Trapping! (Different then you may think)

[Gilvar]

I always thought it would be neat if rangers... maybe a subguild, could set up traps. Not the way you may think (which most people seem to think I'm talking about like flash-powder trapping, etc.) But more in a hunting sort of way. I figure it would be a more predominant trait in the north, where smaller game is more... alive. But I figure it wouldn't even have anything to do with 'actual' creatures, but focus alot on maybe virtual creatures.

Basically you'd set up traps...

Like pitfalls, rope-snares, and maybe more complicated as you move on in skill. Basically pitfalls and things would be 'hidden', and people with scan, or search might be able to find them. Unless the pitfall had been triggered, at which point you'd see a big hole in the ground. And depending on the creature's saving throw, they may or may not escape. At which point, unless your nearby, another creature may come and eat it, or another hunter might come take your prize.

You'd need tools to do the pitfall, maybe a pile of grass and a shovel if your in the grasslands. Maybe some branches and twigs and a shovel if your in the forest. Maybe some bone slats and sand if your in the desert.

Rope snares would of course involve rope. And would probably be much more used in the forest. This may involve the hunter waiting nearby with his rope for something to trigger it, at which point he pulls. And would make the 'hide' skill actually useful in the wilderness.

Then of course simpler ones like tripfalls that involve a concealed role. More for the forest.

And then maybe 'spike-pits' that basically has you burying spikey sharp things under a small layer of dirt or grass that would disable the target if they stepped on it, (a saving throw would be thrown to see if they even go near it, and then another to see if they avoid it.)

Basically I think it would be neat! and add another facet of playability to hunters.

[Bogre]

Oh gosh, it would be twinkable beyond understanding.

Think about setting pitfalls up several deep around the exits to cities.

Or think about setting a spiked pitfall to catch those rushing guards that run outside for the free eq once they fall to their deaths.

*shudder* Good idea, but I believe it would take a bunch of code to make it untwinkable

[Forest Junkie]

Doubtful. Simply make it impossible to trap a road, since it is too "out in the open".

Only sufficient brush and growth would allow a successful trap. Granted, twinks may abuse it, but that can always be said of every skill in the game. Shrug, it sound's cool OOC'ly, but will it add to the game?

[X-D]

Um, Bogre, it's no worse in twinkability then existing skills.

And not hard to code the restrictions.

For instance, maintained roads are gonna be out for most traps, No deadfalls, rope snares or pits, take a look at the roads near the cities and you will understand why, plus, odds are, the delay for something like a pit trap would be long enough that if you did, for some odd reason try to dig up the road, long before you would get a poke on the shoulder, turn around and see some militia and probly a very annoyed templar.

Though, If I was the templar, I'd have to do the Cool Hand Luke deal.
snicker, anyway.

I've always thought rangers should have some trapping skills myself, maybe even give some miner skills to the hunter sub, rebel, forester, scavanger.

I would also add that traps set by people of very low skill levels might not be hidden at all, maybe that is a partial fail to the skill.
Full success means only people with scan/search can find them.

Also, either as the same skill or another, you would need disarm/dismantle traps.

The last thing(s) to cut down drasticly on chars that are very good at the skill or there being hundreds of traps being laid all over the place is to require that they only can be set outdoors and have a VERY long delay, maybe even require both hands be free to set them. That would cause people to have to be very careful or dead when they are setting this trap without somebody to guard them and a tembo trots in.

(edit)
And somebody asked if it would add to the game...Yes, I think in many facets, Ever had a char contracted to catch something live and bring it back? I have, thats a lot harder then it sounds, unless it is some little harmless creature. Bounty hunters (I've played them) Raiders, normal hunters even, Hey, not everybody wants to play the melee hunter type.

Also, it would help increase pc vs pc conflict in the wilds, something many people want, while adding avoidable dangers that might not have been there the week before, also might make that merc group make sure they had a ranger with them, rather then knowing they can just melee thier way to where ever.

Also, if the skill was set up, the char should be able to pass his own traps with no problem, hell, I can think of many times I'd have set a trap someplace just so if I end up with a T1000 on my ass I can pass by the trap in hopes of it snagging the tracker long enough for me to get away.

[Stroker]

In response to Bogre:

but focus alot on maybe virtual creatures.

Could it be that he meant it would only catch virtual creatures? Possibly, you set up a trap that any npc and pc can just walk through or by, but if you come back in a day or .... a hundred your trap may contain a spawned npc, now dead or what not.

