Rat in the Box

Rat in the Box is a trap building used in open areas with differences in elevation rather than on flat ground. It works by delivering a powerful knockback that pushes enemies off ledges and causes fall damage, making it especially effective when placed near cliffs, shafts, or other drop-offs. Because it can turn enemy movement into self-inflicted damage, it is one of the most dangerous terrain-based traps in the game.

The trap is most effective when the nearby Ladder does not run straight through the area. Leaving a break beside the Rat in the Box can cause enemies to pause briefly at the edge, which makes them more likely to get caught and thrown over. In practice, the building can deal extremely high damage depending on the height involved, and at sufficient elevation it can even kill outright.

Fall damage from the trap is calculated as (height - 2) × 10, so no damage is dealt for a drop of 2 tiles or less. This makes the vertical setup especially important: the higher the enemy is launched from, the more damage they take on landing. For example, since Weasly has 120 HP, dropping it from a height of 14 tiles is enough to defeat it in a single hit. A Rat in the Box placed at 9 tiles of height deals 70 damage, while one placed 12 tiles above the ground deals 100 damage.

One major limitation is that the trap is completely ineffective against Weasilla, which has knockback resistance. Because the trap depends on pushing enemies off a ledge, anything that resists knockback will ignore its main function and make the building useless against that target.

• Use it in open, uneven terrain rather than on flat ground.
• Combine it with a broken Ladder setup to create a brief pause at the edge.
• The taller the drop, the more lethal the trap becomes.
• It does no damage from drops of 2 tiles or less.
• It does not work on knockback-resistant enemies such as Weasilla.