dispersal trap blocking treasure

[emf]

Spoiler: show

I'm in Elf:3, just cleared out the top tier elves. Half the treasure is behind a door, and the only access square has a dispersal trap on it. The walls are stone and AFAICT not diggable. Ways I can think to get past it:

- being a Formicid
- wearing a -Tele branded item
- Shatter
- Fedhas' walls-to-plants ability
- Lugonu's corruption (I already used this elsewhere on Elf:3)

Am I missing something simpler? A -Tele item did spawn in my game, but it's also got *Drain, so it's kind of a last resort.

I imagine devs intentionally avoid traps generating on certain types of squares (e.g. stairs, shops). Is there also an effort to avoid traps on squares like this, i.e. choke points, and was this particular instance overlooked? Or did I just get bad RNG?

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[petercordia]

just walk on top of the dispersal trap. There's always a chance you'll be blinked to the other side.

[emf]

I don't think that's right, though. The trap has the effect of an uncontrolled blink, which always puts you on an initially visible square. I've never experienced a blink that goes through a closed door. I did about 30 attempts just now, and am not getting placed on the other side.

[petercordia]

ah sorry. I didn't realise there was a closed door on the other side.

You can also summon Imps and try to get them to open the door whilst out of your LOS.

Probably I'd go with the *drain -Tele item though.

[Siegurt]

I don't think that's right, though. The trap has the effect of an uncontrolled blink, which always puts you on an initially visible square. I've never experienced a blink that goes through a closed door. I did about 30 attempts just now, and am not getting placed on the other side.

Too bad digging and LRD don't destroy doors any more.

I suppose you could randomly teleport until you land inside.

[Hellmonk]

If there's a monster that can open doors on the other side of the door, you could try shouting/reading ?noise/alarm trapping yourself to get it to open the door from the other side.

This is pretty bad trap behavior and should be removed, for sure.

[emf]

Ah, should have thought of that. There was a deep elf annihilator on the other side. I went with the -Tele *Drain gear, ultimately a small price to pay for a room full of loot.

[vt]

For the future: in up-to-date versions you can get temporary -tele by miscasting translocations spells.

[andrew]

Does this make it correct for at least some characters (non-Trog, plenty of free spell slots) to learn a high-level translocations spell for on-demand -tele? Or would the contam be bad enough to be not worth it?

[vt]

Yes, IMO it is a good idea for many characters, especially for places like Zot where hitting a teleport trap is potentially a big deal.

The contamination is unlikely to do anything unless you go for too high a level spell or you miscast repeatedly without letting it dissipate. Of course if you're in Zot 5 you'd probably rather put up with a little malmutation than be teletrapped, anyway.

IME yellow colored spells (thinking about around Zot time) and high fail rate is a good balance between reliably getting the miscast effect and manageable contamination. Remember that you can cancel -tele by quaffing !cancellation.