ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Right now, stepping on a trap usually means you tap your regen infusion and go about your business. Or, if you're level one, it might mean that you roll up a new character. I'd love to see ToME's traps get more interesting. Post your ideas here! I'll start with my own:

Let's have Indiana Jones-esque traps. I'm talking about walls closing in when a player steps into a room, pits opening in the floor, boulders rolling down hallways, rooms flooding with alligator-infested water, spikes projecting out of walls, and the like. Stuff that doesn't necessarily do immediate damage, but does present you with a situation that demands your immediate attention. I imagine this would require quite a bit of work, but the dungeon would sure be a lively (deadly?) place.

I'm in full agreement, Sus. There should be simple stuff like arrows that fire as a projectile from a nearby wall, and fireballs that start moving towards you from all 4 directions. The classic Indiana Jones crushing boulder would be great, especially if enemies starting running away from them as well.

Pits that open up could change the local terrain, and make for interesting interaction with NPCs. Uh, please no trapdoors to previous levels in Dreadfell though - that would just be tedious.

Specific types of summoning traps would be good too - one that summons only worms for instance, or a web trap that also summons spider swarms.

I envision many of these effects being triggered by one or more hidden pressure plates. If this is implemented, generate a text flyer that says *click* when the player steps on one. Imagine the sort of reactions players will start having when they're creeping down a dark hallway and see an ominous *click* pop up over their character. Any feature that produces an adrenaline rush or nervous disorder in the player is worth implementing immediately.

Ok, here are some ideas.

1. Alarm trap + blinding. May be pretty cruel and dangerous.
2. Treant's Revenge: a trap in Old Forest, which pins player to the ground and spawns a few treants nearby.
3. Confusion + teleport.
4. Antimagic trap: all magic talents (and may be runes) go on cooldown for 3-5 turns (I don't know, however, what will it do with magic sustains...).
5. Chain Lightning trap: casts Chain Lightning on player. May be somewhat beneficial if there are foes around.
6. Darkness trap: creates darkness around the player in radius of 2-3. May be the source of fear effect if it will be implemented.
7. Swinging blade trap: physical damage + bleeding.
8. Dagger trap: the one who activated this trap is stabbed several times with a dagger and then has a chance to be crippled.
9. Slime trap: does nature damage, has a chance to slow and generates a few oozes.

I'm certainly against traps that damage/destroy equipment. There are a lot of less frustrating ways to put the player into hard situation.

Bear Trap - The code's there and pinning the player and adding a bleed effect could be really mean in some areas.

Entropy Trap - Drains the energy out of your runes and infusions, putting them on cooldown. Also blasts you for some Temporal damage. (Try tapping your regen infusion after that!!)

Trap of Wall Shifting - Basically terraforms the terrain in a radius of 1 around the player. Walls become floors, floors become walls.

Anomaly Trap - Another chronomancy trap. Triggers a random anomaly.

Dispersal Trap - Removes magical effects, good and bad

Boulder Trap - To expand on Sus's boulder idea, this could be a slow moving knockback beam projected from the trap. I'm sure there's a better way to do it but this sounds like a simple way.

Trap of Trap Spawning - A single trap that creates random traps all around it when triggered.

*edit*

Pit Trap - Drops the player into a pit zone, should be vaultish with it's own traps, enemies, and guaranteed good loot (from other adventurers who died down there). To get out the player must reach the stairs (which reloads the old level). Trap should be one time only and not triggerable by npcs.

Here are some statue-plus-hidden-pressure-plate combinations. Just generate them in line of sight of each other somewhere in the dungeon:

Statue comes alive and attacks whoever stepped on the plate

Statue eye-beams the crap out of whoever stepped on the plate

Statue starts ticking and explodes after X turns when somebody steps on the plate

Stepping on the plate teleports you next to the statue, which grabs you and constricts.

A pair of statues gains some sort of damage field between them (lightning bolt, fire wall, etc.) when somebody steps on a plate.

How about a change in trapping philosophy to "Quality Over Quantity"? However interesting or boring the individual traps are, let's never carpet a vault floor in them again. There are some vaults in existence right now that need some revision with this new philosophy in mind.

If it has not yet been considered, a transformation trap that polymorphs the victim into mostly harmless forms, sometimes into mildly useful, rarely powerful.

Traps with reset timers, either static or random. Traps that open or close some ways around the level.

I am a little afraid from some on the suggestions here...

The problem with the traps, is that they are either deadly while you are in combats, or totally ignorable when you aren't (since healing outside combat is trivial with infusions).

Anyway, what kind of traps can be dangerous outside combat without being overpowered in combat?
- Summoning (already present)
- Alarm, i.e.: waking up nearby monsters, or teleporting them to you
- Teleportation (actually useful in combat, can move you to someplace dangerous outside of it)
- Level Teleportation, i.e.: drop you to the next level (often dangerous to appear in a fresh level away from the stairs)
- Charge drains (mainly of wands)
- Equipment destruction (amongst the worse kind of traps, terribly frustrating to the player)
- Money loss (less annoying version of the previous one)

I support this thread, moaar!

Trap of Possession: Face a mental check - if you fail your character is possessed by a berserking demon for 5 turns, which will plunge recklessly into battle.

Trap of Nudity: Magically unequips your armour.

Lodestone trap: Disarms any metal weapons and cause characters wearing metal armour to have reduced movement speed.

Marcotte wrote: Charge drains (mainly of wands)

Are there traps that drain mana and/or fatigue? I've yet to run across one yet or maybe i haven't noticed.

How about talent timers?

Couple of points:

• Do NOT make them more deadly, make them more INTERESTING, many classes have no way to find/deal with traps (except wands which I find currently is struggling for it's place in the game).
• Make traps destructible by walking onto them a couple of times (depends on trap type), so all classes can eventually nullify the trap, even if it is by healing up, and using up all the acid/arrows/etc. in the trap.
• I veto (if I get a veto) a trap door / level teleportation. Though a pit, requiring some digging, or flying or climbing to get out seems obvious. Even with the old carrion crawler at the bottom. (The pit that takes you to a vault seems interesting, as long as the old level stays intact and not regen too many new monsters/items).
• Make them sensible. Ie. don't put mental attacks in the old forest/troll mire. If it (as per other ideas) removes my armor/weapons, at least create a decent explanation, and give me a save check.

Personally, I don't find traps to be amusing or fun at all. They're just another PITA to deal with, and making more kinds of PITA isn't my idea of fun.

Canderel wrote:

• Make traps destructible by walking onto them a couple of times (depends on trap type), so all classes can eventually nullify the trap, even if it is by healing up, and using up all the acid/arrows/etc. in the trap.

This point is really almost more important for bosses who kill themselves using traps. Though tactical AI might put them in an infinite trap/heal loop, which kinda solves it too, but that still needs to be seen.