Dummies Guide to Building: Traps

The trap system in ALFA provides the ability to create any kind of trap a builder might want, projectile, spell or standard. Traps are waypoints, not triggers. First create the trap itself, then create a spawnpoint of ACR_SPAWN_TYPE = 8 (integer) to spawn it.

Creating Traps

DMs have a set of traps available for placement on the fly ingame, but builders need to tool even these standard traps to build with them. This bears repeating: The traps that are available to DMs in game are not available to tool with. To build with them, you will need to duplicate an existing standard trap or create any special traps to have them in your WAYPOINT pallet. Please see Zelknolf's ACR Trap documentation [1]for the mechanics of how traps work. Instructions for tooling additional traps begin halfway down that page.

A few notes on things discovered while tooling from the above linked instructions:

• You need every one of the variables EXCEPT ACR_TRAP_DESCRIPTION. If you do not have every variable, the trap will not fire. However, ACR_TRAP_DESCRIPTION was breaking tooled traps at my last testing and had to be left off.

• You may create projectile traps and spell traps at will and place multiple instances in the same area, but each of them will use the nearest TRAP_ORIGIN tagged placeable to throw those spells/projectiles, so placement of the intended TRAP_ORIGIN is paramount.

• No matter the integer of their size, they will all be discovered ingame by PCs with trap-finding skills with a red circle of set diameter on the ground.

Spawning Traps

Once tooled up, create spawnpoints for each trap. By using spawnpoints instead of place instances, you have all the flexibility of any spawnpoint, most useful to me thus far, the ability to set time of spawning.

Pre-tooled Traps

A sample TSM_Trap_Samples.erf may be downloaded from the DMFTP/NWN2/Campaign/Contributors containing:

• 1 projectile trap and its spawnpoint
• 1 spelltrap (Web) and its spawnpoint
• 2 standard (Minor and Average Fire) and their spawnpoints.

They will import as waypoints, with the traps classified as ALFA_Traps and the spawnpoints as ALFA_Traps_Spawn. They should serve as guides to implement any spell, projectile or standard trap you want to build.

Zelk has created a complete suite of traps, all downloadable from the Github campaign/waypoint directory [2]. To download these, click on the trap you want, then on Raw, then save the file as a UTW. Drop the UTW directly your module directory. On the next open, it should be in your trap pallet. Her suite includes:

• Bouncing Bettie Mines
• Electrified Floor Traps
• Holy Traps
• Spike Traps