New Undermountain book..your thoughts?

[JeffB]

Not that new maybe, but the 4e version anyway. Not sure when it was released.

Anyone have it and care to elaborate? I am not into mega dungeons much, but my 12yo son has expressed some interest in the place after reading the writeup in the 3.5 Dungeon Survival Guide I bought him.

Is it a decent update of the original boxed set? I would be dropping it into my Nentir Vale/Whats left of Nerath homebrew I worked up a few years ago.

 

[Wrathamon]

its not like the original box set. It would be a fine companion to it. It is really three mini adventures that take place in the top level of undermountain (and it has connections to one of the D&D encounter adventures)

Its fine for sample encounters or pulling ideas from. Even running the mini adventures as part of a larger campaign.


I dont understand this product to be honest. It just seems like a weird product to make when I feel other books would have sold better.

 

[Obryn]

When I found out it was low-level, I decided to sit it out. It already had two strikes against it for being a Forgotten Realms product.

-O

 

[JeffB]

Hmm....does not sound too promising. I sold my obs years ago, but have the PDF still. Was hoping to find something in print and with updated stats.

Thanks for opining

 

[smerwin29]

Not that new maybe, but the 4e version anyway. Not sure when it was released.

Anyone have it and care to elaborate? I am not into mega dungeons much, but my 12yo son has expressed some interest in the place after reading the writeup in the 3.5 Dungeon Survival Guide I bought him.

Is it a decent update of the original boxed set? I would be dropping it into my Nentir Vale/Whats left of Nerath homebrew I worked up a few years ago.

If you have any specific questions about it, please feel free to ask. What the product is meant to do is give an overview of Undermountain itself, talk about its relationship to Waterdeep above, give some history, and talk about how Undermountain can be used in a campaign. Then there are three adventures that take place on the first level, which can be run separately or tied into an over-arching plot. Finally, some (maybe even all) of the Dungeon Level rooms mentioned in the original box set are updated.

Be well!

 

[Derulbaskul]

I like it.

It's a good way to kick off a 4E Waterdeep campaign. You've got the dungeon - obviously - but enough information on NPCs above-ground to run a decent city-based mini-campaign as well.

It's also quite portable.

 

[MerricB]

I think it's an excellent product. However, you have to understand what it is and what it isn't.

It doesn't have encounters for all of Undermountain. Instead, it details a portion of the first level of Undermountain, and describes what the other levels might contain.

These detailed areas have remarkably little overlap with those in the original Undermountain set; a few classic areas are updated, but most of the encounters are brand new and placed in undetailed rooms from the original first-level map. (Minor changes are made to the map, but not that many).

The most disappointing thing about the book is that it isn't Book One of Nine. It suffers from not having maps for the deeper levels. The poster map for the Dungeon Level is great; I just would have liked more maps. The original boxed set actually had a similar* amount of rooms detailed, but had maps for the first three levels.

(* I can't remember off hand if my recollection is the original set detailed about 90 areas in total, ~30 on each level, or 90 areas on each level. If it's the former, then this book tracks pretty closely. Otherwise, it's about a third of the content).

The book is greatly helped by it abandoning the strict tactical format used by most of the 4E adventures. Instead, description becomes more key and monster statblocks are only detailed if the monster is not in the Monster Vault. (And even then, some of the monster statblocks are moved to the appendix). It makes it a lot more readable.

I do have to give special mention to the NPCs of the Yawning Portal Inn, which have a lot of nice hooks to use in roleplaying and quest formation.

It doesn't replace the original set, but stands beside it and Undermountain is much, much stronger if you have both products. Either on their own also works as the starting point to an Undermountain campaign, but I do give a slight nod to the original boxed set just for the extra maps and level encounters.

But if you can only get this one? Especially for the needs of your son, he should find it quite entertaining.

Cheers!

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm finding it to be a third rate update of a second rate dungeon. You basically have three sequential modules in the game - the exploration part has been cut in half by the yawning chasm in the middle of Undermountain which starkly cuts down where you can go.

 

[JeffB]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. After some elaboration here, it actually sounds like a product I would be interested in as a DM. Unfortunately, my son did not like our playtest of the 4e rules set at all, and he wants to stick with what we were playing previously. I will probably just do conversion on the PDF I have or hunt down the original box in print.