Pages from the Lost Grimoire – Setting Traps / Hard to Handle by Dan Coleman is a role playing game supplement published by Dan Coleman Productions for use with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result. This is a sixth in a series of supplements that are following a fairly standard format; new rules, places or items followed by a mini-adventure or encounter using these.
The series is funded through a Patreon campaign and is available from RPGNow as a Pay What You Want supplement. It is comprised of a ten page PDF, of which one page is the front cover, one the front matter, one a thanks to Patreons and two pages for the Open Game License, as well as three jpegs. The jpegs are maps showing the encounter area, and come in a gridded version, a gridless version and a GM’s version.
The first three pages of content are based around traps. There are several trap types plus a sidebar on handling them; namely, don’t let rolls get in the way of good roleplaying. The traps have various things that can be detected about them, at different DCs, as well as things such as red herrings to mislead players as to what they are and how to customise them.
The first trap is not exactly fatal, but it is highly devious. Triggering it transforms the individual into a spider, and teleports them into a jar full of spiders. Freeing them will require finding one spider amongst a group of attacking spider swarms – all the jars containing swarms burst if one is opened or tampered with. Very tricky; Grimtooth would probably approve (although he’d probably like it to be more fatal!).
The second trap is a wall-crusher trap. Yes, it’s detailed, but not really original.
The third is a False Door Handle that triggers a poison cloud. Again, detailed but not that interesting.
The final trap is a variation of the reverse gravity trap. Characters fall upwards onto a ceiling 100′ above and then get bombarded by statues designed to fall shortly afterwards. Extremely dangerous, and recommended for 17th-21st level characters. A bit more imaginative, but players probably won’t appreciate this one.
Hard to Handle is the mini adventure, which uses the False Door Handle trap. There are some suggestions on scaling it for higher levels, but really, this is just a trap.
Pages from the Lost Grimoire – Setting Traps / Hard to Handle in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and, although not essential for a supplement of this length, they would have been appreciated. Navigation could be better. The text follows a two column format and no errors were noticed. There is a sketch illustration of a door handle trap, and a smaller version of the GM’s map. Together with the jpegs, presentation is very good.
This is not one of the most interesting supplements in this series. The wall-crusher trap is distinctly average; it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before. Similarly with the false door handle. The reverse gravity trap is more imaginative, but also potentially lethal. Only the polymorphing trap is truly interesting and imaginative. The encounter is also pretty average. It’s a trap. That’s basically it.
Pages from the Lost Grimoire – Setting Traps / Hard to Handle is probably the worst supplement in the series to date, but it can still be checked out for free by clicking here.
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