For those of you not in the know, Traps and Treachery is a book for the d20 system (come on, just say it, Dungeons and Dragons) and is published by Fantasy Flight Games.
Graphically, this is a very nice book, filled with some excellent artwork (the trap illustrations are the best in the book). The book's hardcover and weighs in at around 170 pages.
After the introduction, which does a pretty good job of setting up the
book, is Chapter One: The Way of the Rogue. Here, rogue players get all kinds of juicy and useful tips about playing their chosen character class. How does a rogue see traps? How might a rogue notice traps with each of his senses? What about magic traps, how exactly does a rogue notice those? Tips on disarming and/or triggering traps (on purpose, of course) are given.
This chapter also includes information on Thieves' Guilds, including those guilds' possible businesses (such as extortion, blackmail and smuggling), how most guilds are organized, what membership in the guild means as well has how to join, tips for DMs on designing guilds, and a sample halfling-only thieves' guild. Good stuff!
Also in chapter one are the prestige classes; the "Discreet Companion," Guildmaster, Roofrunner (kinda think urban ranger), and Trapmaster (capable of building improvised traps quickly). A new NPC class is included as well, the Thug. Usually, I don't like these new "core" classes that pop up here and there, but this one actually fits a niche that was needed. Think of them as Rogue-lite.
New skills are given. Again, unlike some books that have come out, Fantasy Flight seems to have their shiznat together. Only two skills are given, Mimic Voice and Urban Lore. Mimic Voice could, I suppose, technically be part of the Perform skill, but Urban Lore is something I've found myself wishing was in the core book. It's like Wilderness Lore, but for cities. Now your homeless PCs don't have to starve. :-)
Also in Chapter One (wow, lotsa stuff in this chapter, huh?) are the new feats. Most of these new feats are simply "You gain a 2 bonus to X and Y skill." Most of them seem pretty good and nicely balanced, EXCEPT Improved Sneak Attack, which turns the d6s of a rogue's sneak attack to d8s. (If you wanna know, I changed it for my campaign so that it adds 2 damage to sneak attack damage, much like weapon specialization adds 2 to attacks with that weapon).
New Equipment is up next. Nothing overly exciting here. There are some neat concepts, sure, and some useful items, but nothing that really made me go "Gosh, I wish I had one of these!"
Poisons get the treatment next. This is one of the two areas where this book truly shines. You get full poison-brewing rules, including for Supernatural poisons (poisons which duplicate spell effects) and Enchanted Poisons ("normal" poisons that have their secondary effects replaced with spell effects). This section expands on poison types, how to determine their costs, how to create all the poison types and so on. And expands it nicely, I might add! If you're a DM looking for more detail on poisons (let's face it, the DMG just gave us a list with little to no info), then you're going to love this section. 14 common poisons (including alcohol and opium) are listed. Common poisons are easier for alchemists/healers to treat. 9 Supernatural or Enchanted poisons are listed. If this section doesn't immediately get your mind wrapping around some nifty neat poisons with interesting effects to throw at people, there's something wrong! :-)
There are 13 new magic items here, most are pretty cool. Then there's the thievery domain (funny, there's NO Thievery domain, even though the "official" Greyhawk pantheon has a god of thieves, and the FR pantheon has at least 1 or 2, not to mention monstrous races...) and 8 new spells wrapping up the section.
Chapter Two goes into details about traps. Lovely, lovely details about traps. Including a workable system on how to design your own. This section is truly a hellacool piece of work, and expands the traps rules laid down in the DMG in wondrous new ways. Words cannot describe the sublime wonderousness that is this chapter. The chapter wraps up with a new monster, the Arkitek. Think of a demonic trap designer, and you pretty much got it down.
Chapter Three is filled with mechanical traps. All of these traps are
beautifully illustrated. The first trap, a CR 1 trap, listed could
potentially mess up my party seriously.
Chapter Four has magic traps. Like the mechanical traps, these are all very nice, and nicely illustrated.
With Chapters 2 through 4, I have a brand new outlook on traps. There are dozens of traps rolling around in my head everytime I open these sections. It's maddening!!!
Chapter Five is full of puzzles; something I'm admittedly TERRIBLE at in my games. There are lots of puzzles that you can just plop right into your adventure!
The review wraps up with a preview of Mythic Races, an index, a trap list (VERY useful), and some ads.
All in all, I would definitely suggest this book to any DM running a
D&D..er..d20 system...game. Players will still find some useful stuff, but nowhere nearly as much as those diabolical DMs.
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