The Technique of Traps

The Technique of Traps

Trap making was originally a hunter’s craft that eventually came to see use in warfare. Clever new devices and ever more efficient ways of achieving old effects are always being invented. The most basic traps are little more than simple snares and spiked pits, but more advanced traps are often complex apparatuses designed to command a victim’s absolute attention, set them ablaze, or reduce them to bloody chunks in the blink of an eye.
The Alchemy talent allows ponies to set traps that will be set off by those who pass close to them without avoiding their trigger. Traps function as hazards, doing a basic level of damage. Many traps add special effects to this baseline damage. Incorporating special effects into a trap’s design often reduces its damage. The following sections describe how traps can be set, and what happens when they are triggered.

Setting Traps

Any pony with the Alchemy talent (D12) can build a simple trap to inflict a baseline amount of damage on a victim who stumbles onto it. The traps of trap makers inflict anywhere from 2d6 damage up to 6d6 base damage. A trap’s maker can always choose to make a trap that inflicts less damage than they’re capable of in order to limit its difficulty or expense.
To set a trap that inflicts simple damage requires a Alchemy test with the difficulty indicated by the accompanying table. The process of setting a trap takes 1 minute assuming appropriate tools and sufficient materials are close at hand. A decent set of trap-making tools costs 10 sb and the cost of materials for a given trap depends on the magnitude of the trap as shown in the table.
A trap maker who fails to set a trap must make an additional Alchemy test, at the same difficulty, to see whether their raw materials are ruined in the attempt. On a success, they are not. On a failure, they are rendered useless.
The materials to build a trap can also often be scavenged from the area by a clever or determined trap maker. This requires a Keen Knowledge: Natural Lore or Searching or test with the same target number as is required to build a trap of that magnitude. Success means that the trap maker need not deplete that trap’s value from their kit when setting it, whether they succeed or fail. A trap maker parted from their kit can scavenge materials this way as well.
The exact nature of a particular trap is left to the imagination of the player and the arbitration of the GM. The difference between spiked pits, biting metal jaws, and icy shrapnel driven by exploding frostrock is mechanically irrelevant.

Additional Effects

In addition to dealing simple damage, traps can also inflict other effects on those who stumble into them. The Additional Effects of Traps table describes these options.
To use this table, roll roll:2d6. The first die refers to the column number on the table, the second dies refers to the row number. Where those numbers meet, that’s what trap effect happens.
Now, not all traps effects have been discovered in Thedastria. For those experimental trap makers, this will allow you to discover something unknown. If you roll an unknown effect, roll your Alchemy talent die. An amazing success roll allows you to create a new effect! But a bad luck roll will cause the trap that you were setting to be triggered, leaving you to suffer the effects. Anything else will just set the trap will no effect, except for the additional materials being lost.

Additional Effects of Traps

	1 Deathroot Extract	2 Shock Bomb	3 Fire Bomb	4 Sharp Darts	5 Gloop Potion	6 Magebane
1 Ragged Blades	Area Effect	Wide Effect	Expansive Effect	Penetrating	?	?
2 Miniature Clockworks	Intricate	Convoluted	?	?	?	?
3 Love Potion	Alluring	Fascinating	?	?	?	?
4 Invisibility Potion	Concealed	Hidden	Shrouded	?	?	?
5 Strange Solvents	?	?	Self-Igniting Slick	?	Slick	?
6 Sleep Potion	?	?	Knock Prone	?	?	?

Advanced Trap Rules

For groups that prefer their traps a little less random you can, instead of rolling on the table, use ingredients to make trap. For this method you will want to keep a track of what ingredients your PCs find (and make sure they get ingredients as loot, or have them available to buy in towns). When an alchemist makes a trap they must pick two ingredients and mix them together.
If both ingredients are on the table, the trap is a success. Look at where the ingredients meet on the table to discover what trap you made!
If one of the ingredients is on the table, the trap is still a success. Look at where the ingredient is and roll a D6 for the other ingredient to discover what trap was made.
If neither of the ingredients are listed, the trap looks a bit funny and has no magical effect.

Triggering Traps

Once a trap is set, it lies dormant, waiting without thought or malice for an unsuspecting victim to trigger it.
Spotting a trap that one is not looking for requires a Difficulty 5/13 Keen Knowledge: Seeing test. Proactively searching an area for a trap requires a Difficulty 4/11 Keen Knowledge: Searching test.
Once a trap has been spotted, understanding its nature—that is, what it does—requires a Difficulty 8/17 Alchemy test.
A spotted trap can generally be routed around and its effects avoided entirely. However, if a victim who has spotted a trap absolutely must trigger the trap in order to accomplish some desired objective (passing through a trapped doorway, for example) they only take half damage. A pony of sufficient nerve and skill can also try to disarm a trap they’ve spotted, as described in the next section.

Disarming Traps

Any pony can try to disarm a trap they’ve spotted regardless of whether they have the Alchemy talent and regardless of whether they succeeded in the Alchemy test to understand its nature. To do so requires a Difficulty 8/17 Alchemy test. Additionally, the disarming pony receives an upgrade if they successfully understood the trap’s nature. Failure to disarm triggers the trap, which immediately deals its full damage and affects to the one trying to disarm it.
To disarm a trap while harvesting its raw materials (in order to add them to one’s own trap-making kit, presumably) adds +2 to the Difficulty. If this is not attempted, the components are automatically destroyed in the disarming process.
As an alternative to disarming, most traps can simply be set off from a distance. This always destroys the trap’s components and may have other dangerous or hazardous affects depending on the situation and the GM’s mad whim.
A trap maker can always disarm their own traps and absorb the raw materials back into their kit without making a test.