Halls of Undermountain: A Review

Halls of Undermountain was published by Wizards of the Coast in April 2012.  It revisits the most well known dungeon crawl in the Forgotten Realms lore, this time around updated for 4E.  I got it last week and have spent the past few days pouring over its pages.  These are Bad DM's thoughts on it.


THE GOOD

At a short 96 pages, Halls of Undermountain still packs a lot of punch.  You get a giant poster size mega map of the first floor of the Halls of Undermountain.  The other side of the map is The Yawning Portal.  A 3-floor tavern/inn whose main attraction is a well in the middle of the tap room where adventurers can descend into the Halls of Undermountain.

Original Box Set

You also get two poster size encounter maps, like those you've come to expect from WotC's other published adventures; three adventures for character levels 1 - 5 that can be run independently or as a campaign; and an 80-room dungeon.  A big clarification: these 80 room descriptions are not like the original boxed set, where descriptions were "empty" or "3 trolls - hp 25, 27, 22".  These 80 rooms have full descriptions, including a description for the DM, flavor text for the players, notes on traps, monsters and magic items.

I think there's a lot of crunch here for such a short book.  For example, The Yawning Portal.  Expecting that this will become the party's base of operations, Halls of Undermountain provides good information for several patrons to encourage role playing.  My favorites are The White Lady, Brother Sepulcher and Old Stannoc.  I think the Yawning Portal provides for very flavorful role playing.  Just think of the party's first visit to the tap room, where they find a roomful of patrons drinking and toasting a fresh group of adventurers about to descend into the Halls of Undermountain, while other patrons run around taking and placing bets on how many of those adventurers will actually make it out alive, if any.

The Tap Room at The Yawning Portal

Halls of Undermountain also provides several interesting hooks to get the party into the fray.  Some of them have to do with backstabbing noble politics, others with more common concerns.  Either way, there is good information here for the DM that wants to make a campaign in this locale, including obtaining patronage from a noble family.

The first adventure makes good sense, the encounters are pretty logical and they will not tap into your reserve of incredulity to make them work.  Of course, this also assumes that the DM has taken the time to inform his players about the lore of the Halls of  Undermountain, its legendary traps, history, etc.  The book does a pretty decent job of explaining this, including the post-Spellplague status of this massive and legendary dungeon.

The book also provides very good advice for the starting DM.  For example, it has good suggestions for how to react when the party made a "wrong" turn and headed to an area of the dungeon that you haven't prepared for because you did not expect them to head that way.

One of the first encounters in Halls of Undermountain

Other things I liked about Halls of Undermountain: if you or your players took part in D&D Encounters: The Elder Elemental Eye, there are good suggestions for continuing that adventure here; seven new monsters and magic items; good tie-ins for the upcoming Drow related books; good random tables for the beginning DM for creating dungeon room descriptions; and particularly good for new DMs, the book encourages the DM to change rooms and encounters as he deems necessary to make the game fun for the DM and the players.


THE BAD

Ok, I don't want to sound cheap, but I have to point the obvious: for the suggested retail price of $29.95, I expected more than just 96 pages.  I'll admit the glossy pages and art are beautifully rendered and the book does pack a lot of info.  Still, there's so much more that could have been added...  a few pages about Waterdeep to help the DM that does not own the Forgotten Realms Campaign guide to add flavor to the city; a few of the factions that thrive in Waterdeep and their specific interests in having the adventurers do/find/prevent/hide/discover/destroy something inside the Halls of Undermountain, etc.

Giant Poster Size Map of Level 1

You cannot run this adventure if you do not own the Monster Vault.  No monster stats are provided in this book, except for the new monsters introduced.  Personally, I would have rather seen a complete adventure with complete monster stats so that I do not have to have two books open on the gaming table, or spend time switching between books to prepare the adventure for my players.

Only level 1.  Yep, you only get 1 level of this infamous locale.  You do get a huge 80 room first level and many ideas and suggestion for the lower levels.  But still...

Some of the encounters seemed a little unbalanced.  Take, for example, the trapped corridor which the players encounter soon after their initial descent into the Halls of Undermountain and which may very well be the players first encounter.  I don't want to spoil the encounter for those who might be playing this in the future, but I can see this corridor wiping a Level 1 party somewhat easily.  I understand that WotC wants to portray the deadlines and ingenuity of the legendary traps for which Undermountain is well known.  However, you do not need to kill the party to get the message across.  At least not in the first encounter, lol.


THE GAMER

I haven't played any of the adventures in the Halls of Undermountain.  Yet, they seem a lot of fun and have a lot of different angles to get players interested in what's going on under the city of Waterdeep.  This summer I will be introducing two young teens to D&D and this is the adventure I plan to run with them.  Stay tuned for a follow up review of the actual play through of Halls of Undermountain.