A Dozen More Dungeon Hazards is a short pdf by Ronin Arts, a follow up to A Dozen Dungeon Hazards. Written by Phillip Reed, it provides twelve more new dungeon hazards, including both terrain hazards and new fogs, slimes, molds, and fungi. This 6 page pdf contains 4 pages devoted to detailing the dozen hazards. A Dozen Dungeon Hazards normally retails for $1.35.
Initial Impressions:
Having reviewed A Dozen Dungeon Hazards and liked the product, I thought I'd take a look at the sequel for review. As a short pdf the layout is simple in two columns, while there is no art contained within the product pages, as can be expected from such a short work. This sequel to a Dozen Dungeon Hazards details a new type of hazard, the environmental or terrain hazard, and also provides more fungi, slimes and other hazards along a similar vein to its predecessor. The challenge ratings vary between CR 1 and CR 7, and there are 4 terrain hazards and 8 slimes, fogs, fungi and molds in the pdf. The writing and editing throughout the product is good with only a small number of minor errors.
The Details:
Terrain hazards are an attempt to generate hazards that do not fall into the category of slimes, molds, fungi and fogs. Four of these hazards are described: collapsing chamber, crumbling stairs, destroyed floor, and steam vents. The names are pretty descriptive, and the mechanics behind them is solid, with the additional rules material providing a way of simulating collapsing chambers or falling floors within a dungeon as a whole rather than only single chamber hazards. It would've been good to see a sidebar scaling up the hazards within a dungeon environment, perhaps by scaling the DCs for the numerous saving throws or increasing damage involved as a way to simulate the rate of collapse. As they're currently written, even a mid-level rogue could stand within a collapsing chamber with tons of rock coming down on their head, and happily dance out of the way, hence the need to create more dangerous collapsing chambers or destroyed floors.
The eight remaining dungeon hazards are fogs, molds, slimes and fungi, and include: door moss (a moss resembling a door that lures unsuspecting adventurers into a trap), doppelganger mold (a form changing mold that resembles an animal or object), draconic fog (a dangerous fog found in a dragon's lair that can suddenly combust), harmonic lichen (enhance the sonic effect from harmonic mushrooms), hellish fog (a fog existing near a planar tear to the elemental plane of fire), pit mushrooms (large patches of mushrooms beneath the surface), planar mushrooms (mushrooms connected to the planes) and spectral slime (life draining slime).
Overall this is a good selection, with some nice ideas in the pit mushroom and the door moss, for example. The harmonic lichen, however, seems to require that the user owns A Dozen Dungeon Hazards, which not everybody may have. Planar mushrooms, while not dangerous on their own, can be annoying, particularly to low-level parties, given that they can transport characters to a random plane or demi-plane, something that most DMs will not want to do to low-level characters unless there is a plot-element involved. The other hazards all contain appropriate CRs, and can challenge parties of any level around the given challenge rating.
Conclusions:
A Dozen More Dungeon hazards is the sequel to A Dozen Dungeon Hazards. It contains four terrain hazards and eight dungeon hazards, offering a good selection of challenge ratings and flavorful hazards. The terrain hazards were a bit on the weak side, with good mechanics, but weak on scaling or capturing the visual image of a dangerous collapsing chamber with tons of rock falling down. The remaining hazards would be useful to most DMs, although to use harmonic lichen they'd need to own a different product, and the planar mushroom is not going to be for everyone. Overall, a solid performance, some good ideas, and clear writing, so based on the comments above, I'd grade it with three and a half stars, rounding down to three.
