Zot trap

Version 0.31: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

A trap which inflicts dangerously unpredictable magical effects on those unlucky enough to step on it. You may find yourself thrown into the Abyss, contaminated with enormous amounts of wild magic, have mighty fiends summoned against you, or the like. Hostile monsters may trigger this trap themselves to invoke its effects against you, but your allies will avoid stepping on it.

A Zot trap is a magical trap which produces a random nasty effect, ranging from simple explosions to things such as banishment or greater demons.

Zot traps are only found on the lower levels of the Depths, and in the later branches.

Effects

Zot traps have their own list of magical effects to choose from:

• Evil magic (total 66% chance):
  • 1-5 point Stat drain (16.7% chance)
  • 7000 - 20000 Magic contamination (yellow to light red) (16.7% chance)
  • Paralysis for 2-5 turns (4.2% chance)
  • Lose all MP (8.3% chance)
  • Petrify (4.2% chance)
  • Weak-willed for 0-19 turns (16.7% chance)
• Summons (total 33% chance):
  • Word of Recall 2-4 enemies (12.5% chance)
  • Durably summoned greater demon (12.5% chance)
  • Malign Gateway (4.2% chance)
  • Twister, summoned for roughly 10-14 turns (4.2% chance)

Tips & Tricks

• It is not necessary to step onto a Zot trap to be affected by it. If a monster in your LOS steps on a Zot trap, it may "invoke the power of Zot" against you. Although it's not always an option, consider excluding Zot traps you find to guarantee you won't accidentally wander close enough to one for an unfortunate monster to stumble across it. It's unlikely, but can make life miserable when it happens.
• If you find a Zot trap while walking down a 1-tile wide hallway, it may be worthwhile to use a wand of digging or an appropriate spell to give yourself a means of stepping around the trap. Failing that, a random Blink (only if you are adjacent to the trap), scroll of blinking, or Passage of Golubria can get you past without an issue. Only trigger a Zot trap if whatever is on the other side is truly worth subjecting yourself to its effects, and equip as many purely defensive items as you can first.

History

• Prior to 0.25, Zot traps had a wider array of possible effects, including various elemental explosions, banishment, rot, malmutation, draining, confusion/slow/distortion, losing wand charges, and silence. Less powerful monsters were among those that could be summoned, and all monsters summoned by Zot traps were durably summoned.
• Prior to 0.23, you unintentionally stepping on Zot traps was more common, as they could be hidden before you stepped on their tile (like all traps).
• In 0.14, it was possible to be strongly poisoned by a Zot trap.
• Prior to 0.13, Zot traps simply chose random magical miscast effects, and so had a much greater chance of being completely harmless.