Hero Builder's Guidebook (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying)
Average customer rating: 3 out of 5 stars
  • A very handy resource
  • Cheap? yes. Usefull? Not so much.
  • Cute Addition to the Collection
  • A very good book.
  • Great for everyone
Hero Builder's Guidebook (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying)
Ryan Dancey , David Noonan , and John Rateliff
Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786916478
Release Date: 2000-12-01

Book Description

Give your character every advantage.

When you sit down to create a character, let your mind do the work -- don't just leave it to the dice. The Hero Builder's Guidebook puts at your fingertops everything you need to know before your character's first adventure. With this book, you will:

Maximize your charactger's potential with step-by-step character advancement guides.

Create a compelling backstory for your characer, including family, friends, and enemies.

Pick from more than 70 variants to the class descriptions in the Player's Handbook.

Choose personality traits to bring your character to life at the gaming table.

Both players and Dungeon Masters benefit from the detailed character backgrounds in this book.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars A very handy resource.......2007-05-08

Most of the reviews of this book have a common theme that this book is for noobs only and that experienced players will have little or no use for it. My opinion is that they couldn't be more wrong.

While the book does have some annoying and/or pointless aspects, there is a wealth of information that experienced players can use.

The book breaks down into the following 7 segments:
1. Introduction
2. Rolling your Ability Scores
3. Choosing your Race and Class
4. Creating Your Personal History
5. Selecting Your Alignment
6. Planning Your Future Career
7. Appendix: The Rule of Names

Firstly, the introduction. Yes it does state that the game of D&D is about heroes and while that may be self-evident I think alot of reviewers are taking the sentance too literally. Reading this sentance should instantly conjure certain images in the reader's mind and this I think sets the tone for the rest of the book.

Secondly, the segment on rolling ability scores. This was one of the annoying segments for me. For me, buying this book was all about ideas and inspiration for hero's and I find this kind of information pointless. You can't play the game without the PH and DMG and this information is covering in those publications and no-one should be allowed to run a game unless they can explain dice rolling conventions and the bellcurve to thier players.

Thirdly, choosing race and class. Usually most players already have a concept in mind and this quickly manifests in race and class. Covering pages 8 - 36 this is easily the largest section in the book and I look at this segment with mixed feelings. On one hand it provides some good basic information about the mixture of class and race on the other hand there is alot of repetition which had me flipping through pages faster than I could possibly read them - which meant that I missed a couple of gems when it came to suggested race/class variants, which I only picked up on during a second, more thorough reading.

The fourth segment (character's history) is quite simply the best part of this book! Despite what other reviewers have said about people lacking time and/or creativity - this section is brilliant!! I have lost count of the amount of times that I've had players who go through the routine of rolling dice, choosing skills, feats, blah, blah and are then ready to play. No explanation as to where their character came from, how they got to where they are today, or where they are going or even why they are going there! There was a previous review which mentioned the fun that can be had when different tables produce what initally appear to be conflicting results.

My only complaint with these tables would be that they are too sparse with their enteries. However, they should only ever be looked at as a starting point in developing your character's 'back story'. By adding events and/or the amount of rolls on particular tables you can come up with some truly spectacular character stories.

The fifth segment also offers an interesting take on choosing an alignment. All too often players choose role-playing friendly alignment options such as Chaotic Neutral or Neutral Good. If they do choose one of the 'harder' alignments they usually lack a true understanding of the alignment and how a person with this moral/ethical outlook would interact with a real world.

This part of the book once again reverts to tables, but in a very interesting way. It poses a number of questions under some general headings; such as under 'Relationship to King and Country' there are questions about how you would act if your country was racked by famine and if offered money would you spy for a foreign nation. Some answers are self-explanatory for certain characters (especially Paladins - a class I personally hate). But anyway, this part of the book offers alot of insight into some murky areas of morals and ethics. In each of my own campaigns I've used this as a test of sorts to which I've added alot of questions that I've drawn from various pop-pyschology tests found online.

