Underdark

Rating:
Summary: Useful and Fun!
Review: I'm a tightwad when it comes to new RPG books. I just think most are overpriced for what you get. I'm happy to say I think that for the fun and use I and my various gaming groups are getting out of Underdark, this book is WELL worth the money.

Like most of the new WotC D&D books, you get a mix of information, like locales, races, spells, magic and mundane equipment, feats, PrCs, and so on. All of the information given is helpful to the DM running an underdark game in any setting. And while some of the information IS Realms specific, a good DM can change things to her world with little effort.

The new races in the book are welcome additions, and the artwork throughout is unique and moody.

I'm pleased by this book. And it's been waaaay too long since I've been able to say that about a WotC product.

I DO wish there was an index and a pull-out map of the regions the book talks about.

The free web items you can download from Wizards.com also help make this book a very handy tool for DMs and players.

Rating:
Summary: Useful and Fun!
Review: I'm a tightwad when it comes to new RPG books. I just think most are overpriced for what you get. I'm happy to say I think that for the fun and use I and my various gaming groups are getting out of Underdark, this book is WELL worth the money.

Like most of the new WotC D&D books, you get a mix of information, like locales, races, spells, magic and mundane equipment, feats, PrCs, and so on. All of the information given is helpful to the DM running an underdark game in any setting. And while some of the information IS Realms specific, a good DM can change things to her world with little effort.

The new races in the book are welcome additions, and the artwork throughout is unique and moody.

I'm pleased by this book. And it's been waaaay too long since I've been able to say that about a WotC product.

I DO wish there was an index and a pull-out map of the regions the book talks about.

The free web items you can download from Wizards.com also help make this book a very handy tool for DMs and players.

Rating:
Summary: It's better than a 2-star, sheese...
Review: I'm sorry but it's unfair to give 'Underdark' such a low rating. For those who don't play in the Forgotten Realms then it may be less useful--about 1/3 of the book relates to locales beneath the lands of the Forgotten Realms--but there's more to the book than that. There are new pretige classes (such as the deep diviner) and some revised ones (such as the archnemancer), plus some new feats. Some of the feats were included from other sources(such as "highborn drow") while others were warmed-over and given a new name, but there are some decent new ones. The concept of node-magic is introduced, which I liked. The playability of certain races (such as the kuo-toa and grimlocks) were expanded. Naturally, new PC races like the gloaming were included. And the new magic section had some interesting bits, such as the 'drowcraft' magic property (which brings back a bit of the old-style drow flavor to the setting--if you missed seeing drow-made weapons turn to dust in the sunlight you're in luck!). Also if you're a gamer who's chafed at the limits of teleportation in the sunless regions, the limitation's been relaxed somewhat so only Underdark areas with pockets of 'faerzress' radiation hinders teleportation/divination-based spells. This isn't a 5-star book except where production values are concerned, but I feel that 'Underdark' as a whole rates at least a 3 (for non-FR gamers) or 4 (FR gamer) rating.

Rating:
Summary: Much too little - way much too little
Review: The best was to describe this book would be as 32 pages of information packed into a 192-page book. There is really that little in the way of useful information in it. Wizards seems to have taken one of the most interesting settings for a fantasy role-playing game, taken all of the interesting parts out, and published it all in one book. This must have taken quite a bit of work, and it certainly couldn't have been easy.

There is much more useful information, for example, the the old AD&D module Vault of the Drow than there is in this entire book. Worst of all, there is no index. Why would you think to write a book like this and not include an index? Sure, there's lots of fairly high-quality art, but at the expense of an index? Come on!

To summarize, if limited shelf space is at all an issue to you, or you need to be selective in any way about which gaming products you buy (i.e. your're not rich), you should probably pass on this book. The production qualities of this book are extremely high, so the layout is extremely well-done and the art is good, but if you're looking for more than that, you can probably do better elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: 50 good pages.
Review: This book has about 50 good pages when they're talking about exploration and ecology of pretty much any entirely underground environment, underdark or just really dark. Some of the monsters -- undead swarm? kuo-toa leviathan? -- are also pretty nifty, though most aren't that great. The usual spattering of new magic, races, feats, and prestige classes are marginal and probably not worth the bother of inlcuding in your game, espeically if you're not building a new excluisively underdark campaign. The regional info is where this book really disappointed me -- they did cross-marketing with the War of the Spider Queen series, inserting spoilers for book #3 right in the middle of a rulebook. (I'd already read it, was disappointed with it, and even more disappointed when most of the plot advances were summarized with two paragraphs.) This cross-marketing during Lolth's silence made the "Arachnomancer" prestige class stand out as spectatularly dumb -- either the regional information is wrong or that PrC is really pretty de-valued from the get-go; either way you're shelling out money for both the PrC and the regional info. But the information on the ecology of the underdark is why I got my copy of this book. I just can't recommend that anybody pay full price.

