D&D 5E Infinite Staircase - When a Star Falls upscaling

[pukunui]

Hi all,

I recently got the Quests from the Infinite Staircase book, and I've been reading through the adventures. I was not impressed by The Lost City. I've heard it's been reimagined rather than merely updated, but it's still got too much of that old school random dungeon placement for my taste. However, I've really been enjoying reading When a Star Falls, and I think it would fit in nicely with my ongoing episodic Eberron campaign. Unfortunately, the PCs are all at level 6 now, and this adventure was written for 4th level.

Normally I wouldn't bat much of an eye at upscaling an adventure for higher level PCs. Most of them time you can just add another monster or give the max hit points or whatever. But in this case, I'm cognizant of the 5th-level power bump. This adventure would have been written with the assumption that the PCs can't cast fly or fireball or make two attacks per round and all that.

Is adding more monsters or giving them more hit points going to be enough in this case? Are there some challenges that I would need to rethink?

WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR WHEN A STAR FALLS BELOW. READ ON AT YOUR OWN PERIL!

Let us examine the various encounters.

Random encounters

• 3 griffons hunt the PCs.
• 2 displacer beasts hunt the PCs.
• 1 ogre is training 5 boars that it lets loose to attack the PCs.
• 5 bugbears attempt to ambush the PCs.
• 10 giant bats attack the PCs.
• 5 wolves led by 2 dire wolves attack the PCs.
• 1 troll attacks the PCs.
• 6 jackalweres attempt to ambush the PCs.

It's a bit sad that these are all combat encounters. I could replace some with other things - friendly creatures and sites of interest. For the ones I keep as combat encounters, though, I'd just add more of the creatures.


Death on the Moors
This is the opening encounter, where the PCs come across some dead sages who were killed be a lone memory web. As a CR 4 monster, this would be a Medium encounter for a party of four 4th level PCs. To make it an equivalent challenge for my party of five 6th level PCs, I would need two memory webs. Given this is the encounter that provides the adventure hook, it shouldn't be deadly, so this should be OK.


Piyarz's Shadow
This is a semi-random encounter in that the DM gets to decide when it happens. It's supposed to happen while the PCs are resting at night somewhere in the wilderness. They are attacked by a CR 2 named NPC (Sion) who has 2 shadows backing him up. This is again a Medium encounter for a 4th level party. For my 6th level party, I would need like 2 Sions and 6 shadows or similar to give them the same challenge. I think I would need to beef up Sion and make him more of a threat on his own, and then maybe give him some beefier minions.


Cernant Valley
This is meant to be a roleplaying encounter, but there is the potential for things to go badly wrong and for it to turn into 1-2 combat encounters. The first encounter is with 2 giant eagles, who are assisted by 3 elk if combat breaks out. This is another Medium encounter for a 4th level party. I don't think my players would fight these creatures, so I don't think I will bother worrying about "beefing it up". If they somehow did, though, using 3 giant elk instead ought to do the trick.

There is also a druid who lives in the valley. If combat were to break out, the PCs would have to fight her plus her saber-tooth tiger and 3 giant goats. This is a Deadly encounter for a 4th level party. I would need to beef up the druid and maybe give her more pets for my 6th level party. I might even make her legendary and have her homestead count as her lair.


Derro Lair

• D2: 5 derro raiders and 1 derro apprentice
• D3: 1 zombie
• D4: 4 derro raiders and 4 zombies
• D6: 3 derro raiders, 2 derro apprentices, and 2 zombies
• D7: 5 zombies
• D9: 1 lamia

D6 is Hard, D9 is Medium, the others are all easy or trivial. I suppose just adding more monsters to these areas to keep the difficulty the same should suffice (or just giving some of the monsters max HP). The lamia could have some pets of some kind.


Therno Lake
This isn't meant to be a combat encounter at all but rather a safe-haven for the PCs. I wouldn't change anything here.


Tower of the Heavens
This probably needs the most work. There's only one real guaranteed combat encounter, but it could easily go south with the PCs having to fight just about everybody here.

• T1: 3 gnome guards
• T3: 5 gnome guards
• T4: 1 tower sage and 2 tower hands
• T5: 1 mimic
• T6: 1 gnome knight and 3 gnome guards
• T7: 3 gnome guards
• T11: 6 gnome guards stationed at each of the 6 watch turrets (total = 36 guards)
• T12: 2 tower sages and 4 tower hands
• T17: 1 tower sage (with a ring of fire resistance), 2 tower hands, and 1 imp
• T18: 1 spectator
• T22: 2 gargoyles (optional)

T17 is the climax of this segment of the adventure, with the "BBEG". The two tower sages from T12 flee here if they can, so the fight can potentially be a bit harder. It's either a Medium encounter or a Deadly one if the other two sages arrive. I think I would have to create a custom statblock for the "BBEG" so he isn't just using the same generic statblock as his minions. And I might give them slightly different statblocks too, since one is a named dragonborn and the other is a named halfling.

