Hello everyone,

how can you detect traps? I always just 'find' them when they hit me. Is it the same skill I use to unlock things? But why did it never work or is it just not written down in the text window? I have thieving and perception on disciple level.

There should be something along the lines of 'spot' skill. I'm not sure whether it's unique to rogue or everyone's got it, but the higher you get it, the easier it'll be to spot traps (use lockpick skill to disarm them)

Perception skill. Glows red if trap detected. Some spells help (including light in the Inquisitor magic school).

Trap detection is automatic. It's based on your Perception rank, while disarming is handled by Thieving.

Greetings and sorry to revive this old thread. But I have a question that has annoyed me much.

I have a thief with 20 Perception. I have access to Keen Senses, Light and Insight spells.

Now even with 20 Perception, you are not able to detect several traps in the game. That sucks, really. Anyway, some of those several traps can be detected by using the spells I mentioned above. Light spell helps best.

Now to my question. I disarmed all the "owned" chests' traps in the cities. With one exception: King Edward's great golden chest. With 20 Perception, and casting the three spells above at the same time, my thief can't detect that damn trap which causes a guard to attack.

Normally, casting only Light would reveal those very hard traps..

I had a look at the contents of the chest, and there is nothing important in it (by important, I mean Yellow Epic Equipment), only some green-blue weapons and 3 Magical boxes. But I'm such a completionist that I have to open that chest by disarming the trap.

My spell mastery levels are: One is above 11 and the other two are around 6.

Please tell me how the heck can I detect King Edward's chest's trap? There is nothing else in the game I can use to add to my perception :(


EDIT: Ah, never mind. By using console, I gave my char 100 Skill points and spent them on those three schools (to see if the trap can really be disarmed). After casting Keen senses and Light spell (15 mastery level each), I was finally able to detect that trap. But here is the catch, even if you disarm the trap, unlike other traps, a soldier appears and attacks you for stealing LOL. Why is this game so imbalanced. Seriously, I tried very hard to detect that trap and still disarming it doesn't work? Meh... I'm glad no epic weapon was in that damn chest.

Here is another info.

The same thing goes with the chest upstairs (in Rodrigo de Velacor's chamber). Even if you disarm its trap, a guard comes to arrest you. REALLY SUCKS because there is an epic item in it and I collect all the epic items in the game but I won't be able to get this one :((

I will try using stealth and killing the guard before he talks to me. But I doubt it will work..

In case Rodrigo is a quest character why not do all quests that is connected to him then open the chest, kill the guard and flee? Of course this assume that after the guard is dead Rodrigo is the only one that will be an enemy but in a building or somewhere that he can't chase you afterwards you leave.

Well after the guard attacks (or I attack him first before he attacks me), Rodrigo also turns hostile immediately. I can kill them both and leave, but that is against the rules of Role Playing I have.. :/

(by the way, Rodrigo has a unique sword named Brave Heart lol :)) )

I mean, I got that great Bow in Glatzburg which was in Royal Governor's house without a problem.. A similar thing was present there, too. I couldn't disarm the trap and the guard appeared. I made him chase me to the outskirts of the town and killed him before he could be able to initiate the conversation with me. This way, noone saw me killing him (therefore no hostilities) and I didn't get an Alignment Penalty. But with Rodrigo's case, that is not possible.

Back to Rodrigo, I made Stealth 20 and tried hiding after the guard appears, but that also doesn't work. Even while hidden, he chased me and initiated the conversation. What were the devs thinking seriously? The reason of that trap is to summon the guard. After I disarm it, he is NOT SUPPOSED to appear. But he does................

Killing everyone is the only solution to have the contents of those chests it seems. Even if you are a thief.. I won't test it any more. I won't take that shield (in Rodrigo's chest, a unique shield named Gabriel's Shield) since it has crap stats and I use a bow. But after all this time I've spent to get that shield "legally", and being unsuccessful, the flaws of this game has really annoyed me...

I have to disagree. Having role playing principles then expecting the game to abide them is ridiculous but that's just me.

I have a few myself like I reload if it doesn't go as I want to (and I don't bother playing if the save system is lame) but I don't expect the game to give me everything down the road because of my choices, after they are sacrifices.

Cool names on those unique.

Speaking of the bow in Royal Governor's house, what's the requirement to open it? Sadly I haven't bothered with thieving as I found Shatter, it's only lvl 6 and Eloquence is lvl 11.

Well I'm just annoyed that after all those skill points you'd invest in Perception, and those three schools of magic just to disarm all the traps in the game, the game won't let you. One should be able to do every possible thing in the game. Whether it is ridiculously hard or not. But in this game, some things are there but just impossible to do..

