Make container traps deterministic (either as a hash of their object ID, or stored as a field on the object) rather than computing the trap when it’s triggered based on Luck. Untrapping them successfully can then yield an item related to the trap, which then gets deposited inside the container. The items for each type of trap are:

• Hallucination gas = potion of hallucination
• Paralysis = potion of paralysis
• Electric shock = 0:1 wand of lightning
• Tower of flame = potion of oil
• Poisoned needle = nothing
• Poison gas = potion of sickness
• Explosion = land mine

Make untrapping containers an occupation: always takes 5 turns, you either find a trap or you don’t, and you can’t try again on that container. This avoids having to type out #untrap multiple times for no apparent results.

This could also extend to untrap attempts on doors.

Container traps’ effects scale based on dungeon level (ideally on the level a container generated, not on the current level, so a player can’t bring a chest up to level 1 to make it use the weakest possible trap.)

In addition to adding some more effects, also add some effects which cosmetically are the same as other ones, but are more or less damaging. This would, however, make untrapping containers even more useless than it is now; perhaps a trap should stay armed even after you set it off. Another idea is to give certain traps an arming item, like a potion of oil for the fire effect and a land mine for the explosion effect. Successfully untrapping it will deposit the arming item into the container.

Also, make container traps independent of Luck, because currently they encourage the player to ignore containers until Luck is maximized.

Add an additional container trap effect which creates a stinking cloud centered on the container. If the player caused the cloud to be created, they are counted as responsible for anything killed by the cloud.

Ring of opening, which unlocks locked doors and boxes instantly while you are wearing it and try to unlock them. If blessed, it additionally untraps doors and boxes when you try to interact with them, but there is a fixed chance it unblesses in the process every time it untraps something.

While you are carrying the Master Key of Thievery, all door and container traps that you would have triggered are automatically removed without any triggers and probably not even any message indicating a trap was disarmed. If you actually want to trigger these traps for some reason, you can drop the Key or put it in a bag.

Possibly, these effects are suppressed when the Key is cursed (for rogues) or non-blessed (for non-rogues).

Implement hoard scarabs from D&D. They are a x, which can hide under object piles containing at least 25 gold pieces (and only object piles like that; they can’t hide under single non-gold objects or furniture or anything; possibly they can only hide under a gold-containing pile when the gold is on the top). They have a nasty poisonous bite.

When the game wants to generate one in a random location, it either creates a gold pile for the scarab to hide under where it generates or alternatively it searches around the level for a suitable gold pile and puts the scarab there. (If it can’t find one, it may just fail to generate).

They may also pop out at you from inside randomly generated gold-containing chests, possibly as a container trap effect.

New container traps:

• Teleport the container randomly.
• A hand wielding a cream pie comes out and pies you in the face. Untrapping this will drop the cream pie into the container’s contents.
• The container hinges screech loudly, waking up sleeping monsters.

Empty boxes are never trapped.

New container trap effect, a loud alarm that wakes nearby monsters. (Exploding chests already wake nearby monsters, but the chance of it happening is miniscule unless your Luck is below -7; this was proposed as one of the common effects even at high Luck.)

New container trap effect: a monster is generated from the box (was hiding in the box and pops out at you), taking you by surprise. It gets a free attack on you.