Tell me about Undermountain

[Bullgrit]

I remember seeing Undermountain on the book store shelves, but I never bought it or read it. I was always intrigued by the concept, from what little snippets I read or heard about it, but I really have no knowledge of its actual contents.

Please tell me about Undermountain. Feel free to give spoilers. How big was it? How many levels? How many rooms? What was its makeup – environment features, monsters, etc.? Was it something that had replay value? Was it good?

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[Jack99]

People die in Undermountain. A lot. Really a lot.

One of my favorite (from 2e) was the 60' deep traps with reverse gravity kicking in when you hit the floor!

 

[Derulbaskul]

Do you mean the 2E boxed sets, The Ruins of Undermountain I and II, or the 3.E hardback, Expedition to Undermountain but, Whoops, Don't Expect Anything Resembling Complete Maps?

The 3.5E product is a waste of (time and) money, IMO. It has a silly storyline from the perspective of FR canon and one that won't translate all that well necessarily to another game world. What maps there are are typically incomplete: I know that there is no way to populate the whole dungeon in anything less than about 10-20 books of this size, but I would have had a lot stronger feelings of goodwill toward WotC if the maps that had been included had been complete.

As we saw with a lot of late 3.5E product, everything feels slapped together and unedited. Heck, the adventure starts by entering the dungeon via the great pit in the Yawning Portal inn but the map of the inn 1. doesn't include the pit for which it is named and 2. is too small to fit it any way. Surely someone could have read the description before sending out the map order?

WOFTAM.

 

[armorclass10]

LOL replay value, if you ever finsih it and replay it I will be amazed. I agree with the above poster the 3.5 version is bad. Now the 2nd edition one is great especially if you like to make it your own, that IMO is what it is all about....lots of "fill in the blanks" stuff. I can not recall how many levels, I have Undermountain II also and it all kinda runs together in my old man mind. I seem to recall some very interesting levels, i.e. levels with some wilderness in it. It is huge, lots of maps, trap cards, etc. Some info on Halaster and his apprentices are included also.

If you want a complete product then it may not be for you, but if you like to fill in a lot of blanks and make it your own dungeon then you can't go wrong.

 

[Bullgrit]

I was thinking of the old Undermountain. When I started this thread, I was thinking it was an AD&D1 adventure, but now that I think about it more, it must have been during AD&D2.

Bullgrit

 

[grodog]

Here are some links to the product blurbs and contents:

RoU1: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Archive: Forgotten Realms: The Ruins of Undermountain
RoU2: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Archive: Forgotten Realms: The Ruins of Undermountain II: The Deep Levels

and the 3 supplemental adventures:

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Archive: Forgotten Realms: The Lost Level
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Archive: Forgotten Realms: Maddgoth's Castle
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Archive: Forgotten Realms: Undermountain: Stardock

I like RoU1 quite a bit, but RoU2 sucks. Many folks BITD complained that RoU1 wasn't fully-detailed---that is, that the poster map levels didn't have encounter numbers in each room (many were "blank"), with corresponding encounter keys for each number. I found the blanks to be a good thing, since they encouraged me to tailor RoU to my needs/design (much like the original version of WG5 Mordenkain's Fantastic Adventure by Rob Kuntz).

I only got copies of the 3 solitary adventure levels relatively recently, and haven't read them yet, so I'd be happy to hear folks' impressions of those, too.

 

[armorclass10]

LOL I am digging through both sets now. I can't sleep so I should have more for you in the morning. I have those supplements too might be able to dig them out for you.

 

[moritheil]

Many go in. Few come out. Attrition is brutal.

Losses due to death or simply getting lost are common - and you can't just teleport out. If memory serves, most of the place is teleport-blocked.

 

[Shemeska]

Flavor and awesomeness radiates from the place. I'd absolutely love to play under a DM with loads of FR experience at some point just to run through Halaster's deathtrap-ridden playground. The 2e supplements were awesome, but the 3.5 module seemed to forshadow the treatment the setting as a whole got in 4e.

And on a tangent note, wasn't WotC doing a free web feature on undermountain at some point that subsequently just ended prematurely with no explanation?

 

[Treebore]

Here are several Undermountain PDF's for free, legally. It may give you an idea about what the main boxed sets are all about.

Previous Edition Dungeons & Dragons Downloads