I love and look forward to all your reviews. After a 25 year hiatus, I relearned the game to teach it to my boys. Inspired by your love of Waterdeep, we embarked on a year long campaign that alternates between Tales of the Yawning Portal, Dragon Heist (all 4 seasons) the novels Blackstaff Tower, Godcatcher, and Death Masks, plus a heaping dose of Undermountain. This culminates with all of Waterdeep being sucked into the Shadowfell (the Shade Enclave is the worst). The heroes then have to travel to 1358DR to help Midnight during the Time of Troubles and then to 951DR to gain Aghgarion’s help. Wish me luck to pull this off. But mostly, thanks for all your OSR reviews. Long live the Grognards.
Currently converting this and a bunch of the 2e Undermountain material over to Castles & Crusades. The ability to expand things is a real draw for me. The gates are great too because I'm linking them to all kinds of other adventures like Dungeonland from AD&D 1e.
Just so you know, I watch as many videos of yours that I can. A thought that keeps coming up is you sound a little bit like 'Dr. Demento' the famous radio show host from time to time. I don't know if anyone has ever told you that. Anyway, I'm thankful for what you do, because all of my D & D stuff was loaned stupidly to some guy I didn't know too well back in 1986, and I never saw that stuff ever again. I lost all my original books, modules, dice, and figurines. :( I still feel the pain of that. I know you understand.
Oooooh noooo! That's painful. I still have a lot of things from the 80s, but also 'recollected' a lot over the years. The most painful loss is my original D&D set with all the supplements that my wife sold at a yard sale back in the 80s.
I've been looking forward to your review as it seems we both have the same reverence and love for undermountain and waterdeep. I recieved my copy in the mail and have been going over it, in some cases comparing it to the original 2nd edition box set. I can't wait to play it. Great review as always.
Yes. They actually did a pretty good job abridging the maps from the original boxed set. Level 3 is only the 'south' portion, so you can easily 'add back in' the Norther portion of the Sargauth Level. I'm interested in seeing what will develop on the DM's guild as well.
I have the old Undermountain Box Set. Never ran it. Also I don't really see how to run it easily. In a real campaign, everything is in quantum flux. If the players turn left instead of right, you can just have them run into what was on the right. But if your players turn left they are going to run into that temple that is clearly on the map. So, you need to build out a LOT of options. I think I see some ways to do that now with the internet and online tools. The old box set really leans hard on your friends taking it easy on you.
I was waiting for your review as a big undermountain and waterdeep fan. Thanks for uploading it! Undermountain is the Forgotten Realms thing that I am the most interested in, so I was very interested to get this adventure. Overall I think it is worth the money, but I too was disappointed by the lack of a cross section of the dungeon itself. Another thing that bothered me was the lack of variety in level connections. The individual maps themselves are very nice, but I felt that any megadungeon benefits hugely from ways to skip multiple levels, mid level entrances, secret levels and so on. The progression is quite linear. I plan on doing a remix where I will expand the dungeon sections and include less linear level connections in them. But I think this is a great product for fans of megadungeons. I ran the first level for my high school group (I am a teacher and I run it for a bunch of kids) and they had an absolute blast. I think it was one of our most fun sessions yet.
I'm not going to use the included maps for Levels 1 through 3. I got a really nice 'player's Map for level 1 off of Mike Schley's web site. I think it was like $3 or something cheap like that. Very nice... has all the secret doors and the like unmarked. Great for VTT use. I just transposed the encounters from Mad Mage to that map in Fantasy grounds, and combined with the stuff from Halls of undermountain and my own stuff,... there's a lot there. lol. Probably do the same thing for level 2 as well. Level 3 onward i'll use the maps from Mad Mage
@@captcorajus I was thinking of doing the same thing. I have a poor quality version of the 2e map, but if I can get my hands on a good version I might do so. The temptation to get it printed poster size and quality is very strong!
