The Dungeon Master's Guide II is not a replacement for the DM's Guide but rather a complementing supplement that adds much more additional information for the DM to use. In all there are seven chapters in the book covering the following topics:
1. Running the Game
2. Adventures
3. The Campaign
4. The Saltmarsh
5. NPC's
6. Characters
7. Magic Items
Running the game provides tips on knowing your players...their behaviors, their personalities and tendencies. Examples are given on how to add drama and developing a story in your games. Suggestions are provided for using house rules and laptops to assist the DM. While this information is nice, it's more geared towards inexperienced DMs.
The adventure chapter covers things such as many new traps, map and grid design, building encounter tables, and encounters for such areas as the Abyss and Infernal planes, graveyards, haunted buildings, lost ruins, and several other specific type locations.
The campaign section provides information if you want to develop your own campaign as opposed to buying an off the shelf product such as the Forgotten Realms. It provides all the information you need on setting up a medieval-type world including social and political structures, lifestyles and more. There are also 50 rumors/adventure hooks provided that the DM can use to flesh out adventures.
The Saltmarsh is recognizable to older fans of D&D as the name of an old module. The Saltmarsh is provided here as a kind of drop-in city for use in any campaign. It's ready made with all the information you need to run if you don't feel like making a city from scratch, providing maps, business locations, NPCs, guilds, adventure hooks and more. It's one of the best sections in the book.
The chapters on NPCs and characters are ok. The NPC section is short and fairly forgettable but the character section features information on designing prestige classes which is very well done. There's also info on working with other players as a team when attacking and combining spells for maximum effect.
The last chapter is on Magic Items and goes into customizing items with signature abilities or items that are bonded to their creator. A new type of magic item, sort of, are magic locations. These are ancient, and very powerful sights that can be found within a world which can imbue a character with certain abilities for up to one year. For example the Heart of Fire is a location that can imbue a spellcaster with magic that increases his casting level by +1 for one year when casting fire-based spells. There are a bunch of these locations as well as tons of new magic rings, rods, armor, weapons, and miscellaneous items.
The Dungeon Master II guide is kind of like the whipped cream and cherry on a sundae. It's not necessary and you can certainly live without it, but it does add a little flavor and certainly makes it more filling. Take what you want out of the book. I personally like the section on designing prestige classes and the inclusion of Saltmarsh is a great aid to the DM.
Reviewed by Tim Janson