Looting is easy when it's not locked up inside a treasure chest. Anything you find lying around you'll automatically pick up. If it's inside a treasure chest, however, that's another matter, because treasure chests can be booby-trapped.

When you encounter a treasure chest, you'll have, depending on the circumstances, two to four choices about how to deal with it. The two you'll always have are opening it and leaving it. If you open it, you take the chance that the chest is not trapped. If it is, you'll suffer the consequences, but at least then you get what's inside. (Unless the trap kills your entire party, but that's not likely unless you're already very weak.) If you leave the chest, it's gone.

If there is at least one rogue in your party (that is conscious), you'll also have the option of having one of the rogues try to disarm the chest. Rogues have special trap-cracking abilities that the other character classes do not have. If you have a rogue try to disarm the chest, the rogue will first try to identify what kind of trap there is, if any, and then he'll try to disarm it. If he's wrong about what kind of trap it is, or if he bungles the disarming job, the trap will be set off, and he and/or the rest of your party will suffer the consequences. If he disarms it successfully, however, he will get experience points for the accomplishment. As rogues gain experience, they get better at identifying traps and disarming them. A rogue's ability to identify traps depends upon his IQ and level. His ability to disarm it depends upon his dexterity and level.

The fourth option is to cast a spell to disarm the chest. This is available whenever you have a conscious character with enough spell points that knows the DISARM spell. The DISARM spell is a mid-level sorcerer spell. It never fails, so it is the safest way of disarming chests. The disadvantages to this method are that the spell caster does lose spell points for casting the spell, and you miss out on the experience points a rogue can get by disarming it.

Sometimes, of course, chests are not booby-trapped at all.

Important Note: Your characters have an unlimited capacity to carry gold, but this is not the case for items of equipment. Your characters can only carry nine objects in addition to whatever they are wearing. It is important that your party has enough empty inventory slots amongst them to pick up items found in the labyrinth. If none of your characters has empty inventory slots, then they won't find objects in the labyrinth. This means missed opportunities to obtain valuable equipment.