Wednesday, 27th April 2011, 21:31 by fnwc
The fact that magic mapping scrolls have exceptions seems confusing to me; I personally (and I assume those who haven't been explicitly told) would expect that it would map the whole level. To the player, "vaults" are as much a part of a dungeon as the rest, so it's confusing that they're treated differently. Despite the fact that some are hidden behind secret doors, there is still the inconsistency where "regular" dungeon sections can be hid by secret doors but are revealed by a mapping scroll.
Finally, the presence of secret doors in fixed maps (vaults) that offer no hint to their location seem spoilery to me -- not to mention that T&D skill once you know the location in a fixed vault becomes irrelevant. At least having mapping scrolls reveal them is a good alternative and solves that problem.
Personally, I would be fine with completely removing the T&D skill and make the initial "detection" of a trap be tied solely to attribute (STR/INT/DEX) checks. For example, Zot traps might test INT to see if the character notices them beforehand, etc. Spear/arrow/dart traps test against DEX. Adjust with character level. The issue with this solution is that there's no direct way for a player to easily avoid traps, since attribute gains are relatively minor in comparison with starting attributes.