Not true that they didn't explain Halasters ressurection. Dungeon of the Mad Mage states that Undermountain itself brought Halaster back to life, and will continue to do so
That's not really much of an explanation, though. Did Halaster have contingency spells linking his spirit to UM? What was the actual mechanism that made it happen?
As a powerful mage who could see the future he simply blinked out of existence during Fourth Edition. I think that's explanation enough, and pretty believable! =D
You're right! lol. I figured Halaster repaired it. Its like everything they did to usher in 4th edition is just like quietly being 'swept under the rug' like it never happened.
I am starting to DM a Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign myself, and we are starting with Sunless Citadel from Tales from the Yawning Portal, and I am considering running Forge of Fury from that same book to take players from Level 3 to 5. I am not the kind who likes to homebrew a lot of my own stuff, and I like to just run material that excites me. I would love to see you talk more about how you have integrated Undermountain with the city above it in your own campaigns. I would like Waterdeep to come alive and be an interesting place for my players, but Waterdeep is a bit focused on its storyline and Dungeon of the Mad Mage is, of course, focused on the dungeon below. Is this something you've done or are planning to do? I'd appreciate hearing some ideas or even just anecdotes of what has happened in your campaigns.
I can't recommend highly enough Volo's guide to Waterdeep. If you're running Waterdeep and you don't have that you need it. Get in PDF, order it off ebay. Whatever you have to do. I did a very indepth video on Waterdeep and Undermountain already. Please check my library, i'm certain you'll find it useful.
I'm going to have to check later, but is the Spell Plague still canon? I didn't play 4th Edition, but from what little I know the Spell Plague's purpose was to explain how the workings of magic changed from 3rd Edition to 4th Edition (the same as how the 'Time of Troubles' explained the change from 2nd to 3rd). Now with 5th edition going back to a 'modified 3rd edition' more or less, it kind of makes sense that the Spell Plague would just be retconned out of existence, but again, I'm not certain without hitting Google, which I'll do right after this post ^_^
While I didn't talk about it in this video, I did another video that went over UM in quite a bit of detail, so in the interest of time I didn't repeat things I'd already covered.
Great review thanks for the videos ☺ just a puick question? How much, if any, has the show critical role influenced wizkids 5th edition campaigns. I know critical role are using past dnd in all there games, but a lot of these new 5th Ed seem very similar to what happens in the show? ☺
That's a very good question, though I'm not sure I'm in a real position to answer it accurately. That said upfront, it seems to me that there is a creative feedback loop. Critical Role is greatly influenced by Dungeons and Dragons, and in turn, certainly there's some influence coming from CR as well. Matt Mercer had direct influence on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist as he had a consultant credit in the book. His input was on fleshing out the villains in that adventure, and I think that the villains in DH are some of the most interesting and fully realized 'characters' they've presented in 5E, second only to Curse of Strahd. If there's anything that CR had done is present an interesting way to run D&D. I've always used 'voices' and worked to create dynamic and interesting NPCs in my games, which is something that may not be apparent to those coming from video games to table top. What I can say with confidence is that CR's influence... and other streaming shows like it... is to provide a way to SHOW people.. let the actually SEE what D&D is and how it is played, rather than try to describe the concept of an RPG to the uninitiated. That in turn has allowed the game to grow (surpass?) at levels that are unheard of since the game's hey day in the early 1980s. Did that help?
@@captcorajus I totally agree. I also appreciate the fact that wizards of the coast recognises the importance of CR's audience and other youtube channels. And sometimes show their support of those channels which influences their target client base, who watch these channels. Something TSR was lacking, which made them almost disconnected towards the end.
Absolutely true. Perhaps you remember when TSR Sued websites that were dedicated to their worlds or content in the early days of the internet? Lorraine Williams was a money person not a gamer. WOTC is definitely headed by people who are into games, and I think that's had a greatly positive influence on the game.