[ashjpd]

Hmmm...
Maybe the trap could be seen by pcs....
But not by animals and such...
So you could walk into the room and see:
A small, pit has been set here as a trap.

So you automaticly miss it. I think that if this would become a skill, you would start out with small traps for mice and stuff, then when you get better and better at it you can start catching things worth while.

Shrug*

[Gilvar]

Well I mean it COULD also catch virtual creatures. Like if you leave a deadfall out in the forest long enough an animal might fall in. Because there just isn't enough actual npc animals to represent the vastness of the wilderness.

[Gilvar]

And as for penalities, it would take a good while. Be draining for stamina if your digging a pitfall, and would not work all the time. Like what if your pitfall is triggered by a bahamet who just walks over it? It would be ruined and no other animal would fall in. So you basically just wasted the effort. But on the off chance of success, it would be great. Especially for skittish animals, it would provide a new way to kill beside throw/archery/chasing them down.

[ashjpd]

oh okay, and the more advanced you are in making traps would enable your chance of a virtual animal falling in and such...

[Northlander]

Well.. Here's another version of the suggestion, one that I could see in the game:
There would be a trap_crafting skill and the possibility to buy and sell traps. The traps are items which are placed with 'set trap' or some such syntax, and then there's a chance at coded intervals for creatures to spawn within them. Creature type would depend both on trap type, possibly simply by 'size', as well as the area in which the trap was set. The state of the creature would vary with trap type. Maybe the actual setting of the trap goes off the 'hunt' skill, placing the trap on the paths of creatures, and a high skill would then increase the chance of things spawning inside of it, or the frequency of the spawn rolls. A trap could never hold more than one creature, and set traps would be hidden from people who don't 'scan' and walk into to the proper 'room'. It would never trap NPCs or PCs.

I think it'd add to the game. Maybe there are other and better ways to implement it, though.

[ashjpd]

yah... and maybe if the trap doesn't work, it could say some things like:
A small trap is here, covered in bite marks.(telling you the animal bit through the ropes)
A small trap is here, smashed into nothing. (A bahamet stepped on it)

I am sure there are plenty more possibilities.

[X-D]

Personaly, I have no use for traps that cannot effect pc/npc.

At that rate, I might as well continue as I am and just emote the traps and such.

True, at starting skills, small traps, more often vis to everybody and even if they do 'catch' somebody it would only be a miner annoyance.

But you could work up to large traps.

On review, I think it should be a skill set.
disarm/dismantle traps: this would allow you to disarm and dismantle traps, your own and others, recovering the materials, though, still a chance of simply destroying everything or even setting it off.

Trap crafting: Allows you to make what basicly are trap kits.
example
craft log rope spike
You could make a log deadfall kit from this.

Trap setting:
Traps would need to be set in a direction, not just on the room itself, so, if you set deadfall south, then later somebody arrives east and leaves west, nothing happens, but if they come in from the south or leave south...grin.

Also, Alarm traps would be spiffy, simple noisemakers to let you know something sneaky is wandering about.

[Rindan]

I personally love the idea.  I would probably avoid trapping large creatures though.  Consider the limits a Zalanthas person has and consider what sort of traps are reasonable.  If you want to build a pitfall trap big enough to kill/capture anything large, you are going to have to spend a good day working on it, and a human is just going to shrug and crawl out if the initial fall is not lethal.  Far more reasonable would be traps designed to snag smaller creatures.  A snare is a pretty effective trap if you don't mind waiting a little while.  Even a pitfall trap is reasonable if you are not going for anything too large.  Simple cage and bate traps are also entirely reasonable for Zalanthas technology.

If you are inventive with the idea, you could even come up with some interesting Zalanthas only traps.  A trap bated with water could be a very reasonable trap to snag some desert creatures.  Perhaps pouring a little water into the soil around Red Storm would cause some small underground creature to come up and investigate?  A little crappy meat and you might very well be able to snag a scavenger.  There is a great environment to play with, and I think you could have a lot of fun developing small traps and bates.  

I would avoid traps that could take out NPCs and humanoids.  Those I think would reek a little too much of D&D.  To build a trap to kill a humanoid with Zalanthas technology is no small task.  Hell, we struggle to do it today with modern day explosives and guns.  I imagine building something to kill a humanoid with Zalanthas technology would be extremely labor and material intensive.  Imagine how hard it would be to build a pit big enough to kill a human (assuming it has spikes or what not in the bottom), move the dirt, find materials to cover it without it looks very suspicious, and then hope like hell someone walks over it.  That just does not seem reasonable.