Rating:
Summary: I expected so much more...this book was a BIG dissapointment
Review: This book was a real dissapointment. The new PC races aren't interesting nor appealing (at least most of them) and some races have been depicted in other books (the drow has been described in FR Campaign Setting and in Races of Faêrun, and once again, in Underdark, same for the Duergar... i hate paying over and over for the same information). The feats, well, some of them are good, most are bad. The new prestige classes i didn't like (and i'm beginning to grow bored with the huge amounts of prestige classes included in every book from wizards of the coast - i feel like they're being used to *fill* space).

The node magic concept i disliked very much, and i think it's not widely usable. There are some decent monsters, most of them aren't memorable; and some templates (which i really didn't like -such as the Arachnoid creature, which basically gives any creature 8 legs and a poisonous bite) seemed uninteresting at best. Then comes some new spells and magic items, as well as new weapon special abilities (this is one of the few things i liked, most of these "special abilities" are really usable, and allow creation of new magic items - however, some of them could be unbalancing in some campaigns, like "Metalline" which allows the wepon to change its composition from one kind of metal to another -which makes most "damage resistances" useless -silver, cold iron and other types of metal weapons would be always available-). Stalactite and Tentacle weapons are somewhat similar to Vorpal weapons (they can be lethal on critical hits) and can be as unbalancing as one of these weapons.

Anyway, After this comes an extremely general (and superficial)description of the underdark (topography, ecology, encounter tables, etc), and descriptions for several "Sites of interest". This should have been the most important part of the book. It isn't. It's vague.

By the way, there's no poster sized map included with this book (only a very general, undetailed two page map), and descriptions for most sites are extremely short. No signs of trails or roads to travel. Total abscence of towns and villages. Total lack of detail. Just the main cities, and sites of interest and that's it.

To tell the truth, i will probably won't use this book except for spells, some feats, the new weapon special abilities. That's about it. I'm really dissapointed...You buy campaign expansions so you don't have to do ALL the work... if you're planning on DMing these setting, this book will barely help you, and you'll have to do most of the work yourself. I expected a great book like "Silver Marches", profound, complete, thorough. What i got was nothing like that. I hope this was just a fluke, and not a trend, because i'd have to seriously think about buying WotC products again.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the money
Review: This is the first 3rd edition D&D supplement for the forgotten realms that isn't any good... the quality of the other products just didn't make it into this one and that is very disappointing. This book is almost 200 pages but you wouldn't know it by paging through it, it just doesn't seem to have any real content. Yeah, there's feats and magic items but oddly enough it lacks info on the Underdark itself, it's almost like the book tried to be too many things to too many people. I tried hard to like this book but just couldn't do it. I'm sorry to have to say I don't recommend anyone buying it.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the money
Review: This is the first 3rd edition D&D supplement for the forgotten realms that isn't any good... the quality of the other products just didn't make it into this one and that is very disappointing. This book is almost 200 pages but you wouldn't know it by paging through it, it just doesn't seem to have any real content. Yeah, there's feats and magic items but oddly enough it lacks info on the Underdark itself, it's almost like the book tried to be too many things to too many people. I tried hard to like this book but just couldn't do it. I'm sorry to have to say I don't recommend anyone buying it.

Rating:
Summary: lacking...
Review: This new generation of FR books has seen good products, like the core book, and weak books, like this one. If you have never read anything about the Underdark, maybe this book will interest you, but for old gamers, it is just another way for us to dish out $30 to get a couple of feats, and classes that you have encountered before, or can do without.

Wether you are a fan of 3rd or not, this book simply does not deliver the material you need to run an Underdark campaign, it is mostly nice art.