So, i've been slowly working on this one for quite a time now...



There are a number of problems with Trap Disarm mechanic in the vanilla game.

First of all, the disarm chance calculation is bugged in a way that makes the probes not factor in the possibility of disarming at all - the only difference between them is how much tries you'll need, unlike what we have with locks and lockpicks. (Thankfully, this was fixed by Hrnchamd in his latest MCP beta)

Second, the "fTrapCostMult" GMST is set to 0, which means that every single trap in the game has the same difficulty, not depending on its power.

Third, even if we fixed the problem above by setting the GMST to some negative value, the trap placement in the game is all over the place. About half of them are just normal auto-calc spells set to be traps, which means any spell rebalance will affect these traps' difficulty as well. Among them are several really stupid choices, like a chest trapped with Alit Bite, or several Thunder Fist traps (Thunder Fist, if you don't remember, is actually the Nord racial power). The specialized trap spells have pretty a variable magnitude (2-20 for 3 s) but always the same difficulty.

And more and more.

What I want to do:

- Set fTrapCostMult to some nice working value, most likely (-1)

- Create several tiers of dedicated trap spells, with their difficulty depending on magnitude or contextual danger.

- Replace all the normal spells in traps with these dedicated, non-autocalc ones.

- While doing it, get rid of the traps with useless effects which just go away after some time, like Blind, Drain etc. I think most of the players only start looting the containers and open the doors after they are done with enemies in the vicinity, so these don't add anything to the gameplay, except some mild annoyance.

- Rebalance the probes.

I would appreciate any input on these changes ans well as creative ideas for the traps. For example:

- An underwater trap which casts Water Walking on you and thus instantly moves you away, to the surface, and doesn't let you enter water again for some time.

- An underwater Burden trap which makes you stay underwater and possibly drown.

- An underwater Drain Fatigue trap which makes you drown immediately.

- A low-magnitude Levitation trap which makes you fly wery slowly, as well as prevents you from resting.

What about a scripted teleport that brings the player to a room with nothing but lava at the bottom? Could act as a trap door of sorts

Other ideas:

(1) a long term (10 minutes+) silence spell, which would cripple casters

(2) a spell that blinds the player while fortifying their speed, so they can't control where they're going

(3) a spiked filth trap that deals poison damage and inflicts 2-3 diseases on the player

(4) "bloodboil," a long term debuff with fire damage 1-2 points, 20% sound, Drain speed 20 points

(5) frost damage + paralyze

(6) an extreme amount of disintegrate weapon/armor, such that the player effectively loses their weapon/armor piece (rust trap)

I'd prefer only having vanilla mechanic traps in this mod, so it would stay clean and compatible with other ones.

Just thought of another idea: Almsivi/Divine Intervention to teleport the player outside the dungeon I can see that being hilarious

Also, could a long-term "dispel" effect work? preventing the player from ever casting buffs on themselves for a limited time? or is dispel only instant?

1. Not really a good one, as the Player can just wait it out in most cases.

2. Trap of Blinding Speed? Fun, but probably too cheesy.

3. Requires scripting, see above.

4, 5 - Interesting.

6. Nice, but I'd prefer to keep it just strong, not insanely strong.

Nice idea, I had this one too But requires scripting.

Only instant.

(1) How about instead of long-term silence, a damage intelligence 100 spell? That's effectively just as crippling as a silence spell, and would require a trip to the shrine/potions to cure it. In all honestly, it would probably give restore intelligence potions more of a use/purpose, as I'm not sure there are very many enemies that really damage that stat.

(2) maybe change to blind + damage agility + damage strength? that would cripple the player's combat abilities

(3) for the spike trap, switch to poison damage + damage attribute spells that are similar to what the disease would be. That would be possible without scripting I think

(4)/(5) glad you like them

(6) in retrospect, im not sure this would work because doesn't disintegrate only effect a target that has its weapon drawn? I don't think there's any way to guarantee the player's weapon is drawn when they trigger a trap without scripting

______________________________

What about:

(7) damage speed + long term, small magnitude damage fatigue spell

(8) burden + damage luck

(9) light + damage agility (makes sneaking less effective, hurts rogue-types)

Damage Attribute traps will of course be implemented. Not 100 though.

See above. Blindness can just be waited out withoutany repercussion, which leaves only the damage effects as meaningful.

Player won't be able to cure it with Cure Common Disease, so there is really not much point.

I think it works on just equipped items.

Again, temporary components can just be waited out.

I feel like the low-power levitation or water walking traps don't make all too much sense in-setting, and are more just plain annoying than debilitating. Damage attribute is a great idea, though, and same with burden/drain fatigue underwater.

Is there anything you can do about players being able to cheese traps simply by casting Telekinesis and setting off the traps from a safe distance?

Noted.

There is no easy way to do this, without removing or severely rebalancing the Telekinesis effect. Thus, this is beyound the scope of this mod atm.

This might be a stupid question from a non-modder, but could the traps be set to fire on target rather than on touch? Maybe with an AOE?

if you find blind/drain attribute pointless, why not just summon 1-5 enemies with the trap?

I really wish they could be, but alas. Even if you set the trap to be a target spell manually in MWEdit or such, it just causes and error and doesn't work.

As I said previously, I'd prefer not doing scripted traps. They require work with actual object data instead of just reference data, and as such are a source of incompatibilities.

The underwater traps sound evil, I love it! Maybe you could make traps that affect skills? Ex. A minor chest has a trap that drains your security skill making it harder to get rid of the trap on the big chest?

You can use a really long lasting 1 damage poison spell combined with other effects the player would normally wait out. The player wouldn't be able to wait, and if he tries to afk his character would die. Just don't do this with a silence spell if the player needs levitation/water breathing to escape the dungeon. The player would be forced to sit at his computer healing until the duration ends.

Weakness to blight/common disease + the long lasting 1 damage spell. This trap should be in areas where you are at risk of catching those diseases.

I like this one, and it would work with the long lasting damage spell.

An alternate to damage speed/athletics could be a levitate spell with a low magnitude. The player wouldn't be able to rest, but it would be a bit more fun since they can fly.

You could also give themes to traps. For example, traps in dwemer ruins could hinder the player's ability to use magic. Shrines to Mehrunes Dagon could have fire damage traps. Shrines to Malacath could have damage weapon/armor traps (because Orcs are good smiths). Shrines to Sheogorath could use blind/sound traps and other mischievous tricks. Shrines to Molag Bal could use frost damage traps. Dunmeri tombs could focus on damage attribute traps. Or whatever themes you think are more fitting.