Customer Reviews

Expedition to Undermountain (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 Fantasy Roleplaying, Adventure)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The original Undermountain campaign gave us a small look at the largest dungeon gamers had every seen. Monsters were everywhere, traps around every corner, all kinds of treasure (one of the subtle dangers of Undermountain was carrying too much treasure) and an adventure that just never seemed to end. This book is a 3.5 edition update of that original adventure, but it fails to capture the feel and adventure of the original.

First, one thing that anyone who saw the original boxed set remembers was the maps. They were poster sized and just huge. The Dungeon level map on page 19 is only a fraction of the original map (about one fifth of the original). The maps in this book are of lower quality and some are just wrong. The map of the Yawning Portal Inn is missing the yawning portal! The very well you use to descend into Undermountain.

Second were the rooms, each with traps, monsters and treasure. The original book had lots of new monsters and magic and the treasure was described in detail unique to the Forgotten Realms. In this book an encounter that would have taken up two paragraphs are expanded to fill two pages. There are very few new monsters (but there are many references to monsters from other D&D books), the treasure is blah and there are only a few new magic items.

One of the interesting aspects of the magic items in the original book, was that many basic items were given little quirks that made them special; A longsword +1 that was unbreakable, a dagger +1 that was invisible or chainmail armor +1 that would float. Unfortunately, 3rd edition D&D cannot do this without item creation details, creation costs and other information that the player really does not care about.

Perhaps it is the changes from 2nd to 3rd edition of D&D, but the original book did not waste so much space on behind the games details, a trap was just a trap and did not need exact technical details of its creation. In adding all this information, all the details that made the Realms special are lost. In the original the coins included those of individual nations, the gems were described by type and cut and alternate treasures such as food (we are in a deep dungeon) were included.

Overall, this book is just very disappointing. Not only for those of us looking to recapture memories of past adventures, but also foreboding of the upcoming Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk. I hope they put a little more effort into that one than they did into this one.

Undermountain is supposed to be a well designed near epic dungeon. This is not. Start with a notion that an epic archmage, 30th level+, who enslaves living spell wishes, can suddenly be killed. 5th level characters are supposed to do something meaningful against the factions that are seeking to claim territory here? Absurd. Not to mention that there are power groups in Undermountain, Halaster's apprentices, one of which is an epic class villain, a beholder slavelord, and Skullport, who presumably would do something when the initial events of the book begin.

This is poor execution and some of the events of the book feel incredibly forced, like the writer is rushing to reach a rather insipid conclusion. The take in Dungeon Magazine on Vampires in Waterdeep is far superior and much more reminiscient of Undermountain as originally conceived.

Let's hope Expedition to Greyhawk is much better.

It's back to Undermountain once again. For those of us who have either used previous versions of Undermountain or adventured through the underhalls, a new prettier vresion sounded like a good idea. So far I have enjoyed the layout and some of the more inventive plot hooks that have been introduced in the 3.5 version. One thing that isn't sitting well is the sheer number of other material that is being referenced (MM2/3/4, CoR, etc) that I either don't have or don't have ready access to at this time. As already mentioned, starting Undermountain at 1st level seems a bit suicidal for characters but I suppose if you let them leave to heal, etc. it might work. All in all, I would recomend it, even if you plan on disecting it and rebuilding from (nearly) scratch it is a well planned accessory.

Spoiler:

I will have to say that I'm going to miss the constant paranoia that having Halaster pop out generated though. That was one of the things most dreaded/enjoyed about the setting. I guess we'll have to move on to bigger better things eventually.

The editor should be hung by the thumbs, that said: This is a truly pathetic product which does not at all capture the flavor of Undermountain. This product was rushed to the shelves without any care for D&D players and DM's whatsoever. The flow is cumbersome, the story lines weak, the writing poor, and no one with an education above 7th grade checked this product before mass producing it. Way to go wotc.

I've been playing D&D in one form or another for 20 years. Save your money or better yet find the 2nd ed. Undermountain box sets and update a quality product. If your jones'n for it, wait a few months and buy it at a major discount.

This adventure is highly disappointing. It does not live up to the quality of the other adventures currently being published by Wizards of the Coast. The book provides a summary of the established dungeon known as Undermountain and then details an adventure in that setting. The book proclaims that it is an adventure designed to immerse the players in this dangerous and detailed dungeon. However, the actual adventure information is not presented until page 51 and very little of Undermountain is actually detailed.

It appears that almost no quality assurance was applied to this book. One of the most striking examples of this lack of quality is the map of the main inn and entry point for the adventure. The inn, named the Yawning Portal, is supposed to have a huge well that the PCs will use to enter and exit Undermountain. However, the published map not only does not shown the required portal, it does not depict an inn large enough to contain said portal.

The encounters were highly unbalanced and seemed jumbled together with no real thought or planning. There were frequent references to organization, groups, locations, and characters that were not detailed in the adventure. While this may not be a problem for Realms aficionados it reflects poor craftsmanship.

