Popular with woodland protectors, intelligent forest-dwelling monsters and guerrilla fighters, the whip trap is easy to set up. While the name may summon ideas of a leather whip striking out at the PCs, it is actually derived from the whip-like action of the shaft released by a trip wire and launching into the victims with deadly force.

The workings of such a trap are quite simple. The heart of it is typically a long length of bamboo or other flexible green wood; this trapmaker fixes this whip to [More…] a sturdy tree or other large, immobile object on one end and attaches lethal spikes on the other. The shaft acts as a flexible lever and a rope, vine, or chain draws the shaft back and frequently serves as a trip line as well. These traps are easy to assemble from materials found in nearly any forest, jungle, or other region with both trees to anchor it and underbrush to hide it.

Whip Trap CR 2
Type mechanical; Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 18

EFFECTS
Trigger location; Reset manual
Effect Atk +12 melee (2d6+5, spikes)
Cost 4,600 gp

Filthy Whip Trap

Cruel crafters of these simple traps constantly find ways to make them more devious. An extremely crude method calls for coating the spikes with excrement or other infectious bodily fluids. You may substitute other diseases as long as contact or injury is the method of infection.
Filthy Whip Trap CR 3
Type mechanical; Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 20

EFFECTS
Trigger location; Reset manual
Effect Atk +12 melee (2d6+5 plus disease, spikes); disease (filth fever, DC 12 Fortitude save resists, incubation 1d3 days, 1d3 Dex and 1d3 Con)
Cost 6,900 gp

Stout Whip Trap

This variant of the whip trap utilizes a particularly stout tree as the shaft. Typically rigged by larger creatures such as ogres or giants, this type of whip trap may slam the creatures initially affected by the trap into their companions.

This variant incorporates a Bull Rush attack into the basic spike attack. The target struck by the spikes is hurled back and is knocked prone if they fail an opposed Strength check. The stout whip trap has a modifier for this special attack action of +12 due to Strength and size.

Stout Whip Trap CR 4
Type mechanical; Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 20

EFFECTS
Trigger location; Reset manual
Effect Atk +16 melee (2d6+8, spikes); Bull Rush +10
Cost 13,600 gp

Poisoned Whip Trap

A modification on the simple whip trap incorporates animal venom or poisonous plant extracts to make a more dangerous trap. This example makes use of sassone leaf residue; however, you may substitute any poison with an injury or contact delivery method (with a matching increase in cost).

Poisoned Whip Trap CR 5
Type mechanical; Search DC 22; Disable Device DC 20

EFFECTS
Trigger location; Reset manual
Effect Atk +12 melee (2d6+5 plus poison, spikes); poison (sassone leaf residue, DC 16 Fortitude save resists, 2d12 hp/1d6 Con)
Cost 11,800 gp

The rules provided for determining the cost of traps on page 75 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide greatly inflate the reasonable appropriate cost of such simple traps. The costs were included to provide a complete statistics block for these traps, but feel free to ignore the cost entry.

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