those feeding upon the fungi. Some varieties of fungus give off a phosphorescent glow, providing a natural cavern complex with its own limited light source. In other areas, a daylight spell or similar magical effect can provide enough light for green plants to grow.

Often, a natural cavern complex connects with another type of dungeons, the caves having been discovered when the manufactured dungeon was delved. A cavern complex can connect two otherwise unrelated dungeons, sometimes creating a strange mixed environment. A natural cavern complex joined with another dungeon often provides a route by which subterranean creatures find their way into a manufactured dungeon and populate it. Rumors in some places speak of the Underdark, a subterranean world that is one enormous natural cavern complex running under the surface of entire continents.

Natural cavern complexes can be quite beautiful, with stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone, columns, and other limestone formations. However, from an adventuring point of view they have a serious shortcoming: less treasure. Since the dungeon was not created for a specific purpose, there’s little chance of happening upon a secret room filled with gold left behind by the previous occupants.

Dungeon Terrain

Practically all dungeons have walls, floors, doors, and other kinds of common features. Adventurers quickly learn what the common features of a dungeon are—and you can use this fact to your advantage. Common features create consistency (which helps suspend disbelief ) and allow you to create interesting surprises by changing the features—sometimes only slightly. When the PCs enter a dungeon, it’s often useful to establish some conventions so that misunderstandings don’t crop up later.

Convention #1⁠—Default Elements: Tell your players what the floor is like, what the walls are made of, and how high the ceilings are. Say that you’ll let them know if any of these default elements change. That helps them imagine the dungeon, and it keeps you from having to repeat yourself. If most of the doors or tombs in your dungeon are identical, you can describe the first one in detail and add, “Unless I say otherwise, they’re all like this one.”

Convention #2⁠—On the Grid, Each Square Has One Feature: When you draw something such as a pool of shallow water on your map grid, any square that’s more than half covered by the pool is considered to have water in it, but squares that just have water in a small fraction of their area are considered dry. Using this convention means you don’t have to create straight-edged, unnatural-looking terrain features by forcing them to conform to a square grid that doesn’t exist in the game world.

Convention #3⁠—Establish Standard Procedures: Once the characters fall into a predictable pattern when confronted with some recurring kind of challenge such as a closed door, it’s okay to assume that the characters do that every time. For example, if the rogue always searches a door for traps, then makes a Listen check to hear what’s on the other side, then tries to pick the lock, you can establish that as the standard procedure. This convention saves time because you don’t have to wait for players to declare their characters’ actions before calling for the checks, and it helps the players because they won’t accidentally overlook a step in their standard procedure.

Walls

Sometimes, masonry walls⁠—stones piled on top of each other (usually but not always held in place with mortar)—divide dungeons into corridors and chambers. Dungeon walls can also be hewn from solid rock, leaving them with a rough, chiseled look. Or, dungeon walls can be the smooth, unblemished stone of a naturally occurring cave. Dungeon walls are difficult to break down or through, but they’re generally easy to climb.

Masonry Walls: The most common kind of dungeon wall, masonry walls are usually at least 1 foot thick. Often these ancient walls sport cracks and crevices, and sometimes dangerous slimes or small monsters live in these areas and wait for prey. Masonry walls stop all but the loudest noises. It takes a DC 20 Climb check to travel along a masonry wall.

Superior Masonry Walls: Sometimes masonry walls are better built (smoother, with tighter-fitting stones and less cracking), and occasionally these superior walls are covered with plaster or stucco. Covered walls often bear paintings, carved reliefs, or other decoration. Superior masonry walls are no more difficult to destroy than regular masonry walls but are more difficult to climb (DC 25).

Hewn Stone Walls: Such walls usually result when a chamber or passage is tunneled out from solid rock. The rough surface of a hewn wall frequently provides minuscule ledges where fungus grows and fissures where vermin, bats, and subterranean snakes live. When such a wall has an “other side” (it separates two chambers in the dungeon), the wall is usually at least 3 feet thick; anything thinner risks collapsing from the weight of all the stone overhead. It takes a DC 25 Climb check to climb a hewn stone wall.

Unworked Stone Walls: These surfaces are uneven and rarely flat. They are smooth to the touch but filled with tiny holes, hidden alcoves, and ledges at various heights. They’re also usually wet or at least damp, since it’s water that most frequently creates natural caves. When such a wall has an “other side,” the wall is usually at least 5 feet thick. It takes a DC 15 Climb check to move along an unworked stone wall.

Special Walls: Sometimes you can place special walls in a dungeon. Expect players to react with curiosity and suspicion when their characters encounter these unusual walls.

Reinforced Walls: These are masonry walls with iron bars on one or both sides of the wall, or placed within the wall to strengthen it. The hardness of a reinforced wall remains the same, but its hit points are doubled and the Strength check DC to break through it is increased by 10.

Iron Walls: These walls are placed within dungeons around important places such as vaults.

Paper Walls: Paper walls are the opposite of iron walls, placed as screens to block line of sight but nothing more.

Wooden Walls: Wooden walls often exist as recent additions to older dungeons, used to create animal pens, storage bins, or just to make a number of smaller rooms out of a larger one.

Magically Treated Walls: These walls are stronger than average, with a greater hardness, more hit points, and a higher break DC. Magic can usually double the hardness and hit points and can add up to 20 to the break DC. A magically treated wall also gains a saving throw against spells that could affect it, with the save bonus equaling 2 + one-half the caster level of the magic reinforcing the wall. Creating a magic wall requires the Craft Wondrous Item feat and the expenditure of 1,500 gp for each 10 foot-by-10-foot wall section.

Walls with Arrow Slits: Walls with arrow slits can be made of any durable material but are most commonly masonry, hewn stone, or wood. Such a wall allows defenders to fire arrows or crossbow bolts at intruders from behind the safety of the wall. Archers behind arrow slits have improved cover that gives them a +8 bonus to Armor Class, a +4 bonus on Reflex saves, and the benefits of the improved evasion class feature.

Walls, Doors, and Detect Spells

Stone walls, iron walls, and iron doors are usually thick enough to block most detect spells, such as detect thoughts. Wooden walls, wooden doors, and stone doors are usually not thick enough to do so. However, a secret stone door built into a wall and as thick as the wall itself (at least 1 foot) does block most detect spells.

Floors

As with walls, dungeon floors come in many types.

Flagstone: Like masonry walls, flagstone floors are made of fitted stones. They are usually cracked and only somewhat level. Slime and mold grows in these cracks. Sometimes water runs in rivulets between the stones or sits in stagnant puddles. Flagstone is the most common dungeon floor.

Uneven Flagstone: Over time, some floors can become so uneven that a DC 10 Balance check is required to run or charge across the surface. Failure means the character can’t move in this round. Floors as treacherous as this should be the exception, not the rule.

Hewn Stone Floors: Rough and uneven, hewn floors are usually covered with loose stones, gravel, dirt, or other debris. A DC 10 Balance check is required to run or charge across such a floor. Failure means the character can still act, but can’t run or charge in this round.

Light Rubble: Small chunks of debris litter the ground. Light rubble adds 2 to the DC of Balance and Tumble checks.

Dense Rubble: The ground is covered with debris of all sizes. It costs 2 squares of movement to enter a square with dense rubble. Dense rubble adds 5 to the DC of Balance and Tumble checks, and it adds 2 to the DC of Move Silently checks.

Smooth Stone Floors: Finished and sometimes even polished, smooth floors are found only in dungeons with capable and careful builders. (They are a hallmark of dwarf-delved dungeons.) Sometimes mosaics are set in the floor, some depicting interesting images and others just smooth marble.

Natural Stone Floors: The floor of a natural cave is as uneven as the walls. Caves rarely have flat surfaces of any great size. Rather, their floors have many levels. Some adjacent floor surfaces might vary in elevation by only a foot, so that moving from one to the other is no more difficult than negotiating a stair step, but in other places the floor might suddenly drop off or rise up several feet or more, requiring Climb checks to get from one surface to the other. Unless a path has been worn and well marked in the floor of a natural cave, it takes 2 squares of movement to enter a square with a natural stone floor, and the DC of Balance and Tumble checks increases by 5. Running and charging are impossible, except along paths.

Special Floors: A number of strange floorings and floor features exist to make a dungeon more interesting.

Slippery: Water, ice, slime, or blood can make any of the dungeon floors described in this section more treacherous. Slippery floors increase the DC of Balance and Tumble checks by 5.

Grate: A grate often covers a pit or an area lower than the main floor. Grates are usually made from iron, but large ones can also be made from iron-bound timbers. Many grates have hinges to allow access to what lies below (such grates can be locked like any door), while others are permanent and designed not to move. A typical 1-inch-thick iron grate has 25 hit points, hardness 10, and a DC of 27 for Strength checks to break through it or tear it loose.

Ledge: Ledges allow creatures to walk above some lower area. They often circle around pits, run along underground streams, form balconies around large rooms, or provide a place for archers to stand while firing upon enemies below. Narrow ledges (12 inches wide or less) require those moving along them to make Balance checks (see the Balance skill description for DCs). Failure results in the moving character falling off the ledge.

Ledges sometimes have railings. In such a case, characters gain a +5 circumstance bonus on Balance checks to move along the ledge. A character who is next to a railing gains a +2 circumstance bonus on his or her opposed Strength check to avoid being bull rushed off the edge.

Ledges can also have low walls 2 to 3 feet high along their edges. Such walls provide cover against attackers within 30 feet on the other side of the wall, as long as the target is closer to the low wall than the attacker is.

Transparent Floor: Transparent floors, made of reinforced glass or magic materials (even a wall of force), allow a dangerous setting to be viewed safely from above. Transparent floors are sometimes placed over lava pools, arenas, monster dens, and torture chambers. They can be used by defenders to watch key areas for intruders.

Sliding Floors: A sliding floor is a type of trapdoor, designed to be moved and thus reveal something that lies beneath it. A typical sliding floor moves so slowly that anyone standing on one can avoid falling into the gap it creates, assuming there’s somewhere else to go. If such a floor slides quickly enough that there’s a chance of a character falling into whatever lies beneath⁠—a spiked pit, a vat of burning oil, or a pool filled with sharks⁠—then it’s a trap.

Trap Floors: Some floors are designed to become suddenly dangerous. With the application of just the right amount of weight, or the pull of a lever somewhere nearby, spikes protrude from the floor, gouts of steam or flame shoot up from hidden holes, or the entire floor tilts. These strange floors are sometimes found in an arena, designed to make combats more exciting and deadly. Construct these floors as you would any other trap.

Doors

Doors in dungeons are much more than mere entrances and exits. Often they can be encounters all by themselves. After all, anything that can trigger a nasty trap, offer you a clue, zap you with a spell, or simply block your way deserves attention from the dungeon explorer. The doorways that doors are set in may be plain arches and lintels, or may be festooned with carvings⁠—often gargoyles or leering faces but sometimes carved words that might reveal a clue to what lies beyond. Dungeon doors come in three basic types: wooden, stone, and iron.

Wooden Doors: Constructed of thick planks nailed together, sometimes bound with iron for strength (and to reduce swelling from dungeon dampness), wooden doors are the most common type. Wooden doors come in varying strengths: simple, good, and strong doors. Simple doors (break DC 13) are not meant to keep out motivated attackers. Good doors (break DC 16), while sturdy and long-lasting, are still not meant to take much punishment. Strong doors (break DC 23) are bound in iron and are a sturdy barrier to those attempting to get past them.

