The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Anyone unfortunate enough to have bought or read Warriors of Heaven, to which Guide to Hell is the spiritual sibling, can be excused if they lack enthusiasm for the newer product. Warriors, after all, was a mediocre-to-lousy treatment of the Upper Planes, top-heavy with rules and notoriously short on useful information as far as how to make use of them in a campaign. So I naturally approached Guide to Hell with considerable trepidation. To my surprise and delight, however, the Guide is a useful and well-written book, a vast improvement on its predecessor and well worth reading for those interested in the Lower Planes.

The introductory section, a tale of the beginning of things, goes a long way toward erasing one of my complaints about Warriors -- the lack of any kind of cosmological hints. Here, it's clear that Law versus Chaos is the fundamental conflict of the universe, and good and evil is secondary. Maybe that's not the way it necessarily is in every individual DM's game, but at least it presents a perspective that the rest of the book operates from.

The Guide takes pains to make clear that it deals entirely with a fictional place, and makes no claim to be theologically accurate. That point is likely to be lost on the sort of people who object to the game on religious grounds, but if this sort of disclaimer is what it takes to get the Nine Hells called the Nine Hells again, I don't particularly mind. With A Paladin In Hell and now the Guide it seems clear that WotC is bringing back the old terminology for good, and I applaud them for doing so.

Some introduction is necessary, of course, for those who haven't read the previous material on the Lower Planes, and the basics are outlined quickly enough: the Nine Hells are the planes of Lawful Evil, inhabited by the Baatezu (or 'devils'), who spend a lot of time involved in a massive war with the inhabitants of the Abyss, the center of Chaotic Evil. There's also a reasonably forthright treatment of the problems caused by name changes between First Edition and Planescape terminology, which even provides a fairly convincing explanation of why some devils have changed names (they are inherently deceptive creatures, after all).

The first chapter deals mainly with devils, what they want, how they get it, and how they manage to trick humans onto the sharp end of their deals. This is very much a guide to the place, rather than its inhabitants, and the detail on the devilish psyche is fairly slim; a copy of Fiends: Faces of Evil is really desirable for that kind of information. Instead, this chapter focuses mostly on what it important to the average game, which is to say, how devils interact with Prime Material inhabitants. Some typical devilish tricks in dealmaking are illustrated, and, while none are likely to foil a really cautious player, it's enough to get the reader in the right mood to think up some of his own. There is a fairly brief section on the how of fighting them and why it's harder to get rid of a devil than it seems, along with a new way to handle priestly turning abilities that makes them a good deal more effective against devils.

Then...oh, then...there is a section on how to actually use devils in a campaign. Okay, this is not an especially lengthy, detailed, or brilliant piece of work. But it's here, and compared to the complete lack of GM advice in Warriors of Heaven, it enough to make a reader jump for joy. And, better yet, many of the ideas used are clever and interesting enough to warrant consideration of how to work them into a game. The first ten pages of the Guide gave me more food for campaign thought than the entire text of Warriors.

The second chapter deals with character options that relate to the Hells, and the third with useful spells. One kit is presented for each class, and some are better than others. I'm not a big fan of kits in general, and the balance among the four is not great. They are also very tightly focused on slaying devils (or, if you opt to broaden the kits, fiends in general), which helps balance out some otherwise extreme powers. For instance, as a fighter with the Devil-Slayer kit advances, he can gradually hit devils who normally require +X weapons to affect; the Thaumaturgist kit for wizards allows them to lower devilish magic resistance; and the priestly Inquisitor kit lets the character convert those seduced into evil back to their original alignments. Probably the best of the bunch, power-wise, is the Hellblade thief kit, which lets the thief attack as a fighter of the same level with his chosen weapon. Whether or not devils play a big part in the campaign, this is a handy ability to have, although I'm not sure how well it fits in with the kit concept as a whole.

There is a (thankfully brief) section on playing part-devil characters, who, if anything, seem to be less powerful than some existing races. A description of an anti-devil organization in Greyhawk is also included, and while it may not be terribly useful to all GMs, it is at least mildly interesting as an example of how such a group might work. The section on spells and magic is also quite short, provides some useful if not inspired stuff, and in general doesn't labor under the illusion that a really neat-looking special effect is enough to warrant writing up a new spell.