A lone spectator is an Easy encounter for 4th level PCs and a trivial one for 6th level PCs, but I'm not sure it would make sense to have two of them. I might just have to give it max HP.

I could upgrade some of the gnome guards to veterans. And just increase the number of tower hands in each area. I could also replace the mimic with a giant mimic. Doesn't make a huge difference but it is posing as a door ...


Forge of the Kagu-Sverfneblin

• Approach: The PCs get attacked by 3 swarms of gibberlings. This is a Deadly encounter for 4th level PCs. To keep it that way for 6th level PCs, I would need to increase it to 5 swarms. But is that enough when one PC can potentially fireball most of them?
• F2: 1 gibberling
• F3: 1 maschin-i-bozorg (a CR 8 construct). It's Deadly for 4th level PCs but only Medium for 6th level ones. I could just up its HP or I could add 2 or more gibberlings.
• F5: 3 maschin-i-bozorgs, 7 svirfneblin, and 7 giant lizards. This is meant to be an overwhelmingly Deadly encounter for 4th level PCs. I think I'd need to add more svifrneblin or maybe another maschin-i-bozorg to keep it that way. However, my 6th level party are all gnomes (including one deep gnome), so the likelihood of a fight breaking out here is next to nil.
• F7: 2 hook horrors (only a combat encounter if the PCs go snooping around)
• Leaving: 1 young red dragon - Deadly for 4th level PCs but only Hard for 6th level. I'd probably beef him up - max HP and some spells or something

And that's it!

Anyone got any thoughts / suggestions on this?

I'll post my thoughts about converting this to Eberron in the second post.

 

[pukunui]

The book suggests putting this in the Starpeaks in northern Aundair. However, I think it would make more sense placed in the Eldeen Reaches.

Derwyth the druid could be the local Warden of the Wood.

That would also help explain the presence of all the giant (and in some cases sentient) animals.

I would probably downgrade the Tegefed Mountains from mountains to just a rugged hilly area and maybe place it on the border of the forest and the farmland. The inhabitants of Therno Lake would be ex-Aundairian settlers.

I might refluff/replace the derro with dolgrims and dolgaunts.

I'd leave the deep gnomes in and probably make one of them a relative of the deep gnome PC.


EDIT: Alternatively, I might set it in the mountains around Zilargo to explain the presence of so many gnomes in the adventure (the mercenaries protecting the Tower of the Heavens and the "kagu-svirfneblin").

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would buff the memory web, rather than have two of them. I'll have a look at it later and see what can come up with. Some of the gnome leaders could have dragon marks (and appropriate house names). It shouldn't be too difficult to apply to standard NPC stat blocks. There are a couple of gnome stat blocks in the web based dragonlance supplement (Monstrous Compendium 2) which could be used to mix up the gnomish ranks, as well as wandslingers from the Eberron book.

In the Wildemount sourcebook there is the Gearkeeper Construct, CR10 and of whacky design, that could replace the maschin-i-bozorg.

I would throw out the random encounter table and come up with one based around the region you decide to set the adventure.

Edit: The memory web needs to have a whole lot more hit points. Even two memory webs would go down in the first round. I would make it bigger, give it at least 100 hp, resistance to bludgeoning and piercing, Multiattack with Ensnare and let it grapple up to three creatures at a time. Make it in effect 3 webs, but sharing a common pool of hit points. I would buff this even if I was running the adventure at the standard level, it needs to last at least a round!

 

[overgeeked]

Grab a copy of Sly Flourish's Forge of Foes and upscale the monsters using that.

 

[pukunui]

Some of the gnome leaders could have dragon marks (and appropriate house names). It shouldn't be too difficult to apply to standard NPC stat blocks. There are a couple of gnome stat blocks in the web based dragonlance supplement (Monstrous Compendium 2) which could be used to mix up the gnomish ranks, as well as wandslingers from the Eberron book.

Hmm. I'm not sure about having any House Sivis gnomes there since they are mercenaries. Would (non-PC) dragonmarked gnomes join mercenary groups? I could include a neutral House Sivis gnome as one of the hostel guests rather than have them be a member of the mercenaries, though.

I have the Dragonlance supplement but I've either never looked at it or completely forgot what was in it. Those Nevermind gnome statblocks look plenty interesting! One of my PCs is an artificer, so he would want to study their contraptions and make some himself.

And yes, there should be some gnomish wandslingers among the mercenaries as well. Good thinking!

