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Into the Green separates its content into six chapters and three appendices. The first four chapters cover the titular terrain types. Each of these four chapters follows the same format: Climate (an overview of common conditions in that terrain), Plants (including fictional ones, with necessary Difficulty Class ratings for appropriate skill checks), Animals (ditto), Environmental Hazards (including relevant mechanics) and Monsters (with statistics included for new ones). The fifth chapter covers new equipment, which includes both mundane and magical gear; the latter draws on spells and monsters that are elsewhere in the book or in the Player’s Handbook. The sixth chapter presents the new spells that get mentioned elsewhere in the book. The first appendix presents a table for the poisons mentioned elsewhere in the text, the second presents a set of random encounter tables and the third presents random weather tables. Overall, the new rules content is easy to assimilate and incorporate; most of it is in the latter two chapters, the rest is evenly spread through the first four and it’s all presented in a manner that makes cherry-picking the desired bits practical.
Okay, now that I’ve done the objective description I’ll get to my opinions about it.
Into the Green isn't that hard on the eyes; reading the book isn't a chore because the layout is competant. All of the interior is black-and-white artwork, which is placed well and fits the nearby text without overwhelming it. People that like and appreciate a more textbook style approach will find this to their liking. It's very reader-friendly in terms of imparting its information to the reader.
Into the Green isn’t a product with a big audience. As noted in the introduction, most of the target audience doesn’t want to deal with the wilderness in their campaigns unless it’s the stage for some sort of encounter. Traveling overland is often ignored as boring; it’s not considered to be hazardous in itself, as most players grew up in an era where lengthy overland travel is no more difficult than knowing the way and making certain that your car or train can get you there. It’s also considered to be a brief inconvenience; as soon as flight or teleportation abilities appear, most player-characters seize them and use them as often as circumstances allow. This book, bravely, attempts to address those folks that do not—for whatever reason—do this while enticing the rest with the goodies that they want: new monsters to kill, new toys to kill them with and some set-dressing tips for when the toy-wielders do the monster-killing outside a literal dungeon or cityscape. But does it do its job? I’d say so. This isn’t a book that’s heavy on the technical aspects of camping, hunting and hiking. It confines itself to those elements that would come up in actual play, such as temperature variances (to see if the extremes of heat or cold apply) and atmospheric conditions (affecting travel rates, missile fire, tracking difficulties, etc.). The flora and fauna entries are brief; it’s enough to get the Game Master’s mind going without infringing upon his creativity or going over his head. Game Masters that want more detailed information can consult real-world technical manuals; the rest will find the contents sufficient for their purposes.
Are the new monsters overpowering? Hardly. Most of the monsters slide towards the lower end of the Challenge Rating scale; there are very few monsters above CR 8, so most of the monsters in this book will likely see actual play. What about the gear? The mundane gear, if anything, is underpowered. The penalty to Charisma scores due to the stench of burning bison dung ought to (a) be higher, (b) be a circumstance penalty to all social interaction checks and not to Charisma scores (as that also penalizes spell-casting powers, clerical turning, etc.) and (c) be even-numbered. Using a walking stick to find quicksand ought to merit more than a +1 circumstance bonus to Reflex saves to avoid getting caught, and a machete is really—in mechanical terms—a shortsword by another name that does Slashing instead of Piercing damage. The magical gear is a little better. Collars that grant the Scent ability to the wearer, a ring that acts like a staff (and, really, should be one) filled with druidic powers and spells and a helm fashioned after the head of ants and similar creatures are neat and useful even if they’re not in the proper item categories. The new materials aren’t anything to write home about unless you’re really into trading or making things out of exotic stuff, but the new poisons and alchemical substances ought to find a use right away. (Especially the stuff that attracts the opposite sex and makes them open to your influence; plenty of obvious encounter fodder there.) The weapons aren’t anything special; official D&D versions supplant a few (blowgun) and the rest are just interesting enough to be worth incorporating. Good ideas; bad rules design to execute them, save for the monsters.
As for the spells, many of these are low-level utility spells that aren’t going to see a whole lot of use outside of their specialized field (such as antihistamine and detect fey). The highest ones are 5th level, and they either attempt to force life-threatening allergic reactions or conjure a localized blizzard that impedes movement. While the latter is impressive—it’s a long-range spell with a cylindrical effect—it’s nowhere near the utility or power of its sister spells; it’s almost always better to have teleport or essential blade than this spell on hand. The former is far too weak for its level; 1d6 subdual/round is anemic, even if there is a small chance that the target would die once brought down, because the chances that the target would go down are too small to make it worthwhile. Both of these spells ought to be dropped two or more spell levels; they lack the punch to stay at 5th level. In the end, while the spell concepts are good the execution—as with the gear—is lacking.
In conclusion, Into the Green’s non-mechanical content (other than its monsters) isn’t that good. What makes it good is the rest—the majority—of the book, and that’s only if you’re going to emphasis the four feature environments in your campaign. For general use, skip it; acquire it only if your needs fit this narrow niche and you have nothing better to supplant it.
