Traps

Some floors are trapped, and some doors. A trap starts out hidden: it looks like the floor around it, or the door it is on, and nothing tells you it is there until it goes off. Whoever steps onto a trap sets it off, you and the creatures alike. A door’s trap goes off when someone opens or kicks the door (see Trapped doors).

Finding traps

You learn where a trap is in one of three ways:

• you find it by searching or in passing, which your Detect traps skill helps (see Searching and Skills);
• you set it off;
• you see a creature set it off. Creatures know no more about traps than you do, so they walk onto them. A trap that goes off where you cannot see it stays hidden. You may still hear it, or see the blast of a fireball where you can see part of it.

From then on the trap is known. It shows as ^ in its own colour, over anything lying on it, and you remember it like the terrain, even out of sight. Look mode names it: “A fireball trap, on stone floor.”, or “A kobold (hostile, unhurt), on a pit on stone floor.” Some places show you their traps from the start.

Stepping onto a trap you know of asks first, in a small window: Really step onto the fireball trap? Choose Step onto it (y) to step on, or Stay back (n or Esc, chosen at first) to stay where you are. Holding a movement key stops you short of the trap instead of asking.

Stepping past a known trap

When you step onto a known trap on purpose, you have a good chance to avoid it. You step lightly over the pit, or deftly past the pressure plate before the arrow flies (“You deftly avoid the arrow trap.”, “You step lightly over the pit.”). The trap stays where it is, still armed, and the step takes its usual time. If you fail, it goes off as usual.

The chance depends on your dodge. That is your Dexterity modifier as your armour and burden leave it (heavy armour and a heavy load cap it, as in combat), plus every Dodge bonus you have: from the Tumble skill, talents, magic, your stance, and your state. The chance is 55% at a dodge of 0. Each point above that adds 10% and each point below takes 10% away. It is never less than 15% and never more than 90%, so it is always a gamble.

Only a trap you know of gives this chance; you do not know to step lightly round one you have not found. Neither does a step you did not choose, such as being turned back at a shop’s door, and creatures never try. Avoiding a trap counts as dodging for training Tumble and Dexterity. A door’s trap is not stepped on: it goes off when the door opens (see Trapped doors).

The Light step talent’s chance comes on top. If you fail to avoid a trap, it may still save you, and it works on hidden traps too (see Talents).

What traps do

Damage by danger

The damage above is a trap’s in the shallowest places. Deeper down traps hit harder. What a trap does depends on the danger level of the place it lies in, rising in steps, the same for a trap on the floor, a door, or a chest. A place with no danger at all counts as 0. At danger 0 to 2 no trap kills a new character at full hit points in one go, even with a critical hit. The column is the danger the step starts at.

• Attacks. An arrow or spears attack like a weapon, rolled against the Defence of whoever stepped on the trap (see Combat). They can miss (“You dodge the arrow.”, “The spear glances off your armour.”), hit, or hit hard. An arrow flies like a shot (see Ranged combat): it attacks whoever stands in its way, and lands where it falls, ready to be picked up.
• Blasts. A fireball burns everyone around the trap. A lightning bolt strikes everyone along its line. Both hit you too if you are there, with no roll to hit. Walls stop both. The lightning runs one way: along the longest clear line from the trap, unless the place says otherwise.
  • A fireball blows apart the softer walls it reaches (see Digging and walls). It melts the ice it reaches, and whoever stands on that ice falls in.
  • A frost trap bites everyone around it with cold. It freezes the water it reaches at once, into ice that holds a laden person (see Temperature and ice).
• A pit hurts you in the fall, and you lose your next action climbing out. Trained in Escape artist, the climb takes half that from 50 and nothing from 100. Each climb trains Escape artist, and half the time Athletics too, though Athletics does not shorten it.
• An alarm rings a bell that every creature within earshot hears. Those who have enemies come to look (see Hearing).
• A teleport trap moves you to another free place on the same level, perhaps somewhere you have never seen (“You are wrenched elsewhere.”).
• Charges. Some traps go off only once or twice. Then they are spent and gone.
• The same spells come on scrolls. A scroll of fireball, lightning, or frost casts what the trap does, where you aim it.

The Trap sense talent halves the damage a trap does to you, rounded down, at least 1 (see Talents). Magic that wards off traps takes its percent off as well (see Magic items), on a creature too. Together they never take more than 75% off: a trap always hurts.

