This is a fork off of the "4.1-4.3 features" thread, which devolved into arguing about what traps should be. Nick invited us to do some design work on the concept, so this is what I've thought of so far (in the last ~half hour ).
My thesis:
* Traps should be visible. Detecting traps is not interesting. Detect trap spells, and searching skills (and the search command) should be removed.
* Traps should get in the way. Traps that are trivially avoided are not interesting. Mass-disarming spells should be removed; if you want to disarm something, you should have to get close to it.
* Traps should be tempting to move through anyway. If they're effectively a different kind of wall, then they aren't especially interesting -- we can just add chasms if we want walls you can see/shoot over.
And here are some of the concepts I've thought of that I feel adhere to the above principles:
* A room with spiked floors. Moving through the room, or fighting in it, has a chance to deal damage to you. If you want to avoid the traps, then you must go around, or dig around, which can take significant time. Of course this is more significant in the early game, where straight damage from traps is more likely to matter and the player has fewer options for dungeon navigation.
* Turrets. These act as stationary enemies (that can't be killed, only disarmed) that periodically fire a projectile at the player. I like the idea that they fire at where you were on your previous turn, so you can juke back and forth to avoid them -- but if you're in a fight, that may prove difficult. Turrets can fire stat-draining darts, arrows, elemental bolts, etc. Probably not explosive shots (at least not until later in the dungeon) because those would be so much harder to avoid taking damage from.
* Crushers. As with the spiked floors, these would most likely fill an entire room (or length of hallway), but in a checkerboard or cross-hatch pattern. There's two ways we can rig these: indiscriminate and discriminate. In the former version, every few turns a subset of the crushers will activate, damaging everything they hit and forcing them into adjacent tiles (or else be severely crushed for heavy damage). In the latter case, the crushers follow the player, slamming down right behind them and then staying down for a few turns, acting as walls. Thus you not only need to keep moving but also need to avoid getting boxed in.
Traps of course are negative dungeon features. But nothing says we can't have positive dungeon features. These would give the player benefits while standing in their tiles; the goal being to encourage the player to move fights to those locations. Consequently these effects should be small and easy to avoid, because the point is to make it harder to take advantage of them. For example:
* Magical pools that improve the player's stats while they stand in them. Such pools could temporarily increase STR, DEX, INT, WIS, or CON by +5, say. Or they could give extra blows, extra speed, etc.
* Auras of protection, which give automatic double resistance to an element (fire/cold/acid/electricity/poison only, I would think) or reduce physical damage taken to 2/3rds normal.
* A fountain of healing, which gives triple regeneration.
* A teleportation cage, which prevents all teleportation into or out of the region of effect, for player and monsters alike. This one should probably take over an entire room.
My thesis:
* Traps should be visible. Detecting traps is not interesting. Detect trap spells, and searching skills (and the search command) should be removed.
* Traps should get in the way. Traps that are trivially avoided are not interesting. Mass-disarming spells should be removed; if you want to disarm something, you should have to get close to it.
* Traps should be tempting to move through anyway. If they're effectively a different kind of wall, then they aren't especially interesting -- we can just add chasms if we want walls you can see/shoot over.
And here are some of the concepts I've thought of that I feel adhere to the above principles:
* A room with spiked floors. Moving through the room, or fighting in it, has a chance to deal damage to you. If you want to avoid the traps, then you must go around, or dig around, which can take significant time. Of course this is more significant in the early game, where straight damage from traps is more likely to matter and the player has fewer options for dungeon navigation.
* Turrets. These act as stationary enemies (that can't be killed, only disarmed) that periodically fire a projectile at the player. I like the idea that they fire at where you were on your previous turn, so you can juke back and forth to avoid them -- but if you're in a fight, that may prove difficult. Turrets can fire stat-draining darts, arrows, elemental bolts, etc. Probably not explosive shots (at least not until later in the dungeon) because those would be so much harder to avoid taking damage from.
* Crushers. As with the spiked floors, these would most likely fill an entire room (or length of hallway), but in a checkerboard or cross-hatch pattern. There's two ways we can rig these: indiscriminate and discriminate. In the former version, every few turns a subset of the crushers will activate, damaging everything they hit and forcing them into adjacent tiles (or else be severely crushed for heavy damage). In the latter case, the crushers follow the player, slamming down right behind them and then staying down for a few turns, acting as walls. Thus you not only need to keep moving but also need to avoid getting boxed in.
Traps of course are negative dungeon features. But nothing says we can't have positive dungeon features. These would give the player benefits while standing in their tiles; the goal being to encourage the player to move fights to those locations. Consequently these effects should be small and easy to avoid, because the point is to make it harder to take advantage of them. For example:
* Magical pools that improve the player's stats while they stand in them. Such pools could temporarily increase STR, DEX, INT, WIS, or CON by +5, say. Or they could give extra blows, extra speed, etc.
* Auras of protection, which give automatic double resistance to an element (fire/cold/acid/electricity/poison only, I would think) or reduce physical damage taken to 2/3rds normal.
* A fountain of healing, which gives triple regeneration.
* A teleportation cage, which prevents all teleportation into or out of the region of effect, for player and monsters alike. This one should probably take over an entire room.
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