Originally posted on the official website on June 1st, 2019
Traps on Treasure Chests Version Agnostic
Table of contents
While Treasure Chests don’t usually have traps installed on them in Zelda games, you might want to include them for a more old-school, Dungeons & Dragons-type flavor. A Chest might also be trapped if it’s in a place like a Yiga hideout or a bandit camp, where there might truly be no honor among thieves.
Disarming Treasure Traps
Discerning whether or not there’s a trap on the chest in the first place is a Perception check, with a DC of (7 + (Rank x 3)). Disarming a Treasure Chest’s Trap is a Mechanics check, of the same magnitude. Remember to bring a Toolkit (Traps) when disarming particularly difficult Treasure Chests!
A Treasure Chest’s trap may have other ways to be disarmed, such as by a nearby mechanism, shining a light on the Chest, or using a specific Magical Tool on it. Think of this like a one-time interaction with a Boss’s Weak Point – by using the special method, the Heroes get the goods and feel smart doing it, but they can brute-force the trap by either eating its ill effects, or disarming it manually, as above.
Regardless of how a Treasure Chest’s trap is supposed to be disarmed, the trap goes off if the Chest is opened without disarming it, or if the check to disarm a trap fails. It might also go off if the Heroes use an egregiously incorrect solution to the Chest’s specific disarming method.
Kinds of Traps
The nature of a Treasure Chest’s trap varies greatly from one Chest to the next, depending on who trapped it, why they decided to do that, and the theming of the Chest’s location. However, here are some quick rules of thumb for designing traps for your treasure:
- In general, the higher-rank the Chest, the more dangerous or deadly you can make its trap. A Rank 1 Chest’s trap should be a hindrance, but unlikely to kill someone; a Rank 4 Chest’s trap, however, could very well be deadly.
- Simply causing damage is boring, and easily fixed outside of an otherwise-dangerous situation. Consider inflicting statuses for a long duration, Burning resources, relocating the Heroes, or summoning monsters. Particularly dangerous traps might do several of these things, giving the Heroes a real mess to deal with.
- If the trap requires some kind of To-Hit roll, use a Weapon Accuracy of 3, and an Accuracy Trait of (Chest’s Rank x 2).
While a full catalogue of Treasure Chest traps is beyond the scope of this article, here are some ideas for just a few of the misfortunes that might befall unwary treasure-hunters:
- The chest contains a mechanism that jabs a poisoned needle into whoever first opens it. Roll To-Hit the Chest’s opener’s Evasion; on success, the target is made Sick.
- When the Chest is opened, a hail of lit Bombs falls from above, primed to explode in one round. The looter (and any nearby friends!) should make haste to escape, before the bombs explode!
- A trapdoor opens up beneath the Chest, taking both it, and the looter, to a new area down below. The looter’s friends must either find a safe way down, or take the plunge themselves to follow.
- The Chest is full of a large amount of pressurized water. On its own, this just Soaks any nearby Heroes when opened. However, this makes dealing with upcoming electrical foes and traps much more painful.
- The Treasure Chest is actually a special type of Like Like, and sucks the offending opener inside! The Heroes (both inside and outside the Treasure Like) will need to struggle through an Extended Check to break out the poor treasure-hunter, while the Treasure Like continually drains their wallet and their health.
- The chest contains a spark of energy from the Dark World. When opened, this spark is released in a Burst around the chest. Roll To-Hit Concentration; on success, the energy Curses everyone it strikes, and turns them into a form that befits their true heart, until their next Extended Rest.