Proving a negative is impossible, of course, but I'm fairly confident that there are no general guidelines for creating magical items with triggers other than the main four from the question:
- Spell completion
- Spell trigger
- Command word
- Use activated
... plus continuous items.
However, the Contingency spell would probably be useful for the "when X happens, do Y" items.
For pricing such items, the only real rule is to find an existing item of similar power and price your item similarly. The Item Creation Rules have guidelines, and there's some evidence that an item that requires the "right" slot to duplicate a feat costs around 5k (eg., the Gloves of Arrow Snatching, which allow use of the Snatch Arrow feat twice per day), but the rule is to price it based on similarly-powerful items.
I would specifically recommend asking whether a generic character would buy the new item instead of a +X weapon, armor/shield, Stat item, or cloak of resistance: if a generic character is definitely going to buy the item instead of a +2 shield, the price should be higher than the 4k a +2 shield would cost; if it's a toss-up between the new item and a +1 weapon, a price of around 2k is probably about right. This is difficult, especially for new GMs or items that are highly situational (eg., the "self-destruct if a person is too far away from an item" item) or setting-dependent (eg., the auto-healer if divine magic is rare in "this" world).
In my experience, it's generally been best to err slightly on the side of making the item too expensive, then adding some extra treasure if need be.
Remember, too, that "Activating a magic item is a standard action unless the item description indicates otherwise." (Using Magic Items) The rules don't preclude magic items that can be activated as move/swift/free actions, they just don't provide much in the way of guidelines for making them.
That said, it's entirely possible to build most of the items in the question's list using just the Big 5 triggers:
- Self-destruct device if a person forgets some important item somewhere
- continuous item using Alarm and/or Scrying as a base requirement, plus a sufficiently powerful boom-ey spell
- Magical flashlight
- use activated or command word item based on several of the Evocation (light) spells, eg., light
- Booby-trapped bags of holding
- again, adding Alarm to the base requirements could serve to trigger the booby trap, as could simply calling it a variant Bag of Devouring
- Device that casts True Sight on owner when near evil-aligned characters, or perhaps Hide Alignment near good-aligned characters
- again, a continuous item with Alarm and the appropriate Detect spell (eg., Detect Evil)
- A crossbow that automatically fires a bolt when [given target] is in its cross hairs
- this is a reasonable interpretation for how True Strike works; an item that allows the wielder to use True Strike with a single attack from a weapon could be said to do this; similarly, Haste grants an extra attack in some situations...
- Necklace that casts a buff when its owner falls prone
- a constant item with Contingency as part of the creation process could probably do this
- Automatic potion-imbibing devices when its owner is low on HP.
- again, Contingency could probably be used in creating this
Probably not. Tavern Brawler requires you to "hit the creature" with a weapon attack. While the Disarm rule involves making an attack, it's not clear that that attack involves hitting a creature. Normally, hitting a creature requires beating its AC:
When you make an attack, your attack roll determines
whether the attack hits or misses. To make an attack roll,
roll a d20 and add the appropriate modifiers. If the total
of the roll plus modifiers equals or exceeds the target’s
Armor Class (AC), the attack hits. The AC of a character
is determined at character creation, whereas the AC of a
monster is in its stat block.
Since the attack you make to Disarm isn't against a creature's AC, it probably doesn't involve hitting a creature, and therefore can't trigger Tavern Brawler.
Best Answer
The talisman can be used as an improvised weapon to strike a maligned creature for additional damage.
Nothing in the linked text indicates that the touching must be willful. In addition, this linked question has a highly upvoted answer on how to interpret the word "touch" with regard to rulings and is in line with my answer:
You are correct in deciding to go with your 3rd listed ruling. A creature could use the talisman as an improvised weapon to attack a maligned creature. On a successful strike against the target's AC, the attacking creature would deal 8d6 or 6d6 (alignment dependent) radiant damage plus the damage for an improvised weapon strike.
Improvised weapons include any object that you can wield in one or two hands, and can be as ridiculous as a dead goblin, per the PHB.
The DM has some leeway in determining how this works. Two DM dependent clauses in the PHB on improvised weapons are:
and
This makes this use of the talisman pretty powerful; the above is how I would rule, and how it appears to work RAW.