[Callisto]

I could go either way on it.

I'd imagine it would turn into one big twink fest, but I guess thats par for the course lately.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

People worry way too much about twinking.

Now, I like the idea to do the VNPC animal capturing. But I'd say that even at 100% max skill, you should only catch a critter 50% of the time.

[Forest Junkie]

It should also depend heavily upon -where- exactly you put the trap.

For instance, placing a trap atop a sandy dune in the middle of no where is likely to get you nothing more than a little sand beetle, where as trapping upon a heavily used animal trail would lend far better results.

Alot of interesting possibilties indeed.

[X-D]

Well, Rindan brought up a few points that I had not, true, traps that can hold/harm the really BIG creatures would be pretty silly, digging a pit to catch a bahamet would take one person say, oh, around a month or more, and the, how would you cover it?

But, for anything the sizes of the pc races, traps are easy, and I really do not understand how anybody thinks they are so hard, you would be suprised how many of the traps you see in movies like predater and rambo actually work and have been in use on earth for many thousands of years.

Snares, depending on the environment can hold even larger animals for a while, say, up to horse size and do not have to be spring loaded or anything, though a non-animal would not be held for any longer then it took to cut the rope, but still useful in an ambush situation.

In a wooded area you have many types of snares and spring traps along with pungee pits and the like, very easy to make.

Also in wooded areas and mountain type areas are deadfalls, come now Rindan, How hard do you think it really is to prop something big and hard up high in a tree/cliff install a 'pin' to hold it in place and a tripline? Sure, skill and knowledge involved on proper placement and such, but materials are just laying around.

Snares and pungee pits can be used effectivly in deserts also.

Saying that simple traps, many used by primitive tribes IRL today and for thousands of years would be beyond technical capability for a world where the people can build intricate HUGE wagons with levers and such, many types of crossbows, but nobody would ever think, hhhmm, hide this crossbow in this bush, tie it in place and make a tripline to pull the trigger, look, a trap, Oh, a loop of rope tied to a tree and held up a few inches from the ground with twigs so something stepping into it would pull it tight is far from rocket science, Hhmm, can't do that, but we have bombs.

[Delirium]

I like it. But.

I've seen something almost exactly like this implimented in another game, and while the traps weren't lethal to people, it was very annoying to do this:

>e
You walk east.

You stumble in a trap and fall to your knees!
You are stunned.

You are no longer stunned.

>stand
>e
You walk east.

You stumble in a trap and fall to your knees!
You are stunned.

You are no longer stunned.

>stand
>n
You walk north.

You stumble in a trap and fall to your knees!
You are stunned.

You are no longer stunned.


... Yes. Very, very, very annoying.

[Crashloft]

This idea has MANY possiblities.  I like it.  Very good.  What more can I say?

[X-D]

On that other mud, how long did it take to set a trap and how much prep work did you have to do?

[Delirium]

About three minutes, give or take.

I do like the idea, as long as it's not a simple matter of wandering out into the wastes and setting a trap in every 'square' to up your skill.

[X-D]

One reason I suggested it being a two part skill, need to get items to build trap, then need to craft trap kit, then need to set the trap, ever tried to build a campfire in game?

[Delirium]

If it was like that, I'd support it, definitely.

I can see uses for it, from a simple ranger trying to catch his afternoon tregil meat to a gang of raiders laying in wait for their target. I'm assuming there'd be different traps that you'd have to craft, and then 'set up' with the skill. And of course all sorts of fun backfiring upon the trapper could happen.

[Northlander]

And I would say that forage seems the likely skill for finding those necessary items, coupled with items one might find inside 'plant' objects, and 'hunt' is a good enough skill to base the setting of the trap on, for reasons mentioned earlier. A trap-crafting skill would though, in my mind, have to be created. Once again, I'm trying to work the rough idea into something that might see implementation.

I don't like the idea of NPCs and PCs falling into the traps. It requires both a whole lot more code and a whole lot more twinkage-countering. For an IC reason why, we can bring up that good old argument of the massive size of outdoor rooms. Maybe if someone followed the hunter he could fall into the trap. Or if there was a path through the forest or over the sand. The wind rarely allows for such paths, and coding an exception for the former is rather a waste of time.