A trap’s blow wounds like any other. A big one spills blood and can leave you bleeding. Traps can kill you as well as creatures. A creature killed by a trap drops what it carried, as from any death. But a trap’s kill earns you no experience and counts for no quest, even if you lured the creature there. A trap you rigged yourself is the exception. If a trap kills you, the death screen names it (“Killed by a fireball trap”). Someone who makes way for you onto a trap you stood on sets it off too.

No trap lies on water that can freeze, and a teleport never sets you down on ice.

Disarming traps

If you are trained in Disable device (thieves are), you can try to take apart a trap you know of, on the floor or on a door. Stand next to it and choose Disarm a trap in the abilities menu (a), then the direction. A trap you have not found cannot be disarmed. Trying where none is known only says “You know of no trap there.”, whether one is hidden there or not, and takes no time.

A try is a check: two twelve-sided dice, plus your Dexterity modifier, plus what your Disable device gives (+8 at 100, +12 at 200; see Skills). It is rolled against the trap’s difficulty, the same number that finding it takes. Deeper in a dungeon, both are harder.

• Reach it and the trap is gone for good (“You disarm the arrow trap.”).
• Fall short and it stays (“You fail to disarm the arrow trap.”).
• Fall short by 5 or more and it goes off at you (“You set off the arrow trap!”), as if you had set it off where you stand. The arrow shoots at you from its slit, the spears strike at you, the fireball bursts around the trap, the lightning runs from it through you, you tumble into the pit and lose your next action climbing back out, the alarm rings, or you are wrenched elsewhere. A trap with charges spends one.

A natural 2 always fails and a natural 24 always succeeds.

Every try takes 12 seconds at a normal pace, whatever comes of it, and may train Disable device. You can try as often as you like. Nothing remembers a failed try; time, and the risk, are the only price. Disarming earns no experience.

Rigging traps

A craftsperson of level 25 can rig traps of their own, with Trapwright. Choose it in the abilities menu, pick a trap from the list, then the way: the trap goes on the cell beside you in that direction. The list greys out a trap you lack something for, and says what.

The check: 2d12 + your Dexterity modifier + the crafting bonus of Woodcraft + your talents’ Dexterity checks, against 10. A natural 2 always fails, and springs the trap on you; a natural 24 always succeeds.

• Where. On a level, never the overworld. The cell must be open floor with nobody on it, and no trap, chest, door, stairs, shop floor, water, or ice. A tripwire also needs a wall near, for its arrow to shoot from.
• The work takes the time above. A creature coming into view, or anything that interrupts you, stops it; then nothing is rigged and nothing used up, but the time is gone. If a hidden trap was there all along, you find it instead.
• The check comes at the end. Woodcraft helps, but you rig without it too. Made, the trap is in place, and the arrows or the billet are used up (a digging tool and a knife are kept). Failed, nothing is rigged and you keep what you had. On the worst roll the trap goes off at you as you set it, and stays with a charge less.
• Your own trap is known to you: stepping onto it asks first, and you may step past it. Creatures know nothing of it, and neither do your allies: keep your hound away from it. You can disarm it like any other.
• Its kills are yours. A creature your trap kills earns you its experience and counts for your quests, as if your own arrow had killed it. Its damage never grows with danger.

Trapped doors

A trap may lie on a door instead of the floor. It belongs to the door: walking through the doorway never sets it off, and stepping into it never asks.

It goes off when someone opens the door, you or a creature that opens doors. That means o, walking into it, unlocking it with a key, or picking its lock. It also goes off at every kick at the door, whether the door breaks or holds. It strikes whoever opened or kicked it, from the door. An arrow shoots at them from the wall beside the door, a blade strikes at them, lightning runs from the door through them. A fireball bursts out on both sides of the door, even while it is still shut. Pits are never on doors.

The trap stays with the door. Shut the door again and the trap is set again, ready for the next one who opens it, unless it has run out of charges. A door you kick in takes its trap with it. Searching finds a door’s trap like any hidden trap (“You notice that the door is trapped: an arrow trap.”). Once you know it, it shows as ^ in place of the door. A secret door is never trapped. A door’s trap can be disarmed like any other (see Disarming traps).

Trapped chests

A shut chest may be trapped too, with any trap a door may have (never a pit). No traps are made only for chests. The trap goes off when you open the chest, kick it open, or fail badly to disarm it. A fireball or frost trap goes off inside the box and blows the chest apart, taking much of what it held with it. See Chests.

Where traps are

• Generated dungeons hide a few traps on every level. They are never on or next to the stairs, and never where a creature walks its rounds. Some rooms hide their own: an offering before an altar may not be unguarded.
• Cēaptūn and the overworld have no traps.

See also: Searching, Doors, and Chests.