Strolen's Citadel: Recursive Portal Trap By Ted

"You enter the hallway. About thirty feet away behind a pit, a goblin jeers at you, pulling out a bow."

"I shoot my longbow at the goblin."

"Your arrow flies towards the goblin, but disappears before it hits."

"I shoot again."

"Your arrow disappears as before. From behind you, an arrow strikes you in the back."

"I try and see where the arrow came from."

"It's one of yours."

The dual portal trap is set up as follows:

1OOOO2XM

Portal (1), open space (O), second portal(2), pit or other hindering terrain a monster can hide on the other side of (X), and then a hostile monster with a ranged attack (M)

Ranged attacks entering either portal disappear, coming out of the opposite portal the next round. Portals release projectiles towards the opposite portal, meaning that ranged attacks can indefinitely move between the portals. The magic of the portals actively aim projectiles at any creatures in the area between the portals. The portals only affect ranged projectiles and magic, and creatures pass through them with no effect. If a monster tries to attack the party from the far end of the trap, their projectiles are caught by the portal, and then used to attack by the opposite portal. (For example, Monster M shoots at the blank space (O). His projectile disappears at portal 2, and then comes out of portal 1, aimed at any creature in the blank space, towards portal 2.)

The portals can be defeated through various methods:
Dispel spells, merely exiting the affected area of the trap, and bypassing it entirely. A group that makes no ranged attacks through the portals is in no danger from their own attacks.

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Pieh
2010-09-14 01:24 PM

0xp

Short and sweet. Makes me want to map out an incredibly complex portal trap dungeon of some mad spacial warping abomination. Hm. Possibly some sort of giant flying lizard that craps alternating recursive portals everywhere.

Guide: "Don't step in that!"
Hero 1: "Ew, some sort of-" *Disappears*
Hero 2: "Where did he go?"
Guide: *Points up*
Hero 1: *Falling from a excrement portal on the ceiling"
"AAAAAH! WAAAAARP POOOOO!"

Ted
2010-09-14 03:43 PM

Another possibility is that the trap is already filled with projectiles loosed by previous victims of the trap- a whirling river of arrows, bolts and magic still hurtling down the passage.

Dossta
2010-09-17 05:22 PM

I don't know about this. Unless the portals add some sort of "push" to an object when it exits, most normal projectiles will eventually slow down and stop. Even magic projectiles might fissle out, given enough time, and some of those (ie fireballs) are probably subject to the same air friction as normal missiles anyway.

The "one over, one under" configuration would still work like this, though.

Cheka Man
2010-09-14 06:05 PM

A nice orginal little trap.

EchoMirage
2010-09-17 06:08 AM

Actually, two linked portals can be placed below each other. The lower one covers a shallow pit with something desirable. Once you go in, you fall - from the upper portal into the lower one, and again and again and again... until you are rescued, or die.

Ted
2010-09-17 08:06 AM

Or you get pushed out of the effect through magic, psionics, ect.

EchoMirage
2010-09-17 04:09 PM

Don't forget - if you are pushed out later, not right away, you still will have quite a velocity, some 50m/s :D

Cheka Man
2010-09-17 05:51 PM

If you fall for too long, not even grabbing onto a rope would help you, as your velocity would snap it.

olontur
2010-09-24 06:56 PM

A levitate, fly or similar effect, magic or psionic, could get you out of the process of constant falling.

Plus, I'd see the dungeon "owner" needing to maintain the trap to keep it free of debris and mice and other stuff (read corpses). Alternatively, the magic of the portals could just teleport stuff somewhere else after some time of falling.

herrozerro
2010-11-02 08:50 AM

only voted

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A world where most people know a few cantrips and even non-magical people can help to cast spells. Which is just as well because the big spells can only be cast with the help of large numbers of people.Most large spells tend to protect borders and stop earthquakes as they can be done legally, but there are those willing to cast bad large spells s well.A major part of law enforcement in this world is preventing evil magic.
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