In regards to balance, I think having semi-expensive traps, not too easy to get one's hands on, catch virtual creatures could allow for that southern hunter to survive. To avoid northerners running around placing and emptying fifty traps a day, besides the price involved, there'd be time lag on both placing and emptying traps. I would also make some of the simpler craftable varietes useable only once. The trap-crafting skill would branch from the trap-setting skill, in my suggestion 'hunt'.

This together with my previous post in the thread details the idea as I can see put into the game. Some suggestions get out of hand and just end up very unlikely for implementation. I don't see wilderness traps that catch PCs and NPCs as something the staff should spend ages on coding. Is it really so pointless if it can't catch PCs?

[Lazloth]

I don't like the idea of NPCs and PCs falling into the traps.

What is the point, then?  Arm is not an exercise in masturbation (for me); if you want to emote a virtual trap and capture virtual game, you can do that already with the tools at your disposal.   If you want to erect a logjam barricade past that first turn in the road, if you want rig your apartment door with a crossbow bolt, etc., you're completely at the mercy of other players to roleplay events.   I think you can base from the threaten thread just how far that can be extended..

[Northlander]

Please read both my posts, Lazloth.

[spawnloser]

I think the point of catching virtual game is to get a coded corpse so it can be skinned for food and materials.  Otherwise, Lazloth, as you said, what is the point?

[X-D]

I'll simply make coded corpses the old fashioned way and emote trapping them.

First, talking about imping something and liklyhood, traps that just make coded corpses/catch virtual creatures simply have a very small and specialized affect on the game world, which would put it rather low on the priority list.

Second, if allowed to catch/slow/harm pc's and npc's traps then should only be one use, again, twinking/coding reasons.

Third, Room size, come now, if setting a trap, you are going to set it where most likly something is going to go, a path of least resistance is taken by nearly every living thing when moving. Also, A trap, even one not seen should have a chance (not large) To fail to go off when somebody passes that direction, either they did not pass near the trap, or simply missed the trigger.

Codewise, I'm betting any one of the staff good with scripts could set this up without a hassle, Oh, there would be a reasonable number of them, but nothing tricky.

Plus, with the non-reusable trap, this cuts down on item creation, just some generic kits for trap type, and they need nothing special, a desc and weight.

Some traps would require at least one tool to set btw, along with the kit.
Like pit traps and deadfalls.

Also, remember, one would not start with the ability to trap man-sized animals, but would advance to it, and slightly beyond.

Best thing is, All the items to craft trap kits already exist in game.

New ranger:
Craft rope twig twig twig
You could make a small rope snare kit.

Older ranger sees:
You could make a small rope snare kit.
You could make a medium rope snare kit.

Older still.
You could make a small rope snare kit.
you could make a medium rope snare kit.
You could make a large rope snare kit.


Subs that get the skills would not see some types of course, hunter might get to medium while forester would only be able to craft the small.

Or simply make a trapper sub, skillset like.
Hunt
skin
trap making
trap setting

Hunt maybe allowing one to find traps, also it would allow you to find a good spot to set one.

Maybe only add trap setting to hunter and forester sub, that would allow some commerce at least, gotta get trap kits from somebody.

[Forest Junkie]

Wouldn't the trap skill work better off of search or scan, instead of hunt?

[X-D]

Well, I've been thinking about that, and I wonder if having it on a toggled skill is something one would want, besides, more people tend to have hunt then scan or search in my experiance.....shrug, I suppose that would simply be a staff call.

[Forest Junkie]

More people tend to have hunt then scan or search in my experiance...

Very true. Perhaps a good reason to have the skills implemented more into other guilds, shrug.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Sucessful trapping requires that one can read the signs of passage in the wilderness. Therefore, I say hunting is the primary skill used in conjunction with the setting and making of traps. Scan would be used to spot one.

Also, I greatly advocate the allowance of PC and NPC catching traps. However, I would be upset it they were not only accessable to the very crux of talented rangers. Any lower skill, or any other sub-class, should only be able to catch the VNPC animals...

Now, at this point, I am not certian that a creature should not simply be loaded. Then, you must kill that creature, unless the trap is lethal. I'd suggest creating new creatures, and these creatures would only be loaded with the use of traps and snares.

One could broaden the game world even further with the use of these new creatures, things you'd never see unless you trapped them. In this way, I certianly say that one could give an even more alive feeling to the ecology.

