Bear Trap in 99 Nights in the Forest — 3 Scrap, Eight Traps, and a Hit Count per Target Nobody Writes Down Together
The Bear Trap is the cheapest damage in 99 Nights in the Forest: 3 Scrap at Crafting Bench Tier 2, and a single hit kills a Wolf, an Arctic Fox or an Alpha Wolf outright. This page is the hit count per target in one table, how to lay four traps in a 2x2 to farm a Bear, why co-op resets matter, the volcanic version you get from the Cultist King's tablet, the uses counter two sources answer differently, and the standing claim on one of our own class pages that the weight of evidence does not support. Every number, and every place the sources fight.
Bear Trap in 99 Nights in the Forest
Three Scrap, Crafting Bench Tier 2, and it is still the cheapest kill in the game. A single trap hit ends a Wolf. Four of them end a Bear, which is the reason half the community farms pelts this way instead of buying a Rifle.
This page collects the one thing no guide sets out properly: the hit count per target. It is scattered across half a dozen write-ups right now, and one of them — our own Blacksmith page — states the opposite of what most sources agree on. Both are laid out below rather than quietly dropped.
Quick Answer
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What it is | A defensive blueprint you place on the ground; it damages whatever steps on it and must be reset afterwards |
| Cost | 3 Scrap, unlocked at Crafting Bench Tier 2 |
| How many you can have | Up to 8 (single source — see below) |
| One hit kills | Bunny, Wolf, Arctic Fox, Alpha Wolf |
| Four hits kill | a Bear (the standard 2×2 farm) |
| Eight-ish hits | a Polar Bear |
| Ten-ish hits | a Mammoth |
| Does it hurt you | Yes, a little — roughly 5–10 to the player |
| Volcanic version | Upgradable with a tablet from the Cultist King; adds burning |
| Biggest caveat | Our Blacksmith page says bears and polar bears do not trigger traps. Four sources say they do. See below |
What the Trap Is, and Where It Comes From
The Bear Trap is not a weapon. It sits in your inventory as a blueprint in hotbar, you place it on the ground, and you walk something annoying into it. After it fires it has to be reset before it works again — and with a Hammer in hand you can pick it back up and move it instead, which is what turns traps from a one-shot purchase into a reusable farm.
Two ways to own one. Craft it at the Crafting Bench once you have reached Tier 2, or start as the Hunter class, which opens a run holding two of them. The How to Get Scrap Fast page is where the 3 Scrap comes from.
The full recipe menu, including the Tier 2 row these numbers sit in, is on the Crafting Bench page. What follows is the part that page cannot carry — the per-target numbers.
How Many Traps Each Thing Takes
This is the table no guide publishes in one piece. Counts are hits from a trap, not traps you place, and the awkward ones have a tilde because the sources give ranges rather than flat numbers.
| Target | Hits from a Bear Trap | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bunny | 1 | One-shot |
| Wolf | 1 | One-shot; the cheapest kill in the game |
| Arctic Fox | 1 | One-shot |
| Alpha Wolf | 1 | One-shot — fandom's Bear Trap page records the trap hitting for 115 and ending it outright |
| Cultist / Crossbow Cultist | ~2 | During raids; fandom notes a 100 HP cultist does not die to one hit, taking roughly 50 |
| Bear | 4 | The standard farm: four traps in a 2×2, lead it through |
| Polar Bear | ~8 | Six traps in a 2×3 will chunk it; ~8 hits is the figure given |
| Mammoth | ~10 | It is a 800 HP neutral animal — traps are not the answer here |
How to read the odd numbers. Fandom's own trivia section admits the trap behaves inconsistently: it one-shots an Alpha Wolf with what amounts to 115 damage, but cannot finish a 100 HP cultist with one hit, and only takes about a quarter off a bear. That is the sources' observation, not ours, and it is the honest reason this table shows ranges where a flat number feels wrong.
What this means in practice. Traps are a small-animal and animal-farming tool, not a boss tool. Against the entities that actually threaten a run — The Deer, the Cultist King, a Juggernaut — traps are a waste of 3 Scrap each. Against Wolves, Bears and the cave guardians, they are the most efficient route in the game.