The best way to use this section is to create the character excluding alignment and name. Let the player review the information, especially the back story and then take the character sheet away from them. Then run through the questions with them. More often than not the mixutre of half-remembered back-story and the mental character concept combine to produce some very interesting characters. Don't rubbish it until you've tried it!

The second to last section is on planning your character. There is some interesting information and guidelines for 1st level characters, but becuase the game gives itself over to so many permutations of characters, it is simply impossible to plot out the different paths that can be taken and the authors don't even really attempt to - although they do try to plot 'sterotypical' paths, which I think defeats the whole purpose of the book!

The section then goes on to detail some different 'kits' or 'templates' and what skills and feats should be taken to fit into these archetypes. Again, I think this defeats the whole purpose of the book, which is to create unique hero's. They would have been better off using the pages to either expand on the personal history or alignment tables!!

The last segment is probably the most important, but most overlooked! It's only four pages, but are probably the most important! As the book rightly states, a name can evoke all sorts of images and preconceptions and a badly named character does a disservice to this powerful role-playing aspect. A character with a truly great name can often inspire the player to truly fantastic levels of role-playing. I'll never forget my fighter Maximus Brutus (Every critical hit was Maximum Brutality! He was far too brash, I should have realised he'd never make it pass 4th level!) Or one player I had whose wizard was called Nostradamus the Black (but only because his parents had orignally named him Norman!).

The book ends with several blocks of names for the various races, which serves as a good jumping off point for developing the perfect name for your character.

Overall, the book deserves its four stars and given that I bought it for .93c on Amazon I certainly don't regret the purchase!

1 out of 5 stars Cheap? yes. Usefull? Not so much........2007-03-26

You can pick this book up for $2.00 or less. It is 3rd edition not 3.5 and the cover has the only color pics you will see. The tables for character creation are vague in the extreme. The only good thing about them is that they are a quick and easy way to add a little (not a lot) flair to an NPC. Other reviews said that this product is good for beginers. I would say save your money and make up your own tables.

4 out of 5 stars Cute Addition to the Collection.......2004-12-01

The Hero Builder's Guidebook doesn't scream "Experienced Players BUY ME!" and it shouldn't, either.

After all, the first line is: "The D&D game is a game about heroes."

No, this is a book for newbie D&D players, and thank you for it, Wizards of the Coast. When I bought this book three years ago, I didn't need a good lot of it because of my own previous experience with the game. However, the ENORMOUS class & race combinations amazed me and my comrades. We were so excited to see Variant ideas for each race and class (unexpected and so good).

The Personal History Creation section may seem a bit wishy-washy for some of the hardcore veterans, but I can tell you straightforwardly and proudly: I created the most in-depth character using the basics in that section. After all, D&D is about using your imagination, and the tables allowed me to get a huge group of ideas and expand even further on them. The cleverness of figuring out why things occurred together - IE. your character lives with a wandering troupe, but owns a home and has bad ethics - is fun, too.

The Alignment Test never fails to prove my character's alignment, and my DM secretly uses it when no one's looking for his NPCs.

The Hero Builder's Guidebook is a very good buy, regardless of your level of experience. New and moderately new players can get a lot from the book, but veteran players may feel the book beneath them.

4 out of 5 stars A very good book........2004-08-05

I have been a Game Master for over 8 years and I can say the following about this book:

It is a -great- addition to anyone who really wants to learn the concept of roleplaying and the way roleplaying was meant to be: building your your character's personality, traits, background etc. This book is one of the few books that actually promotes -roleplaying- and character depth. My compliments to the writers!

Everyone who thinks this book is bad are all powerplayers who mostly play to Win a game and/ or play to get treasure and defeat monsters. If you want a hack and slash game, play games like Diablo II. The word Roleplaying should get its value back and by reading this book you are really encouraged to roleplay with an in depth character. Creating a great background is a good idea. Also the illustrations, eventhough they are black and white, are cheerful, fitting and well placed.

A lot of people disadvice this book because they are not -real- roleplayers, which is a bit of a pity. But anyone who wants to play roleplaying as the word was meant to be should buy this book as a supplement. The content is good.

