Death Spiral Stairs

Here is another installment of exTRAPaganza, our Thursday over-the-top trap series. 

I want another trap favorite – stairs. But deadly. More so than usual…

The characters walk into a large, empty room. The walls, floor and ceiling are made of seamless stone. After some searching, they find that the floor and ceiling have tiny little seams, that look like they can be opened by a secret pressure plate near one of the seams. The seams form a circle, with radial lines from a smaller, center circle.

When activated, the floor and ceiling open up, and a stone spiral staircase corkscrews into life. However, when it does so, it cause the floor to raise up quickly into the ceiling, smashing anyone who doesn’t make it onto the staircase.

The characters at this point have one way to go, and that’s up. Once they start to ascend the staircase, they hear plinking noises, followed by a faint crash. The stairs below them are falling off. The characters will have to try to outrun the stairs, otherwise, they fall. If they grab onto the center column, they will find it sharp, and coated with oily poison.

If they do manage to outrun the stairs, once they reach the top part of the stairs, about 15 stairs or so below the top (which has an opening  in the ceiling to the room above) the stairs collapse. They can reach for the column, which is as above, or reach for the opening. However, if they grab the opening, the weight of the character causes the entire ceiling to fall, crushing anyone onto the floor several hundred feet below.

Then, for no reason, the bottom room catches on fire.

Interaction	PFRPG:
Rising Floor
Detecting	Very Hard Perception check to notice that ceiling will fall and that the stair area is safe.
Attack	Hard Reflex Save or take APL * d12 damage and be pinned – hard Escape Artist or CMB to escape. Every round pinned take APL * d6 crushing damage.
Falling Stairs
Detecting	Moderate Perception check to detect stairs collapsing once more than 50′ up.
Resolving	Stairs collapse at 50′ per round. Calculate standard falling damage if stairs collapse from underneath character unless they successfully grab center column.
Grabbing Center Column
Detecting	Hard Perception check to detect small, sharp surfaces covered with an oily substance.
Grabbing	Hard Acrobatics Check to grab center column. Hard Reflex save to avoid falling when coming into contact with sharp surfaces. Becomes Moderate if the sharp surfaces were previously detected. Hard CMB check to not start sliding down column
Damage	Standard falling damage if character falls. High bonus attack vs. AC or take APL points of damage. APL*d4 bleed damage per round if sliding down column. If damaged, hard fortitude save or become unconscious (and fall) from oily poison.
Falling Ceiling
Damage	Standard falling damage plus APL * 12 crushing damage and become pinned. Hard Escape Artist or CMB check to escape. While pinned, take APL * d6 crushing damage per round.
Fire
Damage	While in fire, take APL * d4 fire damage per round.