Iron hinges fasten the door to its frame, and typically a circular pull-ring in the center is there to help open it. Sometimes, instead of a pull-ring, a door has an iron pull-bar on one or both sides of the door to serve as a handle. In inhabited dungeons, these doors are usually well maintained (not stuck) and unlocked, although important areas are locked up if possible.

Stone: Carved from solid blocks of stone, these heavy, unwieldy doors are often built so that they pivot when opened, although dwarves and other skilled craftsfolk are able to fashion hinges strong enough to hold up a stone door. Secret doors concealed within a stone wall are usually stone doors. Otherwise, such doors stand as tough barriers protecting something important beyond. Thus, they are often locked or barred.

Iron: Rusted but sturdy, iron doors in a dungeon are hinged like wooden doors. These doors are the toughest form of nonmagical door. They are usually locked or barred.

Locks, Bars, and Seals: Dungeon doors may be locked, trapped, reinforced, barred, magically sealed, or sometimes just stuck. All but the weakest characters can eventually knock down a door with a heavy tool such as a sledgehammer, and a number of spells and magic items give characters an easy way around a locked door.

Attempts to literally chop a door down with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon use the hardness and hit points given in the Door table. Often the easiest way to overcome a recalcitrant door is not by demolishing it but by breaking its lock, bar, or hinges. When assigning a DC to an attempt to knock a door down, use the following as guidelines:

DC 10 or Lower: a door just about anyone can break open.

DC 11-15: a door that a strong person could break with one try and an average person might be able to break with one try.

DC 16-20: a door that almost anyone could break, given time.

DC 21-25: a door that only a strong or very strong person has a hope of breaking, probably not on the first try.

DC 26 or Higher: a door that only an exceptionally strong person has a hope of breaking.

For specific examples in applying these guidelines, see Table 3–17: Random Door Types (page 78).

Locks: Dungeon doors are often locked, and thus the Open Lock skill comes in very handy. Locks are usually built into the door, either on the edge opposite the hinges or right in the middle of the door. Builtin locks either control an iron bar that juts out of the door and into the wall of its frame, or else a sliding iron bar or heavy wooden bar that rests behind the entire door. By contrast, padlocks are not built-in but usually run through two rings, one on the door and the other on the wall. More complex locks, such as combination locks and puzzle locks, are usually built into the door itself. Because such keyless locks are larger and more complex, they are typically only found in sturdy doors (strong wooden, stone, or iron doors).

The Open Lock DC to pick a lock often falls into the range of 20 to 30, although locks with lower or higher DCs can exist. A door can have more than one lock, each of which must be unlocked separately. Locks are often trapped, usually with poison needles that extend out to prick a rogue’s finger.

Breaking a lock is sometimes quicker than breaking the whole door. If a PC wants to whack at a lock with a weapon, treat the typical lock as having hardness 15 and 30 hit points. A lock can only be broken if it can be attacked separately from the door, which means that a built-in lock is immune to this sort of treatment.

Keep in mind that in an occupied dungeon, every locked door should have a key somewhere. If the adventurers are unable to pick a lock or break down the door, finding whoever has the key and getting it away from its possessor can be an interesting part of the adventure.

A special door (see below for examples) might have a lock with no key, instead requiring that the right combination of nearby levers must be manipulated or the right symbols must be pressed on a keypad in the correct sequence to open the door. You’re perfectly justified in ruling that some puzzle doors must be solved by the characters rather than being bypassed with an Open Lock check⁠—for example, if a door only unlocks when the riddle carved on it is correctly answered, then it’s up to the characters to solve the riddle.

Stuck Doors: Dungeons are often damp, and sometimes doors get stuck, particularly wooden doors. Assume that about 10% of wooden doors and 5% of nonwooden doors are stuck. These numbers can be doubled (to 20% and 10%, respectively) for long-abandoned or neglected dungeons. Table 3–17 (page 78) gives Strength check DCs to open various kinds of stuck doors.

Barred Doors: When characters try to bash down a barred door, it’s the quality of the bar that matters, not the material the door is made of. It takes a DC 25 Strength check to break through a door with a wooden bar, and a DC 30 Strength check if the bar is made of iron. Characters can attack the door and destroy it instead, leaving the bar hanging in the now-open doorway.

Magic Seals: In addition to magic traps (described in the traps section below), spells such as arcane lock can discourage passage through a door. A door with an arcane lock spell on it is considered locked even if it doesn’t have a physical lock. It takes a knock spell, a dispel magic spell, or a successful Strength check (DC equal to 10 + the value given on Table 3–17: Random Door Types, page 78) to get through such a door.

Hinges: Most doors have hinges. Obviously, sliding doors do not. (They usually have tracks or grooves instead, allowing them to slide easily to one side.)

Standard Hinges: These hinges are metal, joining one edge of the door to the doorframe or wall. Remember that the door swings open toward the side with the hinges. (So, if the hinges are on the PCs’ side, the door opens toward them; otherwise it opens away from them.) Adventurers can take the hinges apart one at a time with successful Disable Device checks (assuming the hinges are on their side of the door, of course). Such a task has a DC of 20 because most hinges are rusted or stuck. Breaking a hinge is difficult. Most have hardness 10 and 30 hit points. The break DC for a hinge is the same as for breaking down the door (see Table 3–17: Random Door Types, page 78).

Nested Hinges: These hinges are much more complex than ordinary hinges, and are found only in areas of excellent construction, such as an underground dwarven citadel. These hinges are built into the wall and allow the door to swing open in either direction. PCs can’t get at the hinges to fool with them unless they break through the doorframe or wall. Nested hinges are typically found on stone doors but sometimes on wooden or iron doors as well.

Pivots: Pivots aren’t really hinges at all, but simple knobs jutting from the top and bottom of the door that fit into holes in the doorframe, allowing the door to spin. The advantages of pivots is that they can’t be dismantled like hinges and they’re simple to make. The disadvantage is that since the door pivots on its center of gravity (typically in the middle), nothing larger than half the door’s width can fit through. Doors with pivots are usually stone and are often quite wide to overcome this disadvantage. Another solution is to place the pivot toward one side and have the door be thicker at that end and thinner toward the other end so that it opens more like a normal door. Secret doors in walls often turn on pivots, since the lack of hinges makes it easier to hide the door’s presence. Pivots also allow objects such as bookcases to be used as secret doors.

Special Doors: An interesting facet of a dungeon might be a sealed door too strong to break down. Such a door might be opened only by operating secret switches, or hidden (and distant) levers. Crafty builders make using the switches or levers more difficult by requiring that they be used in a special way. For example, a particular door might only open if a series of four levers is moved into a specific configuration—two pushed up and two pushed down. If a lever in the series is put in the wrong position, a trap is sprung. Now imagine how much more difficult it would be if there were a dozen or more levers, with multiple settings, spread out through the entire dungeon. Finding the method to open a special door (perhaps leading into the vault, the vampire’s lair, or the dragon’s secret temple) can be an adventure in itself.

Sometimes a door is special because of its construction. A leadlined door, for example, provides a barrier against many detection spells. A heavy iron door might be built in a circular design, rolling to one side on a track once it is opened. A mechanical door linked with levers or winches might not open unless the proper mechanism is activated. Such doors often sink into the floor, rise up into the ceiling, lower like a drawbridge, or slide into the wall rather than merely swinging open like a normal door.

Secret Doors: Disguised as a bare patch of wall (or floor, or ceiling), a bookcase, a fireplace, or a fountain, a secret door leads to a secret passage or room. Someone examining the area finds a secret door, if one exists, on a successful Search check (DC 20 for a typical secret door to DC 30 for a well-hidden secret door). Remember that elves have a chance to detect a secret door just by casually looking at an area.

Many secret doors require a special method of opening, such as a hidden button or pressure plate. Secret doors can open like normal doors, or they may pivot, slide, sink, rise, or even lower like a drawbridge to permit access. Builders might put a secret door down low near the floor or high up in a wall, making it difficult to find or reach. Wizards and sorcerers have a spell, phase door, that allows them to create a magic secret door that only they can use.

Magic Doors: Enchanted by the original builders, a door might speak to explorers, warning them away. It might be protected from harm, increasing its hardness or giving it more hit points as well as an improved saving throw bonus against disintegrate and other similar spells. A magic door might not lead into the space revealed beyond, but instead it might be a portal to a faraway place or even another plane of existence. Other magic doors might require passwords or special keys (ranging from the tail feather of an evil eagle, to a note played upon a lute, to a certain frame of mind) to open them. Effectively, the range and variety of magic doors is limited only by your imagination.

Door Traps: More often than just about any other facet of a dungeon, doors are protected by traps. The reason is pretty obvious⁠—an opened door means an intruder. A mechanical trap can be connected to a door by wires or springs so that it activates when the door is opened⁠—firing an arrow, releasing a cloud of gas, opening a trapdoor, letting loose a monster, dropping a heavy block on intruders, or whatever. Magic traps such as glyphs of warding typically are cast directly on the door, blasting intruders with flame or some other magical attack.

Portcullises: These special doors consist of iron or thick, ironbound, wooden shafts that descend from a recess in the ceiling above an archway. Sometimes a portcullis has crossbars that create a grid, sometimes not. Typically raised by means of a winch or a capstan, a portcullis can be dropped quickly, and the shafts end in spikes to discourage anyone from standing underneath (or from attempting to dive under it as it drops). Once it is dropped, a portcullis locks, unless it is so large that no normal person could lift it anyway. In any event, lifting a typical portcullis requires a DC 25 Strength check.

Rooms

Rooms in dungeons vary in shape and size. Although many are simple in construction and appearance, particularly interesting rooms have multiple levels joined by stairs, ramps, or ladders, as well as statuary, altars, pits, chasms, bridges, and more.

Keep three things in mind when designing a dungeon room: decoration, ceiling support, and exits.

Most kinds of intelligent creatures have a tendency to decorate their lairs. It should be fairly commonplace to find carvings or paintings on the walls of dungeon rooms. Exploring adventurers also often encounter statues and bas reliefs, as well as scrawled messages, marks, and maps left behind by others who have come this way before. Some of these marks amount to little more than graffiti (“Robilar was here”), while others may be useful to adventurers who examine them closely.

Underground chambers are prone to collapse, so many rooms⁠—particularly large ones⁠—have arched ceilings or pillars to support the weight of the rock overhead.

Pay close attention to the exits. Creatures that can’t open doors can’t make a lair in a sealed room without some sort of external assistance. Strong creatures without the ability to open doors smash them down if necessary. Burrowing creatures might dig their own exits.

In general, both the PCs and the monsters should be able to move around a room without too much difficulty. Fighting a battle in particularly tight quarters can make for an interesting change of pace, however.

Common dungeon rooms fall into the following broad categories. Use them as a springboard for your own creations, not as a limited list.

Guard Post: Intelligent, social denizens of the dungeon will generally have a series of adjacent rooms they consider “theirs,” and they’ll guard the entrances to that common area. A guard post may just be a room with a table where bored gnolls play a dice game. Or it might be a pair of iron golems backed up by two fireball-casting drow wizards hiding in balconies overhead. When you design a guard post, decide how many guards are on duty, note their Listen and Spot modifiers, and decide what they do when they notice intruders. Some will rush headlong into a fight, while others will negotiate, sound an alarm, or retreat to get help.