The only thing that is not in there which I would have liked to see are character advantages/ disadvantages/ flaws. They have been in the second edition of Dungeons and Dragons.

Kind regards,

Chris van Zuiden

5 out of 5 stars Great for everyone.......2004-07-20

I bought this book against the opinion of everyone I knew. It turned out that this book really changed my perspective on characters in role-playing games. As a long time player of D&D, I found that the insights on different class/race combinations was extreamley helpful in overcomming my fantasy realm racial stigmas. I never really liked to play anything except human characters till I read this book and explored the interesting flavor of the class combos.
If you want to get a really helpful book for creating a memorable character, buy this book.
World Builder's Guidebook (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition)
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • More Suited to the Very Experienced DM
  • The basics
  • A great guide to building a world, in or out of AD&D
  • A very useful *GUIDE* for world-building.
  • Where you hit blocks this book helps clear them.
World Builder's Guidebook (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd edition)
Richard L. Baker
Manufacturer: TSR Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786904348

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars More Suited to the Very Experienced DM.......2000-11-27

I have some experience in the AD&D game. I started 6 years ago, but i am not a veteran.

This book is great for building really BIG, vibrant worlds. I do not think it is suited for building a world starting from stratch. There's just too much information that would not come into play until much later.

This book has you select a core theme or "hook" (idea that makes it different from any other world) for your campaign first (a VERY good idea). The book then flips you to the revelant "starting" chapter, such as Mythology or legend. In the chapters, there is a host of revelant information. I did not like the idea of die-tables; to me it's a subsitute for imagination. But that's my opinion. I think it would have been better if Rich started out with the theme and then added on it enough to get your campaign off the ground and THEN in later chapters it addressed the details that you can add later.

All in all, it's a good book, although it tries to make a too realistic world as opposed to a fantastic one. But at the same time, saying throw the rules out the window and do your own thing. My score, good but not spectacular.

3 out of 5 stars The basics.......2000-05-03

The handbook presents a nice array of steps and approaches to creating a world, but in the end it is pretty much lacking. The handbook deals with a number of features rarely grappled with when creating a world, but almost any section can be summed up in a couple of sentences. Moreover, the material is dispersed with seemingly no logical scheme. Despite the fact that the consecutive chapters "zoom in" into the campaign world, I frequently had to hunt down specific useful portions of the chapters which were seemingly misplaced. Other parts are simply redundant, such as the random terrain tables, which are repeated in several sections. Another gripe of mine was that the material presented was hardly inspiring. The author on several occasions clearly endorses copying maps from boxed adventures or ripping off major works of fantasy literature. The random selection of cultures is even more questionable. The author simply lists various cultures and ages from the real world. This sort of thing seems to be the current trend for TSR. The only time actual use of creativity was encouraged was a statement that said approximately "What if firearms were invented in the Roman Empire?". The maps were unnecessary for the most part. They are also printed in blue and yellow which makes them rather hard to read. Overall, the book looks and feels amateurish. I rather liked the section on the creation of towns and villages, which details the game-relevant professions and the overall demographics of standard medieval settlements in reasonable detail. All in all it is pretty useless.

5 out of 5 stars A great guide to building a world, in or out of AD&D.......1999-12-02

Believe it or not, I bought this book AFTER I stopped DMing. The reason is simple: I still write a lot of fantasy. AD&D comes with many well-thought-out worlds, but when writing, you have to make your own. This is a great guidebook for making any run-of-the-mill fantasy world really come to life.

5 out of 5 stars A very useful *GUIDE* for world-building........1999-08-24

As a DM with 15+ years experience working on the 3rd incarnation of his world, I was unsure whether this guide book would be of any real value to me. I must now admit that I have been very pleasantly surprised.

This book, when used properly, is a SPECTACULAR aid in world design/creation. Note that I said "when used properly". This is important. Although you COULD create a completely random world, it is likely to be conflicting and disjointed if you do so. This guide works best as just that, a guide. Take a basic idea and refine it with the guidelines in this book. You WILL have to make decisions and draw upon your imagination at some point, my recommendation is to start drawing upon it immediately. Used in this fashion, the guide will help you avoid gaps and pitfalls that have befallen many first time world creators (myself included).

