Underdark: Forgotten Realms Accessory: Amazon.ca: Bruce R. Cordell, Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel, Jeff Quick: Books

Product Description

Book Description

Provides a detailed look at the lightless world under the surface of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. This accessory provides a wealth of highly detailed information about one of the most popular regions in the Forgotten Realms world, the world beneath the ground. It includes details on the most popular Underdark race, the drow, in addition to multitudes of other below-ground species. In addition to regional feats, prestige classes, spells, monsters, and magic items, there is also background content on this area of the world, including extensive story content gathered from a multitude of Forgotten Realms products and articles. To aid Dungeon Masters, the material for running a campaign is isolated in a single section of the book and includes adventure hooks.

About the Author

Bruce R. Cordell, an Origins award-winning author, has written over a dozen products, including Return to the Tomb of Horrors and The Sunless Citadel. He also co-authored the Epic Level Handbook.

Gwendolyn F. M. Kestrel works for the R&D department at Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Her most recent credits include contributing to Magic of Faeržn and Defenders of the Faith
and co-authoring Book of Challenges.

Jeff Quick helped launch Star Wars¨ Insider magazine and acted as its editor-in-chief. His most recent credit is co-authoring the D&D¨ Arms and Equipment Guide.

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews

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Average Customer Review

2.5 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars I expected so much more...this book was a BIG dissapointment, Dec 15 2003

By

rarbelaez "rarbelaez" (Somewhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Underdark: Forgotten Realms Accessory (Hardcover)

This book was a real dissapointment. The new PC races aren't interesting nor appealing (at least most of them) and some races have been depicted in other books (the drow has been described in FR Campaign Setting and in Races of Fa�run, and once again, in Underdark, same for the Duergar... i hate paying over and over for the same information). The feats, well, some of them are good, most are bad. The new prestige classes i didn't like (and i'm beginning to grow bored with the huge amounts of prestige classes included in every book from wizards of the coast - i feel like they're being used to *fill* space).

The node magic concept i disliked very much, and i think it's not widely usable. There are some decent monsters, most of them aren't memorable; and some templates (which i really didn't like -such as the Arachnoid creature, which basically gives any creature 8 legs and a poisonous bite) seemed uninteresting at best. Then comes some new spells and magic items, as well as new weapon special abilities (this is one of the few things i liked, most of these "special abilities" are really usable, and allow creation of new magic items - however, some of them could be unbalancing in some campaigns, like "Metalline" which allows the wepon to change its composition from one kind of metal to another -which makes most "damage resistances" useless -silver, cold iron and other types of metal weapons would be always available-). Stalactite and Tentacle weapons are somewhat similar to Vorpal weapons (they can be lethal on critical hits) and can be as unbalancing as one of these weapons.

Anyway, After this comes an extremely general (and superficial)description of the underdark (topography, ecology, encounter tables, etc), and descriptions for several "Sites of interest". This should have been the most important part of the book. It isn't. It's vague.

By the way, there's no poster sized map included with this book (only a very general, undetailed two page map), and descriptions for most sites are extremely short. No signs of trails or roads to travel. Total abscence of towns and villages. Total lack of detail. Just the main cities, and sites of interest and that's it.

To tell the truth, i will probably won't use this book except for spells, some feats, the new weapon special abilities. That's about it. I'm really dissapointed...You buy campaign expansions so you don't have to do ALL the work... if you're planning on DMing these setting, this book will barely help you, and you'll have to do most of the work yourself. I expected a great book like "Silver Marches", profound, complete, thorough. What i got was nothing like that. I hope this was just a fluke, and not a trend, because i'd have to seriously think about buying WotC products again.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Not worth the money, Dec 17 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Underdark: Forgotten Realms Accessory (Hardcover)

This is the first 3rd edition D&D supplement for the forgotten realms that isn't any good... the quality of the other products just didn't make it into this one and that is very disappointing. This book is almost 200 pages but you wouldn't know it by paging through it, it just doesn't seem to have any real content. Yeah, there's feats and magic items but oddly enough it lacks info on the Underdark itself, it's almost like the book tried to be too many things to too many people. I tried hard to like this book but just couldn't do it. I'm sorry to have to say I don't recommend anyone buying it.

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1.0 out of 5 stars lacking..., April 1 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Underdark: Forgotten Realms Accessory (Hardcover)

This new generation of FR books has seen good products, like the core book, and weak books, like this one. If you have never read anything about the Underdark, maybe this book will interest you, but for old gamers, it is just another way for us to dish out $30 to get a couple of feats, and classes that you have encountered before, or can do without.

Wether you are a fan of 3rd or not, this book simply does not deliver the material you need to run an Underdark campaign, it is mostly nice art.

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Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful and Fun!
I'm a tightwad when it comes to new RPG books. I just think most are overpriced for what you get. I'm happy to say I think that for the fun and use I and my various gaming... Read more

Published on Dec 8 2003 by Michael Griffith

4.0 out of 5 stars It's better than a 2-star, sheese...
I'm sorry but it's unfair to give 'Underdark' such a low rating. For those who don't play in the Forgotten Realms then it may be less useful--about 1/3 of the book relates to... Read more