Living Quarters: All but the most nomadic creatures have a lair where they can rest, eat, and store their treasure. Living quarters commonly include beds (if the creature sleeps), possessions (both valuable and mundane), and some sort of food preparation area (anything from a well-stocked kitchen to a fire pit to a hunk of rotting venison). Noncombatant creatures such as juveniles and the elderly are often found here.

Work Area: The bugbear fletcher has an alcove where she makes new arrows for the tribe. The mind flayers have a grisly torture chamber where they bring their stunned victims for brain extraction. Most intelligent creatures do more than just guard, eat, and sleep, and many devote rooms to magic laboratories, workshops for weapons and armor, or studios for more esoteric tasks.

Shrine: The ogre in the cave keeps a candle lit next to the skull of her child, which was killed by human hunters. The kuo-toas have a series of underwater altars dedicated to their dread god Blibdoolpoolp. Any creature that is particularly religious may have some place dedicated to worship, and others may venerate something of great historical or personal value. Depending on the creature’s resources and piety, a shrine can be humble or extensive. A shrine is where PCs will likely encounter NPC clerics, and it’s common for wounded monsters to flee to a shrine friendly to them when they seek healing.

Vault: Well protected, often by a locked iron door, a vault is a special room that contains treasure. There’s usually only one entrance⁠—an appropriate place for a trap.

Crypt: Although sometimes constructed like a vault, a crypt can also be a series of individual rooms, each with its own sarcophagus, or a long hall with recesses on either side⁠—shelves to hold coffins or bodies. Wise adventurers expect to encounter undead in a crypt, but are often willing to risk it to look for the treasure that’s often buried with the dead. Crypts of most cultures are well appointed and highly decorated, since the fact that the crypt was created at all shows great reverence for the dead entombed within.

Those who are worried about undead rising from the grave take the precaution of locking and trapping a crypt from the outside⁠— making the crypt easy to get into but difficult to leave. Those worried about tomb robbers make their crypts difficult to get into. Some builders do both, just to be on the safe side.

Corridors

Stretching into the darkness, a mysterious, cobweb-filled passage deeper into the dungeon can be intriguing and a little frightening. All dungeons have rooms, and most have corridors. While most corridors simply connect rooms, sometimes they can be encounter areas in their own right because of traps, guard patrols, and wandering monsters out on the hunt.

When designing a dungeon, make sure the corridors are large enough for the dungeon residents to use. (For example, a dragon needs a pretty big tunnel to get in and out of its lair.) Wealthy, powerful, or talented dungeon builders may favor wide corridors to give a grand appearance to their residences. Otherwise, passages are no larger than they need to be. (Tunneling is expensive, back-breaking, and time-consuming work.) Corridors narrower than 10 feet can make it difficult for all the members of the PC party to get involved in any fights that occur, so make them the exception rather than the rule.

Corridor Traps: Because passageways in dungeons tend to be narrow, offering few movement options, dungeon builders like to place traps in them. In a cramped passageway, there’s no way for intruders to move around concealed pits, falling stones, arrow traps, tilting floors, and sliding or rolling rocks that fill the entire passage. For the same reason, magic traps such as glyphs of warding are effective in hallways as well.

Mazes: Usually, passages connect chambers in the simplest and straightest manner possible. Some dungeon builders, however, design a maze or a labyrinth within the dungeon. This sort of construction is difficult to navigate (or at least to navigate quickly) and, when filled with monsters or traps, can be an effective barrier. A maze can be used to cut off one area of the dungeon, deflecting intruders away from a protected spot. Generally, though, the far side of a maze holds an important crypt or vault⁠—someplace that the dungeon’s regular inhabitants rarely need to get to.

Miscellaneous Features

Any dungeon is made more interesting by the inclusion of some or all of the following features.

Stairs: The usual way to connect different levels of a dungeon is with stairs. Straight stairways, spiral staircases, or stairwells with multiple landings between flights of stairs are all common in dungeons, as are ramps (sometimes with an incline so slight that it can be difficult to notice; Spot DC 15). Stairs are important accessways, and are sometimes guarded or trapped. Traps on stairs often cause intruders to slide or fall down to the bottom, where a pit, spikes, a pool of acid, or some other danger awaits.

Gradual Stairs: Stairs that rise less than 5 feet for every 5 feet of horizontal distance they cover don’t affect movement, but characters who attack a foe below them gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls from being on higher ground. Most stairs in dungeons are gradual, except for spiral stairs (see below).

Steep Stairs: Characters moving up steep stairs (which rise at a 45- degree angle or steeper) must spend 2 squares of movement to enter each square of stairs. Characters running or charging down steep stairs must succeed on a DC 10 Balance check upon entering the first steep stairs square. Characters who fail stumble and must end their movement 1d2×5 feet later. Characters who fail by 5 or more take 1d6 points of damage and fall prone in the square where they end their movement.

Steep stairs increase the DC of Tumble checks by 5.

Spiral Stairs: This form of steep stairs is designed to make defending a fortress easier. Characters gain cover against foes below them on spiral stairs because they can easily duck around the staircase’s central support.

Railings and Low Walls: Stairs that are open to large rooms often have railings or low walls. They function as described for ledges.

Bridge: A bridge connects two higher areas separated by a lower area, stretching across a chasm, over a river, or above a pit. A simple bridge might be a single wooden plank, while an elaborate one could be made of mortared stone with iron supports and side rails. Narrow Bridge: If a bridge is particularly narrow, such as a series of planks laid over lava fissures, treat it as a ledge. It requires a Balance check (DC dependent on width) to cross such a bridge.

Rope Bridge: Constructed of wooden planks suspended from ropes, a rope bridge is convenient because it’s portable and can be easily removed. It takes two full-round actions to untie one end of a rope bridge, but a DC 15 Use Rope check reduces the time to a move action. If only one of the two supporting ropes is attached, everyone on the bridge must succeed on a DC 15 Reflex save to avoid falling off, and thereafter must make DC 15 Climb checks to move along the remnants of the bridge.

Rope bridges are usually 5 feet wide. The two ropes that support them have 8 hit points each.

Drawbridge: Some bridges have mechanisms that allow them to be extended or retracted from the gap they cross. Typically, the winch mechanism exists on only one side of the bridge. It takes a move action to lower a drawbridge, but the bridge doesn’t come down until the beginning of the lowering character’s next turn. It takes a full-round action to raise a drawbridge; the drawbridge is up at the end of the action.

Particularly long or wide drawbridges may take more time to raise and lower, and some may require Strength checks to rotate the winch.

Railings and Low Walls: Some bridges have railings or low walls along the sides. If a bridge does, the railing or low walls affect Balance checks and bull rush attempts as described for ledges. Low walls likewise provide cover to bridge occupants.

Chutes and Chimneys: Stairs aren’t the only way to move up and down in a dungeon. Sometimes a vertical shaft connects levels of a dungeon or links a dungeon with the surface. Chutes are usually traps that dump characters into a lower area—often a place featuring some dangerous situation with which they must contend.

Pillar: A common sight in any dungeon, pillars and columns give support to ceilings. The larger the room, the more likely it has pillars. As a rule of thumb, the deeper in the dungeon a room is, the thicker the pillars need to be to support the overhead weight. Pillars tend to be polished and often have carvings, paintings, or inscriptions upon them.

Slender Pillar: These pillars are only a foot or two across, so they don’t occupy a whole square. Place a dot in the center of each square that has a slender pillar in it, and don’t worry about exactly how much space it takes up. A creature standing in the same square as a slender pillar gains a +2 cover bonus to Armor Class and a +1 cover bonus on Reflex saves (these bonuses don’t stack with cover bonuses from other sources). The presence of a slender pillar does not otherwise affect a creature’s fighting space, because it’s assumed that the creature is using the pillar to its advantage when it can. A typical slender pillar has AC 4, hardness 8, and 250 hit points.

Wide Pillar: These pillars take up an entire square and provide cover to anyone behind them. They have AC 3, hardness 8, and 900 hit points.

A DC 20 Climb check is sufficient to climb most pillars; the DC increases to 25 for polished or unusually slick ones.

Stalagmite/Stalactite: These tapering natural rock columns extend from the floor (stalagmite) or the ceiling (stalactite). Stalagmites and stalactites function as slender pillars, although it is rumored that deep in the Underdark, some wide stalagmites and stalactites exist.

Statue: Reflections of bygone days, statues found in dungeons can be realistic depictions of persons, creatures, or scenes, or they can be less lifelike in their imagery. Statues often serve as commemorative representations of people from the past as well as idols of gods. Statues may be either painted or left bare. Some have inscriptions. Adventurers wisely distrust statues in dungeons for fear that they may animate and attack, as a stone golem can do. Statues in a dungeon could also be a sign indicating the presence of a monster with a petrifying power (such as a medusa or a cockatrice). Feel free to utilize both of these ideas, but don’t forget that sometimes a statue is just a statue.

Most statues function as wide pillars, taking up a square and providing cover. Some statues are smaller and act as slender pillars. A DC 15 Climb check allows a character to climb a statue.

Tapestry: Elaborately embroidered patterns or scenes on cloth, tapestries hang from the walls of well-appointed dungeon rooms or corridors. They not only make chambers more comfortable as a residence but can add a ceremonial touch to shrines and throne rooms. Crafty builders take advantage of tapestries to place alcoves, concealed doors, or secret switches behind them. Sometimes the images in a tapestry contain clues to the nature of the builders, the inhabitants, or the dungeon itself.

Tapestries provide total concealment (50% miss chance) to characters behind them if they’re hanging from the ceiling, or concealment (20% miss chance) if they’re flush with the wall. Climbing a big tapestry isn’t particularly difficult, requiring a DC 15 Climb check (or DC 10 if a wall is within reach).

Pedestal: Anything important on display in a dungeon, from a fabulous treasure to a coffin, tends to rest atop a pedestal or a dais. Raising the object off the floor focuses attention on it (and, in practical terms, keeps it safe from any water or other substance that might seep onto the floor). A pedestal is often trapped to protect whatever sits atop it. It can conceal a secret trapdoor beneath itself or provide a way to reach a door in the ceiling above itself. Only the largest pedestals take up an entire square; most provide no cover.

Pool: Pools of water collect naturally in low spots in dungeons (a dry dungeon is rare). Pools can also be wells or natural underground springs, or they can be intentionally created basins, cisterns, and fountains. In any event, water is fairly common in dungeons, harboring sightless fish and sometimes aquatic monsters. Pools provide water for dungeon denizens, and thus are as important an area for a predator to control as a watering hole aboveground in the wild.

Shallow Pool: If a square contains a shallow pool, it has roughly 1 foot of standing water. It costs 2 squares of movement to move into a square with a shallow pool, and the DC of Tumble checks in such squares increases by 2.

Deep Pool: These squares have at least 4 feet of standing water. It costs Medium or larger creatures 4 squares of movement to move into a square with a deep pool, or characters can swim if they wish. Small or smaller creatures must swim to move through a square containing a deep pool. Tumbling is impossible in a deep pool.

The water in a deep pool provides cover for Medium or larger creatures. Smaller creatures gain improved cover (+8 bonus to AC, +4 bonus on Reflex saves). Medium or larger creatures can crouch as a move action to gain this improved cover. Creatures with this improved cover take a –10 penalty on attacks against creatures that aren’t also underwater.

Deep pool squares are usually clustered together and surrounded by a ring of shallow pool squares.

