I made a compendium class about setting traps.
The Trapmaster
When you repel 3 invading parties with the help of traps you set or repel a single party with nothing but traps you set, you may take these two moves when you level up in place of an advance.
Prepare Traps
When you spend a few hours preparing traps in an area, you set your hold to 3 and forget where any previous traps are. Don’t tell any players where these traps are yet: they could be anywhere.
Reveal Trap
When you reveal someone has triggered a trap in the area you most recently prepared with traps, Roll 2d+Int. On a hit, the trap is activated. Describe the trap and pick the effect it has on who triggered it.
-Deals d6 damage to them.
-Separates them from the action.
-Holds them in place for a brief moment.
-Seals off an exit for them.
On a 7-9, you spend 1 hold from the Prepare Traps move. You can’t trigger this move if you have 0 hold. The GM may ask you at anytime how you set up this trap, tell them now.
When you have those two moves, you may pick one of these moves in place of an advance.
Treacherous Traps
When you reveal a trap that deals damage, you may also give it the Forceful, Messy, or Piercing 2 tag.
The Big One
When you reveal a trap on a 10+, you may spend 1 hold to pick a second target for it’s effects.
Alarm Ears
When you hear an alarm go off, you may ask the GM “Have we encountered the creature who triggered the alarm before and if so, who is it?” and they will answer truthfully.
Acme Quality
When you roll a 7-9 while revealing a trap, you may choose to forgo spending hold. If you do, the trap unintentionally gives an advantage to an opponent or a disadvantage to you or an ally.
Notes: I sort of had “Number Appearing” style games in mind when I wrote this, considering you’d be spending a lot of time in the dungeon with frequent intruders. You could probably use it for any campaign that has a central base of operations you find yourself defending frequently.
Hey, what a cool start! Keep it up!
Nice. What about to use 1 Adventurer Kit and/or 1 ration when Preparing Traps? It could be useful to avoid a continuous laying down traps everywhere. Ok, I understand you forget the previous traps location, however is feel this one useful to “prepare traps when really important/meaningful”.
I like this very much; it’s kind of a battlefield engineering or hunting specialisation. One potential problem is that it’s quite defensive and static, hence the following suggestion.
Given the expertise here, something about detecting and disabling traps is also in order, on the understanding that setting traps is the perfect training for overcoming them.
I suggest Detect & Disarm Traps: 10+ gives Hold 3 vs finding or disabling traps in that location. A 10+ also might give the option of dismantling and reusing the trap in some way: turning it around, moving it elsewhere, enhancing or reducing its effect.
7-9 might give Choose from a list of not-so-fun options.
(Based on a booby traps and mines course I took, back in ancient history).
Andrea Parducci I feel like making players fictionally justify how their traps are set up would be enough to limit them.
“Hey Garret, where did you get the rope for that noose?”
“Oh, I pulled it out of my adventuring gear.”
“Okay then, mark a use of it.”
Also, remember that when you forget about traps, you not only can’t reveal them but you can also accidentally wander into them. Leaving a bunch of traps lying around is a prime opportunity to Turn Their Move Back On Them.
Michael Barry I feel like trap laying and trap disposal is a bit much for a single compendium class. Disarming and detecting traps is roughly a third of what the Thief class does, I don’t want to step on it’s toes.
I understand this CC isn’t very useful outside of a defensive niche, but I think that if you meet the qualifying condition, defending is probably already a big part of the campaign. I think an advantage of compendium classes is they can allow for moves that are more situational or campaign specific.
Nice. You could add a couple of phrases to better clarify those things, like:
“The GM could ask you a question or two about the traps you built. Answer truthfully”
“When you forget about the previous traps, they are still there. Watch out, you could accidentally become a victim of them”.
etc.
However, I like this CC, and I can see his place in a lot of campaigns (also, in a “urban thief” setting, or a “monster hunter” type too).
Another possibility: given the urban/wilderness possibilities, could this instead be a later option for thief/ranger — a sort of specialisation?
The Ranger would be a master wilderness trapper (animals, including humans) while the thief would tend more to intricate or hidden traps in urban or dungeon settings.
The Thief would of course retain their ability to detect and disarm.