The Chest of Death

[Void]

Have corpses littered around the area, NPC's in a nearby settlement that gives you a warning if you bother to talk to them, a side chamber with the journal of a dead adventurer whose party fell victim to the same thing etc.

That is, frankly, impossible.

There are too many of those smaller sudden dangers, they're all over the world, and if you want a warning about every one of them, that's mountainous task comparable to making dwarf fortress from scratch. And on top of that, once you implement them all, that'll be extra thing to keep track of, which will make the module harder to change.

I recommend to stay on your toes instead and be ready to run when you explore.

[Nitro]

If you right click and examine the chest, you will see that the description is very much suspicious. I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the screenshot (I did in fact have one, when I ran it because I wanted to show a friend, a week back, unrelated entirely to this thread - Steam deleted it, because Steam doesn't save conversations that far back). It went something like this: "You see a chest, probably filled with delicious treasure that you can't wait to get your grabby hands on."

That to me would be the same as a DM saying exactly that at a tabletop game. But like in D&D, Arelith requires you to actually pay attention to the game and to your surroundings. It's unreasonable to expect the devs to cater to people who don't pay attention to their actual surroundings.

Not all traps and hazards are going to be equally as obvious as a burnt mark or bloody bodies. But I wouldn't call this chest subtle - all you have to do is examine it, and not run at it with full force. The fact that it shows up as hostile (red color) on your screen is another indicator that is, in fact, a danger.

One quick thing to note: In D&D you don't simply respawn and come back to life. So the comparison is a moot point in this case. One is challenging with lasting consequences, the other is far more forgiving.

Yes, it's obviously a mimic. That much isn't in dispute, it's pretty clear when you enter the room and its immediately hostile. What isn't clear at all is that you have no chance at all of victory if you go into melee because it hits with the stats of a creature from a dungeon 14 levels higher up.

That is, frankly, impossible.

There are too many of those smaller sudden dangers, they're all over the world, and if you want a warning about every one of them, that's mountainous task comparable to making dwarf fortress from scratch. And on top of that, once you implement them all, that'll be extra thing to keep track of, which will make the module harder to change.

I recommend to stay on your toes instead and be ready to run when you explore.

What are you smoking? It's pretty simple to add server-side fixtures, and the places where a creature is wildly out of the challenge level of the rest of the dungeon are few and far between. It's hyperbolic beyond measure to even put it in the same ballpark as making dwarf fortress. Running isn't even an option unless you just get lucky because you get hit with paralyze poison on hit.