Arming a trap takes at least sixty seconds. If it takes you less than sixty seconds to arm the trap OOG, you must still keep both hands on the trap and role-play arming the trap for the remainder of the sixty seconds.

During those sixty seconds, if either hand is removed from the trap, or if you are hit by a physical blow or Packet attack, the trap will be set off, affecting only the person setting the trap. This applies even if the incoming attack would not have caused damage or would have had no effect.

After the trap has been armed, it can be moved no more than five feet in any direction before detonating, even if the person carrying the trap has the Create Trap Skill. Picking up a trapped box, moving it three feet, and then turning around and putting it back will set it off.

Any armed trap that is Shattered, whether by a spell or by another trap within the radius, will always be set off. Shattering a box containing an armed trap will also detonate the trap. Shattering a disarmed trap still destroys the trap, but it is not set off.

A character needs Create Trap to attempt to arm and disarm traps and pick locks. You must have this Skill in order to even attempt doing these things. Anyone without this Skill who tries to disarm a trap or pick a lock will automatically fail. Different ranks of Create Trap allow arming different types of traps; see the Create Trap Skill description for details.

If you do not have this Skill, you must role-play ignorance in figuring out how to remove a trap. Your character can still detect the presence of the trap by noticing trip wires and such but will be completely unable to figure out how to disarm it.

A trap may be disarmed by any means which does not permanently destroy the trap, so long as the chosen method prevents the trap from producing a noise or a light. For example, popping a battery clip off a battery or moving a mouse trap bar slowly so that it does not snap shut represents the disarming of the trap.

Permanent damage means treating the trap in such a way that a marshal cannot fix the damage within ten minutes or needs a tool. For instance, removing the top of a box by taking the screws out of the hinges is not allowed. It’s a nice lateral way of solving the problem, yes, but it requires the marshal to have to use tools to put the box back together and is not what this Skill is all about. Conversely, a trap cannot require tool usage (such as requiring a screwdriver to open a box) to disarm.

Note that, like Weapons used by Cast, traps found in modules cannot always be “harvested” as treasure. Just because you disarm a trap in a module doesn’t mean you will get a trap tag.

Triggers: All traps must have a real, physical trigger.

This trigger could produce a light (such as from a flashbulb) or a sound (such as from a mouse trap). This trigger must always be detectable by an impartial observer. Every trap must be disarmable, even though it may be difficult to do so.

All traps must be approved by a marshal and, if not in a module where the documentation is held by the marshal, must contain a trap tag.

A trigger can be something as simple as a mouse trap with a thread going across a hallway that, when tripped, sets off the mouse trap.