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The early D&D books I learnt from taught me that there were three aspects to good dungeon design: monsters, traps and tricks. The first two are fairly self-explanatory, but the third, the trick, is one of the hardest aspects to pull off successfully. (The fact that you probably also need a good hook for why the PCs are in the dungeon, as well as some role-playing opportunities are things that I learnt later).
What is a trick? Put simply, it's a challenging feature of the dungeon, one to confound, stimulate or amuse the players. Tricks can include monsters or traps, but the chief aspect of them is that they provide something unusual or unique - a good trick is memorable, and will allow your players to tell stories about it for years to come.
Potent Portals, the newest d20 System supplement from Creative Mountain Games, is a 24-page pdf document containing over 100 magical tricks related to doors, archways, windows or other portals. It's a resource to make your adventures memorable.
Artwork and Appearance
Potent Portals has a colour cover, depicting an adventurer trying to crawl through a window. Unfortunately the window is exuding tentacles to entrap the poor adventurer. It is also unfortunate that the picture's not a particularly good one. The artwork for the rest of the supplement - black and white line drawings - is slightly better, but not much.
The layout of the supplement is quite clear - a border on the outside edge of the page, and two columns with clearly spaced text and headings. There have been far worse layouts, and it is perfectly serviceable and readable, for which I am quite grateful.
What Potent Portals has to offer
There are six sections of the supplement, each containing a number of various portal-related devices. These are as follows: Archways and Gates, Bars and Shutters, Coverings and Curtains, Doors and Trapdoors, Knobs and Knockers, Latches and Locks, and finally Skylights and Windows.
Each section contains a number of related magical devices, detailed as in the DMG, with a description that includes suggested uses, the effects of the item, and the requirements to create it.
A few of my favourite tricks in this product are as follows:
The Quenching Gate, which extinguishes all non-magical fires that come into contact with it.
The Suspicious Curtains, which seem to have a creature hiding behind them (but don't), thus possibly distracting and confusing your players - if not just making them paranoid.
The Knocker of Small Talk, which engages the unwary passer in conversation - possibly up to an hour if the character fails to make a saving throw.
The Snaplock, a lock that destroys lock picks that are placed within.
The Hypnotic Skylight, which projects a fascinating pattern, thus hypnotising and distracting those who pass below.
As noted above, there are over 100 of these tricks. I say tricks rather than magic items because most are really not very portable. For the most part they are features of a dungeon, stronghold or other edifice, and a boon for the uninspired designer.
The supplement is also quite good for someone building their own stronghold - it makes a good fit with the Stronghold Builder's Guide from Wizards of the Coast.
It should be emphasised that although I've primarily dwelt upon the PC-hindering features of Potent Portals, there are many other types of trick here, such as the Alcove of Communing, which allows a cleric to commune with their god, the Thieves' Alcove, which allows traps constructed in it to be more potent, and the Firm Bar, a form of immovable rod that is quite good for barring portals - perhaps especially useful for a fleeing party in protecting their escape?
Although I quite like Potent Portals, there are some things about it that I'm not so happy about. The main one is a lack of Challenge Ratings for those devices such as Death's Door (it casts circle of death when someone touches it without first speaking the password) that are really traps.
Another feature about it that is not so good is a number of items that are really just "this is a doorway with this spell on it"; although this can work, sometimes it just shows a lack of inspiration.
Not all the tricks are well thought out, either. I am still trying to see the point of the Arch of Imprisonment. It costs over 15,000 gp to create, it only works against one creature named when the Arch is built, the creature must pass under the arch, and it acts as an imprisonment spell. Surely a scroll would do just as well - and be much cheaper? The idea is not a bad one, but it hasn't been developed enough.
Thoughts and Conclusions
Dungeons have always been a key part of the D&D experience, and we have been well blessed with numerous books of monsters with which to challenge a dungeon delving party. Good tricks and traps have been harder to come by. This is a gap that Potent Portals helps fill.
Despite its flaws, Potent Portals is a solid product that is a good aid to a DM who enjoys challenging his or her players with different situations and techniques. The tricks in Potent Portal range from the deadly to the amusing - I really like that Knob of Small Talk - and can enliven an otherwise predictable session of the game. I was delighted to receive a copy of Potent Portals to review, and look forward to using some of its ideas in my campaigns.
Information on purchasing Potent Portals can be found at the CMG website: www.creativemountaingames.com.
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