TRAPS in the Baldur's Gate streets !

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— YES, there is MANY strange traps to be detected for, in the streets of Baldur's Gate city ...

• Example : a trap ( "red lines" easily detected by Find Traps or a thief !) in front of Seven Suns ! ... ALL the width of the street is a trap !

• Other example, a worst one : a large trap zone ... INSIDE the Elf Song Inn, three steps after the entry ! (the red lines are shaped as a trapeze).

— Those traps seem to do no damage and / or effects to the unsuspecting commoners and adventurers ...

... but,
1) is it really true in ALL circumstances ?

2) more : A "deaf" alarm-system is perhaps silenciously triggered for unknown purpose, far of the zone, or into the nearest building.

You don't believe that ?
— Okay, but then : WHY all these strange traps ?

For the feeding of paranoia of gamers, and mock them in secret ?
I don't think so. Creators of BG1 were certainly not so perverse ...

— Yes, but then : WHY ?

A not ended work ?
No. Shapes, numbers, all shows an specific purpose for this stuff, not a lone idea.

Gamers, my friends, come on, don't be shy :
What is YOUR opinion about all these traps ?

 

I think they are triggers for events in the game, like the appearance of a particular NPC.

For instance, on the screen where those two thieves who poison your party appear, there are some of those "traps" on the ground. If you don't step on them (use CTRL+J to teleport), they don't talk to you and the poison quest never starts.

 

I'm pretty sure Colthrun is right here. Not really much else I can add.

 

Actually, those are rep traps, though they really shouldn't be detectable. Those are the things that detect your rep, and if it's too low, summon that gaggle of FF guards "to hunt down the criminals". You'll see similar ones at the entrance of most inns, as well as on the streets of Beregost and Nashkel. (In Nashkel they only summon a single bounty hunter who's easily killed.)

Wrong. Those are also rep traps. The poisoner is merely scripted to talk to you as soon as he sees you.

 

— Friends, I have read all that you wrote, and after beeing pondering, I am almost sure that Felinoid is true.

At least 9 out of 10 of these traps are probably fame traps testing the reputation of the party.

The new questions are :

1) That is very strange that these "fame traps" CAN be disarmed, as any other. A simple remove traps of Imohen is sufficient !

2) If you walk a first time on the trap with a GOOD fame, and that your reputation drops later : if you walk now on the red lines with a EVIL fame, the trap is it already used, (as often), or, in that precise case, yet dangerous ? [ I guess that it is that option, alas ] ?

3) The incoming of the silly ranger of the inn near the Flaming Fist barracks (South from the small fountain) is it triggered by an evil character, or a trap detecting him ? [ I remember that my poor so-calling neutral evil Viconia, in despite of her 20 in reputation, was always obliged to go outside to avoid the pursuit of this stupid cop-minded guy ].

4) I was saying : "nine traps out of 10", because that is NO sure that all of these traps are only fame detectors.
Even that dear Felinoid wasn't probably deciphering ALL scripts of all traps in all the game :
... if some one of you discover a really special trap which was triggered by an other thing that reputation, he knows where he must write his discovery ...

 

For one, he's a paladin, not a ranger. Two, he attacks if you are evil or have an evil person in your party. Since there is nothing in that bar anyway, just don't go inside. BTW, you lose rep points for killing him.

 

— A paladin ? Strange, but it is possible ; I go very rarely in that inn.

Yes, I know this very well, Kuemper !
I SAID it, in fact ...

• But what I don't know, it if there is, or not, a red-lined Detect Evil trap at the entry ; it would be verry interesting to know it, because if it was the case, then Imohen would just have to remove the trap, and then, everybody could be relax here !

 

1) Yes, it is. As I said, it's strange that they're even detectable, much less disarmable. I can only hope this isn't a symptom of a bigger problem with your game. But given 2) ...

2) That shouldn't happen; they should check every time (I've on occasion summoned a second group of FF guards when I've stepped back on the trap area trying to attack the originals). This is definitely a bug.

3) Definitely a paladin, and it's the same deal as the poisoners. He'll always come up and talk to you the first time he sees you, but if you don't have any evil characters he'll merely scan you, say something grudgingly along the lines of 'I don't detect any evil', and move on.

4) Actually, I am sure and I do check all the scripts; I'm something of a perfectionist. Note, however, that I was rather specific in the ones I was talking about. The rep traps extend so that you can't get around them (some of them more in theory than in practice), and are found only on the streets of the major cities (BG, Beregost, & Nashkel) and at the entrances of some inns.