The best part of this book, in my opinion, were the tables and accompanying explanations. I didn't roll many random dice on them, but they gave me a number of new ideas. Ideas I had not considered before seeing them on a comprehensive list. Granted, I have done some things in my world that the book does not allow for, but that's where my ideas and originality add to the basic framework this guide presents. Customization is the secret. This guidebook, however, helps build a solid foundation.

I disagree with those experienced builders who label this book as less than useful. I think this guidebook has lots to offer to new and experienced DMs alike. Of course, if you don't want help, then you're not going to get much from the book. If you're open to new ideas, details you might not have considered before, and variations that might help stimulate your OWN imagination, then by all means give this book a look.

Use this book wisely by adding a generous dose of your own imagination and personality and you can only benefit from it.

5 out of 5 stars Where you hit blocks this book helps clear them........1999-08-14

Let's face it. Building an adventuring world from scratch isn't easy. But not only does this book help you get past stumps in the road, but it also makes designing the world and its map FUN! I enjoy this book and have almost worn it into the ground.
Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying)
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • A good resource that could have been great...
  • This book got me yelled at.
  • Something that should be updated for 3.5
  • Useful book - easy rules
  • Heavily padded, like most 3rd Edition D&D books from WOTC
Stronghold Builder's Guidebook (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying)
Matt Forbeck , and David Noonan
Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786926554
Release Date: 2002-05-01

Book Description

Defenses Wrought of Mortar and Magic

Heroes need impregnable fortresses to assault, wondrous towers to explore, and majestic castles to protect. This book is stocked with everything needed to design any fortified structure imaginable, including:

Over 150 new magic items .

More than two dozen magical augmentations for stronghold walls.

Rules for magic portals, mobile strongholds, and trap creation.

Five complete strongholds, including maps, ready for immediate use.

Players and Dungeon Masters who want to create customized strongholds will find all the construction materials they need within these pages.

To use this accessory, a player or Dungeon Master also needs the Player's Handbook.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars A good resource that could have been great..........2007-05-08

This is one of those books that should not be judged by it's cover! The publishers were given a good product by the authors and then undersold it with the lame back cover (refer to the editorial review above - it's word for word).

Anyway, the book breaks down into the following five chapters:
1. Building a Stronghold
2. Stronghold Components
3. Strongholds in Your Campaign
4. Example Strongholds
5. Lists of tables

The best chapters are by far 1 & 2.

First the bad bits: Chapter 3 has some interesting information on attacking and capturing strongholds - but most of the information was self-evident. The biggest problem here was that the economics of a stronghold were glossed over. A simple table showing income say for various trade goods would've sufficed. But overall this is a small complaint, because a good GM can use the information presented to fill in those sorts of gaps if they are important enough. Often this sort of micro-management is frowned at by players, but I know some who enjoy this aspect of the game.

The second bad bit is Chapter 4. Really quite pointless in my humble opinion. The chapter details five 'sample' strongholds, but couldn't be further from the truth if they tried! Except for the 'Cheap Keep', the rest are so exotic as to be ridiculous. I appreciate that building a stronghold is a high character-level activity and that by 9 - 10th level characters usually have substantial resources and even bigger ideas but this chapter was bordering on the silly.

On to the 'crunchy' bits of the book. Chapter One takes you through the steps of building your stronghold. No additional details are presented, just the basic building block steps that you have to take. So when you get buried in all the detail, you can come back to this chapter to re-orientate yourself. This chapter shows that the rules are robust and functional in thier own right, although have no relationship to the prices mentioned in the players handbook.

A previous reviewer took a very dim view of this aspect because of the costs to establish a tavern using these rules would be in the area of 20,000gp (while I have some sympathy with his/her frustration, it should be put into context) These are rules for building a brand new structure in the wilderness, not for taking over an existing building in a metropolis. I've always thought the prices in the PH were silly, so my vote comes down in favour of the Stronghold guidebook.