@@captcorajus wow I didn't know that, thank goodness things have progressed for both the betterment of the company and the player alike. I love your reviews, I find myself ré watching the ones on older models again and again. I'm really excited that you are reviewing the newer additions too. It's a great time to be a dnd fan. Thanks ☺
Thank you so much for the kind words. I try to balance out the old school reviews with the new as I can. Next up is Castle Amber, and for me personally, I think I enjoy doing the 'classic' reviews the best... not just for the nostalgia factor, but because of the fun trivia, and the opportunity for me to add my own thoughts and ideas on presenting the thing. Game on!
I love the idea of Undermountain but have never liked the execution. Most of the dungeon is left undescribed and I buy a product to run out of the box because I don’t have time to spend hours fleshing out most of the dungeon. However, I like the idea of other DMs doing the work and I can buy levels for a few bucks each online as PDFs.
With this release, the maps provided are mostly filled in, with the 'off map'' areas completely optional. If you don't want to include the 'expanded areas' you can just ignore them. For me, those large swaths of open dungeon were not a bug, but a feature. :D
This product is a good compromise between both styles. If gives you a dense nucleus of content for each level, quite large enough for most needs, and then the option to expand if needed. So you can run this out of the book easily just by having those other tunnels collapsed or not present, or if you are the sort who likes to expand or has the old maps, you can do so as you like. I intend doing at least one expansion to each map to create an additional "loop" and some more level connections and dungeon entrances.
its a lot easier to draw the map like this, i have the maps & miscellany and the legend key is on the Dungeon of the Mad Mage DM screen you can get now...anyway its much easier to draw from these maps than from artistic maps that show lots of artistic detail
@@captcorajus Usability at the table in the WoTC books is still missing. The dungeon itself is packed full of monsters and items, but it feels more like a funhouse romp than a mega-dungeon.
Well, Undermountain has ALWAYS been a 'funhouse' dungeon. Its entire premise is one big excuse to create a massive labyrinthine space for mayhem. I guess what it comes down to is expectations, and what one considers fun. As someone whose run UM since its release, I was fairly certain about what I was getting. You have to approach UM as a living breathing entity. The descriptions and set ups in the book are temporary at best, and as the players explore it, the rooms they clear out will end up occupied by 'something else' over time. As DM you're fully able rewrite, redo, or alter things as you see fit. This video was on 'Mad Mage' specifically so my comments were confined to the book's contents. Have you watched my other UM video?
@@captcorajus Definitely agreed and I've watched the other videos on UM in this series. I've run Barrowmaze and ASE in the past and those dungeons just felt more alive and presented a better atmosphere. I definitely plan on adding my own flair to DoTMM when I run it for my group, it may play better than it reads.
Well, you know, if you take that approach with it, I'm certain that it will run better than it reads. Honestly, I'm a sandbox DM, and UM and Waterdeep are the 'setting' for me, the backdrop by which the adventures take place, perhaps not the actual adventure itself, if that makes sense. If you have Dragon Heist, the Xanathar Guild is still there to be dealt with, and certainly there are the Drow (as always), and other sinister orgainizations (slavers) that the heroes might encounter in their pursuit of fame and fortune in Undermountain. The book just can't bring those things to life. It needs YOU and the players!
The Demigod of old school has returned! Thank you captain, we missed yah!!
I always get excited when you put out a video. Thanks again!
I love and look forward to all your reviews. After a 25 year hiatus, I relearned the game to teach it to my boys. Inspired by your love of Waterdeep, we embarked on a year long campaign that alternates between Tales of the Yawning Portal, Dragon Heist (all 4 seasons) the novels Blackstaff Tower, Godcatcher, and Death Masks, plus a heaping dose of Undermountain. This culminates with all of Waterdeep being sucked into the Shadowfell (the Shade Enclave is the worst). The heroes then have to travel to 1358DR to help Midnight during the Time of Troubles and then to 951DR to gain Aghgarion’s help. Wish me luck to pull this off. But mostly, thanks for all your OSR reviews. Long live the Grognards.
