Trap/door feature branch

[calris]

And what, therefore, is the point of magical detection?

And for that matter items of Searching?

[Nick]

And what, therefore, is the point of magical detection?

The only point is that you can see where doors and traps are before you get to them, which may help slightly in planning. It's pretty marginal.

[calris]

Nope, the searching and search frequency skills have been removed completely.

Ah - I guess you ignore most of that previous post then

EDIT: And what, therefore, is the point of magical detection?

[Nick]

I thought that there was still a skill check for the detection, but it only occurs once?

Nope, the searching and search frequency skills have been removed completely.

[calris]

I think you've missed here that searching/perception has now gone. Traps and secret doors are automatically noticed on walking next to them.

I thought that there was still a skill check for the detection, but it only occurs once?

[Nick]

• Perhaps add a 'Potion of Perception' which increases your search skill (would probably need the effect to last for a decent length of time) - These would be useful to pop just before entering a vault where stepping on a trap door is going to be really heart sinking.
• Give mages and priests spells to increase searching/perception - something like 'Focused Observation' and 'Divine Perception'
• I'm thinking that non-magic users could have a 'Searching' ability that significantly increases their search skill, but might, for example, give them a -5 speed penalty. So if your in a vault, you can work you way through it carefully, at the expense of being ambushed
• Maybe have the speed penalty vary based on class - Rogues have extremely low penalty, Warriors at the high end - Maybe give the ability to Mages and Priests, but make the penalty significantly more

I think you've missed here that searching/perception has now gone. Traps and secret doors are automatically noticed on walking next to them.

[calris]

Originally I took out all the Trap and Door/Stair Location objects, but the lack of stair detection hurt the diving playstyle a bit, and Stair Detection might be a bit pathetic as a standalone spell/object. But maybe not.

A few thoughts

• Keep Door/Stair location, but scrap trap detection and anything that 'detects' hidden things like traps, secret doors, and invisible monsters. My basic thought is, if you can't see it with your eyes, you shouldn't be able to detect it with your mind. ESP of course is an exception as it 'sees' intelligence.
• Make potions of See Invisible _slightly_ more common to compensate for the loss of scrolls and staves
• Perhaps add a 'Potion of Perception' which increases your search skill (would probably need the effect to last for a decent length of time) - These would be useful to pop just before entering a vault where stepping on a trap door is going to be really heart sinking.
• Give mages and priests spells to increase searching/perception - something like 'Focused Observation' and 'Divine Perception'
• I'm thinking that non-magic users could have a 'Searching' ability that significantly increases their search skill, but might, for example, give them a -5 speed penalty. So if your in a vault, you can work you way through it carefully, at the expense of being ambushed
• Maybe have the speed penalty vary based on class - Rogues have extremely low penalty, Warriors at the high end - Maybe give the ability to Mages and Priests, but make the penalty significantly more

[Nick]

So priests gain an advantage and mages (the most fragile class until very late in the game) get screwed?

It is a pretty minuscule advantage - I was thinking of it more being a slight flavor thing for the most powerful forms of detection. Maybe just give it to potions of *Enlightenment*.

And don't worry, in 4.2 all the classes will get screwed

I'm playing a Human Warrior, and rods of Trap Location and rods of Door/Stair Location seems pretty much pointless. The Door/Stair Location in particular - it only detects non-hidden doors which is kind of pointless. Object, Treasure, and Monster detection are way more useful.

To be honest, I wouldn't care if magical detection of traps and doors was scraped completely and a new rod of Monster Detection created with low dungeon level, high fail rate, long recharge time. Make it so it doesn't detect invisible creatures and remove scrolls and staves of Detect Invisible. So basically, magical detection through scrolls, spells, staves, rods, etc. never exposes hidden things. Things that change @'s innate abilities (potions and equipment of see invisible, rings of searching, etc.) are what allow @ to find/see hidden things.

This is an interesting way of thinking about it.

Originally I took out all the Trap and Door/Stair Location objects, but the lack of stair detection hurt the diving playstyle a bit, and Stair Detection might be a bit pathetic as a standalone spell/object. But maybe not.

Probably a bit of a rethink of detection is in order, but maybe it is better done in 4.2 when classes are up for grabs.

I'd really appreciate some more opinions and discussion on this.

[calris]

I think trap detection still needs some work - probably only have it as part of Detection and Clairvoyance.

I'm playing a Human Warrior, and rods of Trap Location and rods of Door/Stair Location seems pretty much pointless. The Door/Stair Location in particular - it only detects non-hidden doors which is kind of pointless. Object, Treasure, and Monster detection are way more useful.

To be honest, I wouldn't care if magical detection of traps and doors was scraped completely and a new rod of Monster Detection created with low dungeon level, high fail rate, long recharge time. Make it so it doesn't detect invisible creatures and remove scrolls and staves of Detect Invisible. So basically, magical detection through scrolls, spells, staves, rods, etc. never exposes hidden things. Things that change @'s innate abilities (potions and equipment of see invisible, rings of searching, etc.) are what allow @ to find/see hidden things.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I think trap detection still needs some work - probably only have it as part of Detection and Clairvoyance.

So priests gain an advantage and mages (the most fragile class until very late in the game) get screwed?

[Nick]

OK, latest master from the nightlies page (when it appears) will incorporate the new traps branch, including the fix to Nomad's crash bug.

I think trap detection still needs some work - probably only have it as part of Detection and Clairvoyance.

[Nick]

Repeatable crash whenever I take one step to the right in this save file. (If you use the debug commands to light up the room, you can see there's a chest there - stepping next to it while the room is dark and you only have radius 1 light triggers the crash, but if you use debug commands to either illuminate the room or give yourself a lantern, you can see and approach the chest without a crash.)

Excellent, thank you - bug found and fixed. The problem was essentially that after moving the player was searching for chest traps before looking around and seeing the chest.

[Nomad]

Repeatable crash whenever I take one step to the right in this save file. (If you use the debug commands to light up the room, you can see there's a chest there - stepping next to it while the room is dark and you only have radius 1 light triggers the crash, but if you use debug commands to either illuminate the room or give yourself a lantern, you can see and approach the chest without a crash.)

[Nick]

...and new builds again, Windows and OS X, with a fix to the "the (nothing) disappears" bug from master, plus a rework of chests so they're much rarer and much more valuable.

This branch will probably be pulled into master soon.

[Nick]

I'm playing on this build (Windows) and I'm getting errors while throwing stuff from the ground (Assertion failed - obj-pile.c line 134). In the supplied savefile, my char is standing on a stack of iron shots. You can reproduce the crash by repeatedly throwing these iron shots in a general direction.

Excellent, thank you - that bug is fixed, and I suspect it has probably fixed a number of reported crashes (any time an object went from the ground to somewhere else on the ground and then broke).

There are new builds for Windows and OS X up with this latest fix and a new trap.