Both shallow pools and deep pools impose a –⁠2 circumstance penalty on Move Silently checks.

Special Pools: Through accident or design, a pool can become magically enhanced. Rarely, a pool or a fountain may be found that has the ability to bestow beneficial magic on those who drink from it⁠—healing, ability score modification, transmutation magic, or even something as amazing as a wish spell. However, magic pools are just as likely to curse the drinker, causing a loss of health, an unwanted polymorphing, or some even greater affliction. Typically, water from a magic pool loses its potency if removed from the pool for more than an hour or so.

Some pools have fountains. Occasionally these are merely decorative, but they often serve as the focus of a trap or the source of a pool’s magic.

Most pools are made of water, but anything’s possible in a dungeon. Pools can hold unsavory substances such as blood, poison, oil, or magma. And even if a pool holds water, it can be holy water, saltwater, or water tainted with disease.

Elevator: In place of or in addition to stairs, an elevator (essentially an oversized dumbwaiter) can take inhabitants from one dungeon level to the next. Such an elevator may be mechanical (using gears, pulleys, and winches) or magical (such as a levitate spell cast on a movable flat surface). A mechanical elevator might be as small as a platform that holds one character at a time, or as large as an entire room that raises and lowers. A clever builder might design an elevator room that moves up or down without the occupants’ knowledge to catch them in a trap, or one that appears to have moved when it actually remained still.

A typical elevator ascends or descends 10 feet per round at the beginning of the operator’s turn (or on initiative count 0 if it functions without regard to whether creatures are on it. Elevators can be enclosed, can have railings or low walls, or may simply be treacherous floating platforms.

Ladders: Whether free-standing or rungs set into a wall, a ladder requires a DC 0 Climb check to ascend or descend.

Shifting Stone or Wall: These features can cut off access to a passage or room, trapping adventurers in a dead end or preventing escape out of the dungeon. Shifting walls can force explorers to go down a dangerous path or prevent them from entering a special area. Not all shifting walls need be traps. For example, stones controlled by pressure plates, counterweights, or a secret lever can shift out of a wall to become a staircase leading to a hidden upper room or secret ledge.

Shifting stones and walls are generally constructed as traps (see page 67), with triggers and Search and Disable Device DCs. However they don’t have Challenge Ratings because they’re inconveniences, not deadly in and of themselves.

Teleporters: Sometimes useful, sometimes devious, places in a dungeon rigged with a teleportation effect (such as a teleportation circle) transport characters to some other location in the dungeon or someplace far away. They can be traps, teleporting the unwary into dangerous situations, or they can be an easy mode of transport for those who built or live in the dungeon, good for bypassing barriers and traps or simply to get around more quickly. Devious dungeon designers might place a teleporter in a room that transports characters to another seemingly identical room so that they don’t even know they’ve been teleported. A detect magic spell will provide a clue to the presence of a teleporter, but direct experimentation or other research is the only way to discover where the teleporter leads.

Altars: Temples⁠—particularly to dark gods⁠—often exist underground. Usually taking the form of a stone block, an altar is the main fixture and central focus of such a temple. Sometimes all the other trappings of the temple are long gone, lost to theft, age, and decay, but the altar survives. Some altars have traps or powerful magic within them. Most take up one or two squares on the grid and provide cover to creatures behind them.

Cave-ins and Collapses (CR 8)

Cave-ins and collapsing tunnels are extremely dangerous. Not only do dungeon explorers face the danger of being crushed by tons of falling rock, even if they survive they may be buried beneath a pile of rubble or cut off from the only known exit. A cave-in buries anyone in the middle of the collapsing area, and then sliding debris damages anyone in the periphery of the collapse. A typical corridor subject to a cave-in might have a bury zone with a 15-foot radius and a 10-foot-radius slide zone extending beyond the bury zone.

A weakened ceiling can be spotted with a DC 20 Knowledge (architecture and engineering) or DC 20 Craft (stonemasonry) check. Remember that Craft checks can be made untrained as Intelligence checks. A dwarf can make such a check if he simply passes within 10 feet of a weakened ceiling.

A weakened ceiling may collapse when subjected to a major impact or concussion. A character can cause a cave-in by destroying half the pillars holding the ceiling up. If you want to create a room where a collapse is a real possibility, include a number of pillars that have already toppled before the PCs arrive. (The presence of broken pillars is an obvious clue to a weakened ceiling, even for characters with no particular knowledge.)

Characters in the bury zone of a cave-in take 8d6 points of damage, or half that amount if they make a DC 15 Reflex save. They are subsequently buried. Characters in the slide zone take 3d6 points of damage, or no damage at all if they make a DC 15 Reflex save. Characters in the slide zone who fail their saves are buried.

Characters take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage per minute while buried. If such a character falls unconscious, he must make a DC 15 Constitution check. If it fails, he takes 1d6 points of lethal damage each minute thereafter until freed or dead.

Characters who aren’t buried can dig out their friends. In 1 minute, using only her hands, a character can clear rocks and debris equal to five times her heavy load limit (see Carrying Capacity). The amount of loose stone that fills a 5-foot-by-5-foot area weighs one ton (2,000 pounds). Therefore, the average adventurer (Str 10, heavy load limit 100 lb.) takes 4 minutes to clear a 5-foot cube filled with stone (100 lb. × 5 = 500 lb.; 500 lb. × 4 = 2,000 lb.). A half-orc with 20 Strength (heavy load limit 400 lb.) can accomplish the same feat in 1 minute (400 lb. × 5 = 2,000 lb.). Armed with an appropriate tool, such as a pick, crowbar, or shovel, a digger can clear loose stone twice as quickly as by hand. You may allow a buried character to free himself with a DC 25 Strength check.

Illumination

Some dungeons are well-lighted, while others are as dark as pitch. The illumination in a dungeon you create should depend on two factors: the monsters that inhabit it and your preference as a DM.

Obviously, monsters without any way to see in the dark will carry light with them or keep the areas they frequent illuminated. On the opposite end of the spectrum, creatures with blindsight and tremorsense can often do without light. In general, smart monsters will keep the lights off if they’re worried about attacks from humans and other creatures that can’t see in the dark. And less intelligent monsters may live in the dark simply because they haven’t mastered the crafts of magic or making fire.

Creatures with 60-foot darkvision fall somewhere between the two extremes. They have an advantage against creatures without darkvision if they fight in the dark. On the other hand, few intelligent creatures will willingly live their day-to-day lives in black and white when a simple torch or 0-level spell would let them see colors. Many underground civilizations keep “safe” areas lighted, but douse their lanterns if they’re warned of intruders from the surface world.

Another aspect of darkvision to consider is its limited range. Creatures who live in a vast underground cavern might have torches to light the entrance, which otherwise they couldn’t see because it’s more than 60 feet away from much of the cavern. Because regular vision extends until it’s blocked, their guards can see without being seen—a major tactical advantage.

You may want to have combat in the dark sparingly because it can be frustrating for the players, who spend much of their time guessing which squares their foes are in. A fight in the darkness is also harder for you to keep track of, because you have to know where every unseen foe is. It may be easier for you and the players to simply establish the convention that in this dungeon, torches are set in sconces every 40 feet along the walls. But done sparingly and well, a fight in the darkness can turn into an exciting cat-and-mouse game, in which characters with good Listen scores really have a chance to shine.

Random Features and Furnishings

The Major Features and Furnishings table is a list of large or predominant features commonly found in dungeons. Use this table as a feature generator when creating a random dungeon or to round out one you are creating. Adventures can also come across small bits and contents of dungeon rooms while exploring. Use the Minor Features and Furnishings table to generate these contents randomly, or pick what appeals to you from the list.

Traps

In a dungeon, adventurers can fall to their deaths, be burned alive, or find themselves peppered with poisoned darts—all without ever having encountered a single monster. Dungeons tend to be filled with barriers or life-threatening traps of one kind or another. The following section describes how traps work, provides a large selection of sample traps, and offers some basic rules for trap creation.

Types of Traps: A trap can be either mechanical or magic in nature. Mechanical traps include pits, arrow traps, falling blocks, water-filled rooms, whirling blades, and anything else that depends on a mechanism to operate. A mechanical trap can be constructed by a PC through successful use of the Craft (trapmaking) skill (see Designing a Trap).

Magic traps are further divided into spell traps and magic device traps. Magic device traps initiate spell effects when activated, just as wands, rods, rings, and other magic items do. Creating a magic device trap requires the Craft Wondrous Item feat (see Designing a Trap).

Spell traps are simply spells that themselves function as traps, such as fire trap or glyph of warding. Creating a spell trap requires the services of a character who can cast the needed spell or spells, who is usually either the character creating the trap or an NPC spellcaster hired for the purpose.

Mechanical Traps

Dungeons are frequently equipped with deadly mechanical (nonmagical) traps, such as hidden crossbows that fire when the target unwittingly steps on a trigger plate on the floor, or hallways rigged to collapse in a deadly cave-in. A trap typically is defined by its location and triggering conditions, how hard it is to spot before it goes off, how much damage it deals, and whether or not the heroes receive a saving throw to mitigate its effects. Traps that attack with arrows, sweeping blades, and other types of weaponry make normal attack rolls, with a specific attack bonus dictated by the trap’s design.

Creatures who succeed on a DC 20 Search check detect a simple mechanical trap before it is triggered. (A simple trap is a snare, a trap triggered by a tripwire, or a large trap such as a pit.)

A character with the trap sense class feature who succeeds on a DC 21 (or higher) Search check detects a well-hidden or complex mechanical trap before it is triggered. Complex traps are denoted by their triggering mechanisms and involve pressure plates, mechanisms linked to doors, changes in weight, disturbances in the air, vibrations, and other sorts of unusual triggers.

Magic Traps

Many spells can be used to create dangerous traps. For example, high-level clerics can create glyphs of warding or symbol spells to prevent intruders from entering a particular area, while high-level wizards can create fire traps or permanent images to conceal dangers or confuse invaders. Unless the spell or item description states otherwise, assume the following to be true.

• A successful Search check (DC 25 + spell level) made by a character with the trapfinding class ability (such as a rogue) detects a magic trap before it goes off. Other characters have no chance to find a magic trap with a Search check.
• Magic traps permit a saving throw in order to avoid the effect (DC 10 + spell level × 1.5).
• Magic traps may be disarmed by a rogue (and only a rogue) with a successful Disable Device check (DC 25 + spell level).

Elements of a Trap

All traps⁠—mechanical or magic⁠—have the following elements: trigger, reset, Search DC, Disable Device DC, attack bonus (or saving throw or onset delay), damage/effect, and Challenge Rating. Some traps may also include optional elements, such as poison or a bypass. These characteristics are described below.

Trigger

A trap’s trigger determines how it is sprung. Location: A location trigger springs a trap when someone stands in a particular square. For example, a covered pit trap typically activates when a creature steps on a certain spot.

Proximity: This trigger activates the trap when a creature approaches within a certain distance of it. A proximity trigger differs from a location trigger in that the creature need not be standing in a particular square. Creatures that are flying can spring a trap with a proximity trigger but not one with a location trigger. Mechanical proximity triggers are extremely sensitive to the slightest change in the air. This makes them useful only in places such as crypts, where the air is unusually still.

The proximity trigger used most often for magic device traps is the alarm spell. Unlike when the spell is cast, an alarm spell used as a trigger can have an area that’s no larger than the area the trap is meant to protect.

