Descent Into The Depths of The Earth - Reception

Reception

When combined with the G-series and Q module as the Queen of the Spiders, the D-series was voted the single greatest adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004. Reviewer Alan Kohler said, "The Underdark has become a classic place to set adventures... This is where it all got started." According to the editors, Vault of the Drow would have made the top five if it had been considered as a single module. They felt the Drow city detailed in the module offered "more intrigue" than any module previously. Judge Clark Peterson compared it favorably to City State of the Invincible Overlord, which also had a complicated city environment, saying "this was an underground city of evil monsters—the Drow, who, then, were new and mysterious as opposed to tired and overused as they are today." Dungeon Master for Dummies lists Descent into the Depths of the Earth as one of the ten best classic adventures, noting that it takes "the player characters into the underground world of the Drow—the wildly popular dark elves of D&D lore."

The series has received considerable praise. It was reviewed by Don Turnbull in British RPG magazine White Dwarf No. 11, who gave it 10 out of 10. He compared the series favorably to the G series of modules, which he also liked. Turnbull commented that the scope was large, and that the modules were of good value. Although D3 can be played by itself, he speculated that the party of characters may need the magic items that can be acquired in the first two to not be put at a disadvantage. Turnbull did lament that the series was designed for parties of a high level, making it difficult to use with a group of lower level characters. He concluded the review by saying "don't be surprised if they eclipse in quality most of the material you already have.". All three modules are also profiled in Heroic Worlds, Lawrence Schick's 1991 guide to role-playing games.

The D-series of modules was also given an extensive overview review by Turnbull in issue No. 15 of White Dwarf, wherein he cautioned DMs that running these modules was unlike any they had run before. He commented that the adventure would be too difficult for most groups of player characters, and theorized that buyers wouldn't actually play the modules because it would take a lot of sessions to finish. He did run the adventure himself, though. He recommended using miniatures on a grid, because some of the battles involved so many characters and monsters. He also recommended rolling the dice for various encounters in advance. Although some such work would be wasted when the players chose one route over another, "it will be worth the effort." He also thought that pre-planning enemy tactics was a good idea, providing an example of how to do so using the Drow outpost from D1, as well as other encounters.

He noted that while some DMs may ban psionics in their games, if they don't allow the creatures in section M12 of D1 to use them, the game will be unbalanced in favor of the players. Although he hadn't run D3 at the time of writing the article, the thought of pre-planning some of its encounters "brings me out in perspiration." The power levels of his regular players' characters were insufficient for the adventure, so he gave them pre-generated ones. Although he felt the magical weapons he gave these characters were too powerful, he warned that giving weapons that are too weak would be a bigger problem. He also recommended lots of healing spells and potions.

Overall, he enjoyed playing the modules, despite wishing he had prepared more, and thought that his players also enjoyed the experience. He hoped that people would not be scared to use the modules because of their difficulty. In summary, he said "I can give no higher praise to these designs than to say they are as good as anyone is likely to meet, and better than almost everything else I've seen."

Reviewer Anders Swenson reviewed the D1–2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth compilation in 1982 for Different Worlds #21. Swenson noted that standards for adventure publications had come to expect longer texts for the given price, so that the two adventures had been combined into one format; redundant text was eliminated, and new illustrations were added to fill the resultant gaps in layout. He was perplexed by all of the creatures found in the grand cavern area originally found in module D1: "All these creatures are apparently expected to do nothing but sit in their caves and wait to be attacked, for they would certainly defeat any moderately tough adventurer party specified by the author if they all tried a massed and well-coordinated attack." He also wondered about the placement of the kuo-toan shrine: "There is great hostility between the Kuo Toa and the Drow, so it is surprising to find the main Kuo Toa stronghold in the middle of a thoroughfare used by the Drow as a main route. It is also surprising to find the Kuo Toa still in business, given the seeming superior military power of the Drow, but who knows?" Anders felt that the adventures contained a great deal of imaginative material, "but while the writing style is by no means poor, the combination of florid prose and new ideas makes a text which is relatively difficult to read. Gygax does not make a regular practice of organizing his text to help the poor GM pick out the important information quickly." However, Swenson concluded that this is overall a worthwhile adventure. "The plot is interesting, and everything is well detailed. Aside from the problems I have already noted, the adventures are interesting and generally of superior quality."