Now that I have figured out the pricing for spell turrets, I need to design one!

In my RL game I am playing a lvl 11 factotum. The party has just found in a metropolis, a hidden enterance to a dungeon that is so trapped out that the local theives guild has recently given up on it. They had 80 members dedicated to it!

One of our party has decided that the dungeon, wich is the campaigns only source of traps so far, MUST be traversed.

As a result, my character is going to try to create a spell turret that will move ahead of us and target any doors and traps and try to thump them.

So far I have...

Locate Object (Div) to find the trap.

Minor Image (Illusion) to highlight the traps parts & allert the party.

Resist Energy (abjur) to resist a blast or maybe acid.

Knock (trans)
or
Shatter (evoc) to destroy or trigger the trap.

The item will be held ahead of us by another character with mage hand.

Any thoughts or input? The item is fairly cheap to make, but if I can find a better 2nd lvl spell then resist energy to protect it from the traps, that would be great.

A summon spell? The best way to survive a trap is to have it happen to someone else.

We have a hippy malconvoker variant in the party and she is very vocal against abusing summons.

Though mainly she is RPing the DMs rule stating the same. Abuse a summon and it stops answering. Each caster is attuned to a specific summon for each spell. So if that happens, we will need to rely on scrolls from other casters, or probably some kind of quest.

Long story short, no summons. Unless I could summon a kobold. lol

Wait... Is there a spell to summon kobolds?!

Look for Conjuration (creation) spells. They don't summon, but shape a force. It may be a loophole (if the DM didn't create the houserule just to prevent abuse but has a story reason). Unseen servant is the most common one and is good at tripping/ exposing many traps. Phantom Steed is also a good one.

So create a Phantom Steed and lead it around with the unseen servant. No creatures, real or summoned dies.

Well the turret will have locate object and it comes with true sight. So it shouldnt have trouble locating the trap. Then we just have to stand back and bust it from a distance.

I dont see why another creature tracked on the map would be a better option. lol

Unless I'm missing something about my current plan.

Any input about the protection spell though? It has to be a second level wizard/sorc spell and it cant be from the same school as the other 3.

Well, you could always just roll a log through the corridors to spot the traps, and use shatter and stuff to actually break the things.

What you're missing is that Locate Object will not find traps you don't already know about.
The spell locates 'well known or clearly visualized' objects. Traps vary sufficiently in size, form, and even function, that there really is no feasible way to 'clearly visualize' the nebulous traits they have in common in the way necessary for the spell.

They usually have one or more things in common. A pressure plate, for instance.

Many traps have a pressure plate, yes. Many other traps have no pressure plate. Other traps still might have a pressure plate that is distinct in some material way from the one you are visualizing, and thus will go unnoticed regardless.