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Combat
Page 10 of 11
Traps
Detonators
The most effective types of traps are those utilising explosives and detonators. Most industrial explosives are inert until an electrical charge is applied, whereupon they will go off. This charge is supplied by a detonator. Most Imperial models of grenade are compatible with Imperial detonators, so that soldiers on the battlefield can improvise explosive booby traps.
There are several types of detonator in common usage. They all take a single action to set up, and another to detonate. A single detonator can be attached, by fuse wire, to a number of charges. See the Traps section for more details.
Manual
Manual detonators are linked to the explosive charge by a length of fuse wire. They are usually designed with a box-and-plunger setup, although many other versions are on the market. A manual detonator can be attached directly to the explosive for a last resort suicide detonation.
Proximity
After setting a proximity charge, the user has about five seconds (a single action) to get out of the detonator’s five-yard sensor radius. Should anything larger than a small bird subsequently enter this area, the detonator will immediately set off the explosive charge. A proximity detonator has enough internal power to run for a year, after which it becomes inert.
Remote
Using infra-red beams, radio waves or some other form of remote control, explosives can be set off from a distance. Most remote detonators have a maximum range of around 150 yards, although some military designs can be used over greater distances.
Shock
Shock detonators generally include some form of an incomplete electrical circuit that connects with any sudden vibration. They are difficult and dangerous to set up, because once the user slides out the safety catch, the slightest disturbance could blow him to smithereens. To counter this, most shock detonators have a five second safe period, starting when the catch is removed, before the electrical current starts to flow. Any character moving at any rate faster than a sneak action within 2 yards of the detonator will set off the charge. Vehicles, explosions, low-flying aircraft or collapsing buildings will cause detonation from significantly further away. Because of this unreliability, shock explosives are generally reserved for booby traps in civil, rather than military, settings, where the chance of premature detonation is minimal.
Timed
A timed detonator uses a chronometer mechanism to count down until explosion. Most timed detonators can handle delays of up to 24 hours before detonation, although some more expensive models can count down for days.
Pressure
Pressure sensors are most often used in landmines of both the anti-tank and anti-personnel varieties. When a target steps or drives over the mine, it detonates immediately. A nasty trick to use against columns of tanks or infantry is to link a pressure-sensitive detonator to remote detonators linked to several other explosive charges, which have been passed without them going off. When the lead target sets off the proximity charge, all the other charges beneath and around the rest of the column are detonated, causing far more death and destruction than if a single landmine had gone off.
Other Trigger Devices
There are many other ways of setting off traps. Some are as complex as servitor-slaved autocannons attached to pheromonal sensors and target-recognition cogitation engines. Others are as simple as a hand grenade with the pin removed, placed into a glass so that the safety clip is held down, and then balanced on top of a door.
Tripwire
Tripwires can be set up in the open or concealed in some way – beneath sand or a pile of leaves, perhaps. Sometimes they are intended to merely impede movement or cause embarrassment, and sometimes they are set up to trigger an alarm, either through bells attached directly to the wire or some kind of klaxon. Usually they are linked to some kind of larger trap, such as the ends being looped through the pin of a grenade, to a mechanism designed to drop something heavy on a victim, or a scythe blade that flicks out and hits the victim.
Door Handles
Door handles are superbly easy to trap, largely because half of the mechanism is on the other side of the door. If the handle actually links to an explosive charge, or is hooked up to the local power grid, there’s no way of telling. That most door handles are levers also makes it easy to turn them into traps. If the lever is moved downwards, instead of upwards, it opens the trapdoor beneath the victim’s feet, releases a heavy block from the ceiling, or releases a cloud of knockout gas.
One of the more complex improvised traps commonly set up using a door handle is the shotgun trap. A shotgun, usually loaded with scatter shells is weighted down onto a chair positioned behind the door. A length of string is tied around the triggers, looped around the back of the chair and attached to the door handle. When the door is opened outwards, the trigger is pulled back, blasting the intruder.
Tree Branches
A classic set up is to bend back a sapling or the branch of a larger tree, loosely tie it in place with a knot attached to a tripwire, and wait. When the tripwire is sprung, the knot slips open and the sapling flicks back. This can cause great pain and injury, but when sharpened stakes, knives or thorns are attached, they can become positively lethal.
Setting Up A Trap
Setting up a trap may require various characteristic tests. Often this will be measured against Sagacity, although where brute force is required to set up the trap (bending a tree back, for example), test against Strength instead. Where great dexterity is required (as with most delicate explosive traps), use Initiative instead.
Characters with the Set Trap ability gain a +10 bonus when preparing a trap.
A matched failure on this test results in the test going off prematurely. Characters with the Set Trap or Spot Trap abilities can tell when things are about to go pear-shaped and are allowed an Initiative test to get out of the way in time to avoid the damage caused by the trap.
Spotting A Trap
Characters proceeding at a walking pace may be allowed a visual Awareness test to see exposed parts of a trap mechanism, such as the bent back sapling, the trip-wire or a length of wire. The usual modifiers apply to this test (see Interaction), and characters with the Spot Trap ability receive a +10 bonus. Note that some traps are so well hidden (buried landmines, for example) that they may impose severe penalties to the Awareness test, while others may be impossible to find.
Characters with the Sixth Sense ability may be permitted a test to spot a hidden trap, at the GM’s discretion.
If a trap is not spotted, characters may very well blunder into it, in which case they automatically suffer the trap’s effects.
Disarming The Trap
Once it has been spotted, a character can attempt to disarm a trap. It takes a successful Sagacity test to disarm the trap in such a way that it does not go off, or in such a way that it activates in a harmless manner. Characters without either the Spot Trap or Set Trap abilities halve their Sagacity when doing this.
If the test is failed, the trap activates, almost certainly hitting the disarming character. If the character has either the Spot Trap or Set Trap abilities, he or she is allowed an Initiative test to get out of the trap’s area of effect in time.
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