Map Maker's Guide to Runes and Traps (by peterm@soda.berkeley.edu)
In this document, 'rune' and 'trap' are interchangeable terms.
A rune is a magical inscription on the dungeon floor. Traps are just like runes except they are not magical in nature, and generally have a physical attack.
Runes hit any monster or person who steps on them for dam damage in 'attacktype' attacktype. In addition, there is a generalized rune which can contain any spell at all, and will cast this spell when it detonates.
Many traps and runes are already defined in the archetypes.
Here's a guide the the fields in a Rune: (archetype)
| level | level the rune will cast the spell it contains at, if applicable. A level 99 rune casts a very, very mean spell of whatever. (Warning: level 0 runes won't detonate at all!) Also effects how easily a trap may be found and disarmed |
| Cha | determines what fraction of the time the rune is visible: randomly visible 1/Cha of the time. Also effects how easily the trap may be found |
| sp | spell in the rune, if any (the index of the spell)  still true? or using inventory? |
| slaying | name of the spell in the rune, if any. Optional, but if present, overrides sp. Recommended for use by mapmakers to ensure portability |
| other_arch | spell archetype of the spell in the rune, if any. Optional, but if present, overrides sp and slaying |
| hp | how many times the rune detonates before disappearing handle 0? |
| attacktype | if there isn't any spell, what attacktype to use when the rune detonates |
| face | face the rune has |
| msg | what the rune says to the victim when it detonates |
| dam | how much damage is done by the rune, if it does not cast a spell |
| anim face1 face2 mina | face1 is the default face of the rune. face2 is the face of a rune detonation. A detonating rune inserts a dummy object with face2 on the square |
| direction | direction to cast the spell the rune contains |
| maxhp | number of spells to cast |
Predefined runes for your convenience: See the Runes pickmap on the editor
IMPORTANT: When making rune archetypes for spells, name the rune Object rune_[spell-name]. This convention makes it possible for someone who does 'cast magic rune <spell>' to create a rune that looks like your archetype. Examples:
- Object rune_large_fireball
- Object rune_invisibility
- Object rune_improved_invisibility
If they're not named this way, someone can write a rune of < > which looks nothing like the one in the archetypes, even though it does exactly the same thing.
All runes should be editable. For example you might want to call up a rune of fire, and set its slaying so that it casts large fireball instead of simply burning its victim.
Ideas: you could blanket a floor with 1pt dam runes of fire, but with many hp. Anyone walking across this blanket will be badly hurt if he's slow or sits on them for a long time, but could cross more or less unhurt if he's quick. You could encourage a player to do something rash this way.
You could place Runes of Healing behind altar-controlled doors in temples. Dump enough money on the altar, and you get access to the Rune of Healing. (Or restoration.)
Also, you could implement a magic bank with runes of transferrence in the same way. (Roscoe's energy emporium!)
A rune of Polymorph with the beam directed down a long passageway of monsters could REALLY cause chaos. Oohhhhh, fun, fun fun!! (except polymorph is disabled)
Runes of lightning oriented down long passageways could be lots of fun as well!
