Traps & Treachery (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying) [Hardcover]

Fantasy Flight Games (Author), Various (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2001

Traps & Treachery is the definitive d20 System resource for traps, tricks, puzzles, and poisons. Traps & Treachery contains more than 60 complete descriptions of magic and mechanical traps, all beautifully illustrated, detailed guidelines on trap design and classification, comprehensive rules for creating and using poisons, new prestige classes, new skills, new feats, new equipment, new magic items, the Thievery clerical domain, and more.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games (July 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1589940202
• ISBN-13: 978-1589940208
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #960,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rogues R' Us, September 4, 2001

By 

Brian K. Eason (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Traps & Treachery (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying) (Hardcover)

I had a high level of expectation for this product after seeing their fine Blue Planet system. I was not disappointed.

Contained in this 176 (reasonably priced) hardcover is:

* Complete d20 System rules for designing new traps
* Guidelines for creating memorable puzzles customized to your campaign
* New rogue skills, feats, and equipment
* New poisons, including supernatural toxins such as Medusa's Tears and Demonblood
* Rules for creating and using poisons

As well as a wealth of magical and mudance traps of very clever design...

If you have a Rogue in your group or you are even vaguely interested in rogues, this is the product for you.

The Feats presented are well balanced and creative (and frankly, I am surprised we haven't seen Improved Sneak attack or Photographic memory before now). The Urban Lore skill was sorely needed and only adds to the overall value of the book.

Up until this point I had been betting on Sword and Sorcery Press as the leader in d20 supplements, but Fantasy Flight (through their Legends and Lairs imprint) may be set to dethrone the leader.

Excellent job.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Add subtelty to your campaign., August 14, 2001

By 

Rick Douglas Janssen (Lake Zurich, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Traps & Treachery (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying) (Hardcover)

Fantasy Flight Games has come up with a wonderful source book (part class handbook, part trap guide) to add a new element beyond hack and slash for your campaign.

The cover art of this book is very suggestive of the new 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons design, complete with jewel encrusted clasps. The inside is just as nicely laid out complete with page borders and wonderful illustrations, though in black and white, versus D&D's full color pages.

The first half of the book offers a wide range of information dealing with thieves, and not all of it is hard core gaming information. For instance, there is a section dedicated to the 5 (actually 6) senses and how a thief can best use these senses outside of game terms to succeed. For instance, place a metal or crystal tube up against a door to help amplify the sound from beyond.

There are a number of prestige classes offered, from the wiley Roofrunner to the daring Trapmaster, each with its own unique specilization of thievery. This section also details new feats, skills, poisons, magical items, and spells for use with thieves. The book offers advice for rewarding experience points for thieving marks. For example, if you don a disquise and impersonate a distant Lord in order to swindle Lady Belgrave out of her recently inherited diamond necklace the DM would assign a Challenge Rating to Lady Belgrave based on her level and the situation. This CR would then determine how much XP the thief receives.

The second half of the book is full of new and interesting, yet believable traps to use in your campaign. Most of these are mechanical traps, but the book also has magical and puzzle traps as well. What I enjoy most about this book is not only do the traps come with full descriptions and stats, but most of them also have schematic diagrams detailing how the trap's mechanism works. It's very interesting.

This book is recommended mainly for Game Masters, but players will also benefit from the first half of this book. I highly recommend this to add a new non-combat element to your campaign.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great resource for DMs, August 9, 2001

By 

"dale4640" (Denver, CO, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Traps & Treachery (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying) (Hardcover)

This book presents a great array of information for DMs. It focuses on the more "Mechanical" aspect of rogues, specifically with devices (traps). The first chapter deals with the Rogue class, with new prestige classes like the Trapmaster, a new NPC class, and some new stuff for clerics. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are essentially a treatise on traps, both mechanical and magical, and there is a comprehensive system presented which allows a DM to exactly determing a CR for traps given various factors and DCs. There is a list of a few dozen new traps, described in great detail (three-quarters page each on average), that I haven't seen the likes of in other sources. And the last Chapter deals with Puzzles - math, logic, word games, and more, through examples that can be easily integrated in a campaign. Really loved the book! I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 simply because I would have liked to have seen more information regarding construction and integration, but really this is a 5-star book as far as 3rd party d20 books go.