Currently converting this and a bunch of the 2e Undermountain material over to Castles & Crusades. The ability to expand things is a real draw for me. The gates are great too because I'm linking them to all kinds of other adventures like Dungeonland from AD&D 1e.
I was just thinking you hadn't done a review for a while. Welcome back!
Paratime.ca! You just blew my mind. I am eternally grateful!
Just so you know, I watch as many videos of yours that I can. A thought that keeps coming up is you sound a little bit like 'Dr. Demento' the famous radio show host from time to time. I don't know if anyone has ever told you that. Anyway, I'm thankful for what you do, because all of my D & D stuff was loaned stupidly to some guy I didn't know too well back in 1986, and I never saw that stuff ever again. I lost all my original books, modules, dice, and figurines. :( I still feel the pain of that. I know you understand.
Oooooh noooo! That's painful. I still have a lot of things from the 80s, but also 'recollected' a lot over the years. The most painful loss is my original D&D set with all the supplements that my wife sold at a yard sale back in the 80s.
Great review as always. Love the idea of the adventure book, I will fix the rest.
Many of the recent 5e release have made me a little anxious but this one really is making me love it all over again.
I've been looking forward to your review as it seems we both have the same reverence and love for undermountain and waterdeep. I recieved my copy in the mail and have been going over it, in some cases comparing it to the original 2nd edition box set. I can't wait to play it. Great review as always.
Yes. They actually did a pretty good job abridging the maps from the original boxed set. Level 3 is only the 'south' portion, so you can easily 'add back in' the Norther portion of the Sargauth Level.
I'm interested in seeing what will develop on the DM's guild as well.
I wish they had included a big awesome poster map. Those gigantic maps were always what attracted me to Undermountain.
I have the old Undermountain Box Set. Never ran it. Also I don't really see how to run it easily.
In a real campaign, everything is in quantum flux. If the players turn left instead of right, you can just have them run into what was on the right. But if your players turn left they are going to run into that temple that is clearly on the map. So, you need to build out a LOT of options.
I think I see some ways to do that now with the internet and online tools. The old box set really leans hard on your friends taking it easy on you.
I was waiting for your review as a big undermountain and waterdeep fan. Thanks for uploading it!
Undermountain is the Forgotten Realms thing that I am the most interested in, so I was very interested to get this adventure. Overall I think it is worth the money, but I too was disappointed by the lack of a cross section of the dungeon itself.
Another thing that bothered me was the lack of variety in level connections. The individual maps themselves are very nice, but I felt that any megadungeon benefits hugely from ways to skip multiple levels, mid level entrances, secret levels and so on. The progression is quite linear. I plan on doing a remix where I will expand the dungeon sections and include less linear level connections in them.
But I think this is a great product for fans of megadungeons. I ran the first level for my high school group (I am a teacher and I run it for a bunch of kids) and they had an absolute blast. I think it was one of our most fun sessions yet.
I'm not going to use the included maps for Levels 1 through 3. I got a really nice 'player's Map for level 1 off of Mike Schley's web site. I think it was like $3 or something cheap like that. Very nice... has all the secret doors and the like unmarked. Great for VTT use. I just transposed the encounters from Mad Mage to that map in Fantasy grounds, and combined with the stuff from Halls of undermountain and my own stuff,... there's a lot there. lol.
Probably do the same thing for level 2 as well. Level 3 onward i'll use the maps from Mad Mage
@@captcorajus I was thinking of doing the same thing. I have a poor quality version of the 2e map, but if I can get my hands on a good version I might do so. The temptation to get it printed poster size and quality is very strong!
Love your content. Keep up the good work.
Good stuff! Nice 'game on' effect at the end by the way. ;)
Not true that they didn't explain Halasters ressurection. Dungeon of the Mad Mage states that Undermountain itself brought Halaster back to life, and will continue to do so
That said i love your content
That's not really much of an explanation, though. Did Halaster have contingency spells linking his spirit to UM? What was the actual mechanism that made it happen?
