Customer Reviews

Traps & Treachery (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I liked this book far better than the Wizards of the Coast's Book of Challenges. The first third of the book is dedicated to the expansion of the rogue class with new skills, feats, prestige classes, and guild development. This was a pleasant surprise, especially since my gaming character is a rogue. I also like the layout of the trap information--each trap, magical or non-magical, has its own stat block for planning game structure and sketches that show the plausability and feasibility of the trap. The last part of the book provides examples of challenges and puzzles. Overall, it is an excellent product by Fantasy Flight Games.

It is a rare thing to find truely great source material these days. Especially when you are going to spend on average 20 dollars or more. This book deals almost exclusively with all things rogue. It has some very well thought out and wonderfully written sections on how a thief should shine using his abilities that are so often down played. The prestige classes offered are exceptional as are the new feats and lets not forget the entire section on traps! Some of them just make you cringe, I hope that my DM doesn't get this book and give him any twisted ideas. I feal no need to purchase the future handbook that will deal with rogues and bards for I doubt the 20 dollars I would spend on it would give me 1/16th the pleasure and information provided by this book. I recommend it to anyone looking for good source material that truelly enhances the game.

I just pulled this off the shelf while working on a new part of my campaign. Although written for 3.0, it was easy to mod over for 3.5. Although the traps seem to get redundant after a while, there are enough gems in here to make it worthwhile to have around.

This product has been one of the most useful since the initial release of dnd 3.0 and then the subsequent release of 3.5. The book was meant to be a reference book for creating traps and also for finding premade traps and puzzles. It succeeds in both and even though the book is fairly short it can now be found for decent prices in used book stores and other discount places. It should be owned, along with its sequel, by all dms for it contains instant memorable encounters with puzzles, rooms, and traps that all parties can enjoy. Good product and one of the best that i have used, especially now that i have a brand new campaign starting with all new people and can reuse some of the puzzles and traps that lie within.

This is a great book, it really makes the rouge class shine in many ways. This book contains great traps, the prestige classes and feats are so-so but the whole trap aspect of the book is amaing, it has fine detail. I bought this book on a whim and enjoyed it much I give it 4 of 5 stars. The paper they use on the inside is cheap. The cover is quality though.

Wonderful ideas. Very creative with excellent sketches showing how the traps work. A great asset for keeping traps and challanges fresh in the game.

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.