Pressure plate

Version 0.32: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

One of the floor stones doesn't seem that sturdy, and you notice that it is a trigger of some sort, though you can't tell what kind of trap it is attached to.

A pressure plate is a trap which causes some pre-scripted, generally bad event to happen. They are destroyed upon being stepped on.

Possible Results

• Drop Trap: Spawns several monsters right next to the player. This is by far the most common variation of pressure plate the player will encounter.
  • Spiders: You are immediately surrounded by eight redbacks.

A basket of spiders falls from above!

• Snakes: You are immediately surrounded by eight black mambas and mana vipers. Exclusive to the Snake Pits.

A basket of snakes falls from above!

• Klown Kar: You are immediately surrounded by three to eight Killer Klowns. Exclusive to the Realm of Zot.

With a honk a tiny klown kar falls from above, and Killer Klowns tumble out!

• Rats Trap: A narrow corridor with a pressure plate in the middle, which upon being stepped on reveals the adjacent walls to be filled with rats and river rats. Only found on Dungeon levels 4-10.
• Liches: Opens grates that hold liches, ancient liches and dread liches in them. Only found in one Crypt ending.

History

• Previously, there were harmful cloud traps, and traps that revealed various cells with harmful monsters in them.
• Snake and Klown Kar drop trap variations were added in 0.23.
• Prior to 0.16, you could levitate/fly over them if you managed to find one before stepping on it.