Traps and Treachery

[HiLiphNY]

Grimtooth's

Whoa, whoa, whoa. . . .did somebod just say Grimtooth's Traps is being re-released? A la d20, even? Nice! Do provide more info: ie when, what, etc.

 

[francisca]

Re: Grimtooth's

Whoa, whoa, whoa. . . .did somebod just say Grimtooth's Traps is being re-released? A la d20, even? Nice! Do provide more info: ie when, what, etc.

It's being done by Necromancer. Not much info, but here is what I turned up:
http://www.necromancergames.com/upcoming.html

(edit)
It's the second one down, right after the Grey Citadel

 

[Plane Sailing]

To voice an opposite opinion, I bought Traps and Treachery and regret it. I don't consider that it was particularly good value for money, and I don't think I'll be using any of it in my games. I think I'd been hoping for more along the lines of creating traps "in game" and certain other things.

As a vague comparison I find it far less useful and clever than the WotC "book of challenges", which includes some traps amongst the various encounters.

Cheers

 

[blackshirt5]

It's really a great book. For a laugh(if your players are like mine, and can't help at least a little bit of metagaming). Design a dungeon with no traps from the book, but describe it really well, and make sure your players see that you've brought along the T&T book. Watch them go crazy in each room.

 

[Privateer]

Here's why I think T&T is a fun book: it contains a trap called "Blood of the Wild" that simultaneously sprays the party with pigs' blood and releases starving wolves at the other end of a passageway.

I prefer Vesher's Terrible Tumbler, myself. For some reason, a spiked pit trap that gyrates around and throws the characters into the spiked walls of said pit just gives me the warm fuzzies

It's kinda like an amusement park ride gone horribly, horribly wrong.

 

[blackshirt5]

I have to agree with the last post above me.

 

[bolen]

I would have to say that I really like it but only if players have never read it. If your player know about all the traps then all the fun is gone, but same with anything I suppose but I have used them alot more then most D20 stuff I have. I'd say I have looked at these alot for my Xcrawl game.

 

[Tsyr]

I don't remember the name of my favorite one, and I don't have the book handy, but my favorite one in the book was a pit-trap varient, where you fall, trigger a magic trap that casts a shrinking spell on you, you fall through a tiny chute, then another spell is triggered that enlarges you again, trapping you inside.

 

[WizarDru]

One thing folks aren't mentioning that is also very good about the book is the collection of Riddles, logic and math traps all included. If you want to generate traps, tricks or riddles on the fly, but can't think of them that quickly, there are plenty here for that purpose.

Plus, I've already used three of the traps in my game, and they all worked out wonderfully. I used the musical lock/trap mechanism for a wizard's workshop. Gave the rogue a challenge, but everyone had a lot of fun.

Great, great stuff.

 

[CRGreathouse]

To voice an opposite opinion, I bought Traps and Treachery and regret it. I don't consider that it was particularly good value for money, and I don't think I'll be using any of it in my games. I think I'd been hoping for more along the lines of creating traps "in game" and certain other things.

As a vague comparison I find it far less useful and clever than the WotC "book of challenges", which includes some traps amongst the various encounters.

Cheers

I didn't like it. I had heard great things about it, but thought the traps were mostly uninspired and the classes poorly balanced. It has 6 +2/+2 feats, leaving only 13 other feats on the five pages ((34-39) used for feats. The margins were wide (1"x1"x.75"x.75" with .6" gutters) and the font is large.

The traps are the largest part of the book, pages 60-139. They're spaced one page per trap, which spreads them thinner than the rest of the book -- about 250 words to a page, including the 'stat block'-like entry at the beginning.

My main problem, though, is that they just weren't as creative or interesting as I had hoped. While the "Blood of the Wild" trap mentioned above is a great one, it seems the exception, not the rule:

* Blackstone's Shredder Chute: fall down, take slashing damage.
* Blackstone's Slicing Snare: razor-sharp net drops on PCs.
* Perivax's Pit of Poisoned Water: fall into a pit of poisoned water
* Blackstone's Cat and Mouse: polymorph other trap
* Spin Die: perhaps the longest trap entry, at ~800 words. Fall and take slashing damage.
* Blackstone's Malign Masher: a boulder falls and crushes you (10d6 damage, unavoidable).

Perhaps I'm just a bit harsh, but I didn't see anything I'd really use.

Edit: Spells and Spellcraft, also by FFG, is a wonderful book which I enjoyed a great deal and use in my game. It has new spells, magical items, and materials. I didn't like T&T, but FFG has plenty of other good stuff!