[X-D]

Basicly my thoughts also 7DV, small traps would not even be triggered by pc's and only the smallest of animals, snakes/tregil and such.

Medium could be tripped by pc's but that would just result in it's destruction. And say max animal size of like tandu, jozhal.

Large traps are the only ones pc's need worry about, but they should also take the most resources to build and all that. These would be able to deal with creatures maybe as large as carru.

Which is why I was thinking if it was added to existing subs, along with ranger, forester would be able to trap small animals, hunter medium.

[Lazloth]

Which is why I was thinking if it was added to existing subs, along with ranger, forester would be able to trap small animals, hunter medium.

Setting traps by sector (forest, desert, etc) could dictate what subguilds get what;  I would feel slighted if this went the way of a ranger-only thing, additionally.  [This is not the best thread for it, but an amplified city-version could be fun.]

Please read both my posts, Lazloth.

I did, Northlander.  What I understand you to express is a desire to see 'forage' expanded.  This is well and good, but reduces the amount of player-on-player activity.  Why stop with the lobster pot when you can have raiders that waylay caravans?

[Twilight]

I think you would need to have a way out of a trap.  For instance, if it is just a snare trap, sure it might keep a carru from moving, but I'm just gonna hack through the rope with my sword.  The following are just top of my head ideas:

First - Traps should be attackable.  Attacking a trap destroys it and removes the affect.  NPCs should have a small % chance (10-20) to attack a trap they are caught in, when they are first caught.

Second - Different effects for different traps.  Snare traps would make it impossible for you to move out of the room (perfect for rangers with archery) but you can fight ok trapped in them.  Stake pits to do moderate hp damage.  Falling log (or other impact type traps) for small hp, moderate stun damage.  Net traps are like snare traps, only they take awhile (1-2 mins?) to get out of and you get combat penalties (not freaking paralyze).  Crossbow traps.  Poison traps (only once you have both the poison and trap skills).  I would say that is pretty much the order of difficulty I would put them in.

Third - Might want to limit the number of traps to two.  Having all those go off on you, multiple times, in the same room, makes no sense.

Fourth - Maybe you have to trap a direction.  Outdoor rooms are huge, why should someone walk over your trap?  Traps would only go off when someone moved in that direction.  Or, a generic trap could have a fairly low chance (20%?) to go off, but a directionally set trap have a higher (80%?) chance of goins off.

Fifth - You need the skill to both craft traps, and to set them up in the wilderness.

[X-D]

Hhhmm, Most of this I covered Twilight.

I'd allow traps on direction only.

Of course any holding style trap would have a way out, snares are cut, pits you climb, etc. On a snare, I would not require attacking, simply wield something sharp and type cut snare, might take more then one try with a true quality snare, but easy enough.

-Found- traps could be destroyed by anyone, but I think at greater risk then somebody experianced with the skill dismantling/disarming.

multiple traps on a direction, I don't think so, at least not in the same room. That runs into code as well as twink problems.

X-D wrote:
Which is why I was thinking if it was added to existing subs, along with ranger, forester would be able to trap small animals, hunter medium.

Setting traps by sector (forest, desert, etc) could dictate what subguilds get what; I would feel slighted if this went the way of a ranger-only thing, additionally. [This is not the best thread for it, but an amplified city-version could be fun.]

Yes, I like that, maybe nomad gets desert, hunter gets scrub, forester gets um, forest.  Advanced traps should be ranger only, but simple traps are just that, simple, so no reason others could not learn.

[Rindan]

Traps for humans and traps for animals are two very different things.  Animal traps are generally baited, while human traps generally take more to get a human to walk through it.  More to the point, humans can escape most traps with relative ease.  Setting up a crossbow to shoot when a door opens is something entirely different from the skill it takes to build and set up a small and proper cage/snare with proper bate.

I am not entirely against the idea of traps against humanoids, but I think it should be an entirely different skill for the most part.  There might be a few traps that cross over, but I think they would be rare or borderline on useless simply due to coding difficulties.  For instance, a pit trap might make sense and work on a human for defending the mouth of a cave, put a pit trap in the plains would be utterly worthless as the chances of anyone stepping on it would be close to nothing.  How does the code decide when a trap is being reasonable and when a trap is just being stupid?  I don't really have a solution so I would simply avoid the mess altogether.

