Traps and Treachery II is a sequel to (surprise!) Traps and Treachery, both part of the Legend and Lairs d20 line from Fantasy Flight Games.
Unlike its predecessor, there are no new feats, prestige classes, or other player oriented material, unless the player has an interest in poisons. This is primarily a DM's book, for a DM who likes to design their own adventure sites, and doesn't mind a little help in placing traps.
Weighing in at 168 pages, with plenty of grayscale illustrations, it's a handsome hardback book, with eleven contributing writers and seven illustrators. The suggested list price is $24.95.
I've used some of the ideas in my own campaign with my regular gaming group, and found it easy to use. There is a two-page index and two lists of traps by CR (up to 10), one for mechanical traps, one for magical.
Chapter 1: New Traps CR 1 - 5
The traps are listed in CR, then alphabetical, order.
Unlike the previous volume, the trap names are not all alliteration, which is a bit of a shame, that was fun, but I can see how it would be hard to keep that up. There is information on how the trap would be constructed, who or what would reload it, and how it would work.
Each trap lists what the effects are on the poor PCs, and Search and Disable Device DCs for the brave rogues in the party. For enterprising trap builders and buyers, it includes cost and time to build as well.
Many of the traps are illustrated, with one illustration and three to four traps on most two page spreads.
The challenge ratings seem well thought out, and should help the DM in judging just the right trap for her party.
One trap I adapted for my party was the CR 4 trap known as "The Plummeting Room." This room sinks, pauses at some new doors with guardians, and repeats a few times. Each time the guardians get worse. I put a bookmark in the book, put the trap name in my dungeon description, added my own guardians, and was good to go. Scale the guardians, and this trap can scale up or down fairly easily. The players liked it, freaked out, and remember it. Perfect!
Chapter 2: New Traps CR 6+
There is very little different in this chapter from the previous, save the higher CR allows for some fairly elaborate traps. Here the trap to two-page spread density is a bit less, as the more involved traps have lengthier descriptions.
One from this chapter I used on my players was "Cold Feet," a magic trap for wading players, that freezes the top 6" of water around the player's ankles while summoning Fiendish Piranha for foot level. A bookmark, a note in my (wet) dungeon, and it was ready to go. My Half-Orc still kicks himself for not wearing his water-walking ring "because it was so shallow."
Chapter 3: New Poisons
Besides a large collection of new poisons, this chapter introduces rules for Poison Rarity, and how that affects Gather Information and Heal skills. These rules are then applied in tables to the poisons introduced in the previous volume, and in the Core rulebook (the DMG).
Then follows a big list of new, exotic poisons, along with a table summarizing effects, costs, and rarity. Not all are damage dealing, there are varied effects, including giving casters chances to miscast spells, blindness, and other fun maladies.
If the players are up against some poison using adversaries, there are enough good ideas to make your players howl!
Chapter 4: Puzzles and Challenges
This last chapter gives rules for XP for puzzle solving, and then a number of Puzzles. Some rely on the English language, which makes no sense for Common speaking adventurers, but my players have never complained. Many have clues and/or riddles, some are visual and tactile, and the players can play with them.
At eight pages, the puzzle section was a bit short for me.
Then follows two pages of tricks. These are things that are not what they seem. A DM whose descriptions always tell what is really going on is just not trying, and there are a few good ideas here. One describes the effects a high level illusionist can come up with using permanent illusion and enough time.
Nice, but too short.
Ending it all are five pages of challenges. These are tests and hard to get by areas you can put in your own adventures. Included is the self-proclaimed "classic", the Collapsing Rope Bridge.
Like all of chapter four, I'd like to see more.
Upside
Some great traps, great ease of use with the index and CR lists. Add to your own adventures, or spice up a published one. I'm glad it's on my bookshelf.
Downside
Not useful if you use only DM unedited published adventures. It would be more useful if all the traps were illustrated. I find I tend to use the ones with illustrations, the illustrations draw me in, I start thinking, and I tend to skip over those without.