It seems that the writers of this adventure were trying to jam too many ideas into this book for the page count. If WotC had split this book into to a source book and an adventure book the disjointed nature of this book may have been alleviated. However, since I found the adventure itself to be mediocre, this may not have been much help.

We're sitting here at the end of the adventure, after loads of work and effort put into interpreting 200+ pages of material, and the over all player response is, "That's it?" As the DM I've never had to work so hard to bring an adventure to life. In the end, though, neither myself or my players feel we have much to show for it. Eight levels of character development have pretty much been wasted. It's hard not to be bitter about this product.

So why two stars instead of just one or zero? The book does start off with a fairly good synopsis of the various levels of Undermountain. It's a collection of thumbnail sketches, to be sure, but it's enough to generate some ideas if the DM is ready to invest some work to flesh things out. And the core idea, a major personality in the Forgotten Realms being eliminated, could have easily been the kick-off to something truly exciting.

That excitement never came though. This is such a scattered, non-motivated adventure. The "Encounter Format" is cumbersome and redundant, not user-friendly in the least. And unless your players like to dungeon crawl for the pure pleasure of killing and looting, there's no real reason for them to move from one chapter to the next. The story is elusive even for the person sitting there with the book . . . the players will never have the faintest idea what's actually going on. The book should come with a handout to give to players at the end which explains what they've just spent all their time acheiving.

The cover also suggests that it will take characters from level one to level ten. We just crept into eight by the end, and even at that level nothing about the final chapter was the least bit challenging to them in terms of tactics or combat.

If you really want to explore Undermountain, I'd have to suggest trying to get your hands on older material from the previous edition or playing the Neverwinter Nights computer game. This book feels like the producers of D&D are trying to close the doors on Undermountain once and for all so that they never have to deal with it again.

As a forgotten realms player since the days of 2nd ed, I am very familiar with Undermountain. I am however very disapointed in the idea that the largest mass grave in the realms can be navigated successfully by a group under level 8. In general I have been very happy with the preconstructed adventures that Wizards has put out for this setting, however I am already beginning the process of upgrading the dungeon to live up to my memories of Halaster's Halls

As one of the Olde Guard, I remember Halaster giving our group living #E!! for hours. I think every player in our modest game had to create a new character at least twice. I might have needed four.

Yes, this new Expedition volume waters down our original, the maps on the first areas are fairly expansive, offering no visible or written descrition for encounters. The deeper the delve, the more 'here it is' we cross. The entire trip through Undremountain, it is suggested to add or subtract the enemies and encounter level as needed. In my opinion, this is a good thing, because no scenario in no RPG will go the exact way it is written out. The Dungeon level is like a litmus test: near the city's embrace but still dangerous enough to figure out how the characters interact. Plus, the book is written as a bridge between character levels one through ten. That easily translates into months of gaming, with minimal prep work from the Dungeon Masters.

Second, the new encounter outlines are a huge boon - they stat out everything, even if the creatures/non-player characters draw from splat books. Read: less weight from a hand full of other books. Ninety per cent of needed books are hardbound, and cross-referencing between three books (the core books) and then extra notes from two additional Monstrous Manuels, maybe another book or three, it can get ridiculous if not monitored closely. With my knowledge of D&D d20, the Expedition book is really the only book I need.

This book reminds me of the old Bard's Tale C64 games I played: massive dungeons, dangerous environs, and plot twists that (upon first encounter) kicked the crap out of players. But the main issue is that we all played the originals, yes? Twenty years later, we think these revisitations should be more exacting memories re-enacted than they are? IMHO, that leads to stagnant games. If I wanted to play the original, I would.

What's wrong with new stories built upon the legends that came before?

The encounters have been moved into one section, and the map descriptions are elsewhere. This is really inconvenient for me, and I dont like the set up. Also, some of the encounter levels are ridiculous. Supposedly the characters can start at first level with new characters, but along the way are some very large monsters while the pcs are still 1st level. Some like the CR 6 statue can be bypassed by running away, which is fine, but some can not. While the PCs were still first level for my group (they could possibly be 2nd level if they cleared everything out first) there is a small pit trap engulfed in a deeper darkness spell. This is fine, except that there is a beholder swarm (CR 4) in the darkness and just past the pit trap is a sonic trap that automatically deals 1d6 damage per round to all PCs in front of it. If played right, the PCs, event if they are 2nd level, should be slaughtered, and there is no bypass to this part.

All of the battles are heavily tactical. This requires a large amount of work from the DM to run, dont expect to be able to pick up the book and smoothly play. Since every fight is very tactical, the fights take much longer, and the PCs complained of being tired of constantly facing poor odds of survival in fight after fight. These encounters are good, but need to be more spread out with some fights in between for the PCs to feel good, and recover mentally.

Finally there is so much back story that I feel is useless to regular D and D play. The actual first part of the quest does not start until page 40. If all that time and effort could have been put into fleshing out the dungeon some more, and balancing the fights better, then I think this book could have been really good.