Draft:Shiren 5 2020:Trap

Summary

Invisibility

Traps that are pre-placed on the floor are ordinarily invisible. They become permanently visible if

(a) you swing your sword/fists over them or

(b) you step on them while not floating, whether or not they trigger or

(c) you deliberately trigger them via the Feet menu.

Traps become temporarily visible if you eat Perception Grass, but if you then get blinded and recover from blindness, you won't be able to see traps that you didn't make permanently visible. Most new traps that you create (e.g. by triggering a Multiplication Trap, by wearing a Trap Bracelet, by reading a Monster House Scroll, etc.) are also invisible to begin with, though there is at least one exception: breaking a Black Hole Pot will create visible Pit Traps around the place where the pot broke, one trap per slot/space in the pot that was broken. New traps created by monsters, however, are visible, even if they were created in a room far away from your current location.

Whether or not a trap is visible, it will not show on your minimap with an Item Detector Bracelet until you see the trap in person, just like items normally do without remote item detection. They show up as X's rather than the usual blue dot for other items.

Unique Icons

Unlike most items, traps have unique icons rather than sharing an icon for the category. So, as long as it's visible, you can usually tell what type a trap is from far away. The lone exception to this rule is the Stairs? Trap, which has the same icon as the stairs and which can have a variety of trap effects.

Pressure Activation

The "magic effect" for each category of item is triggered differently. You trigger the primary magic effect of most Grasses by eating them, usually voluntarily. You trigger the primary effect of most Scrolls by reading them, usually voluntarily. But you trigger the primary effect of Traps by stepping on them, usually involuntarily.

No one has documented it precisely, but traps seem to have about an 85% chance of triggering any time you step on them.^{[Citation needed]} This triggering rate can be altered, e.g. by equipping a Floating Bracelet. The triggering rate seems unaffected by whether or not the trap is visible. You can forcibly trigger a trap by standing on it and using the Feet menu, and throwing an item on top of a visible trap will always trigger it as well. Monsters trigger traps instead of Shiren while Trapper Bracelet Mode is in effect.

Placement Restrictions

Traps are never pre-placed in shops, in hallways, or on entrance tiles just inside pre-existing hallways. New traps you create that are invisible (e.g. by wearing a Trap Bracelet) also adhere to these constraints, but monsters can create visible traps anywhere. If you dig your own entrance into a room, beware that the entrance tile may contain a trap. It is not known if a new invisible trap may be created on entrance tiles adjacent to new hallways that didn't exist when the floor was created. Despite these restrictions on trap placement, there is no guarantee that there will always be a safe route to get where you want to go. In particular, you may be unable to reach some items in small monster houses without walking over one or more traps.

No items can exist on water tiles or void tiles, and traps are never pre-placed under rock outside of the Explosion Rocks minigame.

Moving Traps and Trapper Bracelet Mode

Traps ordinarily cannot be picked up or moved in any way, but there is one big exception: Trapper Bracelet Mode. In Trapper Bracelet Mode, you can see all traps, traps affect monsters not you, and you can pick up and move traps just like other items. You enter this mode if you equip a Trapper Bracelet (not a Trap Bracelet!) or a new item bracelet with the Trapper effect on it, and you leave this mode when you unequip said bracelet or if it becomes sealed. Trapper Bracelet Mode is also permanently enabled in Gen's Turf and Trapper's Sandbox.

Falling Item Behavior

Two items cannot co-exist on the same tile. (This is true in all Shiren games.) So if a thrown or dropped item lands somewhere you didn't expect, the tile where the item should have landed has an invisible trap. Likewise, tiles with items on them in monster houses (and every other room) are safe from traps. However, if a thrown/dropped item should have landed on a permanently visible trap, it will first trigger the trap then land somewhere else. (Exception: the falling item can break the trap causing it to disappear, and if this happens, your thrown item will land where the trap used to be.)

Explosion Immunity

Traps seem immune to being destroyed by explosions, volcanic eruptions, and other things that would normally destroy items on the ground. ^{[Citation needed]}

Blessings, Curses, and Seals

Traps cannot be blessed, cursed, or sealed. Shiren 5 does not have a "broken trap" item as some previous games did. There aren't any NPCs will buy, sell, or repair traps.

