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[Tawa]

So, my first truly successful fortress, Eribaran, is prospering. But all is not well. I fear our days will come to an end soon, and I need to do something awesome that will give an amazing end to its tale when a daring adventurer comes to claim its treasures.

So, I need help to assemble something so fiendishly painful, arduous, and deadly to get through that Dragon's Lair would be ashamed of its comparative ease.

It will be: The "Deadly Evil Adventurer-Trashing Hole" Trap (The D.E.A.T.H. Trap).

The goal is that I dig a corridor, fill it with traps and pain, then after either an artifact locked door or some kind of truly evil puzzle like a pick between two levers (one of which opens a floodgate and the other of which impales you with a corkscrew), there is the grand prize: an artifact goblin bone top hat.

Ideas for traps I had include:
-A pressure plate that triggers a cave-in right behind you, sending you flying through the corridor due to cave-in dust
-A pressure plate that drops an anvil or something onto you via floor grates
-A room full of pressure plates where you have to step on the right series of plates or else get impaled or crushed or something
-one of those classic walking-along-and-trip-and-fall-into-a-pit-of-iron-spikes traps

So, what I need is constructive criticism and suggestions. Please don't recommend magma or water in the traps, I despise DF fluid physics.

Gracias!

[Chevaleresse]

Pressure plates that release captive, vicious animals.
The same, but with a ranged FB or squad of gobbos behind fortifications that shoot at a 1-tile-wide path.
Timed atomsmashing corridors.
A lever that appears to open a door but actually drops a shitload of garbage on you from above hatches/drawbridges.
Drawbridge catapults that fling you at spikes.

[Tacomagic]

Picture a lever placed next to a drawbridge.   The lever is placed in such a way that it makes it an obvious choice to open the bridge.

The lever is pulled and the bridge opens.

Meanwhile, in the depths of the fort, a minecart counter starts.

15 or so minutes later, after the adventurer has nearly forgotten about the easy lever, a second pair of drawbridges that were next to the main entry open up while simultaneously closing the main entry and disabling it from being reopened.  Out from behind those bridges magma starts pumping into the corridor, slowly flooding it and, eventually, the rest of the fort.

[PillarsOfSalt]

The falling anvil idea really appeals to me. It's a classic. However, a retracting bridge seems like the best delivery method. How about a bridge that flings food and garbage then, after a little delay, spiked balls and/or war panthers.

[Tacomagic]

The falling anvil idea really appeals to me. It's a classic. However, a retracting bridge seems like the best delivery method. How about a bridge that flings food and garbage then, after a little delay, spiked balls and/or war panthers.

Lead Minecarts filled with slade.

[StagnantSoul]

I launched a stone 800 times the weight of slade, it bruised a guy's upper body.

[LMeire]

A series of easily avoided, nigh-harmless, and/or apparently broken traps, like weapon traps filled with featherwood training hammers, floodgates with nothing behind them, and easily escapable pitfalls. Plus some levers/pressure plates which are linked to bridges to progress further as well as a set of support beams. Each support would hold up a pillar, which would crash through the ceiling and block off the main path, forcing a long detour on the way back. The last lever would release the clowns (Or a bunch of flying FBs, whichever works best.), by punching a hole through an otherwise secured ceiling for them to fly through.

Your adventurer would be lured in by untold treasures, solving simple puzzles and dodging flimsy traps, gradually building up confidence until suddenly circus! (Maybe have the clowns path through a winding trail lined with fortifications so your adventurer can better appreciate just how screwed they are.) They backtrack, getting about halfway out just as the clowns find their way into the fortress proper! Muahahahahahahaha!

[GavJ]

A series of easily avoided, nigh-harmless, and/or apparently broken traps, like weapon traps filled with featherwood training hammers, floodgates with nothing behind them, and easily escapable pitfalls. Plus some levers/pressure plates which are linked to bridges to progress further as well as a set of support beams. Each support would hold up a pillar, which would crash through the ceiling and block off the main path, forcing a long detour on the way back. The last lever would release the clowns (Or a bunch of flying FBs, whichever works best.), by punching a hole through an otherwise secured ceiling for them to fly through.

Your adventurer would be lured in by untold treasures, solving simple puzzles and dodging flimsy traps, gradually building up confidence until suddenly circus! (Maybe have the clowns path through a winding trail lined with fortifications so your adventurer can better appreciate just how screwed they are.) They backtrack, getting about halfway out just as the clowns find their way into the fortress proper! Muahahahahahahaha!

Pfft, no big deal, just build a few campfires in the hallway and mosey on out at your leisure. If they start getting too close, jump through the fortifications and make THEM backtrack, then jump back out again when they get all the way back and continue on.

[warwizard]

Let me have a go at this...

  Things to note, in an abandoned fortress, Items do not stay put, cages and trapped creatures go elsewhere on the map so no dropping items or creatures, releasing the crundle bomb are out, the OP does not want fluids so what have we left?

  Mine carts, nope they are items and will not be in the launch positions unless your adventurer has to load them into position to move forward in the maze... now there's an idea, have to carry a mine cart onto a track and load it with items and then pull a lever, if it's heavy enough the roller activates and off it goes deeper into the fort STARTING UP up all the clockwork traps and dumps the items on a spot for later dumping or flinging THEN GOES ON A PATH THROUGH THE FORTRESS ON AN INFINATE LOOP. ohh man killed by the same mine cart used to gain access, how sweet!

OK what else, now that we have a moving mine cart with pressure plate controlled doors and hatches we can have a dynamically changing access throughout the fortress. have to make sure there are no rocks or ores or anything heavy enough to stop a moving mine cart, (sorry no pitchblende boxes full of platinum bars) The items getting strewn all about means that the prize needs to be that candy artefact bolt loaded into the artifact mechanism controlled weapon trap, have to hope it does not hit anything vital.

