In every game of Wizardry, two types of traps can be basically distinguished:
Dungeon Traps
In the early games of the series, a dungeon trap is usually a pit or a spiked pit. Dungeon traps cannot be disarmed by Thief skills, though there are sometimes mechanisms to turn off a trap.
In Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom, pits are best avoided by the levitation spell Litofeit.
In Wizardry Variants Daphne, the protagonist can avoid Spike Traps if a member in their party successfully evades the trap, holding the protagonist back as the spikes go up.
Chest Traps
The second type of traps is used to secure chests against looters (= the characters). It usually takes a character who is a thief to identify and disarm a chest trap, though a higher-level character of any other class might have some success.
In Wizardry I - V, the priest spell CALFO can usually identify, though not disarm, a chest trap.
Disarming
To disarm a chest trap in Wizardry I - V, a thief or another class of fairly high level has to be chosen. Then, the player has to type in the name of the trap they think is securing the chest. Depending on the character's agility , the trap is either disarmed, not disarmed ("You could not disarm it!") or triggered ("You set it off!").
Disarming may also be unsuccessful if the trap was not identified correctly earlier. Some chests in easier dungeon levels are not trapped at all. If a character attempts to disarm an untrapped chest, the message "The chest was not trapped" will appear, resulting in the party getting the spoils.
In the easier levels of the dungeon, if the player mistypes or enters the wrong trap while disarming the chest, usually nothing will happen and they can try again. In deeper levels, however, getting the name of the trap wrong will usually set it off ("Oops... a Teleporter!").
- Poison Needle
- Hail of Arrows
Interaction
Interacting with a chest allows the selection of a party member to attempt to open it, with their Trap Detection and Disarm visible beneath their names. If a chest has a trap, it will either spring or start a mini-game.
Disarming
The mini-game has difficulty scaling based on both the chest itself and the Disarm stat of the member. The mini-game has three attempts before failing, activating the trap. The player may decide to continue, or to back out.
The mini-game has a few components: A bar that bounces back and forth inside of a larger rectangle, and two yellow boxes on both sides within the larger rectangle. The difficulty scales the speed of the moving bar, and the width of the yellow boxes. Tapping will cause the bar to stop moving, but will slide to a point. If the bar intersects a yellow box, the chest is disarmed. If it doesn't, an attempt is consumed; the member loses 1 Fortitude, and both yellow boxes slightly increase in width.