Variable Longevity

Different types of traps have different chances to disappear when triggered, though the precise formula is not known. For example, if you're trying to harvest arrows from an arrow trap by throwing rocks onto the trap, you can get 1 to ~30 arrows out per trap, but the trap will eventually disappear. (Perhaps arrow traps have a 5% - 10% chance to disappear any time they are triggered?) Points Traps, on the other hand, always trigger and always disappear after a single use. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, a "Spring Device" always triggers but never disappears.

Special Modifier: "Devices" (Forcing Traps)

The in-game documentation mentions "contraptions" but doesn't fully explain what they are. That section of the documentation discusses doors and moving floors, so "contraptions" may or may not have anything to do with these "forcing traps". In any case, some traps can either behave normally like every other trap or can behave very differently than normal. For clarity, I'm referring to these "forcing traps" as "devices".

Devices appear to be identical to traps but with a special "device bit" set which changes their behavior. Devices are always visible, always trigger 100% of the time, never disappear when triggered, and override things that would normally negate the effects of the trap. For example, a "Spring Device" looks like a "Spring Trap" except it will warp the player even if they have a Steady Shield equipped. Devices trigger even if you're flying / floating over them and they are immune to Trapper Bracelet Mode. Devices are not placed randomly, but are used in specific situations in the game:

• On floors with separate rooms but no hallways, every room has a "Spring Device" (rather than a normal Spring Trap) which you can step on to warp to a random location elsewhere on the floor.
• Tiny 2x2 islands inside rooms also always have a "Spring Device" on them, so if you happen to land there randomly after a warp, you can warp out rather than starve to death.
• Pick-A-Choice shops have one "Spring Device" and one "Pit Device", both of which always trigger, so you can always warp out safely if you win and always fall to the next floor if you lose.

File:Shiren 5 Jumping Floors Example.jpg

Jumping Floor

"Spring Devices" and "Pit Devices" are the most obvious "devices", but there could be other types of traps with the "device bit" set. Points Traps may in fact be Points Devices, as they are always visible and always trigger 100% of the time. But like normal traps and unlike other devices, Points Traps/Devices are distributed randomly around floors, not pre-placed in specific locations, and Points Traps/Devices always disappear the first time they are triggered. Likewise, Duelist Traps may in fact have the "device bit" set.

Note that Shiren 5 also has "Jumping Floors" -- tiles with arrows on them which push Shiren in the indicated direction until he lands on solid ground. These appear to be implemented as traps under the hood, traps with the "device bit" set. The evidence for this is that when you throw an item on them, the Jumping Floor shows a trap icon in the log output and the item falls somewhere else (see the example). But, as they have no non-device trap equivalents and as they don't appear in the Item Book, nothing more is said about them in this section.

Finding Traps

Odds are you will complete the Traps section of the Item Book without trying before you run out of other rare items to find. Making a trap permanently visible e.g. by triggering it accidentally registers that trap type in your Item Book. If you still can't find a certain type of trap, try going deep into dangerous dungeons, using Perception Grass to find invisible traps, then swinging your sword over them to make them permanently visible. [CONFIRM] Confirm that just making a trap permanently visible registers it in your Item Book. If in doubt, check your Item Book to be sure, and if it's not registered yet, you may need to deliberately trigger it. [/CONFIRM] If randomly searching for traps deep in dangerous dungeons doesn't give you the trap you want, try creating your own traps e.g. via a Karakuroid monster.

Common Mitigations

Here are some tips about avoiding all types of traps:

