Another proposal re floor traps

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I'm going to have a trap that turns the player into a goblin or some other suboptimal monster species until he leaves the current dungeon level...

There's much design space for traps effects with long duration. Unfortunately "until you leave this dungeon level" duration works much better in Fay than most other variants.

[Therem Harth]

Originally Posted by Derakon

* Summon an otherwise-normal monster with a special flag that causes it to clone and heal every N turns; the player has to take the monster out before that happens or risk it overrunning the level. Sort of like a breeder on steroids, except that this could be any non-unique monster type (self-replicating Archliches!).

This idea is so monumentally great you could base a whole variant off of it. It'd be brutal at high levels though. Can you imagine a level overrun with replicating Qs?

(I'll admit I also like it because of the "greed kills" aspect. A player could attempt to farm such traps, but at the significant risk of getting overwhelmed!)

* Teleport the player to an arena with an out-of-depth monster who has a guaranteed nice drop -- but leaving the arena forfeits the match.

This feels more like a quest or special level thing - Morgoth sending a favored servant to kill your character, as per the Evil Overlord laundry list.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Stuff that would be more feasible with some form of scripting:

* Summon an otherwise-normal monster with a special flag that causes it to clone and heal every N turns; the player has to take the monster out before that happens or risk it overrunning the level. Sort of like a breeder on steroids, except that this could be any non-unique monster type (self-replicating Archliches!).

I think that is too easy to abuse. You might actually want to have something that drops good items while not being dangerous as is. Can be horrendous if you accidentally trigger it, but if you know what it is before triggering too easy.

Which brings to my mind, one thing that made teleport/summon trap in older versions a bit more interesting was that you didn't know which one it is. How about making "magical" traps indistinguishable from each other? Pits with spikes, gas traps and arrow traps are more or less mechanical, but when you find a rune you might not be able to tell what does it do.

Then magical trap arsenal could be extended to pretty much any monster spell game has. Time trap anyone? Nether bolt? Darkness storm? Disenchantment?

Maybe separate trigger and source? put one magical trigger in one place and 1d5 traps in LoS of that trigger? Can jump all day above the trap without triggering it, but step onto trigger and all of them activate.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

Which brings to my mind, one thing that made teleport/summon trap in older versions a bit more interesting was that you didn't know which one it is. How about making "magical" traps indistinguishable from each other?

In Ey and Fay, only thieves know the exact trap type, and other classes can see only the general type, like "magic rune" or "gas trap".

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

I think that is too easy to abuse.

You could always throw in a evil mutation every x generations.

How about a trap that summons self-cloning, sentient, slow moving trap doors. The character must either manically (and perfectly) disarm or be forced off the level. Feel free to replace 'trap door' with chasm or void and have the dungeon level slowly collapse, taking the player with it.

[nppangband]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

I think that is too easy to abuse. You might actually want to have something that drops good items while not being dangerous as is.

Unless you mark the monster as a clone, and give no experience or monster drop for killing it.