Animal traps on the other hand have a clear and easy solution.  Make it a simple exercise of setting up bait and the appropriate trap.  It also seems like a reasonable way for many people to make a living.  In a world of such brutal creatures it seems reasonable to think that people would resort to trapping as a way to avoid some of the danger.  Of course, the problem with trapping is that it is not a trivial task.  First, there is simply the ability to make a trap.  Then there is knowing what trap needs to go where.  A water bait trap in the forest might be more likely attract a gortok or tembo then anything else and destroy the trap, but a water bait trap in the desert might effectively trap a certain small lizard that is good eating.  Place the wrong trap in the wrong place and something will destroy it, or nothing will take the bate.  A Red Stormer's traps would look very different from trap from Tuluk.  Handle a trap improperly with low skill and animals might realize that something is wrong and avoid it.  

There would be a lot of room for variety.  Some traps might simply generate an NPC that would then have to be taken care of in whatever manner.  Another trap might lure and NPC in and lock its ability to move so it needs to be fought or picked off with a bow and arrow.  Still others might simply leave a corpse.  Traps might have to be left for a few days before they catch anything, or they might need a hidden ranger to activate it at a certain point.  Hell, you could make an entire mini game out of it if someone was truly board... something akin to fishing.

Me, I wouldn't mind seeing trapping.  I can think of more then one character that could have found it useful, namely in the south.  The idea of a toothless old bastard in Red Storm who goes out every morning, sets up traps, hunts for spice until high sun, goes back in to get drunk, then goes out before dusk to checks his traps before calling it a night appeals to me.  I could even see the old bastard wading a little ways into the sea of silt, setting down some traps that go under the silt, and catching a few fish equivalents or hell, even fishing in the silt for some swimming lizard or snake.  Shit, that should be a Red Storm craft right there, silt fishing and trapping.

I think the idea has a lot of personality.  Code wise it might be a pain in the ass, it might not even get used all that often, but if an imm felt driven to do it, I would appreciate the effort.

[Carnage]

I don't want a skill for trapping PCs. It's a pain in the ass and it's just going to start a whole new can of bugs and complaints. Capturing NPC/VNPC tregil, gurth, and so on would be fabulous though.

[Saitorr]

I'm jumping on the bandwagon for the trapping of VNPCs.  As for PCs, just use a cage and a Half-Giant.

I'd like to see the traps keep the critter alive for a little while, too.  Our ranger friend could get a little pet quirri, should they so desire.  Or a pet carru.  Anyways, it would help a little with living in the harsh wilderness on your own.

One last thing.  There shouldn't be any visible PCs or NPCs in the room for the trap to work.  I'd think a hulking, well-tanned woman might scare off potential prey.  Hide there, if you want...  just no screw ups!

[X-D]

Rindan's first two paragraphs are basicly saying the same as I have been, pc's can and should be able to escape from the traps with relative ease.
Just setting a trap to catch somebody as they come out of a cave then leaving and coming back a few days later expecting to see him stuck is silly, or even an hour later.

What these traps would be for is that carefully planned bit of raiding/robbery, specialy useful for smaller raiding groups.

Or for defensive measures against raiding parties, or, As I said, some traps would simply be alarms.

As far as:

How does the code decide when a trap is being reasonable and when a trap is just being stupid? I don't really have a solution so I would simply avoid the mess altogether.

There are hundreds of things in the game currently that are less then realistic but you put up with for sake of playability.

Some reason I can fire an arrow a few miles, I can throw a spear at least a mile, I can walk into an area from the east and a raptor from the west and he can cover the few miles between us in an instant and engage combat, a halfling can kick a half-giant in the head, etc etc.

So, you go for the most realistic thing possible, set the trap on a direction, give traps a base chance of failing, it could be based on the skill of the person setting it, it could be a straight percentage for that trap, it could go against the victem's defense.

As far as the silly things are concerned, some trap types just would not be useable in certain zones.

A deadfall trap would be silly on a sand dune or grasslands or scrub even.
No pit traps on roads or very rocky areas of course. I know I've posted these things before, and at least to me the explanations seem rather easy to understand.

[gfair]

I love the idea of traps, and perhaps of a new addition of small animals that are inherently flighty, cautious, or blessed with natural camouflage.

Thumbs up to this idea as Gilvar describes it, and I'd think the traps simply must affect all creatures, from virtual to coded.  It should even be possible to affect very large creatures, unless the administrators of the 'Nakki arena have another means of capturing creatures like a Mekillot and Bahamet and having them duel.  Trapping on a large scale could be a reason to give various groups dangerous assignments out in the desert, could create lots of fun, almost like trips to hunt Silt-Horrors on the Silt Sea.