In the Wildemount sourcebook there is the Gearkeeper Construct, CR10 and of whacky design, that could replace the maschin-i-bozorg.

I have a hardcopy of the Wildemount book but haven't ever read the whole thing. I'll take a look. Thanks for the tip.

I would throw out the random encounter table and come up with one based around the region you decide to set the adventure.

I think you're right. That's probably the best way to handle that.

Edit: The memory web needs to have a whole lot more hit points. Even two memory webs would go down in the first round. I would make it bigger, give it at least 100 hp, resistance to bludgeoning and piercing, Multiattack with Ensnare and let it grapple up to three creatures at a time. Make it in effect 3 webs, but sharing a common pool of hit points. I would buff this even if I was running the adventure at the standard level, it needs to last at least a round!

That's some great stuff! I'll work on upgrading the memory web like that.

Grab a copy of Sly Flourish's Forge of Foes and upscale the monsters using that.

Thanks. I'll take a look. That being said, I'm not really in a position to buy another expensive RPG book at the moment, so it may have to wait.

 

[pukunui]

... I've really been enjoying reading When a Star Falls ... this adventure was written for 4th level.

Normally I wouldn't bat much of an eye at upscaling an adventure for higher level PCs. Most of them time you can just add another monster or give the max hit points or whatever. But in this case, I'm cognizant of the 5th-level power bump. This adventure would have been written with the assumption that the PCs can't cast fly or fireball or make two attacks per round and all that.

D'oh! I missed that the adventure expects the PCs to hit 5th level partway through and then reach 6th level by the end. That means it should take into account that power bump after all. LOL.

I think it will still need some adjustments for a party of five 6th level PCs, though, so I'll keep working on this.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I'm not sure about having any House Sivis gnomes there since they are mercenaries

It’s not unknown for drsgonmarked folk to become mercenaries - see player characters! But zil gnomes have a fondness for intrigue, it would be appropriate to plant an agent in a mercenary company, or even have it as a front for [redacted].

 

[pukunui]

It’s not unknown for drsgonmarked folk to become mercenaries - see player characters! But zil gnomes have a fondness for intrigue, it would be appropriate to plant an agent in a mercenary company, or even have it as a front for [redacted].

Yes, that’s true!

What about the red dragon? Does it make sense for a young red dragon to take up residence somewhere in Khorvaire and be antagonistic? I feel like Eberron has made it so “random” dragon attacks don’t really happen.

EDIT: This answers the question nicely: A Draconic Miscellany

I can just have the young red dragon in this adventure be a rogue dragon, one that’s succumbed to the Daughter of Khyber, one that didn’t grow up in Argonessen, one that’s just playing the part of an angry dragon, etc. Plenty of options!

 

[Quickleaf]

I did a 3.5 hour "speed run" of the AD&D version of When a Star Falls for 4th level pregens. We didn't get passed the derro lair, and it went pretty hard off-script, and I had to ad lib an improvised conclusion due to time constraints (dragon showed up searching for the meteor "egg").

That said, I felt I had a good grasp of the random encounters. You're right - as written, they're dull. Instead, I thought about the Big Picture: A meteor fell a few days ago, and it had an impact on many creatures (esp. beast-like monsters). Also, the Tower of the Heavens periodically receives pilgrims come to know their futures (esp. humanoids).

I used that Big Picture to reimagine the random encounters.

Also, I had the "shadow rider" Sion all set up to be a recurring villain... of course players got a lucky Charm spell off and.,..hard left... they interrogated the charmed Sion so I got to play up some of the tension between Sion & Piyarz, and basically had Sion spill the beans of the whole plot.

NOTE: Death on the Moors doesn't need to be challenging – don't add another memory web – what it needs is to be QUICK and CLEAR. Basically it's your "en media res" way to hook the players, and the initiative/attacks/damage are just a GM trick to focus the group. I chose to change it – as novel as it is, it felt too much like leading the players by the nose for my tastes.

 

[pukunui]

NOTE: Death on the Moors doesn't need to be challenging – don't add another memory web – what it needs is to be QUICK and CLEAR. Basically it's your "en media res" way to hook the players, and the initiative/attacks/damage are just a GM trick to focus the group. I chose to change it – as novel as it is, it felt too much like leading the players by the nose for my tastes.

Thanks for all that. How did you change the beginning?

I wonder if having the dragon be hunting the meteor specifically would give it a bit more of a reason to be there so it’s not so random.

Maybe the dragon caused the cave-in at the derro lair in an attempt to get the meteor, and it tries to convince the PCs to hand it over after they emerge with it.

The PCs won’t want to, so it’ll fight them for it and flee when they beat it up but will follow them and attack again occasionally. Then a final showdown at the end.