Actually, this mechanic has been in place since at least the Xeen games (and probably also in Isles of Terra, which has similar mechanics).

In the Dragon Tower in World of Xeen, there is a chest trap that deals 10,000 points of fire damage to the whole party. Without fire resistance halving the damage multiple times, you are *not* going to survive this. (Also, that trap is unusually difficult; even high level thieves have trouble with it, so you might need the +50 levels fountain to survive it.)

(Note that when I do Dragon Tower early, I, of course, skip the chests because of the deadly traps, and I am not high enough in level to unlock them anyway.)

It's not exactly honest, but if you want to be able to disarm traps and don't have a Thief in your party, you could defeat the dragon on Emerald Isle (or Wromthrax later on), save before looting, and reload until you get some item "Of Disarming." Such items off of dragons generally have a bonus of 15-25, more than enough to deal with low-level traps even with just one point in Disarm Trap skill.

I don't think that is worth the time investment. I've farmed the Emerald Island dragon corpse until my inventory on all 4 characters was basically full without finding such an item.