This is one fun adventure! While Amalara?s ?Dungeon Dive 6: Under the Ice? is not designed to be an adventure in and of itself, it can definitely play like one. Writer Mike Wallace has put together a sort of ?along-the-way? set of encounters that a DM can use as needed in an existing campaign. This particular installment of the ?Dungeon Dive? series takes place in and mostly below the depths of a frozen glacier, and the encounters and inhabitants all reflect this unique setting.

A complete map illustrates the dungeon with its 15 encounter areas, and the accompanying text (the read-aloud text is economical and effective) will help a DM walk his or her party through this ?pre-adventure? scenario. Additionally, ?Under the Ice? could be run for characters from 8th-to-16th level; each encounter location can be populated with different creatures and monsters depending on the party?s overall experience level (there are three ?settings? ? low, medium and high).

Rules for surviving a glacial environment are presented cleanly, and the entire text is neatly put together. Monster descriptions and stat blocks are nestled in the back end of this module, making the layout of this product attractive and easy to use. (For the locations that are trapped, however, the trap description is given immediately in the text, which means a DM doesn?t have to flip to the back pages or go to the last screens of the .pdf to see what might happen if his or her players fail their saving throw while crossing the unsecured plank in the frozen barracks or while crossing the naturally-camouflaged crevice in the choked hallway.)

Many of the monsters are arctic variants of monsters found in the Core Rulebooks (a hellfrost basilisk or polar medusa), but the differences between these variants and the ?standard? versions aren?t hard to understand or game-breaking (the polar medusa, for example, has tiny frost worms instead of snakes for hair, and turns its victims to ice instead of stone).

The statblocks could have used a bit more work in terms of proofreading, however. Most of the problems that crept into the production of ?Dungeon Dive 6? are easy fixes, though, and it shouldn?t take too much time for a DM to make the necessary adjustments to use this product.

Despite this, however, ?Dungeon Dive 6: Under the Ice? is a solid product, and while the introduction clearly states that this product could be used to just get the players from one point in the game?s plot to another, I?d go as far as saying that this module could be run on its own as an adventure in and of itself.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: This is a well-designed and well-constructed product. Obvious effort has been made to make this a module that can be used quicly and easily; one quick read-through and a tiny bit of work at the end, and the DM is ready to go.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: A bit of editting and mechanics snafus in the appendixes is a bit distracting, but not insurmountable. These errors are the only reason I'm not giving this product five stars.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Dungeon Dive 6: Under the Ice is a 37 page pdf and the sixth product in Amalara's Dungeon Dive series. Each product in the series provide a unique dungeon along with hazards, monsters and traps but without any plot elements. DMs can then easily insert the dungeon into their campaign, providing all the plot and motivation and possibly the final encounters of the adventure. This particular Dungeon Dive is located in ice caverns beneath an ancient glacier, the latter which is rumoured to cover an ancient city, long lost artifact or burial tomb. It's one of the things I like about the series - unique locations not often explored in other published adventures.

The Dungeon Dive series provides gameplay at a variety of different levels, indicated in each pdf by the designations low, medium and high. Under the Ice equates these to 8th, 12th and 16th level respectively, but even these can easily be modified by one or even two levels by simply removing or adding one or two more similar creatures to the same entry. Monsters, hazards, and traps all follow these designation, so DMs can balance the adventure to their particular party level with little difficulty.

Since releasing their first Dungeon Dive, Amalara have come a long way with the series, and I'm pleased to say that I really like the way they've done this instalment in the series. Dungeon Dive 6: Under the Ice contains a number of improvements on others in the series, including clearer maps with complete legends, clear designations of text, moving extensive stat blocks away from the main adventure text (for example, this pdf has 9 pages of adventure text, but 23 pages of monster stat blocks - combining them can be confusing) and so on. The latter in particular separates the stat blocks at the different encounter levels, meaning that you can only print or use the particular appendix that applies to your party and adventure, rather than having pages of unrelated cumbersome stat blocks in-between the adventure text you're trying to run.

Under the Ice provides details on running an adventure beneath a glacier and in icy conditions, and includes 15 encounter areas with a whole host of novel creatures such as frostwights, half-white dragon dwarves (not white half-dragon dwarves as the pdf indicates) and polar medusa. The encounters provide interesting backdrops, challenging and fun encounters and all the information needed to run each encounter area successfully. Information is provided on the motivations and interactions between the various intelligent creatures of the ice caverns, an useful addition to the pdf. I generally liked this Dungeon Dive, as the encounters are interesting and the format makes it easier to appreciate the product. Given the aim of the product to provide DMs with an easy to run dungeon that requires little preparation, this succeeds admirably.

However, despite all the good parts of the pdf, it's a lot like taking two steps forward and one step back. And this concerns monsters. There are two issues with the monsters. The first is that there are obviously non-core monsters within this pdf, yet it's not clear if these are supposed to be new monsters (in which case the write-ups are poor) or monsters taken from other OGL sources (in which case the section 15 does not list them and constitutes a violation of the OGL). The second is the stat blocks themselves - very poor, bordering on awful. They contained numerous errors, ranging from listing DR 5/fire to incorrect attack bonuses, to incorrect saves, to referencing things like large steel shields which should be heavy steel shields, to generally incomplete stat blocks, and on and on. I was very disappointed to find so many errors in the monsters. Under the Ice is a large improvement in a lot of areas and contains solid adventure details, but very poor mechanics.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Under the Ice provides an easy to run dungeon in the ice caverns beneath an ancient glazier. I liked the interesting backdrop, terrain and location of the adventure, and the format of the adventure is much improved on other releases in the series, including maps. The encounters contain interesting and new creatures, that should be easy for DMs to familiarize themselves with.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Monsters and stat blocks in general were very poor. Numerous errors scattered throughout each stat block, and no clear indication as to whether the non-core monsters are new or from other OGL sources.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>