Hellgate Keep (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms) [Paperback]

Steven E. Schend (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078690786X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786907861
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,106,018 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but DMs will have to do a lot of their own work, June 14, 2000

By 

C. Brady (Adelaide, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hellgate Keep (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms) (Paperback)

Hellgate Keep has some interesting ideas and the potential forsome great dungeon-crawling and high-level combat. However, the moduleis not complete. If you are a busy person like myself and love DMing but only have time for minimal preparation before every gaming session, you'd think buying a module would be the answer. That is not the case with Hellgate Keep. The dungeon itself has on average 3 pre-set encounters per level, the other 10 to 50 rooms are "free for the DM to expand upon". This line pops up a lot. There are major lists of treasure locations but most of the treasures themselves are up to the DM to invent. How hard would it have been to give a complete list of items and label them as a suggested list? Nearly half of the text in the module is devoted to the history of Hellgate Keep. Others may disagree with me but this history is too long and needlessly detailed. It does give you a good amount of information from which to develop the remaining encounters... but this presumes you have the time to read and re-read the detailed history, conceive an encounter, make it balanced and consistent and then write it up. Maybe the hardest job of the DM is choosing which one of the gazillion empty rooms to place your encounter!

If you'd like to mould this mythical place into your Forgotten Realms adventure and have time to work on it then buy Hellgate Keep. If, however you are busy like me and are looking for a pre-prepared module then search elsewhere.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mysterious dungeon crawl introduces interesting foes, May 1, 2000

By 

Kent David Kelly "Author & Anthologist" (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hellgate Keep (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms) (Paperback)

Here's one of the best modules in the great, retro-style Dungeon Crawl series from TSR! Hellgate Keep has lain sundered in ruins - it was destroyed by the Harpers and the demon-spawn there were totally eradicated. Or were they? Now, your high-level heroes (9-12) get a chance to find out what new diabolical menace has come to plague the ruins... I'll give you a hint, though, there's this ancient clan of evil elves... hmmm...

2 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A decent high level module, December 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Hellgate Keep (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms) (Paperback)

A module with good villains and a good story. If you have a party of high level characters around 10th level who seek a challenge with plenty of combat, this is pretty cool. Also, won't take too long to play.