Hi there! first post on GOG if memory serves me well! :D

Well I'm having some trouble disarming traps, I don't know if it's because my perception is low to notice there are traps OR the new (new because it wasn't on MM6) set of items with +X to SKILL aren't working properly?

I got a rogue who's EXPERT on PERCEPTION with just 4 points which doubles it right? then the same on DISARM TRAPS but on this case I've been lucky enough to get lots of items giving me quite a lot of bonuses to it... so disarm expert is 4 + 16 points on that skill from different gear.

I'm at the point where I came back to the haunted house in barrows down to clean it and get my title of cavalier, problem is every single chest in there explodes and kill my lvl 15 party...

What's wrong here? is this a glitch? is it my fault? a community patch or something to help?

THAAANKS in advance!

I don't remember ever being able to disarm a trap in the Haunted House. It was always a tough go.

IIRC, skill bonuses from gear isn't cumulative (artifacts are exception, so you can have artifact + 1 common piece of gear for cumulative skill bonus). If I am not wrong, counts the highest bonus on one item equipped. So I suspect that your disarm trap skill is much lower than 4+16.

-Perception doesn't help disarm a trap. Perception gives a character a chance to avoid taking any damage when a trap is set off. If you disarm the trap, then perception doesn't need to make its roll. As an aside, Perception also helps by highlighting certain kinds of areas of interest, so it is worth boosting for one character for that purpose.

-Only the equipped item that provides the highest skill bonus will provide a benefit for a particular skill for a character. So if you have a +2 Disarm item, a +4 Disarm item, and a +1 Disarm item on a single character, that character will have a +4 to Disarm. I think follower bonuses do stack with e highest item bonus, but followers of the same class (classes being things like teacher or duper) don't stack bonuses. So Instructor + Teacher + item works to boost Learning, but Instructor + Instructor provides the same bonus as a single Instructor.

-Only the active character's Disarm skill is considered when opening a trapped chest, so make sure the character with the best Disarm skill is the one active when you click on the chest. It doesn't matter how high your thief's Disarm skill is if your Knight is the one selected and opening all the chests.

Also, for some reason, the needed Disarm skill for these chests seems abnormally high. I've had that problem often enough (especially if I don't have a Thief) that many times I don't bother returning to the Mansion to collect.

Not a glitch. Certain areas have really high traps on containers in them, yes like the haunted house and other places. It will take a much higher disarm to do those, or just save/reload to open the chests and deal with the healing after. The good part is, you can simply rest and heal up between traps which is easy to do if you clear the house of foes first then just deal with the trap damage 2nd.

Yes only 1 item with disarm will benefit your character, the highest skill bonus counts. So a ring +5 and a ring +6 only gives you +6 bonus to disarm. At lower level, there are many areas you won't have the disarm skill high enough (without a npc I guess) to actually open the chests safely.

Perception only deals with finding treasure and hidden doors, etc, and reducing the damage from trap damage, has nothing to do with actually disarming the traps. Just keep your perception high on 1 character to help find hidden stuff.

If healing a lot bugs you, wait for telekinesis. The area respawns quickly any way and you can get that "certain chest" refilled fairly quickly.