• Depending on the situation and your tolerance for risk, you can attack over every tile to reveal any trap. So long as more traps are not created, you can be certain that tiles free of traps will remain free of traps. But if you do this too much, you'll starve. The best balance might be as follows. For tiny monster houses, swing over every tile that doesn't have a visible item on it and that isn't an entrance/exit tile as soon as you can, to reveal all the traps in that room. For larger monster houses, swing over every tile you need to step on to pick up all the items you want to pick up, preferably in some sort of pattern so you can remember which tiles you've checked and which you haven't. (One possible pattern is to always move diagonally, thus ensuring you never step on half the tiles in the room. Another possible pattern is to make sure the outside edges are clear, only stepping internally to avoid traps around the edges.) For every other room, it's probably not worth the loss of fullness to check for traps this way. OTOH, if you've hit one Multiplication Trap, you might want to be more careful than normal. And because it's a particularly horrible time to get hit by traps such as Pit, Explosion, and Floor Warp, if a monster knocks off a super valuable item of yours to the floor, make sure to check for traps as you move to retrieve it.
• Eat a Perception Grass. If you care, make sure to swing over traps to reveal them permanently in case you get blinded. As you probably won't have many of these grasses, consider saving them for deeper floors or monster houses.
• Read a Trap Deletion Scroll. Especially useful on new floors before you start exploring, and on floors with monster houses. But keep in mind that destroying all traps means destroying traps you could turn to your advantage too. This does not destroy "devices" such as Jumping Floors and Points Switches.
• Shoot a Trap Deletion Staff. This is particularly useful when you want to clear a safe route across a monster house, or if there is no way to reach items on the floor without stepping on bad traps.
• Equip a Trapper Bracelet. This enables Trapper Bracelet Mode, which will ensure that you never trigger a trap accidentally, but (a) that mode can be annoying and (b) monsters will occasionally trigger traps when you don't want them to, destroying items.
• Equip a Floating Bracelet. The ultimate in trap protection! This item ensures you'll never trigger a trap unwillingly, and, it lets you cross water (without getting wet) and cross air/void tiles to boot. It's amazing. It's also exceedingly rare. It can be found in some difficult bonus dungeons such as Rousing Paradise, but it's probably easier to find one by wishing for it in Inori Cave. When you get one, consider crafting it into a new item so you can buy a new copy whenever you need one; see Crafting for details.

There are also many ways to mitigate individual types of traps -- see the Reference Chart below.

Turning Traps to Your Advantage

As with virtually every gameplay element in every Shiren game, "good" and "bad" are highly subjective and context is critical. There are usually ways to turn "bad" things to positive advantage, and traps are no different. See the chart below for more ideas, but here are a few particularly useful tricks:

• Deliberately trigger a Strip Trap to remove cursed items. If/when you find a Strip Trap, it's a great idea to try on all your unidentified equipment before moving on, to see if anything is cursed/sealed while you have access to the Strip Trap.
• Throw stones or other items onto the various arrow-type traps to harvest arrows. Build up a supply of ~3 giant piles of arrows if you can do so without starving to have a better chance of winning the run.
• Break a Black Hole Pot in a shop to create Pit Traps inside the shop. Sell the shopkeeper everything you own then steal everything back that you want and exit to the next floor in safety.

Given that traps can be useful, it can therefore also be useful to create traps, especially traps that are visible by default, e.g. by leading a Karakuroid monster around in circles in a large otherwise empty room.

The above tips work great without Trapper Bracelet Mode, but with that mode, there are vastly more possibilities for turning traps to your advantage. Here are just a few ideas:

• Carry Spring Traps or Pit Traps with you, so you can always escape a bad situation. (Dropping a trap doesn't cost a turn, so you can drop it at your feet and trigger it in a single turn.)
• Collect Pit Traps so you can always steal from shopkeepers without ever taking a risk.
• Carry a Time Switch Trap with you to be able to switch time even if you don't have a light source.

Reference Chart

Here are all the items in this category, in Item Book order:

Name		In-Game Description	Mitigations (besides Floating Bracelet)	Usage Tips (without Trapper Bracelet Mode)	Finding Tips	Additional Notes
Japanese	English
	Wood Arrow Trap	(Does a small amount of damage to you.)	Dodger Pot	Throw items on these to generate 1 to ~30 arrows from a single trap. Easiest with rocks as they only travel 3 tiles instead of 10, but if the trap is adjacent to a wall, you can do it with other items even if you don't have 10 spaces between you and the trap. Amassing a large number or arrows (say, 3 full stacks) greatly increases your chances of winning a run. (You can also farm arrows from traps + cart monsters by using a Dodger Pot. Farming from cart monsters is faster.)	Common.	Arrows come out from a 90 degree angle to the way Shiren is facing, passing over the trap location, so they will never hit you if you throw an item onto the trap. Very rarely, you can use this to deliberately hit a monster.
	Iron Arrow Trap	(Does a larger amount of damage to you.)	Dodger Pot	"	"	"
	Poison Arrow Trap	(Does a small amount of damage and poisons you, lowering your strength and speed.)	Dodger Pot, Cleansing Bracelet, Antidote Grass, Peach	"	"	"
丸太のワナを	Log Trap	(Does a small amount of damage to you and knocks you back up to 10 tiles.)	?	Very rarely, you can use these to knock yourself somewhere you want to go, e.g. onto a small 2x2 island. Or you can sometimes hit a monster and move it towards you.	"	Log comes out the opposite direction from the way Shiren is facing, passing over the trap. It's possible to get into a negative chain reaction when it's against a wall and you are facing away from the wall (e.g. if a Tiger Tosser threw you onto the trap). The log hits you, damages you, knocks you back into the wall which also damages you, you land on the trap again, another log comes and hits you, etc.. It's a race to see which comes first, your death, the trap breaking, or the trap not triggering.
	Rockslide Trap	(Does a larger amount of damage to you.)	?	No known way to use this to your advantage without Trapper Bracelet Mode.	"
	Metal Block Trap	(Does a larger amount of damage to you.)	?	"	"
	Explosion Trap	(Halves your HP, destroys all items on the ground around you, and grills any Onigiri in main inventory.)	Anti-Blast (1) rune cuts damage by 50%, Anti-Blast (2) rune cuts damage by 100%	If you're not otherwise in danger, you can use this to grill any Onigiri you have into Grilled Onigiri, which provide food value and heal you. Great way to recover Rotten Onigiri into a more useful item. You can also use this to destroy any monsters around you. Taking advantage of this trap is especially easy if you have either the Anti-Blast (1) or Anti-Blast (2) rune on your shield.	"
	Big Explosion Trap	(Reduces you to 1 HP or kills you if you were at 1 HP, destroys all items on the ground, and grills any Onigiri in main inventory.)	"	"	"
	Rust Trap	(Your sword or shield or both get -1 upgrade points, unless the item was Rustproof.)	Rustproof rune, Gold equipment	No known way to use this to your advantage without Trapper Bracelet Mode.	"	[CONFIRM] Helpful against metal monsters when in Trapper Bracelet Mode. [/CONFIRM]
	Strip Trap	(Removes all equipment, even if cursed.)	?	Probably the single most helpful trap. Use it to remove any cursed equipment, then equip every item you own to partially or fully identify those items and use the trap to remove them if they're cursed too.	"	Beware of using this when you have a torch equipped, as it will destroy the torch.
	Trip Trap	(Causes items (up to 4?) to fall out of your inventory, which can break pots.)	Balance Staff	You could theoretically use this to help you break pots, which is sometimes difficult to do in Hunter Pond.	"	The Balance Staff has an "evil twin" item, which is the "Nagging Staff". If you have the latter and trip on a Trip Trap, you'll get a long dialog with the Nagging Staff taunting and chastising you.
	Decay Trap	(Onigiri and Peaches in main inventory rot.)	Store food in pots, grill Rotten Onigiri	No known way to use this to your advantage without Trapper Bracelet Mode.	"	Will kill you if you're in Onigiri form. Probably helpful against Onigiri-type monsters when in Trapper Bracelet Mode.
	Curse Trap	(A random item in main inventory gets cursed or sealed.)	Blessed items can often resist being cursed/sealed, put items you really don't want affected into pots	In theory, you could use this trap to deliberately seal an item (e.g. seal a Fever Pot so Dirt can't be thrown into it), or to deliberately switch a bracelet between cursed and sealed (so it either can be unequipped or can be used), or to deliberately curse/seal items to bump up your crit rate with a Mojo Bracelet. But there's no known + practical way to use this to your advantage.	"	Trivia / minor spoiler: the final Statue Cave puzzle relies on switching items between cursed and sealed via Curse Traps. (Even knowing that, it's an incredibly hard puzzle to solve without a walkthrough.)