Love the idea.  Only... the maximum chance of success should be kept very small, and there should not be any failure message for the skill, the hunters should be able to set the trap and not know whether it will work properly or not.  Just an opinion on that one.  If the max success rate is kept low, people can't go overboard with traps, but it definitely will add a sense of danger.

Perhaps there could be a very simple noise/wail trap that is easy enough to arrange to alert people/scare them, and that would probably make them far more cautious in the area, a way various wilderness clans could protect their land, or just scare curious people away.

[Gilvar]

Well I'm not for limiting it, but the result would of course be based on the effort. If you spend nine hours digging a trench deep enough to contain a human and then spend another couple hours gathering the materials that would be nescessary to conceal such a pit, and someone manages to stumble in it, I'm all for it. But I doubt many people will spend the time dong this, and considering the size some wilderness rooms represent, the saving throw to avoid it would logically be very low, and only a few rare times would a PC fall into a pit.

[Angela Christine]

I agree that man-traps and animal-traps are different.  You do different things to make the trap appear unthreatening, you use different kinds of bait.  A squirrel or rabbit may see the wire of a snare trap, but they don't usually recognise it as a danger until it is too late.  Rodent traps are out in plain sight, you don't try to hide the trap you just hope the bait overcomes the rodent's natural caution.  Rats have been known to observe a sprung trap, see that it has killed cousin Buddy, and then avoid that kind of trap in the future regardless of bait.  Some bears also recognise and avoid live bear traps, to the point that some folks start storing their garbage in the bear trap because that is the only safe place to keep it.    The trap isn't necessarily hidden, you rely on the target not recognising it as a threat.  Humans are often savy enough to realize that a big box with a steak in the far end is suspicious (yay, we're as clever as bears).  Luckily our senses aren't so accute as many other animals, so it isn't that hard to hide things from us.

Anyway, I think a skill directed for setting traps at humanoids already exists: the trap skill.  Explosive traps, crossbow traps, poison dart traps, etc. all fall under this skill.  It would work in the wilderness too.  If you leave a chest or other container lying around, a surprising number of people will be silly enough to walk over and open it, even in the wilderness where you wouldn't expect to see a chest.  Leave some bloody clothing lying around and most people will open it, foolishly assuming that some animal killed and ate the previous owner.

Pit traps are also already possible, you just need to go to a place with pre-existing pits and have a good climb skill.  I'll leave it to your imagination to figure out how you get people to enter the pit room, and what sort of dangerous things you could put or lure into the pit to keep them busy while you finish them off with arrows from above the pit.  You may not need to put anything into the pits, I've fallen into a fair number of natural pits myself, and several times have found things abandoned in the pits, presumably a rider fell in and had to abandon many of his possessions to escape.  I would be wary of making pit-traps craftable though.  For one thing they are damned annoying, especially if the trapper isn't around.  Zalanthan humanoids are tall, even a 10 foot deep pit would not contain most elves, with their height and long limbs they could probably reach over the edge of the pit and pull themselves out.  Since most non-elves ride gigantic bugs, the pit pit would have to be big enough to contain both a human and a kank to be effective.  I don't even want to contemplate digging pits to catch half-giants mounted on inixes.  If you want to catch anything but dwarves and halflings you're probably looking at at least a 15 foot deep pit.  Then there is the issue of terrain.  Like others have mentioned, a pit covered by reeds and grasses will look pretty damned suspicious on a sand dune.  You would also need to determine the "digability" of every room in the game.  Dry sand isn't too hard to dig, but a deep pit of dry sand will tend to collaps unless it is buttressed, and what can you buttress it with?  Logs and boulders?  Digging into solid rock will pretty much be beyond the capability of any normal hunter or terrorist, it would take a team of dwarven miners weeks to set a pit trap on the shieldwall.  Setting traps in solid rock or deep, dry sand would be more suited to armies (with imm support) than individuals.  If you are digging into soil, just how deep is the topsoil?  The grasslands look pretty diggable, but if there is just 12 inches of topsoil and then bedrock, then you won't be setting pit traps there (unless you prey is baby gimpka rats).  I think setting the digability of every space or zone would be a pain in the ass, and pit traps are best left to  people working with imm support rather than a skill.  