5) As a rule, BG1 does not use the kind of encounter trap-triggers that BG2 does, in setting up the encounters with the Shadow Thieves and vampires fighting, for example. The rep traps are pretty much the limit in the original.

 

• I think Felinoid has really surrounded the problem, since there no much more things to say about that topic.

— However, there are sometimes unusual special traps in middle of nowhere, or in full nature.

These ones are TRUE traps, of course !
... but several are unsuspected for, as Web traps built by ettercaps in spiders zones ; the FIRST time that you explore a green landscape, mainly if you are a beginner, you rarely think to activate the Find Traps ability of your thief, or the Find Traps spell of your cleric.

Sometimes, ettercaps are planing specially shrewd traps. I remember (and perhaps you also) that there exist, [ in the rectangle of map just Full North of Carnival rectangle (I name that zone " Ogrish Lands " on my computer home-made map) ], the entry of a dangerous cave with a particularly clever ettercap :

... that one managed to set his Web trap RIGHT after the first step in the cave : if your party walk in any manner, it is caught. And even if you don't move after the passage of the "door", the weaker AC characters of the group (mage, and above all thief !) are placed ahead by the computer during the "zone change".
Then arrive the poisonous ettercap ... The thief has a great difficulty to remove this trap, and clerics and great difficulty to slow or neutralize poison : if they move, the Web spell goes on.
The ettercaps ended to be arrowed by fighters, of course, but the shape of the enter of the cave is such particular, that it is no rare that one or two characters die poisonned before they could swallow with success an antidote, or be cured of the venom by a cleric —mainly if the Web trap was triggered ...
... then you must reload and re-start all the fight !

 

@Cal - You stated you had a 20 reputation, which comes across, imo, that you think being well-known throughout the Sword Coast makes you and your party exempt from harm. He's a paladin. He doesn't give a rat's patootie that you broke the iron crisis in Nashkel or saved Duke Eltan from death. You are contaminated by the taint of Evil and must be erradicated. And what you actually said was:

You asked a question and I answered it.

 

— No, Kuemper ; I am tired to have, always, only purely semantical or language interpretation contests, with YOU.

The topics are different but, with me , YOU always "cut one hair in four parts", (as we name that in France).

— I begin to ask myself if you really hate me , or fall madly in love of me ;
I think to have NOT merited any of these two things (or in those cases, howl your hatred or your love in Private Messages, then I could chose to take pain to respond to you — or not).

The verity is that you (and Felinoid also, by the way) have always gone round considering the option of the :
<< potential-red-lines-of-a-trap, at-the-entry-of-the-inn, detecting, THAT time, not-the-fame, but-the-EVIL, and the hypothesis that-the-paladin-could-use-that-trap-as-the-TOOL of HIS detection >>.

That avoiding has an obvious reason : none of you have taken the trouble to move and GO see, on the place, with a thief, IF so red lines exist in THIS inn.

[ No, don't ask why I don't go here MYSELF : I should wish very well to do it, but, as I remind to every body, I am always stuck in the problems with my failed "Full Install" of BG1 ... (I am always waiting for a second mail of help of the creator of the full install, "Talisman") , and I cannot play, for now, at BG1, alas ! ].

 

Am I the only one who is just flabbergasted by Cal's way of expressing his thoughts?

 

Susipaisti, I think there are two of us. But hey, let's just decide it's due us being Finns and has nothing to do with anything else at all!

 

You want me to be blunt? Fine. It doesn't exist. Though I fail to see how giving the correct answer is "going around" a false supposition.

When you have direct access to the game files, you don't really need to. It's also a bit much to ask someone to play through to that specific point just to prove you wrong. Not everyone is going to have a save file in Chapter 5 with a thief with 100 in Find Traps (to ensure something with high difficulty isn't missed).

Not by a long shot. But he's still getting used to the language, so I say we give him a break on that one.

 

To Felinoid :

Yes, "I want you to be blunt", or more exactly, "precise" ... But usually you ARE precise, Felinoid, and then I have no quarrel with you. (In fact, you have perhaps seen that I had almost closed my own topic) :

... yes, as I said, almost closed that topic, when Kuemper, as often, began a unuseful contest and that, then I put that unhappy parenthesis to you :

that I never took care to tell you in normal time ... without Kuemper

To the others, Susipaisti & Goli Ironhead :
I don't believe that you were named "Kuemper" ; yet, the start of my reply was clear :

... but, since you seem need an explanation of my ...

... then remember that a good Frenchman is FREE, free in his thoughts, speech, and words.
If you want to be a Free Man, you can always come live here ...