The real meat of the book begins in chapter 4, which discusses the Hells themselves, including how to get in and out, how the Styx works, and what each layer is like, including general resident types, who's in charge, other deities who happen to live nearby, and so on. There is something interesting or clever on almost every layer, from the little town of Darkspine on the first layer (it used to be in the Outlands, but the devils pulled it down to Hell); to Jangling Hiter, a city hung from the sky on the third; to the succession of cities built for Baalzebul and then abandoned because they weren't glorious enough. There is ample grist here for any number of campaigns, and several times I found myself thinking how neat it would be to base a game on some idea or another. Probably not all readers will agree, but there is enough here to make it, at least, worth looking at.

Of course, no treatment of the Hells would be complete without a look at the personalities (if such a word can be used) of the place. There's a brief discussion of the nature and history of the "Lords of the Nine", or archdevils, followed by profiles of each of them and a few more prominent devils for good measure. Some of the history of the archdevils doesn't seem to make a lot of sense -- which is probably an artifact of the changes in cosmology brought about by the shift from devils to baatezu and back to devils again, but one wonders if they couldn't have come up with some better way to handle it. The archdevils themselves are a reasonably interesting bunch, and there are enough hooks present for one of them to be fairly easily worked into a campaign if, for whatever reason, it should become desirable. Information, if not a lot of detail, on the Dark Eight is also present, as is a brief treatment of how the various deities of Lawful Evil alignment fit into things, and, of course, information on Asmodeus himself.

The depiction of Asmodeus in the Guide is somewhat different from the previous portrayal, but the change is, in my opinion, for the better. The 'new' Asmodeus is much more powerful than the old in some ways, much more limited in others, but definitely clever. How useful this information is really depends on whether you like the Ultimate Scheme ascribed to him and how well it fits into your campaign. If you like the apocalyptic tone and feel that Asmodeus makes an entirely suitable master villain for your entire cosmology -- and the writeup is convincing enough that he can be seen in that role -- you could easily wrap a whole epic campaign around these ideas. If not, well, you'll have to slice out or ignore some parts to make it work for you. That's okay, and it's a defensible design choice, but I would have liked to see the master plan presented as one possibility for a campaign, rather than canonical truth.

And, of course, to complement the material in the first chapter, the last one deals with using Hell in a game. There are tips on how to handle the trip, how to structure an adventure or campaign there, and what sorts of awful things can happen there. If you're anything like me, reading the rest of the book already brought to mind most of the campaign suggestions offered, but enough interesting points and questions are brought up to keep the material from being wasted space even if you don't need the idea itself. Notes on spell and magic item alterations in the Hells, baatezu wizards and priests, and a few tips on how to handle devils in fights finish things off. In a pleasant surprise, the book also has an appendix giving stats and brief descriptions for the types of devils listed in the Planescape Monstrous Compendium, so you don't have to buy the latter book if you don't want to. (You should anyway; its spectacular interior art makes it one of the few AD&D supplements worth owning even if you can't stand the game.)

Unfortunately, although greatly improved over Warriors of Heaven on content, the Guide looks about the same. The interior art is average, although its tone fits in much better than that of the art for Warriors. I also miss the old-school portraits of the archdevils from the original Monster Manual, and the new-style versions really don't appeal to me. The layout is better, however; there are actual chapter headers, and the sections don't end in the middle of pages completely at random.

