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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rrealm" data-source="post: 1630003" data-attributes="member: 20630">Lets assume a thief springs a chest with a Fireball spell on it.  The fireball blows up nearly everything in the room.  Technically the fireball did not directly affect the triggerer.  He (or she) just happen to be standing in a room where the temperature instantaneously increased by 1000 degrees Fahrenheit and since the typical adventure’s skin is sensitive to rapid and extreme temperature change – he (or she) takes heat damage.  Is there any reason to believe that this is not a trap?Lets change the damage type.  What if the spell on the chest was Sound Blast?  Again, it is technically the area which was targeted, not the triggerer.  This time the would-be thief gets himself (or herself) a concussion and suffers sonic damage.  Again, is there any reason Sound Blast is not a trap?Now if we remove the damage and still fill the room full of sound, we have a chest with the Alarm spell cast on it.   Although it deals no damage, there is no difference between the above spells and Alarm.Now if we follow Caliban’s definition and logic, the would-be thief would be screwed and would have absolutely no chance of detecting or removing these traps since the traps do not “directly affect whoever triggers it” as the case would have been if a Magic Missile or Melf's Acid Arrow had struck the would-be thief.</blockquote>