Antoine's proposals for traps

[Antoine]

Magical trap detection should be rarer

• Rod of Trap Detection is a deep item
• Scrolls and staffs of trap detection are more expensive
• The mage spell can only detect magical traps
• The priest spell can only detect traps within LOS

Some tweaks to mundane trap detection

• Searching now either works or it doesn't - once you have searched a space once, there is no added benefit in searching it again
• With high Perception, you have a % chance of passively detecting traps nearby

There should be a new selection of traps

• Pits - always visible, can be found anywhere
• Mishaps - not visible, can be found anywhere particularly in shallow levels. Minor effects such as spoiling food, dimming your light, waking up nearby monsters.
• Deadfalls, blade traps and alarms - not visible - found at intersections, in the bend of a corner, and in spaces that are totally surrounded by walls and secret doors. With careful play you should never need to step on one of these traps.
• Inscriptions - not visible - found on the walls of rooms - affect you if you stand orthogonally next to them. Again these should be avoidable with careful play.
• Turrets and dart traps - visible - found in the middle of a large room or of a long straight corridor. They zap you if you come within eg 2 spaces. If you light the dungeon enough you should never need to get hit by one of these.
• Runes of Protection - not visible - found anywhere in the deeper levels. Monsters can step on these but you cannot.
• Cells - not visible - found in solid rock. If you dig into the cell, the nearby rock is removed and monsters are summoned into the space.
• Cave-ins - not visible - created when you dig out a space. Every time you step onto the cave-in subsequently, there is a % chance of an earthquake effect. This feature makes the use of ASCs a bit more problematic.
• Vault traps - found in vaults and other hand-designed rooms. Each ^ symbol has about a 20% chance of being a trap (just to keep you guessing). These include nasty traps such as teleport away, levelport, make nearby permanent walls disappear.
• Caches - found in dead ends, in corners, under rubble, and in some vaults. If you search in the right place, you may find a treasure.

Some monsters should create traps

• Rogues and gnomes should drop traps behind them as they walk
• Mages should create Runes of Protection under their feet
• High level mages should be able to surround themselves with Runes, or create traps around the player

A.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I like this proposal a lot! I might borrow some ideas to Halls of Mist some day.

Mist's wall inscriptions work a little differently. Mist has red wall paintings, perhaps five squares wide. Each square may have a hidden rune. A rune shoots orthogonally inside the room. If the player or a monster walks into this ray, it has to make a saving throw or get zapped.

If you walk next to a rune, you may make a Perception check to spot it, and then you may attempt to disarm it with your Alchemy skill. Actually, if you master a rune, you may turn it on or off as you like.

BTW, only "special walls" may have secret doors. There's a chance for a little treasure room behind that wall painting...

[Antoine]

Shameless bump. Nick (o great maintainer of maintainerness), your thoughts?

A.

[Derakon]

This proposal doesn't address my biggest problem with traps, namely the need to repeatedly use trap detection (whether deep or not, from spells or not). Making trap detection deeper / more expensive doesn't fix that, really, it just screws over warriors and ironman characters (who can't buy trap detection consumables).

I strongly advise that anyone who wants to come up with a way to "fix" traps start with the premise that players should not be routinely stopping their exploration so they can use some kind of trap detection mechanism.

[Antoine]

> This proposal doesn't address my biggest problem with traps, namely the need to repeatedly use trap detection

Yes it does! Under my proposal, you only really need trap detection / searching when you find a vault or special room. You don't need it at any other time, provided:
- you don't hug the wall of a room
- you don't step into an L-bend or the central square of an intersection
- you have decent light radius for your depth
- you don't mind getting hit by the odd 'trivial' trap that has minor, nonlethal effects.

A.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

My thoughts exactly, Antoine. That's the general way I solved the problem in Halls of Mist, also: I moved traps to special "trapped zones".

In Angband, it's a no-brainer to carry trap detection items (with unlimited or at least lots of charges) because you need them ALL THE TIME. Traps are everywhere. In addition, there's no real cost involved in using trap detection spells since you regenerate the mana back very fast. You never have to make interesting decisions.

In Halls of Mist, traps mostly exist in rooms with closets (green #'s in walls). There are no trap detection spells.

There are some items that help with traps: for example, Scrolls of Protection from Traps (for a while, traps don't have an effect) and Ring of Perception (increases the percentage chance of detecting traps), etc. Whether you want to carry these items or not is a strategic decision; they aren't no-brainers!

Even if you don't carry items that help with traps, there are other strategies. You might simply skip looting the closets and find another way around the trapped room. Usually you should at least minimize the steps that you take inside the heavily trapped room.

(Wall inscriptions that I mentioned earlier are a special case. Since they are very dangerous and since you can also use them against monsters, they often lead to very interesting tactical situations.)

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Always visible traps may be fun, too, if implemented in an interesting way!

Clearly marked "trapped zones" with hidden traps has many of the same benefits.

The important thing is that the player has to know about the possibility of traps before they hit him to be able to make tactically interesting decisions.

I'd like to have both kinds.

[Nick]

> This proposal doesn't address my biggest problem with traps, namely the need to repeatedly use trap detection

Yes it does! Under my proposal, you only really need trap detection / searching when you find a vault or special room. You don't need it at any other time, provided:
- you don't hug the wall of a room
- you don't step into an L-bend or the central square of an intersection
- you have decent light radius for your depth
- you don't mind getting hit by the odd 'trivial' trap that has minor, nonlethal effects.

Still too often, IMHO. Having been given the idea of traps being always visible, it seems obvious.

I think the idea of different classes of traps which different player classes find easy/difficult to handle is potentially interesting.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

You could easily categorize a "minefield" as a visible trap, if you wanted. Just mark the edges somehow. Visible traps with unpredictable elements are fun.

I hope Wisdom and/or Intelligence are somehow very relevant in the new system. Traps are one area in the game that might allow these stats to be meaningful even for non-spellcasters. Personally I'd like to make Perception checks much more meaningful, but you seem to be going to a different direction (at least with traps).