Killing a bear with four traps
The most-repeated trap routine, and it is worth writing down because it fails if you get the order wrong:
- Craft or collect four traps — fandom's figure for "up to 8" is the ceiling, four is the working number.
- Lay them in a 2×2 square in the open, near where the bear patrols.
- Aggro the Bear from a distance — a shot from a Ranged weapon, or just stepping into its aggro radius, depending on how careful you want to be.
- Lead it through the square. It is not smart enough to route around four traps in a grid.
- Collect the pelts. Then reset and repeat.
The Bear page runs this in full, including why bears get stuck on terrain and how that changes the lead. For the Polar Bear, the same routine with six traps in a 2×3 — see The Polar Bear. For the Wolf it is a single trap and nothing more.
With a team, the loop gets better. One player aggroes and kites; the second stands behind the traps and resets each one the moment it fires. The bear keeps walking through already-reset traps, and the same four traps kill it indefinitely. Both the Bear page and our Best Base Design guide describe this, and it is why trap farming is a co-op activity in practice even though it works solo.
Resetting, Moving and Reusing
With a Hammer. If you are running the Blacksmith class you spawn with one, and placing, resetting and collecting traps is effectively free with it. Away from that class you still move them — 99-nights-in-the-forest.com states a triggered trap "can be moved to a new location with a Hammer."
After it fires, you can drag it. Fandom notes traps can be dragged around once they have been set off, which is the quickest way to reposition one mid-aggro without picking it up clean.
The uses counter is disputed. This one is worth knowing because two pages of the same wiki disagree:
| Source | What it says |
|---|---|
| Fandom's Crafting page | Items show a white circle with a number inside — Bear Traps reset 10 times before disappearing |
| Fandom's Bear Trap page | They "can be infinitely used, only needing to be reset after a use" |
We record that rather than resolve it, because it changes how you budget traps: if the counter is real, ten uses is a hard end to a trap; if it is not, a trap is permanently reusable and only the material cost stops you. Either way the Hammer path avoids the question entirely, since you are picking it up rather than letting it expire. Our Crafting Bench page records the 10-use figure; this page records the conflict.
The Volcanic Bear Trap
The one detail almost nothing mentions. In the Volcanic Biome a standard Bear Trap can be upgraded with a tablet dropped by the Cultist King, and the upgraded version does more damage and applies burning.
That is a single-source claim, so treat the specifics as likely rather than certain — but the shape of it is consistent with how volcanic content works elsewhere in the game, where the biome rewrites recipes rather than just changing the terrain. If you are running Volcanic and farming with traps, the Cultist King is worth the detour before you commit to a trap layout.
It Hits You Too — and There Is a Badge For It
Traps do not distinguish friend from foe. Walk into your own set mid-fight and you take the hit — roughly 5–10 damage, which is trivial next to a Bear's 40 and severe next to nothing. The only real cost is that you are standing in the dent your own killbox just made, usually while something is charging you.
Fandom also records the Humiliation badge, earned by dying to a Bear Trap, and that is worth 4 Diamonds — there is no joke available about that. Both the Best Base Design guide and this page make the same practical point: put traps where your own feet do not go, and remember where they are when you retreat.
Where Sources Disagree
| Point | What we found |
|---|---|
| Do bears trigger bear traps? | Our own Blacksmith class page says bears and polar bears do not trigger bear traps, sourced to two wikis. But four separate sources give a hit count for bears (4) and polar bears (~8): fandom's Bear Trap page, the 99-nights-in-the-forest.com item page, its Bear entity page, and the community bear write-up. The weight of evidence says traps do work on bears. We record the conflict on purpose rather than overwriting the Blacksmith page from this page alone — but if you are building a trap-based defence, plan on traps killing bears |
| Uses counter | 10 resets (Fandom Crafting page) vs effectively infinite with a reset (Fandom Bear Trap page) — same wiki, opposite claims. Above |
| How many you can own | Up to 8 (Fandom, single source). No other source states a cap |
| Volcanic upgrade source | Tablet from the Cultist King, adding burning (Fandom, single source) |
| Exact trap damage | Fandom gives 115 to an Alpha Wolf, roughly 50 to a cultist, about a quarter of a bear, and 5–10 to a player — and calls the inconsistency out itself. No flat damage figure is published anywhere we trust |
| Bear HP, for reference | 300 as recorded on the Bear page, against an older 350 figure quoted in passing by the same wiki's trivia |
FAQ
Is a trap worth 3 Scrap? At one hit for a Wolf or an Alpha Wolf, yes — it is the cheapest kill in the game. Against a Mammoth it is not.
