Customer Reviews

Dungeonscape: An Essential Guide to Dungeon Adventuring (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying)

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

 

 

Dungeonscape is designed to give GMs and players plenty of focused material on one of the standard activities of Dungeons and Dragons: Dungeon Delving. It succeeds in this goal, providing a decent amount of material for gamers to augment their dungeon experience.

The book includes variants for each of the major classes - finally we see an underground druid. There is also a new base class - the Factotum, who is a jack-of-all-trades. There are also a few prestige classes, including one specifically for monsters (the Dungeon Lord).

New feats and magical items are few, though there is a good amount of new mundane equipment. There are only two new monsters, both of which previously appeared in earlier editions of D&D (the ascomoid and rot grub swarm). There are more templates, some of which are particularly interesting - the hivenest monster is particularly intriguing. There are also a pile of new traps.

There is a section on Dungeon Terrain, giving some good variants for walls, floors, and doors of unusual materials. A good amount of the book provides details on dungeon design, dungeons as systems, etc. A section on designing dungeons by theme provides some refreshing ideas for novel dungeons.

Unfortunately, the book fails in two critical areas. The substitution levels for the base classes fail some simple play-balance checks. In particular, what fighter isn't going to take the Dungeon Crasher option? The sorceror spellshield is similarly problematic. Likewise, the Factotum should have never seen print - why bother playing a single class when the Factotum can be any of them?

The second problem is the organization. There is a Dungeon Terrain section in the player's area, and a similar section in the Dungeon Features chapter. The two should have been combined, as they provide similar information. This type of organizational problem gets in the way - for instance, important details on Walls of Flesh occur both on page 21 and 142.

Overall, the book is probably useful for gamers who like to own every book, or who haven't been creating dungeons and adventures for years. A veteran gamer will be able to find useful nuggets within the pages, but will have already developed dungeon design skills. Still, there are some good ideas here.

Dungeonscape is another one of those fancy environment books, but this time it's for an environment that everyone is used to seeing. This obviously would be a bit of a challenge, but Buhlman and Burlew have approached this with creativity and ingenuity.

Still, this book isn't necessary. The Dungeon Master's Guide contains a fine guide to building dungeons, and if you're looking to get started, you don't need this book. This book is an advanced dungeon architecture guide, with creative ideas like walls made of souls, etc. etc.

From my perspective as an experienced DM with highly demanding players, this book will be very useful for putting them into new situations. The ideas presented here are very good, and the book offers information on their proper implementation. There is also advice on using existing dungeon features from the DMG more effectively.

The player-oriented material is pretty good. The Factotum is a fun class and has great synergy with many of the new options in Complete Scoundrel, making it a very "current" base class. It presents a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" class. It can do just about anything that another class can do, but only for a very short period of time. This has the unexpected effect, however, of making Factotum excellent for players who want to qualify quickly for a prestige class that requires many disparate skill points.

The alternative class features- do not be misled by other reviews, there are no substitution levels in this book- are for the most part dungeon oriented and only make sense if you frequently adventure in dungeon environments. Otherwise they are not very useful. The only one that does have a lot of use is one that allows a rogue to do sneak attack damage, albeit lessened, to creatures that normally cannot take sneak attack damage.

Items in the book focus on mundane items that make it easier to adventure in the dungeon. New uses for DMG and PHB items are also presented.

For the DM, this book does not contain much in the way of monsters. There is a template, and one or two monsters. Moreso, there are TONS and TONS of new traps, and a very interesting Prestige Class meant only for NPCs that lets you create the ultimate dungeon super villain, magically aware of his entire dungeon domain and always a step ahead of the players.

I recommend this book if you want to give your character an edge in the dungeon environment (but not many other places), if you're interested in my description of the Factotum, or if you're a DM looking to bust out of the musty stone and mud dungeon into something a little more creative.

When it comes right down to it, the first word in the game is Dungeons, and despite revisionist gamers sometimes eschewing the "dungeon crawl" the fact it that the dungeon IS where most of the action takes place and still the favored place to adventure for players. The real key to a good dungeon adventure is the DM. It's up to him or her to make the adventure exciting and enticing to his players, and to not make it a linear, boring trek through a non-descript environment.

In Dungeonscape, the newest supplement from Wizards of the Coast, it's back to basis. Kind of like dungeon building 101, an exercise that has needed addressing for quite some time, especially in the case of the near endless supplements of new classes, spells, feats, and monsters. Chapters are devoted to Dungeon Design, Dungeon Encounters, Traps, and Dungeon Features. But the book is not all for the DM, players will find it useful as well with tips and tools for characters to use in the dungeon setting as well as new feats and yes, new prestige classes. Truly something for everyone!

