[Dthclaw]

Wow. Another pleasant surprise from WotC.

I was wasting time at one of the local bookstores when I happened to notice that Dungeonscape came out. Being mildly curious, I picked it up and started to go through it. And, I must say, it's actually rather nice.

Unlike Cityscape, which was rather bereft of usefulness for non-DMs, Dungeonscape has a nice balance between player and DM items, splitting the book roughly equally. Also new to the formula for the 'terrain' series is that the book adds a new base class, the Factotum. Of the new classes released in recent books, this one is quite possibly the best one I have seen, and seems to be the Expert ramped up into a player class. The class gets some very nice, seemingly overpowered abilities, but most of the class' abilities are limited in uses by a small pool of 'inspiration points' that are spent in the use of the vast majority of the abilities (often consuming more than one per use). Add on top of that some new alternative class features (which I admit are rather broken in a few cases, such as the Paladin), new items magical and mundane (no small amount, either; this is possibly the most new items in a single book since Arms and Equipment), new feats and PrCs, and there's a great deal for players to work with.

However, the feats and PrCs are somewhat disappointing in their lack of quantity. The feats section has perhaps a dozen or so new feats in it, and there are only two PrCs described - one of which has little use outside of a dungeon-type environment, and the other only of use if you really like the concept of monstrous companions. However, for dungeon-heavy campaigns the prestige classes are very well balanced and have a lot of potential for interesting and fun times.

The rest of the book is devoted primarily to the DMs, describing the role and construction of dungeons. While this sounds like it's mostly meaningless fluffiness, there're quite a few useful things in these sections, ranging from construction types to some rather nasty surprises above and beyond the simplistic traps described in the DMG. All manner of new floors, walls, and ceilings are described in one section; ecology ideas in another (including tables for random theme generation, which I for one will find VERY useful); room types; tips on designing dungeons and their encounters; a small collection of new monsters and templates to aid in making dungeons more interesting and flavorful; even a 'Dungeon Lord' PrC for NPCs (the reqs make would make it an odd choice for PCs); new magical and mundane traps and poisons; and the last section details the fine-tuning of a lot of the previous.

The book will appeal to some people. To others, it won't have the top-heaviness of one aspect or another that they're looking for. In totality, though, its got a lot to offer - enough that I actually spent the money to get it. And for a cash-strapped college student, that means a lot.