Death Trap for Heroes

[Acroyear II]

I have an upcoming Champions session scheduled for the end of the month, and I need some help designing a death trap for the PC heroes.

 

Basically I need a death trap that the heroes walk into. They cannot be drugged or knocked out, then placed into said death trap. They must walk into it, like a room that seals it self, then the walls begin closing in on them, etc.

 

The death trap must be able to withstand super strength (60 STR), teleportion, flight, and tunneling. I'm looking for a trap which will delay the heroes for a short while and force them to use their brains to get out of it, not necessarily brute force.

 

Can any of you guys and gals out there throw some suggestions my way? I'd really appreciate it.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Acroyear II

[Mightybec]

How about a chili cookoff, during the middle of July. Add a little food poisoning, and only one working port-o-pottie and your deathtrap is served.

 

Mightybec

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Two words: Underground Base.

 

If the villan is in an underground base with only 'one known entrance', which entrance is serviced by an elevator (go down the hall, get into the elevator, etc.), the heros are going to have to either a) get into the elevator, or get into the elevator shaft. The trick here is to make them think that the ELEVATOR is the deathtrap; it isn't. The deathtrap is the elevator shaft.

 

Flight, thus, is 'taken care of'; with the walls a) given enough DEF and hardened (double hardened, 'dimensional vibration field', whatever is necessary to stop the teleportation), this takes care of the other capabilities. A lighter-than-air poison gas would be good; they only have one way to go, down. Combine this with two rams (the elevator itself, perhaps?) compressing the shaft, and you have a knockout/squish deathtrap that perhaps can only be stopped by a brick shoving his hand between the wall and the edge of the lower 'press'. Perhaps the 'off/reverse switch' is on the other edge of the lower press, or there's a lock there that has to be picked, either one able to be accomplished by someone with Stretching, TK, or a quick-thinking gadgeteer who cannibalizes parts from his power armor.

[Hermit]

How's this?

 

Hmmm... there are some good ideas in the Champions Genre book.

 

The Lure - A scream... oh, it's probably artificially produced. Ideally, it's meant to sound like someone the PCs know in their heroic IDs (A DNPC who often needs saving), but a generic scream works wonders as well.

 

The Hook - As they enter, the doors seal behind them, and the circular room starts to spin... or even rotate like a gyroscope. This should throw them back against the walls.

 

In the Net- In the center of the room is a thick pole with four holes in it ... it spins and spews one of the below:

A) Bullets (AP if need be)

Bouncy balls that still hit hard and rebound like flubber on steroids.

C) A hodge podge of gas bombs, thermite pellets and razors.

 

Good Eatting- This spinning chaos should mean any teleport attempt out of here is by default a 'blind' one. The Brick is strong, but must still find purchase. Tunnelling might get you grinded between the layers of the room and the material it's connected to.

[MoonHunter]

Falling floor and Ceiling

 

The Floor drops out from underneith you. The walls of the pit are greased. You fall towards the spikes (which are electrically charged, as is the floor they are on). Of course the flying characters and acrobatic types save everyone from the spikes/ blades. The catch is the ceiling is "falling" at the same time. While everyone is focusing on the falling down and the spike, they might not noticed the falling roof coming down with great weight to crush them. Someone will try to catch the roof. Of course the ceiling completes the circuit and thus everyone touching the ceiling, spikes and floor, will then be electricuted. Suitable for capture and torture at your leisure.

"AHAH! Now you will watch Teletubbies until you talk!"

[MoonHunter]

Hypnogenic Gas

 

While not a death trap per say, they can be a useful trap.

 

One of my favorites. Heroes can be exposed at any time, public rallys are good places (lots of collateral damage, but hey... you're a villan).

 

Once hit with the gas, they begin to see things or experience things (built in programming from the gas), triggered by a flash or smoke bomb. My favorite is that everyone experiences their own scenes in a movie they like (So TexStar is a cowboy, the Martial Artist is in a KungFu flick, and so on). While so distracted, your villian can do anything they want. The heroes of course think they have been teleported (the flash).

 

[[[The fun part, is do the gas trick one. Then do the "mission impossible"/ Arcade switch the next time. While they are trying to make EGO DRs to get out of the illusion, it is the real thing. ]]]

 

Other favorites: everyone looks identical... so you can't tell who is who, a giant monster, or fireworks going off.

[Lord Liaden]

Well, I notice that none of your characters have extra Swimming, so how about a water trap? The PCs are hit with a massive geyser of water (Swimming UoO as an Attack, AoE) which sweeps them into a whirlpool. The spinning current keeps the characters away from the walls or floors, so there's no purchase for the brick to use his strength. The water may be cloudy or the chamber darkened to impair the teleporter's ability to target a spot to move to; if you want to be really nasty the spinning motion can make everyone dizzy (DEX drain), so that all their physical actions become more difficult. You could also put a giant propellor in the center of the room to generate the whirling current, toward which the heroes are slowly but inexorably drawn.

 

Possible ways to escape include moving the brick or tunneler far enough in any direction (perhaps with an attack that does Knockback, or being carried by the teleporter) to gain a purchase on the wall and break through; or target the mechanism in the center of the chamber that generates the current with ranged attacks until it breaks (being spun about in the current should make that more difficult, and it should probably take more than one successful hit to stop the propellor).