パネのワナ	Spring Trap	(Shiren is warped elsewhere on the map.)	Steady Shield, Unmoving rune	Flee a monster onto this trap to (probably) get much further away. If it doesn't trigger, you still have a turn to trigger it manually via the Feet menu.	"
	Sleep Trap	(Shiren is put to sleep for 5? 10? turns.)	Alert Bracelet, some rare runes can reduce effect duration and boost heal while sleeping, Digestiphants can remove your status ailments	No known way to use this to your advantage without Trapper Bracelet Mode.	"
	Blind Trap	(Shiren is blinded for 5? 10? turns.)	Eat a Perception Grass while blinded? Digestiphants can remove status ailments. Or just pass turns safely.	"	"
	Shadow Bind Trap	(Shiren cannot move for 5 turns, but can take other actions. Trying to move will pass your turn.)	Digestiphants can remove status ailments. But this isn't super dangerous, just find other things to do for a few turns.	"	"
	Spin Trap	(Shiren will be confused for ?10? turns.)	Anti-Cnf. Bracelet, projectiles and staves still fire straight while confused, Digestiphant	"	"
	Gauge Blind. Trap	(Shiren won't be able to see stats like HP, fullness, etc. for many turns.)	Digestiphant?	"	Fairly common in 99F version of Underground Manor.	[CONFIRM] IIRC, this also prevents you from seeing the flashing red when you're low on HP. [/CONFIRM]
	Onigiri Trap	(Shiren will be turned into an Onigiri for ?10? turns.)	Onigiri Shield, Anti-Onigiri rune, Digestiphant	"	You'll often see this one in monster houses, even in the main story dungeons (such as Miracle Tower).	While an Onigiri, Shiren can move but can't use items or night abilities, and it's as if your equipment is removed (but it doesn't need to be re-equipped when you turn back into yourself). If you take fire or explosion damage during this time, you're "grilled" and thus insta-killed. Likewise, if you get hit by a Decay Trap, you'll also be insta-killed. (Same for Hunger Trap?)
	Slow Trap	(Shiren is slowed, from Swift to normal status, or normal to Slow status.)	Digestiphant, Peach?, Swift Grass, reflected Swift Staff, possibly some talismans thrown at you by Koppas	"	Common.
	Hunger Trap	(Shiren loses some fullness.)	Nirvana Board or Unfamished rune, but they are arguably worse than the trap effects	"	"
	Summon Trap	(Summons 4 monsters around Shiren.)	Strong equipment, emergency items such as Warp Grass, Hide Pot, Fear Scroll, etc.	You could theoretically use these traps to create more monsters on the current floor, e.g. if there are monsters that drop good items or are otherwise useful, or if you just want more experience.	You are almost guaranteed to hit one of these while working through the required dungeons for platinum trophy.	[CONFIRM] Is it always exactly 4 monters? [/CONFIRM]
	Monster Trap	(Transforms all items in the same room into monsters.)	Don't leave valuables on the ground if you don't need to, Collection Scroll?	You could theoretically use these traps to create more monsters out of junk items, e.g. if there are monsters that drop good items or are otherwise useful, or if you just want more experience. (E.g. throw a bunch of rocks all around the room, but far away from the trap, then trigger the trap.)	"
	Rage Trap	(Gives Enranged status to all monsters in the current room, increasing their attack power.)	Strong equipment, emergency items such as Warp Grass, Hide Pot, Fear Scroll, etc.	No known way to use this to your advantage without Trapper Bracelet Mode.	"
	Cure Monster Trap	(Cures HP + status ailments of all monsters on the floor.)	"	You could theoretically use these traps to make dangerous sleeping monsters move. (E.g., if a hallway you need to use is blocked by a sleeping Naptapir that you can't otherwise deal with, you could use this trap to wake it up and hope it goes somewhere else.)	"	Definitely wakes up any monsters that were sleeping anywhere on the floor. Confirm that it also heals them of any HP lost.
	Multiplication Trap	(Makes more invisible traps across the entire floor.)	Perception Grass, or swing your weapon over every room tile if you're worried about it	No known way to use this to your advantage without Trapper Bracelet Mode.	"	Similar to the Trap Scroll and Trap Bracelet. Traps made adhere to normal invisible trap placement rules: never in shops, hallways, or on the entrance tiles of any room. (If you dig your own entrance to a room, it's unknown if that entrance tile can get a newly added invisible trap or not.)