As to your question, I always had 16 Thieving skill. That was enough to unlock the Governor's chest. As for the trap, even 20 Perception is not enough as I wrote in my previous post. You need to use those three spells to detect it in addition to 20 Perception. 15 Mastery level of Light and Keen Senses worked for me (casting those spells repeatedly (more than one time) also seems to help. I think they are cumulative.). But at that time of the game, I didn't know how to use these spells, therefore I didn't disarm the trap, lured the guard out of the town and killed him before he could talk to me. Now this is also tricky, since he walks very faster than you. In order to prevent him from catching up to you, you need to have your companions follow you (they'll hinder him). This way, he can be killed before he reaches you (with a bow).

If you use Shatter, and if you can open that chest with it, don't bother with thieving and perception. Just open it and let that guard follow you as I instructed. The bow in that chest is a very good one. I use it all the time. Your efforts will be worth it if you are a ranged char.

That was a very neat tactic! I'm going to try it right away.

Question, if the guard doesn't have time to speak I assume the Royal Governor won't become hostilet that's why you're suppose to flee?

What happens if you flee before he talks to you then travel to another place. Is he going to charge you as soon as you return to East side of Glatzburg? I'm going to try anyway to see what happens.

A few minutes ago I checked out to see how powerful that bow was. Unfortunately I go from 22 to 52 damage to 15 to 54, I prefer high minimum damage but I wonder how useful that mana drain is. Is it useful?

I remember fighting this priest that threw like 2 fireballs a second at my party but he missed for some reason and we him. After 15 seconds he seemed to have lost mana and started doing hit & run tactics with his knife. If this bow will drain mana even faster mages is going to be considerably easier than they're now and well worth the lost of my minimum damage.

Yes, you need to avoid talking with the guard in order to avoid any hostilities. Killing him before talking is the best choice. But maybe (this I'm not sure but positive) if you talk to him without any other NPC present (ex. luring him out) the governor won't turn hostile. But your alignment may shift to evil. This I have not yet tested.

Yes, when you return to the last "area" you left him, he will try to arrest you. Leaving him in the outskirts may be an option here, since you wouldn't go there again.

The bow I mentioned is named Royal Bane. It gives 21 to hit and +%169 damage to undead (which equals to about 100+ damage to undead with a single hit, if you have 20 Ranged Combat and 80+ Dexterity.) . It also gives armor class and some resistance to frost. It is in the Royal Governor's house in East Glatzburg. His house is to the East. I think you are trying to get the wrong bow :) And by the way, mana drain is totally useless imho.

Yes, that's the one. It has 15% mana drain for me as well. :P

Nice about the undead damage. Currently I've 65+ dexterity and 16 in Ranged Combat.

I left him in the forest.

This tactic is awesome but it doesn't work with small areas where you can't run passed the guard. Anywhere else this is possible? I tried Governor and Royal Governor in Hillbrandt but too small areas.

Speaking of skills, I assume 20 is the limit? Is there any point increasing above 16/mastery or?

Hmm interesting. It has mana drain for you? In what difficulty do you play? It has the above stats in Hard Mode but no mana drain.

As you also said, this tactic is not possible in many places. It drove me mad in Act 3 (read my first two posts above) that it is simply impossible to open the chests without attacking that guard and an important NPC "Robert". Any info to achieve it if you can find is welcome.

20 is the upper limit, yes. As a thief, you can't invest to some skills after 15 (Spell schools and Melee Combat I think). The cap is 15 for them. As a paladin, the caps would be different of course. But 20 is the overall max.

Investing above 16 is needed after some time. For example, I could not open those Act 3 Golden chests with 16 Thieving. I had to have 20 to unlock them. The same goes for perception. Some traps can only be seen if you have 20 Perception only, or lesser with the Perception booster spells. Even some traps, (as I mentioned in my first posts) can only be detected with 20 Perception + 1-2 booster spells. I highly recommend you to have 20 Ranged combat, because not only it increases your damage and chance to hit, it also causes your bows to lose durability very slower (this is not written in the skill description). Royal Bane has 110 max durability. With 20 ranged combat, it hardly ever reaches 0 durability. Some other skills also benefit from the extra points you invest after 16. Magical boxes and the Skill Points you get from them are invaluable just because of this.

I play on Easy, it's probably because of that. Its extra damage is against demons, not undead too. Considering I'm in the middle of Act 2 I would have preferred undead but I assume I'll meet more demons in Act 3.

What I don't like about the skill points is that they aren't linearly, you need like 4-6 skill points to increase the level from 15 to 16 and nowhere does it say so as far as I know. I guess this continues to increase so at level 19 to 20 it requires 10+ or what?

I haven't used a magical box for the purpose of acquiring skill points yet. How many do you get per box? I've like 10 of them, only used once against Judge Vallarian as he 1-hit me and my party with his 2 spells-per-second-throw and I had done all quests prior to facing him.