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#710 [Traps] Alarm, Stonefall
Alarm: When triggered, this trap gives off an effect similar to that of a scroll of noise, causing any monsters in the vicinity to wake up and gravitate to the area.
Stonefall: Does somewhere in the range of 100 HP of damage (or more), but is evadeable if your EV/Dex is high enough (doesn't have to be very high, though I imagine some mages might have issues anyway). More importantly, after the trap is triggered the space where the trap was located is thereafter blocked off by a wall-sized stone, which, in the event of placement inside a corridor, may effectively block off passage back to familiar territory or even trap characters completely.
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There is currently debate on new trap types, so this is a good opportunity...
Alarm: I wouldn't like the idea of alarm bells in mt dungeon. What mechanism would make the noise/trigger?
Stonefall: sounds cool (though blatantly stolen from Nethack). I would suggest that being in the vicinity has a chance of making the stone fall, so it would happen quite often that the stone fell down right in front of you. Also, this being a one-way trap, there should be a chance that the stone does not fall, saving itself up for later. For example, falling down right behind you.
Your version fails to explain what it does with square: how should player and wall coexist? I guess you mean that after the player leaves the square, the wall is shown?
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"Your version fails to explain what it does with square: how should player
and wall coexist? I guess you mean that after the player leaves the square,
the wall is shown?"
That's actually not such a problem, as this is PRECISELY what happens in wizard mode if you create a wall type feature at your current position. Once you leave that square it's blocked to you.
I've thought of such a trap type as well, but was unsure about the actual mechanics. It should only occur deeper in the dungeon and the block size could depend on the current depth as well, so that a stonefall in higher levels is more likely to leave rubble (large rocks) instead of block the path and the deeper you get the larger the potential damage. 100hp is too much in any case.
I could imagine Alarm traps for highly civilised regions and especially around Branch entries, e.g. the Orc/Elf borders.
JPEG
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I like the stonefall trap. Better to call it a deadfall trap, tho. I think the effect should always be to block the space -- the same trap should not have a (radically) different effect depending on the level it's on.
IMO, the trap doesn't need to do damage -- blocking the space and possibly trapping you is enough. And rather than leaving you in the same space as the wall (which I imagine could create various problems) you should be immediately moved to an adjacent space. Message "you leap out of the way just in time." A burdened or confused character is moved to a random empty adjacent space. Otherwise, two checks are made: if d100<5*T&D or d100<Dex+2*TD, you are prompted for which adjacent space you want to move to. If both checks fail you are moved to a random adjacent space. If you move into a space occupied by a friendly creature, it is destroyed.
This implementation seems cleaner and rewards T&D skill.
The trap should not be generated on open-plan levels.
Lemuel
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Some comments..
dploog: If anything, the theft was totally unintentional; I've played NetHack for maybe half an hour at most, total, and in that time I never saw that trap. I don't like the idea of it falling down in front of you more often than falling down behind you; that would kill the potential "Oh ****" reaction and replace it with the "Aw" reaction. As for the alarm system mechanism/trigger, it could be a two-piece system (like some real ones) or a one-piece system (like the other traps). Two-piece would be an easily noticed noise-maker sitting on a wall, which you could spend some time on to disable, but would require a fair amount of T&D skill to fix without causing it to activate, and a much harder-to-spot trigger (which acts like a conventional trap), that can be easily disabled (but will still require T&D skill to spot). One-piece.. would as mentioned be like the other traps, but TBH I don't have anything really good to distinguish it with. There's also the possibility for a laser-type trap (which would *certainly* only randomly spawn in sophisticated places like Elf:7 or Vault:8) whereby the actual trap is sitting on one of two walls, but all the squares north/south/east/west of it act as triggers (once you defeat the laser, all squares are safe, but only then).
JPEG: Exactly; wizard mode is pretty much what caused me to wonder why it wasn't in the dungeon proper. Also, yes, Elf and Orc would be a good place for it to randomly show up.
Lemuel: Good ideas. I don't mind the non-damaging version all that much. Would it be too much to ask that an overloaded character takes the hit, though?
I can't imagine that being trapped by a stonefall trap would be fun. Sure, you might have a wand of digging or means of teleportation. It's a threat you can prepare for. But if you don't have any means, you'll just have to wait 'till you starve, or just quit yourself - which you will have to do, if you happen to be a mummy.
I'm under the impression DCSS prevents random teleporting to closed off areas. Why add a trap that has the capability to do just that? Or am I misunderstanding something?
I suppose you could do a check (and guarantee in level generation) that the trap wont trap you permanently. That actually sounds quite nice.
--Eino