Teach me how to trap

Nonnahswriter

Confession: I have never used the Set Trap skill on a thief. Ever.

And yet, everywhere I go on these forums, I read all these cheese-tastic stories about how powerful traps can be!

So, people of Baldur's Gate, my fellow forumites, I ask you this:

How do I use traps? What, exactly, do they do? Ensnare? Damage? A combination of both? What's their range? How effective are they really? And have I been using Yoshimo all wrong by neglecting the Set Trap ability??

Many thanks!

JuliusBorisov

You should definitely try them!

Set all traps available next to the tomb. Touch it. As soon as the lich stops his "greetings" (and acquire a red circle), all the traps will be activated and in the flash of an eye he will be dead. His contingencies won't even end to the moment the lich himself is nothing more than a dust.

JuliusBorisov

On a more serious note, check @Cheesebelly‌ 's answer here:

http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/5745/thief-traps-does-anyone-set-them

and see http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12328/what-damage-does-the-normal-thief-trap-do-and-other-trap-questions

The thead http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/30422/are-traps-too-op/p1 is very insightful

You can set as much as 7 traps per area, they're activated at the range of a bow attack.

Also, in BG2:EE bounty hunters can throw their special traps while in BG:EE they can't throw them and have to come directly to the place where you want to set a trap. General traps (not bounty hunters') cannot be thrown.

You can read about damage and effects progression of traps in the game if you right-click at the ability.

Nonnahswriter

Those are some nice links, Bengoshi! Thank you!

It's funny, I just recently started my first mage/thief run. I planned on using her as an invisibility/backstab queen, but magic-scouting plus trap-setting seems to equal an awful lot of profit. I might have to try it out... Bwahahahahaha... >:D

Tresset

I just found out that the HLA exploding trap has a knock out effect with a massive -10 save penalty! That has to be the biggest save penalty I have ever seen!

meagloth

You'll use it all the time once you start. I never rally did until I fought kangaxx for the first time, at level 10-12:P I used ALL The cheese. I've killed amallisan once. With spike traps. only :P

EnterHaerDalis

I'm shamed to say that every time I've killed Demogorgon I've trapped with cheese

elminster

The only thing I have to add is that the 7 trap limit means you are limited to the first 7 traps you put on any given map (at least until they have been triggered). In other words (and this applies more to BG2) if you put down 7 traps in one section of the map and want to put down others elsewhere (on that same map) you are going to have to trigger your original traps. You can't just use your ability and see them applied elsewhere.

I normally keep a low level summoning spell (that you can attack to turn them hostile) just for this purpose.

The_Potty_1

I'm happy enough to set a couple of standard traps in the early game, but I've never spammed a ridiculous amount of spike traps. This may be because I've just about always played with either tactics or the scs mods, which make trap cheese harder.

That said, I do love thieves. A lot. Let me tell you a story.

My evil group had just entered Yaga Sura's lair in the marching mountains. I had a barbarian wielding blackrazor and the flail of easthaven, who went on to solo Ascension on easy. With him were Korgan, Viconia, Edwin, Sarevok, & Valen. Valen is a massively overpowered vampiric fighter/thief from a mod.

Anyway, tactics fire giants are pretty nasty. In desperation, and having heard how overpowered mages are, I let Edwin rip with what I thought at the time was the works, being a time stop and a couple of ADHW. No chain contingency, no malison, sorry. The results were .. underwelming. That's nice, you killed one ... um.

Enter Valen. She set a time trap, which gives the thief their own personal time stop. Time duly stopped, she used her assassinate HLA, and proceeded to backstab about 8 of them to chunks. In fairness some of them were injured from Edwin, but regardless, I was in love.