Traps

Traps are inventory items carrying Trap Abilities. A trap is armed while it carries the "Trapped" status effect; when its trigger goes off — opening a chest, entering an area, a pressure plate, a tripwire, a magical sensor, a timer — it unleashes its payload with the trap itself as the source. Point Traps ride a single object (a needle in a chest's lock); Area Traps cover a region (a gas vent, a spike pit).

Traps make no attack rolls and have no essences. One number — the Trap DC (the trap's Inspection DC) — governs everything: finding a hidden trap (Inspection, through the hidden-inventory system), studying an object within reach to learn whether it is trapped, disarming it, and every save against its effects.

Studying and disarming both use the trap's nature skill: Machining with Machining Tools for a mechanical trap, Magic with Enchanting Tools for a magical one. Fail the disarm by 5 or more and the trap springs on you. Sprung traps can reset: one-shot traps are spent, manual traps must be re-armed by hand, and timed traps re-arm themselves ("merely retrapped").