Huge pit and deadfall traps would also cause a problem with reboots.  A pit shouldn't just disappear overnight, but it shouldn't linger forever either.  Players usually don't get skills that permanently alter a room without imm support.  And a player that invested a bunch of time and materials would be mad if a random reboot took out their trap an hour after they finished it.

I do think a wilderness trapping skill could be feasible, but I'd restrict it to snares.  Then the skill could be called "snare" so people wouldn't confuse it with city trap.  Snares would mostly catch small game, and would disappear with each reboot unless it was an item-saving room.  The materials that go into a snare are inexpensive, so losing them wouldn't be catastrophic.  It could be explained ICly that you can't find the snare, that some critter chewed through it, or some other hunter moved it.  At high skill levels you might be able to make snare and net traps big enough to catch humanoids, but a humanoid can usually cut themselves out of a snare if they stay calm, so you'll have to be nearby to catch people this way.  It would stop them for a minute and give you a chance to ambush them, but not work as a poor-man's jail that traps PCs for long periods of time.

However, I think even with a high level of skill you won't catch anything most of the time, because the terrain and climate aren't conductive to snare traps.  You set a snare, and the next day a gimpka rat walks into it.  However, you don't check the snare right away.  If you don't come by within a few days, there won't be anything worthwhile left to find.  It is a hot bloody desert, so as soon as the critter dies it will start to stink to high heaven, and it will soon attract scavengers.  If it doesn't attract scavengers, then the corpse will probably be dessicated by the dry heat within a few days, ruining the meat and hide, in which case the best you could hope to find is bones and feathers.  If your trap doesn't kill the animal outright, then it's struggles may attract predators or scavengers, or it may chew through the snare or it's own leg to get away, again leaving you with nothing.  In a cold climate the prey can freeze, preserving it untill you get back, but a hot climate is different.  If you aren't willing and able to check them every few IC days, then snare traps will be of dubious value.

Potentially cool.  


Angela Christine

[Synthesis]

Punji pits would really only catch d-elf PCs and gith NPCs...since just about every other PC has a mount in the desert.  I, for one, would consider it pretty lame to have a skill set up basically to catch one PC race.

Other traps (crossbow/snare/etc) would work, too, I guess...but consider: Why set a crossbow trap when you can just shoot the damned crossbow yourself, with much greater ease and accuracy?  Why set a snare trap against a PC, when -every- person in the known world is carrying a knife? Sure, a snare might inconvenience someone for a small amount of time, allowing a hidden ranger in the next room to volley some arrows at them...but I don't think any amount of skill in setting a snare is going to keep someone with a knife from getting away before they're dead, unless the archer is uber, in which case he probbably didn't need to set the trap in the first place.

Traps like these might work against critters...but I think, after the glamour and newness wore off, they'd be used -very- little against PCs, as they just wouldn't be cost-effective, in terms of time, resources, and planning.

Pendulum traps would only be useful in the forest...where pretty much nobody ventures anyway, for obvious reasons.  And if you did implement pendulum traps, even -fewer- people would be out and about there, so thumbs down on that one.

Spring-spike traps could be used pretty much anywhere except the city...but again, what's the point? Unless you poison it, it isn't going to kill anyone, and if you -did- poison it...why don't you just shoot the guy with a freaking poisoned arrow? It's much simpler.

If you want to kill someone, trust me: there are -many- ways to do it.  We don't need new kinds of traps for this purpose.

As far as catching virtual critters...come on...do we really need this? It's almost ridiculously easy to survive in the north on your own, and it's just as easy to survive in the south, you just have to plan correctly for it.

I'll admit, the idea seems dead sexy at first...but upon closer examination, it's just not any good.

[Synthesis]

Double post, whoops.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

While I do not advocate leaving PCs out of this trap shit. I do see the problems. But the trapping of VNPCs must be implemented. THere is no other alternative!

IMP TRAP NOW!

[Lazloth]

THere is no other alternative!

But then, again, it's just really a ranger-only [*roll*] forage.  If you can't impact players with tripline or whatever, why bother with it?  Cutesy, sure, but necessary?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Ranger only? Uhm...maybe you oughta read the whole thread again. Besides that, I want the traps to effect PCs, but even without it, it can add a whole new perspective to the world...bring creatures in that we rarely ever see and such...common, small, creatures, which should not require a +5 axe of uberdume to bring down. Low and behold, a new avenue of creation for your PC merchant. HA.