Tell me about Undermountain

[Ydars]

I love UM and always have, but have only recently got the chance to go in and actually use it...........as a PC.

I agree that the 3.5E version is no comparison to the AD&D version, but that is what our DM is taking us through, and let me tell you even this version is good, especially if you know a little about the place as there are lots of easter-eggs.

I have am currently level 10 and on my third character. We lost 3 PCs just last session, so it is brutal.

I think UM would make a great community project; each person in the thread makes/designs/maps a 4E or 3.5E Undermountain room/area/encounter and in no time we would have the whole dungeon mapped out for both sets of games. We could use the first level as a template because WoTC put the map up for free on their website as part of their last articles on UM just before the 3.5E supplement came out.

 

[kitsune9]

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

I read the first box set years ago and enjoyed it but never ran my players through any of the official parts of the dungeon. I did take a portion of the first level and ran them through that where they had to find a way to get out of Undermountain or end up wandering around the dungeon.

I didn't read or get Undermountain 3.5 and I didn't find the format of the book all that interesting to pick it up.

 

[boerngrim]

I ran several adventures in Undermountain. It really is a great permanent dungeon. The way Ed Greenwood laid the groundwork, the dungeon can be repopulated and even physically rearranged every time the PCs go back in, if that's what you want. I found that the 2e material was easy to use with 3.Xe. I just used the maps and rooms with the encounters and traps updated to 3.x rules. I imagine it probably could be used fairly easily with 4e as well.

I think Undermountain is best for DMs who like to customize. It's not really a linear, room by room, kill the BBEG at the end dungeon crawl.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Ran a bard throught the 3.5 adventure. Nice place but it can be deadly...

 

[Faraer]

A few other points:

Undermountain was the 'tentpole megadungeon' that Ed Greenwood's first campaign was created around along with the city above, that of the Company of Crazed Venturers. For more on its origin, see the top of this page.

It's an environment rather than a single scenario: it's not intended to be 'played through' but to be visited as part of various conflicts and intrigues. Ruins of Undermountain is a toolkit with descriptions of rooms and, equally important, characters and organizations and adventure hooks to use there.

The 2nd boxed set is indeed lousy, and I'd basically ignore it. Whereas Steven Schend's three expansion modules are good.

Although only the first three levels were published in full (kind of -- see above link), the other main levels and sublevels mentioned by Kerrick were all designed and played in -- part of a gigantic backlog of existing Realms materials with little chance now of seeing print. Despite its flaws, Expedition to Undermountain has the best available summaries of those levels.

 

[Kerrick]

Actually there are several Dragon issues with Undermountain content:

Yeah, it was 172 I meant. That's the one that had Skullport in it, too (which was later expanded into its own supplement, as someone mentioned). I think 227 was the one that mentioned the temple of Loviatar and such.

And I have to agree with various other posters - UMT is best used as a toolkit dungeon - someplace to teleport the PCs for a one-off adventure or a few linked sessions, then send them off somewhere else. I had a DM who would keep notes on previous groups who had been there; we encountered graffiti, old corpses, items left behind, etc. It really made it into a living, breathing, dungeon.