Chapter two details all of the components that make up the interior and exterior of your stronghold. This is a very detailed chapter, with maps for just about every component. While this is and of itself a very good part of the book I have big gripe about it. When first reading the book, I thought great, I can photocopy the maps and use them to build the interior of castiles (friendly or hostile). But on further inspection found the maps not to be in scale to each other! What's the point of providing a scale for individual maps that only relate to the items within a paticular room? This chapter does have the handy addition of listing what staff normally go with this type of room and so you can build your staff up from the ground level, knowing what each staff member does, rather than being given, say 200 staff and not knowing what Person A does differently from Person ZZ. Combine this with the staff chart on page 42 and you can have a very detailed staff list.

If WotC were to release a castle interiors set to their dungeon tiles expansion then this problem would be solved, but until then, the maps look nice, but are otherwise useless.

I would like to address another complaint raised by another reviewer. The previous reviewer complained about repetition in the book. i.e. the entry of Bedroom Suite, Fancy was the same as Bedroom Suite, Luxury. Having read the book again, this is simply not true. Each description is different (although in some instances there are superficial similarities).

Overall, the book deserves its four stars and with a little tweaking of the PH price charts you can integrate this guidebook into your campaign without having your players shout at you (like a previous reviewer!).

Enjoy.

2 out of 5 stars This book got me yelled at........2006-11-08

At first glance, this book is a valuable resource for anyone wanting to build their own castle, keep, or even manor house out in the countryside. It has a great deal of information and makes it relatively simple for whatever you're doing.

And then you try to use it.

It seems that whoever wrote this book doesn't own a copy of the basic Player's Handbook, since even a basic tavern for a rough-and-tumble crowd costs over 20,000 gold, when you can buy two galleons for the same price. Heaven forbid you should want to serve wine - that makes it almost 40,000. My players yelled at me when I first started trying to use these figures, and rightly so.

This book could have been a lot more than it was made to be. As it is, it simply isn't scaled to the economy given in the core books. It could serve as a point of inspiration for a DM's own material, but that's it.

5 out of 5 stars Something that should be updated for 3.5.......2006-03-15

This is a great resource for handling all the DM and player based questions for building and refurbishing keeps, castles, and even villages. There's little that does work for 3.5

Also look for the dragon magazine article that went along with this. I'm sure it can be ordered from paizo.com.

4 out of 5 stars Useful book - easy rules.......2004-08-26

I bought this book a while ago and have found it informative and useful. The system devised for this book on keep construction is easy to learn and use quickly. Players simply purchase construction "units", which can be any type, ranging from armories, bedrooms, kitchens, temples, etc., then draw/place the units on a map accordingly. This makes the details of creating and building a keep to a minimum, and standardizing tasks so that they are not so mundane.

Other information I found useful was the commentary on working keeps into your campaign as bases of operations, using NPCs and staff to maintain your keep, and defending your keep from enemies.

An essential book if you're a player or DM looking to build or add a keep to your campaign.

2 out of 5 stars Heavily padded, like most 3rd Edition D&D books from WOTC.......2003-09-11

This book has the basics of "stronghold" construction, of course, and some of the rules are quite helpful, especially the advice on how and where to build a stronghold, and how and when to defend -- or attack! -- one. However, instead of providing solid historical examples of REAL strongholds and ACTUAL sieges, the authors pad the book in the typical 3rd edition style favored by WOTC ("Wizards of the Coast" -- D&D's current publisher).

For example, instead of saying that a spell is Reversible, as in 2nd edition, 3rd edition allows writers to simply rewrite the same basic paragraph over and over again. Millions of 2nd edition players were expected to be able to figure out that a reversible ward, or protection, or barrier against (e.g., Evil, Chaos, etc.) would work against the opposite alignment if the spell was simply reversed. In 3rd edition, these are ALL separate spells, not just variations on a theme, so if a spellcaster can place a Protection From Evil spell on a wall, for instance, the 3rd edition writers have the opportunity to insert three nearly identical paragraphs into the same section for the spells Protection Against Good, Protection Against Law, Protection Against Chaos, etc.

