Drow of the Underdark

[Greg V]

Drowcraft is the name for the weapons and armor that are dissolved in sunlight. They were explored more fully in FR: Underdark. We were advised not to use the whole dissolves in sunlight thing, but it is so inherently drowish managed to sneak it in as the side bar mentioned above (and a few of the NPCs have it as equipment if I recall correctly). Anyway, the goal was not to reprint a bunch of old drow stuff but to explore other areas. Therefore, while the previously printed things like drowcraft items and the Highborn Drow feat were utilized, they were not reprinted to save more space for new and different drow goodness (badness, whatever). I agree with the above poster that a list of other sources would have been nice, however. Should have thought of that.... :\

 

[Arnwyn]

I'm reading through it in detail, and I've found it to be firmly mediocre to satisfactory.

I found the entire first chapter (drow society) to be very good, and to be quite consistent with almost all the previous material written about drow, whether it was from GH or FR (albeit with a heavy focus on Lolth). As Ari pointed out above, a large amount was covered, including a lot of the oddities. I was very satisfied with this chapter (though I still prefer the FR material the best).

The other chapters are okay. The character options were okay to poor, with most feats being interesting in concept but very weak in mechanics - I can see few DMs creating drow villains using more than one feat from this book when the PHB2 and Complete series exist. There were a few gems, though. The prestige classes were "meh", again being very weak. The concepts were reasonably interesting, however.

The maps, though, brought this book down horrendously for my personal taste. Other than the city map of Erelhei-Cinlu (which was great), the encounter maps are horrendous. Ugly blotches of color over a completely uninspired "arena"-like open space with random lines/walls scattered about (and called a "villa" - no, it sure as hell is not a villa). I understand now that these maps are from the Fantastic Locations (there's a misnomer if I ever heard one) series of DDM maps - I can now see why that series has sold poorly (according to that roundtable with WotC staffers). Holy crap, do they ever suck. Their appearance in this book was not appreciated.

Good maps = Christopher West's Maps of Mystery. Bad maps = Fantastic Locations.

Overall a satisfactory book, and I would make the purchase again.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Well, you got lucky. That spell has a widely varying casting time.

Damn Chaos Magic.

 

[Zaukrie]

I completely disagree with Arnwyn on the FL maps' inclusion, and on their quality. Judging a map that is more than 5 square feet in size by a snippet shot of it in a book hardly seems fair. I get a ton of use out of these maps, and their inclusion in this product was a great idea to increase their utility.

 

[DM_Jeff]

There are plenty of very creative stat blocks in here. Drow of nearly any class and profession of all CR's ready to be assembled to create an encounter or adventure. Lots of drawing from the "Complete" series of books too. I appreciate that.

-DM Jeff

 

[Maldin]

The maps, though, brought this book down horrendously for my personal taste. Other than the city map of Erelhei-Cinlu (which was great), the encounter maps are horrendous. Ugly blotches of color over a completely uninspired "arena"-like open space with random lines/walls scattered about (and called a "villa" - no, it sure as hell is not a villa).

I've already expressed my opinion that the meat of this book... the text... is really quite good and very useful, no matter what edition you are running, so I highly recommend purchasing the book. However I've gotta agree completely about the maps (and said so the moment I opened the book in my FLGS). The map of Erelhei Cinlu is ok (though not what I'd do by a long stretch, and I'll be redrawing it myself for posting to my website this summer) because it is a fairly close redraw of the Erelhei Cinlu map that first appeared in Fred Weining's Dragon 298 article (drawn by Chris West). Fred's 2002 article was the basis for that entire chapter, although he receives no credit.

The other... ahem... maps... are utterly useless and (while I might be alone on this, not being a 3.5E'er) even insulting. These random-obstacle-type miniatures arenas do not belong in this kind of book. Give me REAL dungeon or building maps! Need a miniatures map? Grab a cloth and toss a few rocks onto it from 10 feet away. It will have the same effect (and usefulness). And what good is a 2 inch by 2 inch miniatures map, even if you are using that style of play? Are people really going to use a color scanner, and then print them out in full color on 4 by 4 foot sheets of paper? For those of us who actually want to see what a real temple or drow villa looks like... give us a real map! I'm guessing, from personal experience, that the authors (Ari, Greg, Rob, Anthony) had no say in the choice of graphics, and were likely just as surprised as the rest of us.

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com

 

[William drake]

Oh damn!

Sorry, thought this was the party room. Now I'm sad, the Drow arn't dead yet

 

[Arnwyn]

Judging a map that is more than 5 square feet in size by a snippet shot of it in a book hardly seems fair.

My judgment was unquestionably fair - especially in the context of the Drow of the Underdark hardcover.

No one is telling you that you can't like them, of course. But my comparison between those hideous things and Dungeon's Maps of Mystery within the Drow of the Underdark book were quite clear no matter how the FL fans want to spin it.

 

[RichGreen]

I've just finished reading the first chapter "All About the Drow" and thought it was excellent. Here's hoping the rest of the book is as good!

Cheers


Richard

PS loved the "sexy clothing" rationale.

 

[Gestalt]

I really liked the two feats that make hand crossbows more effective. Now you can use two feats to have a rapier in one hand and a hand crossbow in the other, fire in melee without inviting AoO, and reload as a free action. I don't think it gets around AoO from reloading, but it's still very stylish.