 

Note that if the characters are completely submerged they'll be unable to talk to each other, greatly impairing their ability to coordinate their actions

[Crimson Arrow]

Two ideas. First, have an elevator room. It appears to sink when the characters are in it. The motion of the room slams the doors automatically (they are sliding doors, much like an elevator). There is a sharp intial drop, then a more leisurely descent begins. The floor begins to heat up, eventually glowing red hot. The fliers might have to help keep people off the ground. It looks as though the room is dropping towards the earth's core and the rest of the room begins to heat up too.

 

The walls and ceiling are too strong to break through with 60 STR (say 26 DEF) and besides, where would they go, especially if the shaft is full of super-heated air and possibly noxious gasses? Ditto for Tunnelers.

 

Fliers are useless, save as above.

 

Teleporters can't see to teleport. If they have fixed locations, I hope they have the decency to attend the funeral (if anything's left).

 

The real trick is - can the players believe their senses? What if there is an initial drop of about 20 feet, but afterwards, there is just the sensation of moving downwards (eg small protected windows in the walls seem to show movement). The heat does not come from the earth's core, just a big heater.

 

How do they get out? Well, one way is this. The windows are too small to get through, by far, but if the Brick smashes them (say only 18 DEF - breakable on a good roll for a Haymaker, easier if STR is pushed), the characters realise they are not travelling at all. This should lead them to conclude it might be safe to smash through the floor (it is weaker than the rest of the room because of the heating elements in it, again perhaps 18-20 DEF), without plummeting to a firey death. The flier can then take the tunneler out of the bottom of the room (the elements are probably destroyed by the opening of the floor) and he can dig them out.

[Crimson Arrow]

The second option is taken from a 4th Edn supplement and contains spoilers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPOILER

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPOILER

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPOILER

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, in Champions in 4D, there was a 4 dimensional construct, which appeared to be a cube-shaped room, but actually contained six different rooms "folded" into one another. I have tried to explain this in more detail, but it's pretty brain-boggling and I fear I'd leave something important out.

 

If you have that supplement (and it's a good one) and if your villain is the sort who'd use that technology), go for it. It won't kill them without something added, but will delay them a lot until they figure out what's going on and where the exit is.

[Captain Xenon]

heres one. capture a dnpc (or just an important hostage), tie em to a chair, and put in a large dark room. heros go down hall to room. once all heros in hall and/or room, close and seal the door, and turn on the lights.

 

the lights, on the other side of the clear floor, walls, and ceiling, reveal the colored gas. any break in the glass will release poison gas, possibly killing the heors, but definetly killing the hostage dnpc. if any heros dont need to breath or are immune to poison, thats ok, its a highly corrosive gas.

 

to make matters worse, the hostage is sitting on a small bomb- enough to kill said hostage, and release the gas (say a 1 hex killing attack with a trigger).

 

outside of the room (to keep the gas in) is a hardened forcefield. not enough to stop the brick, but nobody can teleport out.

 

now just add a tv, showing something to motivate the heros to get out- like a bomb with a timer, on the oposite end of town than where the villan went. so even if they get free, they have to stop the bomb before they can go after the bad guy.

 

there has to be a way out of course- possibly using the tv's powercord to short out the forcefield, teleport out, and safely vent the gas. or maybe just radio for help.

[Mayday]

Nothing specific in mind, but it sounds as though underwater, say the ocean floor, solves your criteria. Open a hatch somewhere so that water is coming in or let the brick punch through a wall (OOPS). All obvious doors are faked or trapped with explosives (deterrent). Walls of course contain power conduits, always a good thing to smash open with water on the floor. Real doors are hidden, secret panels.

 

Another option is the time trap that was used on Mayday's teammates. They were led to believe their enemy was on board an oil tanker in the middle of the ocean. They fought through various minions and automatic defenses to the hold where a large construct was. They entered it and the door closed, activating a circuit that activated the time machine. Causing holes in the walls of the device was ok, but outside of it was passing time, which looked like a weird and dangerous energy. Stick a sword in it and the sword disintegrated its atoms spread through several decades.

 

Not quite what you are looking for but a good deathtrap all the same.

 

Something sneaky perhaps would be to seperate everyone via teleporters or pit traps or some such, dumping each in a seperate room/area along with a teammate who is actually say, a killer robot that only looks like their buddy. Should be able to get in at least one good sneak attack when they turn their back.

 

An airplane in the air would be suitable also as a deathtrap, especially one aimed at the ground.

[Prometheus]

This one is a fairly simple trap to put together, but can be very effective.

 

The PC's are lured to the site of the trap (the pretense varies by campaign) where they come across a room with a thermos-sized stainless steel cylinder on an a platform appropriate to the setting (a table, a crate, etc.). The cylinder should actually appear as harmless as an actual thermos, though more detailed inspection will reveal it is x-ray proofed (lead lined).

 

When any of the heroes approaches, the top of the cylinder pops up to reveal a harmless group of lasers that quickly sweep the room and lock onto members of the team. A recorded message from the villian informs them that the cylinder actually contains a volatile explosive that will detonate should it be tampered with, or in the event that any of the laser targeted heroes move.

 

The number of heroes locked down depends on the group, but any hero that would be able to disarm or neutralize the bomb, or who would allow a quick escape should be a candidate. If you want to up the stakes, add a timer that begins counting down, or put the trap in a populated, public area (an office building, a school, a mall), or both.