Guide to Hell is a solid effort with some neat ideas. It is a vast improvement on Warriors of Heaven. Partly, perhaps, because it's more focused -- it deals solely with the Nine Hells and doesn't overextend itself trying to squeeze in a whole new set of rules for playingdevils, or trying to handle the Abyss or Gehenna in the same volume -- and partly because it is also significantly less ambitious. Is it a spectacular, brilliant success? No, but aiming for a good book and getting it is better than aiming for a spectacular book and failing. It's good enough to make me hope they'll do a similar treatment of the Abyss, and that ain't bad.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Guide To Hell
Author: Chris Pramas Category: game Company/Publisher: Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Line: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Cost: 13.95 Page count: 64 pages ISBN: 0-7869-1431-9 SKU: TSR11431 Capsule Review by Christopher Page on 12/16/99. Genre tags: Fantasy	Anyone unfortunate enough to have bought or read Warriors of Heaven, to which Guide to Hell is the spiritual sibling, can be excused if they lack enthusiasm for the newer product. Warriors, after all, was a mediocre-to-lousy treatment of the Upper Planes, top-heavy with rules and notoriously short on useful information as far as how to make use of them in a campaign. So I naturally approached Guide to Hell with considerable trepidation. To my surprise and delight, however, the Guide is a useful and well-written book, a vast improvement on its predecessor and well worth reading for those interested in the Lower Planes. The introductory section, a tale of the beginning of things, goes a long way toward erasing one of my complaints about Warriors -- the lack of any kind of cosmological hints. Here, it's clear that Law versus Chaos is the fundamental conflict of the universe, and good and evil is secondary. Maybe that's not the way it necessarily is in every individual DM's game, but at least it presents a perspective that the rest of the book operates from. The Guide takes pains to make clear that it deals entirely with a fictional place, and makes no claim to be theologically accurate. That point is likely to be lost on the sort of people who object to the game on religious grounds, but if this sort of disclaimer is what it takes to get the Nine Hells called the Nine Hells again, I don't particularly mind. With A Paladin In Hell and now the Guide it seems clear that WotC is bringing back the old terminology for good, and I applaud them for doing so. Some introduction is necessary, of course, for those who haven't read the previous material on the Lower Planes, and the basics are outlined quickly enough: the Nine Hells are the planes of Lawful Evil, inhabited by the Baatezu (or 'devils'), who spend a lot of time involved in a massive war with the inhabitants of the Abyss, the center of Chaotic Evil. There's also a reasonably forthright treatment of the problems caused by name changes between First Edition and Planescape terminology, which even provides a fairly convincing explanation of why some devils have changed names (they are inherently deceptive creatures, after all). The first chapter deals mainly with devils, what they want, how they get it, and how they manage to trick humans onto the sharp end of their deals. This is very much a guide to the place, rather than its inhabitants, and the detail on the devilish psyche is fairly slim; a copy of Fiends: Faces of Evil is really desirable for that kind of information. Instead, this chapter focuses mostly on what it important to the average game, which is to say, how devils interact with Prime Material inhabitants. Some typical devilish tricks in dealmaking are illustrated, and, while none are likely to foil a really cautious player, it's enough to get the reader in the right mood to think up some of his own. There is a fairly brief section on the how of fighting them and why it's harder to get rid of a devil than it seems, along with a new way to handle priestly turning abilities that makes them a good deal more effective against devils. Then...oh, then...there is a section on how to actually use devils in a campaign. Okay, this is not an especially lengthy, detailed, or brilliant piece of work. But it's here, and compared to the complete lack of GM advice in Warriors of Heaven, it enough to make a reader jump for joy. And, better yet, many of the ideas used are clever and interesting enough to warrant consideration of how to work them into a game. The first ten pages of the Guide gave me more food for campaign thought than the entire text of Warriors. The second chapter deals with character options that relate to the Hells, and the third with useful spells. One kit is presented for each class, and some are better than others. I'm not a big fan of kits in general, and the balance among the four is not great. They are also very tightly focused on slaying devils (or, if you opt to broaden the kits, fiends in general), which helps balance out some otherwise extreme powers. For instance, as a fighter with the Devil-Slayer kit advances, he can gradually hit devils who normally require +X weapons to affect; the Thaumaturgist kit for wizards allows them to lower devilish magic resistance; and the priestly Inquisitor kit lets the character convert those seduced into evil back to their original alignments. Probably the best of the bunch, power-wise, is the Hellblade thief kit, which lets the thief attack as a fighter of the same level with his chosen weapon. Whether or not devils play a big part in the campaign, this is a handy ability to have, although I'm not sure