Traps


Traps are a way for a witcher to passively inflict damage and critical effects on a monster or other enemy. When the enemy steps into the trap’s area of effect, the trap is triggered. The enemy immediately suffers damage and has a chance of suffering whatever critical effects the trap inflicts. Some traps can trigger spell-like effects. Enemies who step on a fury trap become affected as if by the witcher’s sign Axii, for example.

Traps can be purchased, but this is prohibitively expensive. It is generally cheaper to purchase a diagram for a given kind of trap, then pay a craftsman to make traps for you. If you place a trap and an enemy does not trigger it, you can pick it up and use it again. Otherwise, traps can be used only once each and then become junk. The only exception to this is the snare, which can be reused an unlimited number of times and can only be looted from certain areas in the game.

Note that a witcher can use the Talgar winter trap to inflict the rare critical effect Freeze on enemies. There are no witcher’s signs or bombs that can inflict Freeze, and only a handful of swords and one ranged weapon that can do so. This makes the Talgar winter trap extremely useful to virtually all Geralt builds. Few enemies resist freezing and no enemies are completely immune to it.