As a powerful mage who could see the future he simply blinked out of existence during Fourth Edition. I think that's explanation enough, and pretty believable! =D
Thanks for the review very useful..
You forgot to mention that the huge crack within the first level near the hall of mirrors totally disappeared....lol
You're right! lol. I figured Halaster repaired it. Its like everything they did to usher in 4th edition is just like quietly being 'swept under the rug' like it never happened.
I am starting to DM a Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign myself, and we are starting with Sunless Citadel from Tales from the Yawning Portal, and I am considering running Forge of Fury from that same book to take players from Level 3 to 5.
I am not the kind who likes to homebrew a lot of my own stuff, and I like to just run material that excites me. I would love to see you talk more about how you have integrated Undermountain with the city above it in your own campaigns. I would like Waterdeep to come alive and be an interesting place for my players, but Waterdeep is a bit focused on its storyline and Dungeon of the Mad Mage is, of course, focused on the dungeon below. Is this something you've done or are planning to do? I'd appreciate hearing some ideas or even just anecdotes of what has happened in your campaigns.
I can't recommend highly enough Volo's guide to Waterdeep. If you're running Waterdeep and you don't have that you need it. Get in PDF, order it off ebay. Whatever you have to do.
I did a very indepth video on Waterdeep and Undermountain already. Please check my library, i'm certain you'll find it useful.
@@captcorajus Yeah, I saw those. I will definitely check out Volo's Guide!
Back and picks a good one.
love your channel!
I'm going to have to check later, but is the Spell Plague still canon?
I didn't play 4th Edition, but from what little I know the Spell Plague's purpose was to explain how the workings of magic changed from 3rd Edition to 4th Edition (the same as how the 'Time of Troubles' explained the change from 2nd to 3rd).
Now with 5th edition going back to a 'modified 3rd edition' more or less, it kind of makes sense that the Spell Plague would just be retconned out of existence, but again, I'm not certain without hitting Google, which I'll do right after this post ^_^
Yes, it still happened. Its just basically been 'reversed' The full explanation is in 'The Adventurer's Guide to the Sword Coast'.
When you want to fight Alan Moore in a D&D campaign.
You forgot to mention Undermountain II and it's expansions A.K.A. 'Dungeon Crawl'
While I didn't talk about it in this video, I did another video that went over UM in quite a bit of detail, so in the interest of time I didn't repeat things I'd already covered.
Great review thanks for the videos ☺ just a puick question? How much, if any, has the show critical role influenced wizkids 5th edition campaigns. I know critical role are using past dnd in all there games, but a lot of these new 5th Ed seem very similar to what happens in the show? ☺
That's a very good question, though I'm not sure I'm in a real position to answer it accurately. That said upfront, it seems to me that there is a creative feedback loop. Critical Role is greatly influenced by Dungeons and Dragons, and in turn, certainly there's some influence coming from CR as well.
Matt Mercer had direct influence on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist as he had a consultant credit in the book. His input was on fleshing out the villains in that adventure, and I think that the villains in DH are some of the most interesting and fully realized 'characters' they've presented in 5E, second only to Curse of Strahd.
If there's anything that CR had done is present an interesting way to run D&D. I've always used 'voices' and worked to create dynamic and interesting NPCs in my games, which is something that may not be apparent to those coming from video games to table top.
What I can say with confidence is that CR's influence... and other streaming shows like it... is to provide a way to SHOW people.. let the actually SEE what D&D is and how it is played, rather than try to describe the concept of an RPG to the uninitiated. That in turn has allowed the game to grow (surpass?) at levels that are unheard of since the game's hey day in the early 1980s.
Did that help?