This cheating of readers (and especially buyers!) is carried on in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook and amplified. The writers, for example, describe a "Bedroom, Basic," but don't add one or two sentences that "Fancy" and "Luxurious" variants take up this much extra space, cost this much extra gold, and need these staff members. Instead, we are treated to a separate section on "Bedroom, Fancy," and "Bedroom, Luxurious." ONCE might have been tolerable as an example, but this happens over and over again: we do not REALLY need, but the writers dump on us, repeated descriptions of "Basic," "Fancy," and "Luxurious" spaces in the stronghold for everything from bathrooms (despite the fact that, as the writers describe, the Medieval toilet was a "garderobe," a room with a hole which allowed the human waste to fall outside the castle wall) to throne rooms. ONE description of the difference between the three categories of space would have sufficed, but the reader must endure numerous repetitions of this type of room and that type of room as it ranges from a dirt floor with no staff member to one with marble floors and one or more servants.

All of the space wasted by repetitions could have been used for additional information about (for example) ALL of the staff needed for the stronghold and detailed descriptions of what their jobs are, or the many different types of siege equipment which might be brought in and the best ways to defend against them (there is a website for amateur siege engine makers which DOES provide that information, though -- just in case someone attacks your own, mundane home with a catapult or trebuchet!).

One area where there was a huge gap was the failure to establish the "Siege Engineer" as a prestige class (a gap filled by an article in "Dragon" magazine, which allowed the company to rake in even more money by filling a gap which they themselves had created).

Another huge gap which this reviewer noticed was the description of the counter-siege: an encirclement of a besieging army by allies of those besieged in a stronghold; many times in history a besieging army has been driven off or destroyed by a counter-siege, but we're talking about PC's and NPC's here, and they deserve to be told (or reminded) that one of Julius Caesar's greatest victories was in a siege directed against the Gallic King Vercingetorix and the counter-siege laid around Caesar's army by the tribes allied to Vercingetorix; although caught between the hammer and the anvil, Caesar and his men defeated the allied force AND took Vercingetorix and his fortress -- just the sort of inspirational story a player needs to know of, even if it is rephrased in Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms terms.

Still another huge failing is the lack of information about the realities of BEING a castellan -- how are the farmers treated? Are they free peasants or serfs, or slaves? Are the field workers marched off with the castellan's army when s/he goes off to wage war? What is the appropriate tax level which a Lawful Good castellan may impose? What about swearing fealty to the local Lord or Monarch? Players interested in those details should skip this book and buy the game "Stronghold," available for both the Mac and (broken) Windows. At $4 or $5 --used -- this book isn't a bad buy (bearing in mind that the "Siege Engineer" and who knows what else were published separately in "Dragon"). Anyone who can afford to pay full price, however, should look instead at books on war and fighting published by AEG, Mongoose, and other D20 System publishers -- the information in their books is fully compatible with D&D, and THEY don't pad their books with endless repetitions (bad grammar and typos, maybe, but not endless repetitions!).
Dungeon Builder's Guidebook (AD&D Accessory)
Average customer rating: 3 out of 5 stars
  • Experience needed
  • A little disappointed
  • Tried-and-true ideas, guidelines, and tactics
  • Not much depth for veterans, but still has potential
  • Doesn't provide insight
Dungeon Builder's Guidebook (AD&D Accessory)
Bruce R. Cordell
Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

GeneralGeneral | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
GeneralGeneral | Dungeons & Dragons | Gaming | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0786912073
Release Date: 1998-05-19

Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars Experience needed.......2006-04-19

I found this book helpful, admittedly, I don't use dungeons very often and I didn't use anything the way it was supposed to be used. I would reccomend those wanting to build dungeon crawls using just the table go elsewhere. However, if you take the time to modify the tables to your own needs, it can be valuable. For example, the trap table produces traps that are far too deadly for any gaming group, but it creates very interesting magical items in a pinch. Also, the random dungeon creation table has got to go.