How many do I need for a cave? The cave guardians are Bears, so the same four in a 2×2 applies. The Missing Kids page covers which caves carry how many guardians.
Can I use them against cultists? You can — about two hits per cultist, and our base guide pairs them with shelves in a corridor so raiders funnel through one at a time. They are not the efficient answer against a raid spike the way they are against a Bear farm.
Do traps work on The Deer? No reliable source sets out a hit count for The Deer, and we are not going to invent one. See The Deer for the escape routes and high-ground plays instead.
Why do my traps stop working? Either it needs resetting after it fires, or it has run out its uses. The Hammer sidesteps both.
Do I need the Blacksmith class? No. The Hammer makes trap placement and collection free, which is a real convenience, but any class can craft and place traps at Tier 2.
Sources
Checked 2026-10-03.
Two or more sources agreeing: the 3-Scrap Tier 2 cost; the one-hit kills for Bunny, Wolf, Arctic Fox and Alpha Wolf; the four hits for a Bear and the 2×2 layout; the need to reset after a use; the Hammer moving a triggered trap; traps damaging the player; and the fact that a second player can reset traps behind an aggroing partner.
Single-source, flagged: the cap of 8 traps; the volcanic tablet from the Cultist King and its burning effect; the per-hit figures of ~2 for cultists, ~8 for a Polar Bear and ~10 for a Mammoth; the 5–10 self-damage figure; and the Humiliation badge and its 4-Diamond reward.
Sources that disagree, recorded not resolved: the uses counter (above), the flat damage values, and — most importantly — whether bears trigger bear traps at all.
Not published anywhere we could find: an official damage number per trap hit, whether the volcanic variant has its own hit counts, and any hit count for The Deer, the Cultist King or the Juggernaut.
Related Pages
- Bear — the 2×2 farm in full, and how terrain changes the lead
- The Polar Bear — the 2×3 grid, and where it stands in Snow
- The Wolf — the one-trap kill, and why traps are expensive early
- The Alpha Wolf — traps chunk it hard if you are farming keys
- Hunter class — opens with two traps
- Blacksmith class — the Hammer makes trap cycling free; and the bears-don't-trigger claim we flag above
- Crafting Bench — the Tier 2 recipe row and the uses-counter question
- How to Get Scrap Fast — where the 3 Scrap comes from
- Best Base Design — traps in a shelter corridor, and the co-op reset loop
- Cultist King — the tablet behind the volcanic variant
- Missing Kids — the caves where guardian bears are the reason to trap
Keep Reading
Chest Tiers in 99 Nights in the Forest — Common to Diamond, Which Chest Holds What, and Why Opening a Ruby Chest Turns It Into a Gold Chest for Everyone Else
Almost every weapon, armour piece and Diamond in 99 Nights in the Forest comes out of a chest, and the chests have a fixed ladder: Common and Good at campfire level 2–3, Iron at 3–4, Legendary at 5, Gold in the deepest zones, Ruby the rarest of all, Diamond only from a cleared Cultist Stronghold. Every loot table, where each one spawns, the downgrade rule that eats Ruby Chests, and the four places the guides cannot agree.
Cultist Gem in 99 Nights in the Forest — Eight Ways to Get It, Everything It Buys, and Where the Wikis Contradict Themselves
The Cultist Gem is the material that walls off the late game, and no source totals it up: every route ranked by whether it ever dries up, the full list of things it feeds, what the four-gem Cultist King summon takes, the arithmetic of building one of everything, and the places the wikis disagree.
The Pelt Trader in 99 Nights in the Forest — Every Trade, Every Pelt He Asks For, and the Trades That Quietly Eat Your Pelts
How the Pelt Trader works: when he shows up and where, the full four-pelt chain with every conditional reward, where each pelt drops, the trades where he takes your pelts and gives nothing, and what the Hunter level 3 fifth trade actually asks for.