The book begins with a look at the standard character classes and their respective roles in the dungeon environment. It is here where the rogue class can shine with their ability to detect and disable traps and opened locked doors and treasure chests. To best meet the challenges of the dungeon, a new class is presented, The Factotum. OK, the name is dumb but the Factotum is basically a Jack-of-all-trades. The class can essentially mimic the abilities of all other classes, combining just enough skill so that they can stand in as rogue, wizard, cleric, or fighter. Their knowledge base is broader than any other class and they are constantly in pursuit of new skills and abilities. They can be of any alignment. This is clearly a character built for life in the dungeon with their ability to adapt to any situation they are presented with.

The section on Dungeon Terrain will really add flavor to any dungeon. Instead of stone walls and wooden doors, liven things up with walls, and floors made of flesh, bone, ooze, or even insects. Or how about using the rather wicked golem door, capable of spewing deadly poison if someone tries to open it without the proper key or command.

The best chapter in the book is chapter four on Dungeon Design. This section takes a realistic yet dynamic approach to dungeon design, outside of the graph paper box. It presents ten traits of legendary dungeons such as the location of powerful artifacts, legendary figures, weird magic, or presents a world-shattering danger to all. Give your dungeon (and it doesn't have to be an underground dungeon) a history and an origin. Be creative in the design and layout...rooms need not be four square walls! Come up with a central theme for your dungeon and design the environment to match. Tons of sample rooms and ideas are provided to get DM's moving in the right direction.

Complementing the Dungeon Design chapter is the Dungeon Encounters and Traps chapters. These include logical ideas for encounters and include a host of new monsters and traps as well as NPC prestige classes. Several dozen sample traps are included from the merely annoying to the truly destructive Dance of Death Trap. These include magical, mechanical, and even psionic traps.

With its depth of detail and sheer creativity, Dungeonscape is one of the best D&D supplements, and one of the most useful to come along in quite some time. Best of all, it's value is just as good to experienced gamers as it is to novices.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Two words sum up this book: Completely Unbalanced. That's a shame, because this book is focused on dungeons - and that's half the name of the game (the other half being "Dragons"). What should have been a slam-dunk product somehow became one of the worst books ever released by Wizards of the Coast for the Dungeons and Dragons game, and one that makes me question EVER buying another such product without reading it in detail first.

So, what precisely is wrong with this product? Where to begin...

- Class options are unbalanced. Class options are an interesting concept (one class ability is sacrificed for another ability). The problem is, the options ARE NOT BALANCED. One class might lose a relatively insignificant ability and gain an extremely powerful one, while another might lose a strong power in exchange for something that is useless. Most DMs won't allow these options any where near their games without significant fine-tuning (if at all).

- The new class is PAINFULLY unbalanced. The concept of the "Factotum" originally seems to be that of a 2nd Edition bard (an arcane jack-of-all trades), but ends up being the biggest munchkin class of all time. Factotum powers include: getting every skill in the game as a class skill (WHY DIDN'T THIS SET OFF ALARMS AT WOTC?!), getting trapfinding (can disarm traps with DCs over 20), not needing spellbooks, being able to re-select any arcane spell in the game to cast daily (up to their spell level limit), turning undead, healing, the ability to ignore damage reduction, the power to add their INT bonus to STR and DEX skill checks, the ability to add their INT bonus to their armor class, etc, etc, etc... How did this get past quality control and the playtesters?

- New items are illogical. Many of the new items introduced in this book seemed to have been designed by people that have no concept of what is going on in the game. The first example is the "wand bracer" from page 33 that shoots one of five wands into a character's hand when they extend a finger (due to a string attached to each finger). Besides the fact that the string mechanism would make it almost impossible to hold ANYTHING in the hand besides the strings, the designers forgot one simple thing: the people most likely to use this bracer are wizards, and their somatic spell casting components would constantly set off the bracer's wand-ejecting ability. The second example is the "wand chamber" that is built into the side of a weapon to hold a wand against a blade so that the wand is always ready. This design would result in the wand getting broken after every successful attack or parry - thus rendering it useless.

- Book lacks new, reusable material. Beyond the above complaints about what was added, it is important to note what has NOT been added: reusable information for DMs. Chapter four (Dungeon Design) has one large, significant table that spans a page and a half and will help DMs come up with broad dungeon concepts... and that's pretty much it. You'd think there would be large random encounter tables, maybe a table to design DETAILED NPC villains, detailed reasons for getting the party to go into a dungeon, better treasure tables, and numerous other things that would allow for faster dungeon design - but there aren't.