Some magic device traps have special proximity triggers that activate only when certain kinds of creatures approach. For example, a detect good spell can serve as a proximity trigger on an evil altar, springing the attached trap only when someone of good alignment gets close enough to it.

Sound: This trigger springs a magic trap when it detects any sound. A sound trigger functions like an ear and has a +15 bonus on Listen checks. A successful Move Silently check, magical silence, and other effects that would negate hearing defeat it. A trap with a sound trigger requires the casting of clairaudience during its construction.

Visual: This trigger for magic traps works like an actual eye, springing the trap whenever it “sees” something. A trap with a visual trigger requires the casting of arcane eye, clairvoyance, or true seeing during its construction. Sight range and the Spot bonus conferred on the trap depend on the spell chosen, as shown.

If you want the trap to “see” in the dark, you must either choose the true seeing option or add darkvision to the trap as well. (Darkvision limits the trap’s sight range in the dark to 60 feet.) If invisibility, disguises, or illusions can fool the spell being used, they can fool the visual trigger as well.

Touch: A touch trigger, which springs the trap when touched, is one of the simplest kinds of trigger to construct. This trigger may be physically attached to the part of the mechanism that deals the damage (such as a needle that springs out of a lock), or it may not. You can make a magic touch trigger by adding alarm to the trap and reducing the area of the effect to cover only the trigger spot.

Timed: This trigger periodically springs the trap after a certain duration has passed. A sharpened blade that thrusts out from a slit in a corridor wall every 4 rounds is an example of a timed trigger.

Spell: All spell traps have this kind of trigger. The appropriate spell descriptions explain the trigger conditions for traps that contain spell triggers.

Reset

A reset element is the set of conditions under which a trap becomes ready to trigger again.

No Reset: Short of completely rebuilding the trap, there’s no way to trigger it more than once. Spell traps have no reset element.

Repair: To get the trap functioning again, you must repair it.

Manual: Resetting the trap requires someone to move the parts back into place. This is the kind of reset element most mechanical traps have.

Automatic: The trap resets itself, either immediately or after a timed interval.

Repairing and Resetting Mechanical Traps

Repairing a mechanical trap requires a Craft (trapmaking) check against a DC equal to the one for building it. The cost for raw materials is one-fifth of the trap’s original market price. To calculate how long it takes to fix a trap, use the same calculations you would for building it, but use the cost of the raw materials required for repair in place of the market price.

Resetting a trap usually takes only a minute or so⁠—someone just has to lever the trapdoor back into place, reload the crossbow behind the wall, or push the poisoned needle back into the lock. For a trap with a more difficult reset method, you should set the time and labor required.

Bypass (Optional Element)

If the builder of a trap wants to be able to move past the trap after it is created or placed, it’s a good idea to build in a bypass mechanism⁠—something that temporarily disarms the trap. Bypass elements are typically used only with mechanical traps; spell traps usually have built-in allowances for the caster to bypass them.

Lock: A lock bypass requires a DC 30 Open Lock check to open.

Hidden Switch: A hidden switch requires a DC 25 Search check to locate.

Hidden Lock: A hidden lock combines the features above, requiring a DC 25 Search check to locate and a DC 30 Open Lock check to open.

Search and Disable Device DCs

The builder sets the Search and Disable Device DCs for a mechanical trap. For a magic trap, the values depend on the highest-level spell used.

Mechanical Trap: The base DC for both Search and Disable Device checks is 20. Raising or lowering either of these DCs affects the base cost (Table 3–15) and possibly the CR (Table 3–13).

Magic Trap: The DC for both Search and Disable Device checks is equal to 25 + the spell level of the highest-level spell used. Only characters with the trap sense class feature can attempt a Search check or a Disable Device check involving a magic trap. These DCs do not affect the trap’s cost or CR.

Attack Bonus/Saving Throw DC

A trap usually either makes an attack roll or forces a saving throw to avoid it. Occasionally a trap uses both of these options, or neither (see Never Miss).

Pits: These are holes (covered or not) that characters can fall into and take damage. A pit needs no attack roll, but a successful Reflex save (DC set by the builder) avoids it. Other save-dependent mechanical traps also fall into this category.

Pits in dungeons come in three basic varieties: uncovered, covered, and chasms. Like a cliff or a wall, a pit or a chasm forces characters to either detour around it or take the time and trouble to figure out a way across. Pits and chasms can be defeated by judicious application of the Climb skill, the Jump skill, or various magical means.

Uncovered pits serve mainly to discourage intruders from going a certain way, although they cause much grief to characters who stumble into them in the dark, and they can greatly complicate a melee taking place nearby.

Covered pits are much more dangerous. They can be detected with a DC 20 Search check, but only if the character is taking the time to carefully examine the area before walking across it. A character who fails to detect a covered pit is still entitled to a DC 20 Reflex save to avoid falling into it. However, if she was running or moving recklessly at the time, she gets no saving throw and falls automatically.

Trap coverings can be as simple as piled refuse (straw, leaves, sticks, garbage), a large rug, or an actual trapdoor concealed to appear as a normal part of the floor. Such a trapdoor usually swings open when enough weight (usually about 50 to 80 pounds) is placed upon it. Devious trap builders sometimes design trapdoors so that they spring back shut after they open, ready for the next victim. The trapdoor might lock once it’s back in place, leaving the stranded character well and truly trapped. Opening such a trapdoor is just as difficult as opening a regular door (assuming the trapped character can reach it), and a DC 13 Strength check is needed to keep a spring-loaded door open.

Pit traps often have something nastier than just a hard floor at the bottom. A trap designer may put spikes, monsters, or a pool of acid, lava, or even water at the bottom (since even a victim proficient in swimming will tire and drown if trapped long enough).

Spikes at the bottom of a pit may impale unlucky characters. The spikes deal damage as daggers with a +10 attack bonus and a +1 bonus on damage for every 10 feet of the fall (to a maximum bonus on damage of +5). If the pit has multiple spikes, a falling victim is attacked by 1d4 of them. This damage is in addition to any damage from the fall itself.

Monsters sometimes live in pits⁠—oozes and jellies find that plenty of food comes to them if the trapped area is well traveled. Any monster that can fit into the pit might have been placed there by the dungeon’s designer, or might simply have fallen in and not been able to climb back out. In the latter case, either it hasn’t been there long, or something has been feeding it. If the pit has water, the builder may have stocked it with small carnivorous fish. Monsters that need no sustenance, such as undead and constructs, make the best choices for creatures to inhabit a pit.

A secondary trap, mechanical or magical, at the bottom of a pit can be particularly deadly. Activated by a falling victim, the secondary trap attacks the already injured character when she’s least ready for it. Arrow traps, blasts of flame, sprays of acid, symbol spells or glyphs of warding, or even magic monster summoning devices can all be found at the bottoms of pits.

Ranged Attack Traps: These traps fling darts, arrows, spears, or the like at whoever activated the trap. The builder sets the attack bonus. A ranged attack trap can be configured to simulate the effect of a composite bow with a high strength rating (see page 119 of the Player’s Handbook), which provides the trap with a bonus on damage equal to its strength rating.

Melee Attack Traps: These traps feature such obstacles as sharp blades that emerge from walls and stone blocks that fall from ceilings. Once again, the builder sets the attack bonus.

Damage/Effect

The effect of a trap is what happens to those who spring it. Usually this takes the form of either damage or a spell effect, but some traps have special effects.

Pits: Falling into a pit deals 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet of depth.

Ranged Attack Traps: These traps deal whatever damage their ammunition normally would. A trap that fires longbow arrows, for example, deals 1d8 points of damage per hit. If a trap is constructed with a high strength rating, it has a corresponding bonus on damage. For example, a ranged attack trap (+4 Str bonus) that fires shortspears could deal up to 1d8+4 points of damage per successful hit.

Melee Attack Traps: These traps deal the same damage as the melee weapons they “wield.” In the case of a falling stone block, you can assign any amount of bludgeoning damage you like, but remember that whoever resets the trap has to lift that stone back into place. A melee attack trap can be constructed with a built-in bonus on damage rolls, just as if the trap itself had a high Strength score.

Spell Traps: Spell traps produce the spell’s effect, as described in the appropriate spell description. Like all spells, a spell trap that allows a saving throw has a save DC of 10 + spell level + caster’s relevant ability modifier.

Magic Device Traps: These traps produce the effects of any spells included in their construction, as described in the appropriate entries in the Player’s Handbook. If the spell in a magic device trap allows a saving throw, its save DC is 10 + spell level × 1.5. Some spells make attack rolls instead.

Special: Some traps have miscellaneous features that produce special effects, such as drowning for a water trap or ability damage for poison. Saving throws and damage depend on the poison (see Poisons) or are set by the builder, as appropriate.

Miscellaneous Trap Features

Some traps include optional features that can make them considerably more deadly. The most common such features are discussed below.

Alchemical Item: Mechanical traps may incorporate alchemical devices or other special substances or items, such as tanglefoot bags, alchemist’s fire, thunderstones, and the like. Some such items mimic spell effects. For example, the effect of a tanglefoot bag is similar to that of an entangle spell, and the effect of a thunderstone is similar to that of a deafness spell. If the item mimics a spell effect, it increases the CR as shown on Table 3–13.

Gas: With a gas trap, the danger is in the inhaled poison it delivers. Traps employing gas usually have the never miss and onset delay features (see below).

Liquid: Any trap that involves a danger of drowning (such as a locked room filling with water or a patch of quicksand that characters can fall into) is in this category. Traps employing liquid usually have the never miss and onset delay features (see below).

Multiple Target: Traps with this feature can affect more than one character.

Never Miss: When the entire dungeon wall moves to crush you, your quick reflexes won’t help, since the wall can’t possibly miss. A trap with this feature has neither an attack bonus nor a saving throw to avoid, but it does have an onset delay (see below). Most traps involving liquid or gas are of the never miss variety.

Onset Delay: An onset delay is the amount of time between when the trap is sprung and when it deals damage. A never miss trap always has an onset delay.

Poison: Traps that employ poison are deadlier than their nonpoisonous counterparts, so they have correspondingly higher CRs. To determine the CR modifier for a given poison, consult Table 3–13 (page 74). Only injury, contact, and inhaled poisons are suitable for traps; ingested types are not.

Some traps, such as a table covered with contact poison, simply deal the poison’s damage. Others, such as a poisoned arrow or sword blade, deal damage with ranged or melee attacks as well.

Pit Spikes: Treat spikes at the bottom of a pit as daggers, each with a +10 attack bonus. The damage bonus for each spike is +1 per 10 feet of pit depth (to a maximum of +5). Each character who falls into the pit is attacked by 1d4 spikes. Pit spikes do not add to the average damage of the trap (see Average Damage, page 75).

Pit Bottom: If something other than spikes waits at the bottom of a pit, it’s best to treat that as a separate trap (see Multiple Traps, page 75) with a location trigger that activates on any significant impact, such as a falling character. Possibilities for pit bottom traps include acid, monsters, and water.

Touch Attack: This feature applies to any trap that needs only a successful touch attack (melee or ranged) to hit.

Sample Traps

The following traps are suitable for protecting a dungeon, merchant guildhouse, or military complex. The costs listed for mechanical traps are market prices; those for magic traps are raw material costs. Caster level and class for the spells used to produce the trap effects are provided in the entries for magic device traps and spell traps. For all other spells used (in triggers, for example), the caster level is assumed to be the minimum required.

