Traps

Map Maker's Guide to Runes and Traps (by peter.nosp@m.m@so.nosp@m.da.be.nosp@m.rkel.nosp@m.ey.ed.nosp@m.u)

• in this document, 'rune' and 'trap' are interchangeable terms.

A rune is a magical enscription on the dungeon floor. Traps are just like runes except they are not magical in nature, and generally have a physical attack.

Runes hit any monster or person who steps on them for dam damage in 'attacktype' attacktype. In addition, there is a generalized rune which can contain any spell at all, and will cast this spell when it detonates.

Many traps and runes are already defined in the archetypes.

Here's a guide the the fields in a Rune: (archetype)

level – Level the rune will cast the spell it contains at, if applicable. A level 99 rune casts a very, very mean spell of whatever. (Warning: level 0 runes won't detonate at all!) Also effects how easily a trap may be found and disarmed.

Cha – Determines what fraction of the time the rune is visible: randomly visible 1/Cha of the time. Also effects how easily the trap may be found.

sp – Spell in the rune, if any (the index of the spell)

slaying – name of the spell in the rune, if any. Optional, but if present, overrides sp. recommended for use by mapmakers to ensure portability.

other_arch – spell archetype of the spell in the rune, if any. Optional, but if present, overrides sp and slaying.

hp – How many times the rune detonates before disappearing

attacktype – If there isn't any spell, what attacktype to use when the rune detonates

face – face the rune has

msg – What the rune says to the victim when it detonates

dam – How much damage is done by the rune, if it does not cast a spell

anim – face1 is the default face of the rune. face1 face2 is the face of a rune detonation. face2 A detonating rune inserts a dummy object mina with face2 on the square.

direction – Direction to cast the spell the rune contains

maxhp – Number of spells to cast

Predefined runes for your convenience: See the Runes pickmap on the editor

IMPORTANT: When making rune archetypes for spells, name the rune Object rune_[spell-name]. This convention makes it possible for someone who does 'cast magic rune <spell>' to create a rune that looks like your archetype. Examples: Object rune_large_fireball Object rune_invisibility Object rune_improved_invisibility If they're not named this way, someone can write a rune of < > what looks nothing like the one in the archetypes, even though it does exactly the same thing.

All runes should be editable. For example you might want to call up a rune of fire, and set its slaying so that it casts large fireball instead of simply burning its victim.

Ideas: you could blanket a floor with 1pt dam runes of fire, but with many hp. Anyone walking across this blanket will be badly hurt if he's slow or sits on them for a long time, but could cross more or less unhurt if he's quick. You could encourage a player to do something rash this way.

You could place Runes of Healing behind altar-controlled doors in temples. Dump enough money on the altar, and you get access to the Rune of Healing. (Or restoration.)

Also, you could implement a magic bank with runes of transferrence in the same way. (Roscoe's energy emporium!)

A rune of Polymorph with the beam directed down a long passageway of monsters could REALLY cause chaos. Oohhhhh, fun, fun fun!! Runes of lightning oriented down long passageways could be lots of fun as well!