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Halls of Undermountain has just arrived in my hands, and I my first impression is "this isn't a typical 4e adventure". I can see WotC have tried to make it more edition neutral. There aren't many monster stat blocks (there are some, and more in an appendix at the end), with encounters just giving page references from other books such as MV. There's no "tactics" sections, and most encounters are in a single column of the page. It actually reminds me more of a pre-4e adventure in the layout.

However, there are many more non-combat encounters than your standard 4e adventure.

My second impression was "omg Undermountain is huge". It's the biggest single floor dungeon I've seen. There is a large scale poster map for the entire dungeon, and a 1" scale poster battle map for encounter locations for some of the rooms.

There are 3 smallish adventures using parts of the dungeon, and ideas and hooks for creating your own adventures. Entrances to the dungeon in Waterdeep are detailed.

Overall I think this product is OK. I'd give it 3 out of 5.

I Like:
- The sheer number of encounters
- The many non-combat scenarios
- Plenty of ideas to re-use

Dislike:
- There's only one level of Undermountain detailed (although lower levels get a couple of pages of fluff)
- More work required by DM to prepare adventures
- Few tactical maps
- I would have liked to have had a boxed set with some tiles and other props

I would love to see a side-by-side comparison between this product and the Expedition to Undermountain book which came out a year before 4E's release.

*sarcasm* Random thought... Assuming DnDNext's release comes in 2013 why does WOTC keep waiting until the last year in an edition's life cycle to put out an update for Undermountain? *sarcasm*

If no one gets around to comparing these two products then I will do so once I get my hands on the new one.

Good review, So should I pass up on 4e undermountian or should I try to get the boxed set? If it's edition neutral I don't think I will be interested in the product. So thus, maybe this isn't for my tastes...

Apr 14, 2012 -- 1:14AM, Chimpy20 wrote:

Apr 13, 2012 -- 10:42PM, spreetcg wrote:

Good review, So should I pass up on 4e undermountian or should I try to get the boxed set? If it's edition neutral I don't think I will be interested in the product. So thus, maybe this isn't for my tastes...

I'm not quite sure what you mean - it was originally slated to be a boxed set, but got changed to a hardcover book. So the product is just a ~90 page book with 2 pull-out poster maps.

It's not edition neutral, there are plenty of 4e traps and monsters in there, it's just not as heavy with the 4e adventure layout than usual, and there's more scope for the DM to make changes, either in the dungeon design, or perhaps if a new edition happened to come out.

I mean the ADnD box. Maybe I'll get it the 4e one from what you said about it...

It falls in line with the new Neverwinter campaign, where they decided to make everything in it doable at Heroic Tier.