CR 1 Traps

Basic Arrow Trap: CR 1; mechanical; proximity trigger; manual reset; Atk +10 ranged (1d6/×3, arrow); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 2,000 gp.

Camouflaged Pit Trap: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 10 ft. deep (1d6, fall); Search DC 24; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 1,800 gp.

Deeper Pit Trap: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; hidden switch bypass (Search DC 25); DC 15 Reflex save avoids; 20 ft. deep (2d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 23. Market Price: 1,300 gp.

Doorknob Smeared with Contact Poison: CR 1; mechanical; touch trigger (attached), manual reset; poison (carrion crawler brain juice, DC 13 Fortitude save resists, paralysis/0); Search DC 19; Disable Device DC 19. Market Price: 900 gp.

Fusillade of Darts: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +10 ranged (1d4+1, dart); multiple targets (fires 1d4 darts at each target in two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 14; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 500 gp.

Poison Dart Trap: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +8 ranged (1d4 plus poison, dart); poison (bloodroot, DC 12 Fortitude save resists, 0/1d4 Con plus 1d3 Wis); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 700 gp.

Poison Needle Trap: CR 1; mechanical; touch trigger; manual reset; Atk +8 ranged (1 plus greenblood oil poison); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 1,300 gp.

Portcullis Trap: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +10 melee (3d6); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Note: Damage applies only to those underneath the portcullis. Portcullis blocks passageway. Market Price: 1,400 gp.

Razor-Wire across Hallway: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; no reset; Atk +10 melee (2d6, wire); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 15. Market Price: 400 gp.

Rolling Rock Trap: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +10 melee (2d6, rock); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 22. Market Price: 1,400 gp.

Scything Blade Trap: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; Atk +8 melee (1d8/×3); Search DC 21; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 1,700 gp.

Spear Trap: CR 1; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +12 ranged (1d8/×3, spear); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Note: 200-ft. max range, target determined randomly from those in its path. Market Price: 1,200 gp.

Swinging Block Trap: CR 1; mechanical; touch trigger; manual reset; Atk +5 melee (4d6, stone block); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 500 gp.

Wall Blade Trap: CR 1; mechanical; touch trigger; automatic reset; hidden switch bypass (Search DC 25); Atk +10 melee (2d4/×4, scythe); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 22. Market Price: 2,500 gp.

CR 2 Traps

Box of Brown Mold: CR 2; mechanical; touch trigger (opening the box); automatic reset; 5-ft. cold aura (3d6, cold nonlethal); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 16. Market Price: 3,000 gp.

Bricks from Ceiling: CR 2; mechanical; touch trigger; repair reset; Atk +12 melee (2d6, bricks); multiple targets (all targets in two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 2,400 gp.

Burning Hands Trap: CR 2; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (burning hands, 1st-level wizard, 1d4 fire, DC 11 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 26; Disable Device DC 26. Cost: 500 gp, 40 XP.

Camouflaged Pit Trap: CR 2; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 20 ft. deep (2d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 24; Disable Device DC 19. Market Price: 3,400 gp.

Inflict Light Wounds Trap: CR 2; magic device; touch trigger; automatic reset; spell effect (inflict light wounds, 1st-level cleric, 1d8+1, DC 11 Will save half damage); Search DC 26; Disable Device DC 26. Cost: 500 gp, 40 XP.

Javelin Trap: CR 2; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +16 ranged (1d6+4, javelin); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 4,800 gp.

Large Net Trap: CR 2; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +5 melee (see note); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 25. Note: Characters in 10-ft. square are grappled by net (Str 18) if they fail a DC 14 Reflex save. Market Price: 3,000 gp.

Pit Trap: CR 2; mechanical, location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 40 ft. deep (4d6, fall); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 2,000 gp.

Poison Needle Trap: CR 2; mechanical; touch trigger; repair reset; lock bypass (Open Lock DC 30); Atk +17 melee (1 plus poison, needle); poison (blue whinnis, DC 14 Fortitude save resists (poison only), 1 Con/unconsciousness); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 17. Market Price: 4,720 gp.

Spiked Pit Trap: CR 2; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 20 ft. deep (2d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+2 each); Search DC 18; Disable Device DC 15. Market Price: 1,600 gp.

Tripping Chain: CR 2; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; multiple traps (tripping and melee attack); Atk +15 melee touch (trip), Atk +15 melee (2d4+2, spiked chain); Search DC 15; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 3,800 gp.

Note: This trap is really one CR 1 trap that trips and a second CR 1 trap that attacks with a spiked chain. If the tripping attack succeeds, a +4 bonus applies to the spiked chain attack because the opponent is prone.

Well-Camouflaged Pit Trap: CR 2; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 10 ft. deep (1d6, fall); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 4,400 gp.

CR 3 Traps

Acid Arrow Trap: CR 3; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; Atk +2 ranged touch; spell effect (acid arrow, 3rd-level wizard, 2d4 acid/round for 2 rounds); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 27. Cost: 3,000 gp, 240 XP.

Burning Hands Trap: CR 3; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (burning hands, 5th-level wizard, 5d4 fire, DC 11 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 26; Disable Device DC 26. Cost: 2,500 gp, 200 XP.

Camouflaged Pit Trap: CR 3; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 30 ft. deep (3d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent squares); Search DC 24; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 4,800 gp.

Ceiling Pendulum: CR 3; mechanical; timed trigger; automatic reset; Atk +15 melee (1d12+8/×3, greataxe); Search DC 15; Disable Device DC 27. Market Price: 14,100 gp.

Fire Trap: CR 3; spell; spell trigger; no reset; spell effect (fire trap, 3rd-level druid, 1d4+3 fire, DC 13 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 27. Cost: 85 gp to hire NPC spellcaster.

Extended Bane Trap: CR 3; magic device; proximity trigger (detect good); automatic reset; spell effect (extended bane, 3rd-level cleric, DC 13 Will save negates); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 27. Cost: 3,500 gp, 280 XP.

Ghoul Touch Trap: CR 3; magic device; touch trigger; automatic reset; spell effect (ghoul touch, 3rd-level wizard, DC 13 Fortitude save negates); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 27. Cost: 3,000 gp, 240 XP.

Hail of Needles: CR 3; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +20 ranged (2d4); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 22. Market Price: 5,400 gp.

Pit Trap: CR 3; mechanical, location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 60 ft. deep (6d6, fall); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 3,000 gp.

Poisoned Arrow Trap: CR 3; mechanical; touch trigger; manual reset; lock bypass (Open Lock DC 30); Atk +12 ranged (1d8 plus poison, arrow); poison (Large monstrous scorpion venom, DC 14 Fortitude save resists, 1d4 Con/1d4 Con); Search DC 19; Disable Device DC 15. Market Price: 2,900 gp.

Spiked Pit Trap: CR 3; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 20 ft. deep (2d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+2 each); Search DC 21; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 3,600 gp.

Stone Blocks from Ceiling: CR 3; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; Atk +10 melee (4d6, stone blocks); Search DC 25; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 5,400 gp.

CR 4 Traps

Bestow Curse Trap: CR 4; magic device; touch trigger (detect chaos); automatic reset; spell effect (bestow curse, 5th-level cleric, DC 14 Will save negates); Search DC 28; Disable Device DC 28. Cost: 8,000 gp, 640 XP.

Camouflaged Pit Trap: CR 4; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 40 ft. deep (4d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 25; Disable Device DC 17. Market Price: 6,800 gp.

Collapsing Column: CR 4; mechanical; touch trigger (attached); no reset; Atk +15 melee (6d6, stone blocks); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 24. Market Price: 8,800 gp.

Glyph of Warding (Blast): CR 4; spell; spell trigger; no reset; spell effect (glyph of warding [blast], 5th-level cleric, 2d8 acid, DC 14 Reflex save half damage); multiple targets (all targets within 5 ft.); Search DC 28; Disable Device DC 28. Cost: 350 gp to hire NPC spellcaster.

Lightning Bolt Trap: CR 4; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (lightning bolt, 5th-level wizard, 5d6 electricity, DC 14 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 28; Disable Device DC 28. Cost: 7,500 gp, 600 XP.

Pit Trap: CR 4; mechanical, location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 80 ft. deep (8d6, fall); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 4,000 gp.

Poisoned Dart Trap: CR 4; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +15 ranged (1d4+4 plus poison, dart); multiple targets (1 dart per target in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); poison (Small monstrous centipede poison, DC 10 Fortitude save resists, 1d2 Dex/1d2 Dex); Search DC 21; Disable Device DC 22. Market Price: 12,090 gp.

Sepia Snake Sigil Trap: CR 4; spell; spell trigger; no reset; spell effect (sepia snake sigil, 5th-level wizard, DC 14 Reflex save negates); Search DC 28; Disable Device DC 28. Cost: 650 gp to hire NPC spellcaster.

Spiked Pit Trap: CR 4; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 60 ft. deep (6d6, fall); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+5 each); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 4,000 gp.

Wall Scythe Trap: CR 4; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; Atk +20 melee (2d4+8/×4, scythe); Search DC 21; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 17,200 gp.

Water-Filled Room Trap: CR 4; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. room); never miss; onset delay (5 rounds); liquid; Search DC 17; Disable Device DC 23. Market Price: 11,200 gp.

Wide-Mouth Spiked Pit Trap: CR 4; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 20 ft. deep (2d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+2 each); Search DC 18; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 7,200 gp.

CR 5 Traps

Camouflaged Pit Trap: CR 5; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 50 ft. deep (5d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 25; Disable Device DC 17. Market Price: 8,500 gp.

Doorknob Smeared with Contact Poison: CR 5; mechanical; touch trigger (attached); manual reset; poison (nitharit, DC 13 Fortitude save resists, 0/3d6 Con); Search DC 25; Disable Device DC 19. Market Price: 9,650 gp.

Falling Block Trap: CR 5; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +15 melee (6d6); multiple targets (can strike all characters in two adjacent specified squares); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 15,000 gp.

Fire Trap: CR 5; spell; spell trigger; no reset; spell effect (fire trap, 7th-level wizard, 1d4+7 fire, DC 16 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 29; Disable Device DC 29. Cost: 305 gp to hire NPC spellcaster.

Fireball Trap: CR 5; magic device; touch trigger; automatic reset; spell effect (fireball, 8th-level wizard, 8d6 fire, DC 14 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 28; Disable Device DC 28. Cost: 12,000 gp, 960 XP.

Flooding Room Trap: CR 5; mechanical; proximity trigger; automatic reset; no attack roll necessary (see note below); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 25. Note: Room floods in 4 rounds (see Drowning). Market Price: 17,500 gp.

Fusillade of Darts: CR 5; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +18 ranged (1d4+1, dart); multiple targets (1d8 darts per target in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); Search DC 19; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 18,000 gp.

Moving Executioner Statue: CR 5; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; hidden switch bypass (Search DC 25); Atk +16 melee (1d12+8/×3, greataxe); multiple targets (both arms attack); Search DC 25; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 22,500 gp.

Phantasmal Killer Trap: CR 5; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm covering the entire room); automatic reset; spell effect (phantasmal killer, 7th-level wizard, DC 16 Will save for disbelief and DC 16 Fort save for partial effect); Search DC 29; Disable Device DC 29. Cost: 14,000 gp, 1,120 XP.

Pit Trap: CR 5; mechanical, location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 100 ft. deep (10d6, fall); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 5,000 gp.