how well it fits in with the kit concept as a whole. There is a (thankfully brief) section on playing part-devil characters, who, if anything, seem to be less powerful than some existing races. A description of an anti-devil organization in Greyhawk is also included, and while it may not be terribly useful to all GMs, it is at least mildly interesting as an example of how such a group might work. The section on spells and magic is also quite short, provides some useful if not inspired stuff, and in general doesn't labor under the illusion that a really neat-looking special effect is enough to warrant writing up a new spell. The real meat of the book begins in chapter 4, which discusses the Hells themselves, including how to get in and out, how the Styx works, and what each layer is like, including general resident types, who's in charge, other deities who happen to live nearby, and so on. There is something interesting or clever on almost every layer, from the little town of Darkspine on the first layer (it used to be in the Outlands, but the devils pulled it down to Hell); to Jangling Hiter, a city hung from the sky on the third; to the succession of cities built for Baalzebul and then abandoned because they weren't glorious enough. There is ample grist here for any number of campaigns, and several times I found myself thinking how neat it would be to base a game on some idea or another. Probably not all readers will agree, but there is enough here to make it, at least, worth looking at. Of course, no treatment of the Hells would be complete without a look at the personalities (if such a word can be used) of the place. There's a brief discussion of the nature and history of the "Lords of the Nine", or archdevils, followed by profiles of each of them and a few more prominent devils for good measure. Some of the history of the archdevils doesn't seem to make a lot of sense -- which is probably an artifact of the changes in cosmology brought about by the shift from devils to baatezu and back to devils again, but one wonders if they couldn't have come up with some better way to handle it. The archdevils themselves are a reasonably interesting bunch, and there are enough hooks present for one of them to be fairly easily worked into a campaign if, for whatever reason, it should become desirable. Information, if not a lot of detail, on the Dark Eight is also present, as is a brief treatment of how the various deities of Lawful Evil alignment fit into things, and, of course, information on Asmodeus himself. The depiction of Asmodeus in the Guide is somewhat different from the previous portrayal, but the change is, in my opinion, for the better. The 'new' Asmodeus is much more powerful than the old in some ways, much more limited in others, but definitely clever. How useful this information is really depends on whether you like the Ultimate Scheme ascribed to him and how well it fits into your campaign. If you like the apocalyptic tone and feel that Asmodeus makes an entirely suitable master villain for your entire cosmology -- and the writeup is convincing enough that he can be seen in that role -- you could easily wrap a whole epic campaign around these ideas. If not, well, you'll have to slice out or ignore some parts to make it work for you. That's okay, and it's a defensible design choice, but I would have liked to see the master plan presented as one possibility for a campaign, rather than canonical truth. And, of course, to complement the material in the first chapter, the last one deals with using Hell in a game. There are tips on how to handle the trip, how to structure an adventure or campaign there, and what sorts of awful things can happen there. If you're anything like me, reading the rest of the book already brought to mind most of the campaign suggestions offered, but enough interesting points and questions are brought up to keep the material from being wasted space even if you don't need the idea itself. Notes on spell and magic item alterations in the Hells, baatezu wizards and priests, and a few tips on how to handle devils in fights finish things off. In a pleasant surprise, the book also has an appendix giving stats and brief descriptions for the types of devils listed in the Planescape Monstrous Compendium, so you don't have to buy the latter book if you don't want to. (You should anyway; its spectacular interior art makes it one of the few AD&D supplements worth owning even if you can't stand the game.) Unfortunately, although greatly improved over Warriors of Heaven on content, the Guide looks about the same. The interior art is average, although its tone fits in much better than that of the art for Warriors. I also miss the old-school portraits of the archdevils from the original Monster Manual, and the new-style versions really don't appeal to me. The layout is better, however; there are actual chapter headers, and the sections don't end in the middle of pages completely at random. Guide to Hell is a solid effort with some neat ideas. It is a vast improvement on Warriors of Heaven. Partly, perhaps, because it's more focused -- it deals solely with the Nine Hells and doesn't overextend itself trying to squeeze in a whole new set of rules for playingdevils, or trying to handle the Abyss or Gehenna in the same volume -- and partly because it is also significantly less ambitious. Is it a spectacular, brilliant success? No, but aiming for a good book and getting it is better than aiming for a spectacular book and failing. It's good enough to make me hope they'll do a similar treatment of the Abyss, and that ain't bad. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Guide To Hell