[Dwarf4Explosives]

Don't items stay put if you block off normal access*? So if the only way into the fortress is to jump, wouldn't that prevent item scrambling?

*Which is to say, if you make it impossible to walk to the inside of the fort.

[Larix]

I don't know how items in forts are handled in the .40 series, or if there's a difference between abandoned and retired forts there.

If moving minecarts stay on course during such a process, the simplest trap would be a minecart cyclotron behind a door. If that door is opened, the cart flies out at terminal velocity, and if it's a metal cart, any adventurer will be hurled away at the same speed, which means they'll inevitably blow apart when they hit the nearest wall. It might be possible to prevent this by carrying a titan corpse with you all the time (unless the trap builder thought of that and stuffed a dozen titan corpses into the cart...).

Another option would be to put a liquid-triggered pressure plate behind a door and fill the area (ideally a single tile) with the liquid in question - e.g. a 0-4 water plate on a tile filled to 6 or 7 with water. When an adjacent door opens, the water will spread out to that place and get low enough for the plate to trigger before the character can take any action to prevent it. While this isn't a trap by itself, it gives you guaranteed triggers from any passing unit while creature-triggered plates can often be avoided.

Considering avoidance: you could try to set an obvious trap and have a clever adventurer jump past it, only to land in the actual trap. However, with the current traps that isn't directly possible, because traps are just "invisible" buildings that are indiscriminately and stochastically revealed by observation when close enough. Still, you could build a two tiles wide magma moat that an adventurer could jump over - only to land on the pressure plate which activates nearby pumps working on the moat from one z above - i.e. it's actually a magma landmine, not a moat. And you can't jump past a two-wide moat without a running start...

[Dwarf4Explosives]

If moving minecarts stay on course during such a process, the simplest trap would be a minecart cyclotron behind a door. If that door is opened, the cart flies out at terminal velocity, and if it's a metal cart, any adventurer will be hurled away at the same speed, which means they'll inevitably blow apart when they hit the nearest wall. It might be possible to prevent this by carrying a titan corpse with you all the time (unless the trap builder thought of that and stuffed a dozen titan corpses into the cart...).

That seems a bit like an instant death device, though, and judging from the post, a trap that, with a bit of skill, can actually be survived is what is wanted. I'd suggest making the adventurer pass one or more minecart tracks where the minecart is moving so quickly that it'll kill them if they don't avoid it. It needs very good timing, but the adventurer still has a chance.

[Tacomagic]

If moving minecarts stay on course during such a process, the simplest trap would be a minecart cyclotron behind a door. If that door is opened, the cart flies out at terminal velocity, and if it's a metal cart, any adventurer will be hurled away at the same speed, which means they'll inevitably blow apart when they hit the nearest wall. It might be possible to prevent this by carrying a titan corpse with you all the time (unless the trap builder thought of that and stuffed a dozen titan corpses into the cart...).

That seems a bit like an instant death device, though, and judging from the post, a trap that, with a bit of skill, can actually be survived is what is wanted. I'd suggest making the adventurer pass one or more minecart tracks where the minecart is moving so quickly that it'll kill them if they don't avoid it. It needs very good timing, but the adventurer still has a chance.

I'd say making survivable or cirumventable traps kinda goes aginst the aim to make the fort:

It will be: The "Deadly Evil Adventurer-Trashing Hole" Trap (The D.E.A.T.H. Trap)

I'd say that in the spirit or roguelike fun.  Traps with no known solution that cause instant death should be the flavor used.  Then, try to get past them anyway.

[Tawa]

Don't items stay put if you block off normal access*? So if the only way into the fortress is to jump, wouldn't that prevent item scrambling?

*Which is to say, if you make it impossible to walk to the inside of the fort.

If this works in .34, it'll work fine.

((I'm still running .34, ehehe. Want my first real fort to go out with a bang.))

[Max™]

Couldn't you lair flag it to prevent item scrambling?

As for the traps, I like the minecart one. Include pressure plates with a weight setting that you deliberately closed your eyes and mashed keys to set, so you have to get around through whatever other obstacles you include to find the right combination of items to put in the cart... or can you load a cart in adventurer mode? I haven't done much in it, ran at a crab, the crab exploded, I chuckled but went back to dorf mode.

If you can't load it then see if you can preset the carts with the right weighted items (could make it easier on yourself and just limit each plate to a single combination of cart+item like a stone or something perhaps?) and check to make sure the system operates properly, then rely on the item scattering to make a mess and force you to find the right two items to get everything working to finally breach the inner sanctum.

In the process you end up setting numerous minecarts zooming around on repeating loops through different parts of the very same path you will have to work your way across to leave!

Plus include them doing things like triggering floor hatches/grates/retracting bridges/smashing bridges/floodgates/weapon traps and so forth.

You get there, it is a mess, but for the most part it is dormant, barring the smattering of normal dangers, then you go through all the effort to tidy up and get things working properly to get to the delicious candy coated prize in the center, which you can now escape with, assuming the now fully armed and operational deathtrap doesn't work as advertised, that is.

Oh, bonus fun, similar to the demon suggestion above, but campfires can trivialize that... set it up so removing the final prize releases a cave-in that brings the circus to town, who will then be free to path up into a convenient waiting room, which is also blocking the only way in or out of the fort. Try to account for demon pathing to stall them just long enough that you have a chance of hitting the exit before they do... but don't include time allowance for getting knocked over by a minecart or dropped into a pit by a suddenly opened floor hatch.