- Absurd Concepts. Two words: Acidborn Sharks. Now your dungeons can have sharks that have been magically engineered and bred to survive IN LAKES OF ACID. Why? Because too many people were swimming through the lakes of acid, so now they contain sharks to stop would-be adventurers. All these sharks need now are lasers attached to theirs heads and the insanity would be complete. :/

I could go on and on about the flaws, but the point should be clear by now: I found this book not only completely useless, but potentially unbalancing to any game I would run. But weren't there any useful tidbits in this tome, you ask? Only two come to mind:

- Chapter 6, Traps. The section on traps was useful in that seventeen new traps as well as modifications for established traps are presented for use. Though there isn't enough information here to justify the retail price of the book (there are other supplements devoted to the subject), the traps section is the one area I might reuse.

- Underground druids. I don't like how the "root walker" was ultimately presented, but I do like the concept - a druid devoted to the caves and below spaces of the world rather than the forests. Thumbs up for this concept!

In the end, I can not recommend this product - and I think Wizards of the Coast should be ashamed of themselves for releasing such an unbalanced supplement. Avoid this book at all costs if you value your game.

The first three chapters are for the players. A chapter on character options, one on equipment, and a third on feats and PrC.
The rest of the book is for DMs. A chapter on Design, Encounters, traps and one on Features.
The players stuff is pretty good, the alternative character options are a little different. Which is good, but I'd like to see them in action. Other reviewers have mentioned them as being unbalenced. But I think they are good ideas.
The DMs stuff, is pretty good. It leans far more towards the dungeon crawl style. But it does talk about the more Roleplayed ideas, and themes. But the bulk of the content is aimed at dungeon crawl.The encounter section was one I felt could of been bigger.

And one thing I should mention , the illistrations are terrific. Especially Wayne Englands, and Brian Hagens.

Overall I sort of liked this book. A little short at 157 pages, but the artwork made up for that. The players stuff I will use. The DM stuff could of been better. I would of liked a refernce book. I could pick up and use, everytime I'm designing a dungeon. And its not that.

The book is nice, well written however, is very limiting (duh! its only for dungeons!) but for parties who KNOW they're going in a Dungeon (and very few do know in advance) it would be most useful.

A DM may find it useful to write his own adventure or at least the part that goes on inside a dungeon.

Not bad for the $$ spent but nothing to write home about it

I wanted a list of cool dungeon features--some with rule implications and others just for flavor. The books runs through types of walls. Wall of air, fire, ice, water, acid, magic, bones etc. Then they cover floors: air, fire ice, water, acid, magic, bones. I was hoping for a little more than a run through elements and adjectives commonly found in D&D. I pay for creativity. Given an hour the most inexperienced D&D player could have brainstormed the short list of commonly found dungeon rooms.

The book talks about "Acidborn sharks" that are bred to breath acid like water. It's a find example of the absurd style of this book. It emphasizes bland topics that focus on the rules rather than the story.

I found about 10% of the book useful. Among the useful parts were the equipment lists and dungeonbred sub-type. You can get all this from a short read in the book store.

Overall, I enjoy this book and find it useful. In particular, the mundane equipment I found cool, as well as some of the alternative class features. I agree with some of the other reviews: the factotum is too powerful, especially for a base class - heck, it's overpowered for a prestige class. No class should have every skill as a class skill: that's patently ridiculous, and cuts against the grain of so many other asects of 3.5, where distinctions between class and cross-class skills are important.

One of the most useable of the 'scape' series books, because it's applications are found in more situations overall.

The tactical design of dungeon encounters is excellent- it provides a template that you can expand upon and really lets you think out your encounters with the bad guys. After all, the players don't want to fight a bunch of punching bags, either.

To answer the comments of the Factotum class being "unbalanced":
Whenever I see a class, I compare it to the Cleric: combat progression, saves, relative importance of each ability score, spells, healing, and special abilities. The Factotum doesn't even come close. While it matches the cleric in hit points, combat, and ability score requisites (replacing intelligence for wisdom), it seriously lags in spellcasting ability (access to at most a handful of spells a day), healing, and turning abilities. In fact, the only thing that gives Factotums any edge at all is precisely having all class skills and a ridiculous amount of skill points due to high Intelligence scores. It is interesting to see that the ideal ability score stats for a Factotum apply perfectly to a Duskblade (in the excellent Players Handbook II), which is a much more powerful class across the board.

Just because a "jack of all trades" class actually has access to most core class abilities (eventually) doesn't automatically make it unbalanced. If you don't buff up the Factotum's combat abilities with every spare feat you have, you'll find he is weaker than the bard, who is still a superior spellcaster with Bardic Knowledge and the same rogue abilities as the Factotum. Speaking of which, Bards are now truly bards in 3.5E- if they ever were jacks-of-all-trades, they are no longer. The most the two classes have in common is being excellent "fifth party members".