Rating: 
Summary: What the...?
Review: Perhaps I'm too hooked on a book's format and presentation, but content alone is not enough for me. The Guide to Hell is a very useful, interesting sourcebook for those wishing to incorporate a diabolic element into their campaigns. It expands on some of the ideas originating from the 1st edition of the AD&D game while maintaining consistency with the 2nd edition rules. However, there was far too little material in this book to make it truly comprehensive. Granted, it's not a very large, nor expensive, book by today's standards, but as a "guide," this made a poor one. Half the book was devoted to summary material, which is useful to those who have no other sources to draw upon for information on, for instance, statistics for devils and such, but this information was so brief and short as to be practically useless! Far better to buy a Planescape Monstrous Compendium (volume 1) and have a firmer basis to work with than the shoddy crumbs Pramas includes in this book. There were some neat kits and magic--nothing spectacular, mind you, but they fulfilled what could be considered the minimum for a sourcebook such as this (i.e., a few devil-related magic items, spells, and kits). The description of the Lords of the Nine was, on the whole, recycled from the 1st edition Monster Manuals, with a few new faces, but again, very briefly and of poor quality. The good stuff is the politics of Hell that are described. This is the good half of the book, describing not only the history of Hell's denizens, but their secrets, their wars, and their constant politicking. DMs have a good deal of fertile ground to use these beings, rather than as another batch of super-powered monsters to hack and slash to death. Personally, I wish there was more information; the font used in this book was quite large, perhaps to hide the fact that there was scant material. The paragraphs weren't even justified, and the artwork was horrendous, except for the nice cover art. Again, if you don't care about presentation and are willing to purchase half a book's worth of quality material, then the Guide to Hell is a decent buy. Just smooth over the rough edges with material of your own creation and use the book for inspiration.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best, but mostly worth it.
Review: The Guide to Hell is a decent sourcebook if a DM lacks the Planescape setting, or the Planescape monstrous Compendium vol 1. If a DM has both of these, then the section revolving around the inner machinations of Hell is still new and quite cool. Of course, most DM's will want to heavily modify various parts of this book- I beefed up all the Lords of 9 to make them strong enough to fend off my PC's party of 6 lvl 9-12 heroes, changed most of their names, etc. There is a bit of conflicting info here with planescape- in that setting a PC can descend into Nessus if he's lost his bloody mind and really wants to, but in the Guide to hell, simply being there without asmodeus' permission means instant death. I favor the latter personally, but this is just one example of some contradictions between this and planescape. If a DM only owns the Monstrous Manual and wants to incorporate the diabolical, this book includes brief run-downs for every type of devil/baatezu. The devilkin race is neat, some of the kits are OK, and the summary info is very useful if you can't get it anywhere else. It is also more informative and comprehensive than the overview provided in Planes of Law, but apparently that's what some people did not like about it, they found it dry. I feel that a DM can add juice and flavor to the cold hard numbers when he's writing adventures, but if things like the Illithiad are more your style this book may not be for you. When I buy an RPG book I want it to provide me with the stats and overviews that I can flesh out into adventures rather than "tone" or too much flavor text, but that's me. If that's what your looking for, this book is a good purchase. Otherwise, I'd point you to the "Faces of Evil" book which does a nice job of combining info about fiends and flavor. It's probably more fun if not so useful.
Rating: 
Summary: Mayfair Games rewritten...
Review: This book was a wonderful rewrite of some of the Mayfair Games Role-Aids Demons supplements that TSR won in their lawsuit against the third-party developer several years back. Although much of the background information had to remain consistent with the previously developed AD&D cosmology, much of the gaming material was obviously inspired by these now-gone supplements. For those who enjoyed Mayfair Games' work (Demons and Demons II,) this is a wonderful companion for your collection.
Rating:
Summary: good
Review: This dungeon tells you all about the nine hells. It also gives you new spells, magicsl items, a new type of Baatezu and the pictures of all of the Baatezu except for the pit fiend which you can find in your average Monstrous Manual. It also tells about the dark eight and what their weopons, abilities spells and other helpful stuff if you were to fight them in battle. It also tells about the high demon or master of hell as you may call it. It also says the names of cties, landmarks, rivers, and the abilities of the demon of Hell. It says the demons enemy, his goalin life, the mother of the Couatls, and much, much more. I hope you think this is useful because I thought the book was.
Rating:
Summary: AD&D the way it was supposed to be.
Review: This is an excellent book for those adventuring groups that want to take on the ultimate test: Hell. I can also see that the fear of accidentally printing something "evil" within the AD&D game is slowly disappearing. New tables detail devil/human crossbreeds and the character kits are excellent. The Hell blade turns your average thief into a deadly devil-battling warrior. A new devil made just for the book is designed for a text book horror movie possession story. The book is excellent for its price, and it's nice to see that at least some of the new AD&D books are taking a more dark and religious path. I can see this book fitting very nicely into a Ravenloft campaign in addtion to a Planescape one.
Rating:
Summary: AD&D the way it was supposed to be.
Review: This is an excellent book for those adventuring groups that want to take on the ultimate test: Hell. I can also see that the fear of accidentally printing something "evil" within the AD&D game is slowly disappearing. New tables detail devil/human crossbreeds and the character kits are excellent. The Hell blade turns your average thief into a deadly devil-battling warrior. A new devil made just for the book is designed for a text book horror movie possession story. The book is excellent for its price, and it's nice to see that at least some of the new AD&D books are taking a more dark and religious path. I can see this book fitting very nicely into a Ravenloft campaign in addtion to a Planescape one.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Summary - some new material
Review: This work is mostly a summary of previously written TSR work on the subject of baatezu (or devils as the 1st Ed. and some new material calls them). The summary is well done (though it forgot the material on baatezu language) and especially useful for those who do not have the Planescape line, but wish to use baatezu in their games with up-to-date information. In addition, the Guide presents some new material regarding the secrets of the Nine Hells and the true goals of the masters of evil. The core ideas are excellent, though they are presented only from the perspective of the Nine Hells and its lawful evil nature. Because said ideas are so presented, most GMs will have to figure out how the secrets of Hell figure into the grand and very complex cosmology of TSR's world. The author could have done some of this work, which is why I don't give him 5 stars. Because the logical extensions are (in my view) simple, he still rates 4 stars. Finally, I would have liked information on the ancient baatorians, a creation of Planescape, which was missing as well. All in all, a book worth buying that could have been a little longer and better.
Rating:
Summary: Da Best!
Review: Wow, this is the best aid I have for the adnd game yet. It'slike a whole campaign setting in 1 book, and it is (worth the cost).The devils in it are awesome monsters. The lords of the layers are also very cool. I like the whole idea of it the best. The creators of this book made a VERY good book here.
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