Poison Wall Spikes: CR 5; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +16 melee (1d8+4 plus poison, spike); multiple targets (closest target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); poison (Medium monstrous spider venom, DC 12 Fortitude save resists, 1d4 Str/1d4 Str); Search DC 17; Disable Device DC 21. Market Price: 12,650 gp.

Spiked Pit Trap: CR 5; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 25 Reflex save avoids; 40 ft. deep (4d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+4 each); Search DC 21; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 13,500 gp.

Spiked Pit Trap (80 Ft. Deep): CR 5; mechanical; location trigger, manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 80 ft. deep (8d6, fall), pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes for 1d4+5 each); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 5,000 gp.

Ungol Dust Vapor Trap: CR 5; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; gas; multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. room); never miss; onset delay (2 rounds); poison (ungol dust, DC 15 Fortitude save resists, 1 Cha/1d6 Cha plus 1 Cha drain); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 16. Market Price: 9,000 gp.

CR 6 Traps

Built-to-Collapse Wall: CR 6; mechanical; proximity trigger; no reset; Atk +20 melee (8d6, stone blocks); multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); Search DC 14; Disable Device DC 16. Market Price: 15,000 gp.

Compacting Room: CR 6; mechanical; timed trigger; automatic reset; hidden switch bypass (Search DC 25); walls move together (12d6, crush); multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. room); never miss; onset delay (4 rounds); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 22. Market Price: 25,200 gp.

Flame Strike Trap: CR 6; magic device; proximity trigger (detect magic); automatic reset; spell effect (flame strike, 9th-level cleric, 9d6 fire, DC 17 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 30; Disable Device DC 30. Cost: 22,750 gp, 1,820 XP.

Fusillade of Spears: CR 6; mechanical; proximity trigger; repair reset; Atk +21 ranged (1d8, spear); multiple targets (1d6 spears per target in a 10 ft.-by-10-ft. area); Search DC 26; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 31,200 gp.

Glyph of Warding (Blast): CR 6; spell; spell trigger; no reset; spell effect (glyph of warding [blast], 16th-level cleric, 8d8 sonic, DC 14 Reflex save half damage); multiple targets (all targets within 5 ft.); Search DC 28; Disable Device DC 28. Cost: 680 gp to hire NPC spellcaster.

Lightning Bolt Trap: CR 6; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (lightning bolt, 10th-level wizard, 10d6 electricity, DC 14 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 28; Disable Device DC 28. Cost: 15,000 gp, 1,200 XP.

Spiked Blocks from Ceiling: CR 6; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; Atk +20 melee (6d6, spikes); multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); Search DC 24; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 21,600 gp.

Spiked Pit Trap (100 Ft. Deep): CR 6; mechanical; location trigger, manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 100 ft. deep (10d6, fall); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+5 each); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 6,000 gp.

Whirling Poison Blades: CR 6; mechanical; timed trigger; automatic reset; hidden lock bypass (Search DC 25, Open Lock DC 30); Atk +10 melee (1d4+4/19–20 plus poison, dagger); poison (purple worm poison, DC 24 Fortitude save resists, 1d6 Str/2d6 Str); multiple targets (one target in each of three preselected 5-ft. squares); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 30,200 gp.

Wide-Mouth Pit Trap: CR 6; mechanical; location trigger, manual reset; DC 25 Reflex save avoids; 40 ft. deep (4d6, fall); multiple targets (all targets within a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); Search DC 26; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 28,200 gp.

Wyvern Arrow Trap: CR 6; mechanical; proximity trigger; manual reset; Atk +14 ranged (1d8 plus poison, arrow); poison (wyvern poison, DC 17 Fortitude save resists, 2d6 Con/2d6 Con); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 16. Market Price: 17,400 gp.

CR 7 Traps

Acid Fog Trap: CR 7; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (acid fog, 11th-level wizard, 2d6/round acid for 11 rounds); Search DC 31; Disable Device DC 31. Cost: 33,000 gp, 2,640 XP.

Black Tentacles Trap: CR 7; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); no reset; spell effect (black tentacles, 7th-level wizard, 1d4+7 tentacles, Atk +7 melee [1d6+4, tentacle]); multiple targets (up to six tentacles per target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 29; Disable Device DC 29. Cost: 1,400 gp, 112 XP.

Blade Barrier Trap: CR 7; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (blade barrier, 11th-level cleric, 11d6 slashing, DC 19 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 31; Disable Device DC 31. Cost: 33,000 gp, 2,640 XP.

Burnt Othur Vapor Trap: CR 7; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; gas; multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. room); never miss; onset delay (3 rounds); poison (burnt othur fumes, DC 18 Fortitude save resists, 1 Con drain/3d6 Con); Search DC 21; Disable Device DC 21. Market Price: 17,500 gp.

Chain Lightning Trap: CR 7; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (chain lightning, 11th-level wizard, 11d6 electricity to target nearest center of trigger area plus 5d6 electricity to each of up to eleven secondary targets, DC 19 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 31; Disable Device DC 31. Cost: 33,000 gp, 2,640 XP.

Fusillade of Greenblood Oil Darts: CR 7; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; Atk +18 ranged (1d4+1 plus poison, dart); poison (greenblood oil, DC 13 Fortitude save resists, 1 Con/ 1d2 Con); multiple targets (1d8 darts per target in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); Search DC 25; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 33,000 gp.

Lock Covered in Dragon Bile: CR 7; mechanical; touch trigger (attached); no reset; poison (dragon bile, DC 26 Fortitude save resists, 3d6 Str/0); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 16. Market Price: 11,300 gp.

Summon Monster VI Trap: CR 7; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); no reset; spell effect (summon monster VI, 11th-level wizard), Search DC 31; Disable Device DC 31. Cost: 3,300 gp, 264 XP.

Water-Filled Room: CR 7; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. room); never miss; onset delay (3 rounds); water; Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 21,000 gp.

Well-Camouflaged Pit Trap: CR 7; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; DC 25 Reflex save avoids; 70 ft. deep (7d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 24,500 gp.

CR 8 Traps

Acid Arrow Trap: CR 8; magic device; visual trigger (true seeing); automatic reset; multiple traps (two simultaneous acid arrow traps); Atk +9 ranged touch and +9 ranged touch; spell effect (acid arrow, 18th-level wizard, 2d4 acid damage for 7 rounds); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 27. Cost: 83,500 gp, 4,680 XP.

Note: This trap is really two CR 6 acid arrow traps that fire simultaneously, using the same trigger and reset.

Deathblade Wall Scythe: CR 8; mechanical; touch trigger; manual reset; Atk +16 melee (2d4+8 plus poison, scythe); poison (deathblade, DC 20 Fortitude save resists, 1d6 Con/2d6 Con); Search DC 24; Disable Device DC 19. Market Price: 31,400 gp.

Destruction Trap: CR 8; magic device; touch trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (destruction, 13th-level cleric, DC 20 Fortitude save for 10d6 damage); Search DC 32; Disable Device DC 32. Cost: 45,500 gp, 3,640 XP.

Earthquake Trap: CR 8; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (earthquake, 13th-level cleric, 65-ft. radius, DC 15 or 20 Reflex save, depending on terrain); Search DC 32; Disable Device DC 32. Cost: 45,500 gp, 3,640 XP.

Insanity Mist Vapor Trap: CR 8; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; gas; never miss; onset delay (1 round); poison (insanity mist, DC 15 Fortitude save resists, 1d4 Wis/2d6 Wis); multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. room); Search DC 25; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 23,900 gp.

Power Word Stun Trap: CR 8; magic device; touch trigger; no reset; spell effect (power word stun, 13th-level wizard), Search DC 32; Disable Device DC 32. Cost: 4,550 gp, 364 XP.

Prismatic Spray Trap: CR 8; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (prismatic spray, 13th-level wizard, DC 20 Reflex, Fortitude, or Will save, depending on effect); Search DC 32; Disable Device DC 32. Cost: 45,500 gp, 3,640 XP.

Reverse Gravity Trap: CR 8; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm, 10-ft. area); automatic reset; spell effect (reverse gravity, 13th-level wizard, 6d6 fall [upon hitting the ceiling of the 60-ft.-high room], then 6d6 fall [upon falling 60 ft. to the floor when the spell ends], DC 20 Reflex save avoids damage); Search DC 32; Disable Device DC 32. Cost: 45,500 gp, 3,640 XP.

Well-Camouflaged Pit Trap: CR 8; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 100 ft. deep (10d6, fall); Search DC 27; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 16,000 gp.

Word of Chaos Trap: CR 8; magic device; proximity trigger (detect law); automatic reset; spell effect (word of chaos, 13th-level cleric); Search DC 32; Disable Device DC 32. Cost: 46,000 gp, 3,680 XP.

CR 9 Traps

Drawer Handle Smeared with Contact Poison: CR 9; mechanical; touch trigger (attached); manual reset; poison (black lotus extract, DC 20 Fortitude save resists, 3d6 Con/3d6 Con); Search DC 18; Disable Device DC 26. Market Price: 21,600 gp.

Dropping Ceiling: CR 9; mechanical; location trigger; repair reset; ceiling moves down (12d6, crush); multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. room); never miss; onset delay (1 round); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 16. Market Price: 12,600 gp.

Incendiary Cloud Trap: CR 9; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (incendiary cloud, 15th-level wizard, 4d6/round for 15 rounds, DC 22 Reflex save half damage); Search DC 33; Disable Device DC 33. Cost: 60,000 gp, 4,800 XP.

Wide-Mouth Pit Trap: CR 9; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 25 Reflex save avoids; 100 ft. deep (10d6, fall); multiple targets (all targets within a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); Search DC 25; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 40,500 gp.

Wide-Mouth Spiked Pit with Poisoned Spikes: CR 9; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; hidden lock bypass (Search DC 25, Open Lock DC 30); DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 70 ft. deep (7d6, fall); multiple targets (all targets within a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. area); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+5 plus poison each); poison (giant wasp poison, DC 14 Fortitude save resists, 1d6 Dex/1d6 Dex); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 11,910 gp.

CR 10 Traps

Crushing Room: CR 10; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; walls move together (16d6, crush); multiple targets (all targets in a 10-ft.-by-10-ft. room); never miss; onset delay (2 rounds); Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 20. Market Price: 29,000 gp.

Crushing Wall Trap: CR 10; mechanical; location trigger; automatic reset; no attack roll required (18d6, crush); Search DC 20; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 25,000 gp.

Energy Drain Trap: CR 10; magic device; visual trigger (true seeing); automatic reset; Atk +8 ranged touch; spell effect (energy drain, 17th-level wizard, 2d4 negative levels for 24 hours, DC 23 Fortitude save negates); Search DC 34; Disable Device DC 34. Cost: 124,000 gp, 7,920 XP.

Forcecage and Summon Monster VII trap: CR 10; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; multiple traps (one forcecage trap and one summon monster VII trap that summons a hamatula); spell effect (forcecage, 13th-level wizard), spell effect (summon monster VII, 13th-level wizard, hamatula); Search DC 32; Disable Device DC 32. Cost: 241,000 gp, 7,280 XP.

Note: This trap is really one CR 8 trap that creates a forcecage and a second CR 8 trap that summons a hamatula in the same area. If both succeed, the hamatula appears inside the forcecage. These effects are independent of each other.