3 out of 5 stars A little disappointed.......2001-07-13

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting when I bought this book. Whatever it was I was a little disappointed. Many of the ideas in the book seem obvious, and not very useful to roleplay veterans. However I did find some use in the random roll chart for traps, gave me a few ideas to use in my campaign, though I'd recomend not leaving traps up to pure chance, take what you like and makes sense and incorporate it. Also as I find myself to be a horrible cartographer I found some map pieces (little bits of a dungeon layout that can be fit together like a puzzle) to be of use when designing dungeons.

5 out of 5 stars Tried-and-true ideas, guidelines, and tactics.......2000-10-14

Tried-and-true dungeon building ideas, guidelines, and tactics are incorporated into Dungeon Builder's Guidebook, a 64-page accessory that will be appreciated by experienced and novice DMs alike.

One of the nicest features of this accessory are a collection of 78 geomorphs, sections of dungeon that can be joined to each other directly or via connecting passageways (a ruin/tomb geomorph appears below). Six sorts of dungeon environments--mine/natural cavern, interdimensional, aerial, castle, ruin/tomb, and underwater--are provided, along with guidelines on how to use them. Each type has a "founding" geomorph that provides an outside or overall view of the dungeon, and a "focus" geomorph, or the initial dungeon section from which the others of its type can be reached. Each focus geomorph is fully keyed with monsters, traps, and treasure.

Other features of Dungeon Builder's Guidebook include an "Autodungeon Engine" random dungeon generator; general characteristics and (brief) encounter tables for each dungeon type; a section on traps along with a trap generator; a section on dungeon permutations; and sections on dungeon lore and approaches to design.

All-in-all, Dungeon Builder's Guidebook can be useful in many ways to many gamemasters, from a source of maps for experienced DMs who need a quick home for their monsters to a comprehensive how-to guide for DMs are just getting started.

2 out of 5 stars Not much depth for veterans, but still has potential.......2000-07-08

When I bought this thing, I couldn't wait to open it and learn all the cool secrets I thought I'd find.

I didn't find much.

This guide has a few cool benefits, especially for novice DM's and DM's who need to throw together a semi-believable dungeon hack in a hurry. However, it serves no other rewarding purpose. The concept of tracing and piecing together the different geomorphs is a great starter if you suffer occasional imagination block, but don't use it as a crutch. It's not comprehensive enough for that.

The suggested traps are absolutely ludicrous. If you're the kind of DM who likes to torment your players with lots of "instant death" situations and completely absurd concepts, then this is your kind of book.

Also, the common-sense explanations and insights into the logic of a dungeon are worthless to all but the most inexperienced DM's. Experience and forethought will teach you more effectively than the guide could hope to do.

So, if you're a rookie DM or even a veteran who can't get the thoughts flowing once in a while, this thing might be worth your while. Other than that, though, save your cash.

2 out of 5 stars Doesn't provide insight.......2000-03-12

This book provides several ludicrous versions of completely random and altogether faceless dungeons (Normal dungeon, aerial dungeon(! ), extranaplanar dungeon, etc.) that can be created through determining how to put together randomly selected geomorphs. Also included a random ludicrously lethal trap generation table (walls that stick to characters and result in death, spoons that spout flames, tables that switch personalities with the PC, etc.). The discussion of dungeon ecosystems is limited to a few lines that give just a few broad tips ("creatures need food"), and reasons for dungeons to be inhabited in the first place are very unoriginal and uninspiring. Perhaps the only good part of this book is the listing of special features found in different dungeons, but those are merely trappings placed there to cover the lack of things to write.

If I were a beginning DM, I would have two options besides buying this book - a)randomly letting my pencil run over paper to create a random dungeon; and b)buying a boxed adventure, which is ready with planned encounters and some sort of story.
Hero Builder's Guidebook - Dungeons & Dragons
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Hero Builder's Guidebook - Dungeons & Dragons
    Ryan; Noonan, David; and Rateliff, John D.; Wizards Of The Coast Dancey
    Manufacturer: Wizards of the Coast
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Hardcover
    ASIN: B000K1RCQE

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