Restoring ability of summons to trigger traps?

[Rhastor]

So apparently Beamdog did a terrible thing and made it so that summoned or charmed creatures don't trigger traps, leaving you with no option but to have a thief all the time, or be willing to walk into known traps yourself. Is there any way to return to the original behavior, so that all creatures set off traps?

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, Rhastor said:

Is there any way to return to the original behavior, so that all creatures set off traps?

I don't think this was ever the standard behavior. I think there is a mod specifically to allow non-party members to set off traps. (RR? aTweaks? BiggTweaks?) Maybe you just got used to playing with that mod?

[Rhastor]

1 minute ago, subtledoctor said:

I don't think this was ever the standard behavior. I think there is a mod specifically to allow non-party members to set off traps. (RR? aTweaks? BiggTweaks?) Maybe you just got used to playing with that mod?

No, I have never played with any of those mods. I distinctly recall summoned creatures setting off traps, though I never intentionally used it before. Definitely have read comments by people who claim to have done it, especially in solo runs.

[subtledoctor]

Ah, I found what I was remembering. From the Rogue Rebalancing readme:

Quote

The "Summons/NPCs Set Off Traps" component of "Ding0's Tweak Pack" is conceptually incompatible with the "Shadow Thief Improvements" component of Rogue Rebalancing

Your recollection must be of behavior with Ding0Tweaks installed.

[Rhastor]

9 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Ah, I found what I was remembering. From the Rogue Rebalancing readme:

Your recollection must be of behavior with Ding0Tweaks installed.

Most definitely not, but I'll check it out.

[subtledoctor]

I mean, that mod wouldn't exist if the base behavior was for summons to set off traps. And that mod was made long before the EE games were around, and has not (to my knowledge) been updated since the EEs were created, so that component is not in reaction to an EE change.

In short, base game behavior has never, to my recollection, had summons/NPCs set off traps. (Unless maybe in OBG1? I really don't remember much about that engine...)

But yeah, the long and the short of it is, if you want summons to set off traps, I would look at installing Ding0Tweaks.

Edited July 28, 2022 by subtledoctor

[temnix]

Most probably, Beamdog hasn't done anything to traps. A trap's ability to respond to creatures other than party members depends on the flags "Triggered by NPC" and "Triggered by enemies." Many traps in BGEE have the NPC flag set, and there you will be able to use summoned minions to set them off. In Durlag's tower, for instance. You probably don't remember which ones you were able to set off before. This topic gives me an idea for a mod.

[polytope]

Most trap scripts have the triggering condition of:

IF
	OR(2)
		Entered([ANYONE])
		Opened([ANYONE])
THEN
	RESPONSE #100 //Do lethal trap stuff

Which could in theory be set off not solely by PCs but by charmed/neutral/hostile creatures but hardly any of these traps have the flags in the area file to interact with NPCs passing through the trapped region. A few exceptions including the crushing walls trap in BG2 AR1512 and those called by the trigger:

IF
	IsOverMe([ANYONE])
THEN
	RESPONSE #100 //Ouch

...which are more like persistent environmental hazards than traps.

However, trapped doors certainly can be set off by NPCs trying to open them, again, you don't see this often, to say the least, in the vanilla game, but SCS enemies usually open nearby doors if aggroed and thus suffer the trap effects.