Poisoned Spiked Pit Trap: CR 10; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; hidden lock bypass (Search DC 25, Open Lock DC 30); DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 50 ft. deep (5d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent 5-ft. squares); pit spikes (Atk +10 melee, 1d4 spikes per target for 1d4+5 plus poison each); poison (purple worm poison, DC 24 Fortitude save resists, 1d6 Str/2d6 Str); Search DC 16; Disable Device DC 25. Market Price: 19,700 gp.

Wail of the Banshee Trap: CR 10; magic device; proximity trigger (alarm); automatic reset; spell effect (wail of the banshee, 17th-level wizard, DC 23 Fortitude save negates); multiple targets (up to 17 creatures); Search DC 34; Disable Device DC 34. Cost: 76,500 gp, 6,120 XP.

Designing a Trap

Traps have long been part of the DM’s arsenal, but by using the Craft (trapmaking) skill, player characters can design unique traps to improve the defenses of their hideouts and fortresses. If one of your players wants to have his character design and build a particular trap (and you want to go along with the idea), you can take the player through the process described in this section.

You can also make use of these trapmaking rules to develop your own special traps to spring on unwary PCs.

Mechanical Traps: Designing a mechanical trap is somewhat simpler for a DM than it is for a player character, because you don’t have to worry about constraints such as making Craft (trapmaking) checks and having the necessary amount of cash on hand. Simply select the elements you want the trap to have and add up the adjustments to the trap’s Challenge Rating that those elements require (see Table 3–13) to arrive at the trap’s final CR.

PC-Designed Mechanical Traps: If a player character wants to design and build a mechanical trap (and if you go along with the idea), the first step is for the player to describe his idea. Assign the appropriate characteristics, making whatever adjustments to the cost of the trap those elements require, and tell the player how much it will cost to craft the trap. (He may subsequently decide to remove or change some elements to raise or lower the cost.) When you and the player have agreed on what elements the trap contains, you can determine the CR of the trap, and from that number you can derive the DC of the Craft (trapmaking) checks the character must make to construct the trap.

Magic Traps: As with mechanical traps, you don’t have to do anything other than decide what elements you want and then determine the CR of the resulting trap (see Table 3–14).

PC-Designed Magic Traps: If a player character wants to design and construct a magic trap, he must have the Craft Wondrous Item feat. In addition, he must be able to cast the spell or spells that the trap requires⁠—or, failing that, he must be able to hire an NPC to cast the spells for him (see NPC Spellcasting, page 107). When you and the player have agreed on what spells and other elements the trap contains, you can determine the cost of the raw materials for the trap and the CR of the trap.

Challenge Rating of a Trap

To calculate the Challenge Rating of a trap, add all the CR modifiers (see Table 3–13 for mechanical traps, Table 3–14 for magic traps) to the base CR for the trap type.

Mechanical Trap: The base CR for a mechanical trap is 0. If your final CR is 0 or lower, add features until you get a CR of 1 or higher.

Magic Trap: For a spell trap or magic device trap, the base CR is 1. The highest-level spell used modifies the CR (see Table 3–14).

Average Damage: If a trap (either mechanical or magic) does hit point damage, calculate the average damage for a successful hit and round that value to the nearest multiple of 7. Use this value to adjust the Challenge Rating of the trap, as indicated on Table 3–13 or Table 3–14. Damage from poisons and pit spikes does not count toward this value, but damage from a high strength rating and extra damage from multiple attacks does. For example, if a trap fires 1d4 darts at each target, the average damage is the average number of darts × the average damage per dart, rounded to the nearest multiple of 7, or 2.5 darts × 2.5 points of damage = 6.25 points, which rounds to 7.

For a magic trap, only one modifier applies to the CR⁠—​either the level of the highest-level spell used in the trap, or the average damage figure, whichever is larger.

Multiple Traps: If a trap is really two or more connected traps that affect approximately the same area, determine the CR of each one separately.

Multiple Dependent Traps: If one trap depends on the success of the other (that is, you can avoid the second trap altogether by not falling victim to the first), they must be treated as separate traps.

Multiple Independent Traps: If two or more traps act independently (that is, none depends on the success of another to activate), use their CRs to determine their combined Encounter Level as though they were monsters, according to Table 3–1 (page 49). The resulting Encounter Level is the CR for the combined traps.

Mechanical Trap Cost

The base cost of a mechanical trap is 1,000 gp. Apply all the modifiers from the Cost Modifiers for Mechanical Traps table for the various features you’ve added to the trap to get the modified base cost.

The final cost is equal to (modified base cost × Challenge Rating) + extra costs. The minimum cost for a mechanical trap is (CR × 100) gp.

After you’ve multiplied the modified base cost by the Challenge Rating, add the price of any alchemical items or poison you incorporated into the trap. If the trap uses one of these elements and has an automatic reset, multiply the poison or alchemical item cost by 20 to provide an adequate supply of doses.

Multiple Traps: If a trap is really two or more connected traps, determine the final cost of each separately, then add those values together. This holds for both multiple dependent and multiple independent traps (see the previous section).

Magic Device Trap Cost

Building a magic device trap involves the expenditure of experience points as well as gold pieces, and requires the services of a spellcaster. The Cost Modifiers for Magic Device Traps table summarizes the cost information for magic device traps. If the trap uses more than one spell (for instance, a sound or visual trigger spell in addition to the main spell effect), the builder must pay for them all (except alarm, which is free unless it must be cast by an NPC; see below).

The costs derived from the Cost Modifiers for Magic Device Traps table assume that the builder is casting the necessary spells himself (or perhaps some other PC is providing the spells for free). If an NPC spellcaster must be hired to cast them, see Spellcasting and Services for these costs.

A magic device trap takes one day to construct per 500 gp of its cost.

Spell Trap Cost

A spell trap has a cost only if the builder must hire an NPC spellcaster to cast it. See Spellcasting and Services for these costs.

Craft DCs for Mechanical Traps

Once you know the Challenge Rating of a trap that a PC wants to design and build, determine the Craft (trapmaking) DC by referring to the table and the modifiers given below.

Making the Checks: To determine how much progress a character makes on building a trap each week, that character makes a Craft (trapmaking) check. The Craft skill description contains details on these checks and the circumstances that can affect them.

Dungeon Ecology

An inhabited dungeon is an environment in and of itself. The creatures that live there need to eat, drink, breathe, and sleep just as the creatures of the forest or the plains do. Predators need prey.

Creatures living in the dungeon need to be able to get around. Locked doors, or even doors that require hands to open, can prevent creatures from getting to food or water.

Consider these factors when designing a dungeon you want the players to believe in. If the environment doesn’t have some logic behind it, the PCs can’t make decisions based on reasoning while adventuring there. For example, upon finding a pool of fresh water in the dungeon, a character should be able to make the assumption that many of the creatures inhabiting the place come to that spot often. Thus, the PCs could wait in ambush for a particular creature that they’re after. Bits of faulty dungeon logic, such as all the doors in a dungeon being locked when the dungeon is home to many creatures, destroy any chance of verisimilitude.

Dungeon Animals

Not everything that lives in a dungeon is a monster. Other creatures inhabit these unlit labyrinths as well.

Creepy Crawlers: Insects, spiders, grubs, and worms of all kinds live in the dark recesses of dungeons. They don’t present a real threat, but they do provide food for predators and scavengers in the dungeon—which in turn pose a threat to adventurers.

Rats: Rats make up an important part of any dungeon ecology. These omnivorous rodents serve as the staple for most dungeon predators and scavengers. In huge swarms, they become a threat themselves.

Bats: Like rats, bats are found throughout any dungeon with access to outside air. Although normal bats aren’t dangerous, a swarm of bats can obscure vision and hamper the actions of dungeon delvers⁠—particularly spellcasting.

Other Animals: Small creatures such as badgers and ferrets or large omnivores such as bears and apes may take to a full-time (or almost full-time) subterranean existence in a world filled with dungeons and caverns. Predatory animals such as tigers, wolves, and snakes follow their prey down into the dungeons and remain, becoming a part of the ecology. Deep dungeon delvers have brought back stories of colossal caverns far underground with flocks of birds flying about. And of course underground streams, lakes, and even seas teem with all sorts of fish, water mammals, and aquatic reptiles.

Over the generations, dungeon animals have developed darkvision in order to survive. They have adapted to their environment, and now they thrive in the dark confines of caves and passages. They feed on mold, fungi, or each other. Because of the lack of sunlight, many species have become entirely white, while others have evolved a black coloration to hide in the darkness.

Slimes, Molds, and Fungi

In a dungeon’s damp, dark recesses, molds and fungi thrive. While some plants and fungi are monsters (see the Monster Manual), and other slime, mold, and fungus is just normal, innocuous stuff, a few varieties are dangerous dungeon encounters. For purposes of spells and other special effects, all slimes, molds, and fungi are treated as plants. Like traps, dangerous slimes and molds have CRs, and characters earn XP for encountering them.

A form of glistening organic sludge coats almost anything that remains in the damp and dark for too long. This kind of slime, though it might be repulsive, is not dangerous.

Molds and fungi flourish in dark, cool, damp places. While some are as inoffensive as the normal dungeon slime, others are quite dangerous. Mushrooms, puffballs, yeasts, mildew, and other sorts of bulbous, fibrous, or flat patches of fungi can be found throughout most dungeons. They are usually inoffensive, and some are even edible (though most are unappealing or odd-tasting).

Green Slime (CR 4): This dungeon peril is a dangerous variety of normal slime. Green slime devours flesh and organic materials on contact and is even capable of dissolving metal. Bright green, wet, and sticky, it clings to walls, floors, and ceilings in patches, reproducing as it consumes organic matter. It drops from walls and ceilings when it detects movement (and possible food) below.

A single 5-foot square of green slime deals 1d6 points of Constitution damage per round while it devours flesh. On the first round of contact, the slime can be scraped off a creature (most likely destroying the scraping device), but after that it must be frozen, burned, or cut away (dealing damage to the victim as well). Anything that deals cold or fire damage, sunlight, or a remove disease spell destroys a patch of green slime. Against wood or metal, green slime deals 2d6 points of damage per round, ignoring metal’s hardness but not that of wood. It does not harm stone.

Dwarves consider green slime to be one of the worst hazards of mining and underground construction. They have their own ways of burning it out of infested areas, methods that they say are thorough. “If you don’t do it proper, the stuff comes right back,” they claim.

Yellow Mold (CR 6): If disturbed, a 5-foot square of this mold bursts forth with a cloud of poisonous spores. All within 10 feet of the mold must make a DC 15 Fortitude save or take 1d6 points of Constitution damage. Another DC 15 Fortitude save is required 1 minute later—even by those who succeeded on the first save—to avoid taking 2d6 points of Constitution damage. Fire destroys yellow mold, and sunlight renders it dormant.

Brown Mold (CR 2): Brown mold feeds on warmth, drawing heat from anything around it. It normally comes in patches 5 feet in diameter, and the temperature is always cold in a 30-foot radius around it. Living creatures within 5 feet of it take 3d6 points of nonlethal cold damage. Fire brought within 5 feet of brown mold causes it to instantly double in size. Cold damage, such as from a cone of cold, instantly destroys it.

Phosphorescent Fungus (No CR): This strange underground fungus grows in clumps that look almost like stunted shrubbery. Drow elves cultivate it for food and light. It gives off a soft violet glow that illuminates underground caverns and passages as well as a candle does. Rare patches of fungus illuminate as well as a torch does.