Looking for something a little more fun then the standard traps?
The Wurst of Grimtooth’s Traps
Created by Rick Loomis, Steve Crompton, Liz Danforth and the staff of Flying Buffalo
Published by Necromancer Games
http://www.necromancergames.com
WW 8386
ISBN: 1-58846-139-4
224 black and white pages
$34.99
I’m at a strange place when it comes to role playing games. On one hand, I’m tired of books that look to be nothing more than some old ideas in a new suit. On the other, pure nostalgia has a powerful effect on me when a classic gets updated.
For example, I remember buying my first Grimtooth Traps book, back in something like 86’. Now that’s almost twenty years gone by. Who wouldn’t want to see some of their old favorites updated to the new edition of the rules? Something that the original couldn’t even claim as it was a multi-system book.
While the art and layout aren’t going to compare to say, Fantasy Flight’s Traps & Treachery duo, they rise above that series in another way. They’re classic. They have the original art and in some cases I’ve been told, the original misspellings. The art by S.S. Crompton is both humorous and easy to understand. His maps aren’t designed with 3.5 in mind in that they don’t have the good old squares that we know and love on our maps. They have a general outline of the trap, some in the before, during, and after phase, showing groups of adventurers getting ground up into dog food.
Truly a less compassionate time. About the only thing I didn’t like in terms of layout, is the reuse of some of the older jokes. It’s not that they’re not funny, but the traps are updated and have new ideas for a game. The jokes… well, take the part where the good old Troll is complaining about traps being too dangerous and that people need to learn how to take the game by the horns and change things. He’s mentioned that a time or two before. Or how about the ‘last trap’? Another classic for the reader and worth a good laugh when it first came out all those years ago, but it’s time for something new.
In terms of layout, the book uses a standard two-column format. There are five different sections in the following order; room traps, corridor traps, door traps, traps bazaar, and dungeon of doom. In between, we get some of the adventures of Bill and Clark as they sneak in things like CR to override the original deadly rating, that of a number of skulls. The more skulls, the more fatal the trap.
The good news is outside of the updated traps, we’ve got some new ideas in the methodology of traps. This includes separating the trap from the trigger, and noting that some traps may have multiple separate components so you could have a trap with different triggers and different game effects that each require their own roll to take care of.
The bad news is that creates a lot more die rolling. The good news is, that as always, the traps are often the type where clear thinking, and often, quick thinking is better than trying to make a skill check.
Traps have a monster style block that goes as follows: Skulls, challenge rating, type (introducing the combination, a trap that is magical and mechanical), search, disable device, trigger, trap effect, save, reset, bypass and cost.
Reading through this book is almost like taking a walk through my teenage years. Many of the traps I’ve used more than a time or two against players. It was one of the reasons I was also so anxious to have new players. New players meant that I could unleash the terror of Grimtooth’s traps again and again. The only bad thing is after a while, when players see the book at the table, they know something’s up. In some ways, that’s another trap in and of itself as players are now worried about what’s down the corridor without you having lifted an actual finger.
Some of the organizations seem a little odd too. The book isn’t done up in alphabetical order, and the reason why makes perfect sense. See, some of the traps came out after other traps so the Troll has kept them in chronological order so that when something refers to an older trap, we aren’t confused by the fact that we haven’t hit that trap yet.
Outside of that though, some of the traps look like they’re in the wrong section, for example, the toe tickler. When trying to exit through the door, the floor drops one foot and spears shoot into the character’s mid-shin. Now that sounds more like a door trap to me.
One thing that’s interesting to look at is how they’ve done some of the traps. In that example of the toe tickler above, while it doesn’t do a lot of damage, it does impose penalties on all check that involves the use of the character’s legs. The idea of using the variant damage for specific areas from chapter two of the DMG, is also strongly urged as many of these traps simply lose their punch if they just become another way to drain hit points from the characters. For example, the first step trap throws some razorblades at the back of the characters’ calve that only do 1d4+4 points of damage if it hits. Not too fearsome. Using the variant rules, it becomes a little more than damage.
There are a lot of classics here and I can’t possibly go over all of them. Some of those I’ve used in the past include things like the Gauntlets of Doom. These gauntlets have a thin bladder between the lining of the glove and the external metal and if used to strike something, that bladder breaks and spills poison onto the hands of the character. Another old favorite in terms of cursed items, is Satan’s Bow, a apparent magic bow with a diamond-dust studded wire that cuts the fingers off of those that try to pull back the string.
One of the bad things about the system, is that some of the more gruesome traps lose some of their effectiveness just by virtue of following the rules in terms of semi-believable damage. Take the good old Delvermatic Dicer and Malingerer Trap. The illustration is a nasty piece of work showing near certain death for a whole group of adventurers. Looking over the actual effects, yeah, some people are going to get hit hard, but others are going to in essence walk away from it a little annoyed, but otherwise unharmed.
In short, if you have any specific questions, like want to know if a particular trap is here, don’t hesitate to ask. If you’re an old fan of the series like me, it’s worth having just to have so many classic traps in one spot with some fun filled illustrations.
