60 more traps for your fantasy campaign.
Lethal Legacies
Traps of the World Before
http://www.goodman-games.com/4330preview.php
Written by Tony DiGerolamo
Printed by Goodman Games
www.goodman-games.com
Stock Number: GMC4330
ISBN: 0-9763142-9-0
64 b & w pages
$17.99 print/$8.99 PDF
While it’s great to see Necromancer Games come out with Grimtooth’s Traps for 3.5, as that’s a true classic, it’s also nice to see other companies coming out with new traps as Fantasy Flight Games hasn’t been doing much with their Traps & Treachery line.
Lethal Legacies has sixty traps to add to your campaign. It uses the framing device of an ancient empire giving them a common link. The book uses a standard two column lay out. Interior art is done by the Forge, Pawel Dobosz and Maciej Zagorski who do a good job of illustrating the traps and the fate that befalls them. This is important a GM has to be able to describe how the trap looks, how it’s working, and insure that the players have a good idea of what’s going on. The book also has an index of traps by challenge rating. Traps vary from 1 to 10 with most falling between the four to seven mark. Strangely though, the back of the PDF has a price listing of $17.99 as opposed to it's PDF price.
As a PDF, the book has some failings. For one, it’s not printer friendly. It has borders all around it and the pages are gray. Malhavoc and a few others have avoided this trap by making sure that their products don’t have borders and have white backgrounds. For another, it’s not formatted as a PDF or to take advantage of a PDF’s format. For example, how about putting the traps so that they’re on their own page so you only print out the traps you want? Lastly, as a PDF, I’m wondering why the back cover is right after the front cover. For me, I usually print out the whole e-book using my good old laser printer and after assembling it, throw it into a folder or spiral binder. Here I skipped the first few pages because it’s the cover, then the rear cover. The good thing as a PDF though, is that it does include a bookmark for each trap. The price as a PDF isn’t bad unless you can get the a solid discount on the print version in which case it’s almost competing with itself.
Traps include the following statistics: number (trap 50), name (Tomb of Sand), appearance, type, targets, duration, typical placement, description, how to disarm the trap, and game mechanics. For example, the Tomb of Sand, under it’s description, talks about a pyramid that was built upon a Beforer’s stronghold (the Beforer’s are those who left the legacy traps) and the physical dimensions of the doors in the pyramid and how the trap is activated. It then moves into how to disarm the trap and what the CR is, including DC numbers for reflex saving throws, search and disable device.
Some of the traps here aren’t really traps in the traditional sense. For example, the very first one, The Grape Vine, is actually a portal between two locations that has a specific method of activation, a brainteaser for the players to figure out.
Some of the mechanics seem a bit odd in that the author doesn’t just go with the traditional disable device skill. For example, Hell’s Ladder is a spinning pillar that links two levels in a fire giant’s lair. The pillar spins and has demonic faces that act as handholds. The faces glow and then spit fire. Instead of being able to recognize the glow and move out of the way, you have to make a Reflex save to avoid the fire and then make another Climb check to avoid falling. It’s one way to do it, but how about a spot check to recognize the flash and get out of the way as opposed to avoiding the fire as it’s shooting at you?
Some of the traps have a classic lure to them, that of treasure. Grimtooth was always good for this, getting the player’s own greed to be their downfall and I see nothing wrong with it here. This includes standard treasures like giant gems, as well as potential magical weapons.
The framing device of the Beforers makes the book more than just a collection of random traps and the use of the same character to describe the traps, including the names of some of them like the Rat Smasher, a trap that the author used to crush rats in his early days, and how to overcome them, is well done and easy to use or ignore depending on the nature of your campaign.
For those looking for more traps, Lethal Legacies brings sixty fully illustrated traps to the gaming table.