@@captcorajus I totally agree. I also appreciate the fact that wizards of the coast recognises the importance of CR's audience and other youtube channels. And sometimes show their support of those channels which influences their target client base, who watch these channels. Something TSR was lacking, which made them almost disconnected towards the end.
Absolutely true. Perhaps you remember when TSR Sued websites that were dedicated to their worlds or content in the early days of the internet?
Lorraine Williams was a money person not a gamer. WOTC is definitely headed by people who are into games, and I think that's had a greatly positive influence on the game.
@@captcorajus wow I didn't know that, thank goodness things have progressed for both the betterment of the company and the player alike.
I love your reviews, I find myself ré watching the ones on older models again and again. I'm really excited that you are reviewing the newer additions too. It's a great time to be a dnd fan.
Thanks ☺
Thank you so much for the kind words. I try to balance out the old school reviews with the new as I can. Next up is Castle Amber, and for me personally, I think I enjoy doing the 'classic' reviews the best... not just for the nostalgia factor, but because of the fun trivia, and the opportunity for me to add my own thoughts and ideas on presenting the thing.
Game on!
I love the idea of Undermountain but have never liked the execution. Most of the dungeon is left undescribed and I buy a product to run out of the box because I don’t have time to spend hours fleshing out most of the dungeon. However, I like the idea of other DMs doing the work and I can buy levels for a few bucks each online as PDFs.
With this release, the maps provided are mostly filled in, with the 'off map'' areas completely optional. If you don't want to include the 'expanded areas' you can just ignore them.
For me, those large swaths of open dungeon were not a bug, but a feature. :D
This product is a good compromise between both styles. If gives you a dense nucleus of content for each level, quite large enough for most needs, and then the option to expand if needed. So you can run this out of the book easily just by having those other tunnels collapsed or not present, or if you are the sort who likes to expand or has the old maps, you can do so as you like. I intend doing at least one expansion to each map to create an additional "loop" and some more level connections and dungeon entrances.
If you can review the Midderlands and Midderlands Expanded with Dolmenwood game settings.
Waterdeep was touted as the biggest city in Faerun
its a lot easier to draw the map like this, i have the maps & miscellany and the legend key is on the Dungeon of the Mad Mage DM screen you can get now...anyway its much easier to draw from these maps than from artistic maps that show lots of artistic detail
I have not read through the entire book as of yet, but I've been a little disappointed so far.
Really? how so?
@@captcorajus Usability at the table in the WoTC books is still missing. The dungeon itself is packed full of monsters and items, but it feels more like a funhouse romp than a mega-dungeon.
Well, Undermountain has ALWAYS been a 'funhouse' dungeon. Its entire premise is one big excuse to create a massive labyrinthine space for mayhem. I guess what it comes down to is expectations, and what one considers fun. As someone whose run UM since its release, I was fairly certain about what I was getting.
You have to approach UM as a living breathing entity. The descriptions and set ups in the book are temporary at best, and as the players explore it, the rooms they clear out will end up occupied by 'something else' over time. As DM you're fully able rewrite, redo, or alter things as you see fit.
This video was on 'Mad Mage' specifically so my comments were confined to the book's contents. Have you watched my other UM video?
@@captcorajus Definitely agreed and I've watched the other videos on UM in this series. I've run Barrowmaze and ASE in the past and those dungeons just felt more alive and presented a better atmosphere. I definitely plan on adding my own flair to DoTMM when I run it for my group, it may play better than it reads.
Well, you know, if you take that approach with it, I'm certain that it will run better than it reads. Honestly, I'm a sandbox DM, and UM and Waterdeep are the 'setting' for me, the backdrop by which the adventures take place, perhaps not the actual adventure itself, if that makes sense.
If you have Dragon Heist, the Xanathar Guild is still there to be dealt with, and certainly there are the Drow (as always), and other sinister orgainizations (slavers) that the heroes might encounter in their pursuit of fame and fortune in Undermountain. The book just can't bring those things to life. It needs YOU and the players!
More long dnd video more often