The Judas Deer

[Ara D.]

So I just stumbled and a nice strategy. I was hunting a heard of reindeer on the edge of a nice mire. I was taking one or two at a time and tanning the hides and drying meat. When I was done or near to it I would track the heard and take a few more. Well I decided to check what traps would take a deer I set a bear dead fall, works, and a big deadfall, no luck, but I did have one go right next to the big dead fall so it may have been the push factor. But anyway I trapped a deer but instead of killing it I used it to attract the rest of the herd back to it. So I basically new where they were. I could actively hunt one or two and then come back later and hunt a few more. It turned the deer's herd instinct against them.

[PALU]

I believe reindeer are too large for big deadfall (wolf) traps (I've never caught any in them, anyway), but pit traps work, in addition to the bear trap you mentioned.

[Saiko Kila]

How long will it last? Long enough to catch the whole herd? Because the trapped reindeer should eventually die.

I wonder if wolf have herd mentality. Unfortunately I couldn't test it. When recently I found a pack of wolves on the frozen river, eating the elk I was tracking for some time, I chased them off and took care of the elk, but they were coming back now and then. Then I went to collect 3o stones to make three wolf-traps. The wolves were nuisance during this work. After baiting and coming to the village for sleep I returned, and the wolves were around. But finally not one of them was trapped, and after couple of days they disappeared from area.

Similarly I had trouble trapping a single pig, even if they were encountered a month later in the same tile.

I've got no trouble with trapping reindeer though, so can confirm that they seem to return to others, or keep close at least.

[Ara D.]

I didn't track my days too closely but at least 4 days maybe 6. The deer died in the trap for sure. And yes wolves absolutely have pack mentality most of my fights with them are when I'm chasing the non trapped wolves away so I can safely kill the trapped ones. If it was a time of the year when meat didn't spoil or spoiled very slowly I think you could kill a herd in a day or two if you don't pause to process your kills

[Ara D.]

Another deer lasted 5 days-6days depending on when it trigger the trap, set the trap in the even deer was there next morning, died in the afternoon some days later

[Galgana]

I wonder what will happen if one were to build a fence around a trapped deer and then disassemble the initial trap. I remember seeing a thread where someone had a cow tied to a tree as live bait in order to test predator pathing against layers of trap fences. The cow died iirc, but in this case one deer as live bait certainly attracts the herd.

'Freeing' the judas deer into a pen could help with reducing the workload on processing meat and hides until it's convenient since animals lose condition while inside a trap. But keeping it around as a pet wouldn't do much good without an animal taming system.

[Saiko Kila]

I once trapped a reindeer inside a fence (in a home cave, no less), but after a couple of months it disappeared. Before that it could be used for training bows, and then was recovering.

[Dungeon Smash]

How long will it last? Long enough to catch the whole herd? Because the trapped reindeer should eventually die.

I wonder if wolf have herd mentality. Unfortunately I couldn't test it. When recently I found a pack of wolves on the frozen river, eating the elk I was tracking for some time, I chased them off and took care of the elk, but they were coming back now and then. Then I went to collect 3o stones to make three wolf-traps. The wolves were nuisance during this work. After baiting and coming to the village for sleep I returned, and the wolves were around. But finally not one of them was trapped, and after couple of days they disappeared from area.

Similarly I had trouble trapping a single pig, even if they were encountered a month later in the same tile.

I've got no trouble with trapping reindeer though, so can confirm that they seem to return to others, or keep close at least.

What was the trapping skill of this character? take any precautions such as gloves, rituals, etc?  I wonder if perhaps it was just low trapping "rolls" when setting the trap

[Saiko Kila]

How long will it last? Long enough to catch the whole herd? Because the trapped reindeer should eventually die.

I wonder if wolf have herd mentality. Unfortunately I couldn't test it. When recently I found a pack of wolves on the frozen river, eating the elk I was tracking for some time, I chased them off and took care of the elk, but they were coming back now and then. Then I went to collect 3o stones to make three wolf-traps. The wolves were nuisance during this work. After baiting and coming to the village for sleep I returned, and the wolves were around. But finally not one of them was trapped, and after couple of days they disappeared from area.

Similarly I had trouble trapping a single pig, even if they were encountered a month later in the same tile.

I've got no trouble with trapping reindeer though, so can confirm that they seem to return to others, or keep close at least.

What was the trapping skill of this character? take any precautions such as gloves, rituals, etc?  I wonder if perhaps it was just low trapping "rolls" when setting the trap

The character had 43% trapping skill when trying to catch these wolves. No related spells (I have only the anti-bear glove spell).

[Dungeon Smash]

Could just be luck of the draw - i believe how it works when trapping, is that a single "roll" is conducted at the moment that the trap is built, which can come up as either success or failure (there may be degrees of success as well).  I'm sure other factors affect the roll - rituals, etc.  It's possible you simply failed all 3 rolls for the wolf traps.  when you fail the trap roll, it seems as though animals will almost always recognize it as a trap, and will automatically avoid.

[Saiko Kila]

Maybe, but the trap rolls for this character are quite unlucky in general. It is in second winter now, and out of two longer trap-fences, only one and only once had a reindeer herd trapped. I have most luck with fox traps (though more arctic foxes than red foxes) and with small lever traps/loops (which trap grouses, owls, raptors and hares mostly). I have trapped a couple of bears, lynxes or wolves in bigger traps, as well as some single reindeer and elks, but most of the kills in these species is from "free ranging" combat. Actually, most of kills in grouse is also that, thanks to thrown javelins and high Spear skill.

Recently I decided to redo most of the traps (disassemble and assemble again), maybe this will reroll them better. Also my PC has just learned the bear-trap spell, so I see how it works. It has 47 trapping or so now.

My character started even with lower trapping than 40, and I was setting a two dozen paw-traps repeatedly to get to 40, to be able to make fine traps for trade. But later it was enough to just make traps, with loops being the most used.