	Time Switch Trap	(Switches between day and night.)	?	You can use this trap to immediately switch between day and night, and without a light source (unlike the Night-Day Scroll). Trigger this when surrounded and all the monsters will disappear and the floor will be randomly repopulated with monsters. [CONFIRM] This seems to cause monsters to drop whatever they would have ordinarily dropped, but it doesn't give you any experience. [/CONFIRM]	Explore dungeons with both day and night, especially Old Road, Lost Well and Destiny's Descent.	Similar to the Night-Day Scroll. Tends to disappear after being used once or twice.
	Pit Trap	(Drops you to the next floor.)	I don't think Steady Shield / Unmoving rune works, but worth testing again	You can use this trap to go to the next floor, taking a small amount of damage along the way (~7 HP). Very useful if you need to get out of a bad situation, or just if you want to go to the next floor without returning to the stairs to save on fullness.	Common, but you can also create these yourself by breaking a Black Hole Pot.	Black Hole Pots are amazingly useful because you can take them into shops and break them there to create Pit Traps inside the shop. Then you can sell everything you own, then steal back any and all items you want from the shop, and escape to the next floor without ever raising the thief alarm. Likewise, when in Trapper Bracelet Mode, save Pit Traps for shops or other emergency situations. [CONFIRM] When you're on the last floor of a given location, such as Destiny Trail 5F, you climb out of the trap instead of moving on to the next location. This was true in Shiren 1 and is probably true in Shiren 5 too. [/CONFIRM]
	Floor Warp Trap	(Warps you forward 3 floors.)	"	You could theoretically use this in the same ways as a Pit Trap (e.g. to escape a bad situation or to steal without raising the alarm), but the penalty of moving forward multiple floors is more severe. You could theoretically use many of these traps to skip forward through a difficult dungeon as fast as possible.	Found in challenging optional dungeons such as Destiny's Descent, especially on deeper floors.	[CONFIRM] Is it always exactly 3 floors ahead? Also, confirm this trap type doesn't work when there is no floor to move forward to. [/CONFIRM]
	Stairs? Trap	(Trap icon looks like the staircase. Has multiple possible bad effects.)	Shoot a monster with a Transient Staff to identify the real staircase, use Stairlight at night, or the usual methods like Trap Deletion Scroll / Staff	No known way to use this to your advantage without Trapper Bracelet Mode.	"
	Duelist Trap	(Triggers on monsters not Shiren, causing them to gain Dueling status for ?10? turns.)	N/A	There is no known bad effect from this "trap". In a monster steps on this trap, it temporarily gains "Dueling" status, and if you kill it in this state, it may drop a monster license for that kind of monster. See Gen's Turf for details on monster licenses.	Found in Gen's Turf.	Monster licenses are a major gameplay change, allowing you to take advantage of monsters in new ways. They're the closest thing in Shiren 5 to monster meat in Shiren 1.
	Point Switch	(Adds points to your Points Card if you have it with you.)	N/A	There is no known bad effect from this "trap". If you have your Points Card in main inventory and it's not sealed, stepping on this "trap" will add points to your card. The number of points added is a function of what dungeon you're in and what floor you're on. (Minimum ?10? on Destiny Trail 1F, maximum of 220 reported on Lost Well 99F.) You can then spend your points at the Points Shop in Nekomaneki Village for various items such as Blank Scrolls.	Common in dungeons that let you take items in, such as the Tower of Fortune.	You get no points for stepping on Points Traps if you don't have your Points Card with you. They always trigger and always disappear after the first time they trigger. You seem to get double points if the Points Card is blessed, but the blessing disappears quickly so there's no point in trying to keep it blessed. Warning! If the game ever crashes (which does happen from time to time), you will lose all unspent points on your Points Card, even if you weren't carrying the Points Card with you! Spend your points and/or backup your game.

External References

These excellent external references may have better and more complete information that has not yet been replicated to this wiki:

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sxAH3pZOZVdIk92PEJKpEty8FF6ZzlAJag3tsE5GAYM/edit?usp=sharing
• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mGBY1txjWch9mckciV7WqbcO6a5VF1P3exPNOsaK580/edit?usp=sharing