D&D 5E Let's Talk About Yawning Portal

[CapnZapp]

It does feel a bit like they should have used the Yawning Portal as a framing device for an Undermountain campaign (Undermountain is not the same thing as the Underdark, btw.)

Having skimmed through it, my initial reaction is that they don't appear to have adjusted the treasure values much, if at all. The early adventures, at least, look like they are filled to the brim with loot and magic items. Very different to the stingier 5e campaigns that have come before. (My players have noticed a dearth of coinage in CoS, for instance.)

I haven't looked at Tomb of Horrors all that closely, but I have a feeling it won't be as deadly for the simple reason that 5e is not as deadly as the older editions, especially at higher levels. If they've made the traps less damaging as well, then ToH will definitely not be as deadly as it might once have been.

Yes, gold is perhaps the biggest weakness of 5e.

There simply isn't any coherent thought as to how much you should get, and what you can use it for.

In short: the game desperately needs a magic item creation and pricing system that a) assumes little or no downtime, and b) is based on actual utility of the item and it's effects, in complete opposition to this rarity-based nonsense


That this *finally* becomes a complaint that reaches the powers that be at WotC is not a second too soon.

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[CapnZapp]

Undermountain is a man-made mega-dungeon located beneath Waterdeep. The Underdark is a natural network of caverns and tunnels far below the surface. The are passages that connect Undermountain to the Underdark.

See the second paragraph under "The Yawning Portal" on page 5 of the book for more.

The Undermountain does not feature in the module.

My advice is to look elsewhere for information. I suggest Google.

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[CapnZapp]

OK. I was mostly looking at The Sunless Citadel and The Forge of Fury. The treasure values are nearly identical. There are going to be some very wealthy (and possibly overpowered) PCs coming out of those adventures!


EDIT: Nightscale's Hoard (The Forge of Fury):

3e version
6,200 sp
1,430 gp
2 garnets (20 gp each)
black pearl (50 gp)
wand of magic missiles
+2 dwarven waraxe w/ Durgeddin's mark
large steel +1 shield
potion of cure light wounds
potion of levitation

5e version
6,200 sp
1,430 gp
2 garnets (20 gp each)
black pearl (50 gp)
wand of magic missiles
+2 greataxe w/ Durgeddin's mark
+1 shield
potion of healing
potion of flying

Yes, if somebody thought their adventurers would come through all this item-starved (so things like resistance to non-magical weaponry actually have a meaning) will have to be disappointed.

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[CapnZapp]

I'll have to look at it more closely. I am still skeptical that many PCs will die, simply because, as I said before, it's so hard for PCs to die (or at least stay dead) in 5e, especially at high levels.

Skeptical is the word.

Compared to previous editions, 5e characters are so resilient, with so very many tricks up their sleeves, including abilities that even deny the DM basic stuff such as making successful rolls against them, that in order to deserve a "deadly" label, you must throw insane numbers and waves of foes against them, or use severely overlevelled foes.

Since WotC haven't yet conceded their encounter guidelines can't challenge seasoned veterans for shots, there was no reason to expect any deadliness out of the module.

With one exception: insta-death traps. If there are enough ways to die with no saves or hit points to cushion your demise, and these cases aren't too trivial to anticipate and avoid, then perhaps just maybe the dungeon can deserve its reputation after all...

But sceptical is the word.

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[pukunui]

According to Mearls, it's just as deadly, but I remain skeptical ... then again, I've never played Tomb of Horrors myself, so I am probably not the best judge. I have, however, DMed enough 5e games (and played in one that went all the way up to 20th plus epic boons) to know that it's difficult for PCs to die permanently. I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, either. There's a lot more that goes into the crafting of a 5e PC, so it's understandable that players wouldn't want them to die arbitrarily. But it does probably mean that Mearls is not actually correct ...

 

[CapnZapp]

Remember, Mearls is little more than a salesman at this point.

Why are we discussing sales pitches as if they were facts?

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[thethain]

There are several places in tomb of horrors that will kill players. Some don't even have saves, a foolhardy character would simply die.

Really though the places are full of loot. White plume mountain has three legendary items that without the others might be considered best weapons in the game. Wave is literally 4 magic items in one. And more!

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[JonnyP71]

According to Mearls, it's just as deadly, but I remain skeptical ...

You are correct to.

I had a quick browse of a copy on Saturday - only a couple of minutes - but it was enough to disappoint me.

[sblock]Example
- 1st collapsing passage - in the original it was 5d10 damage no save
- in the new one, still 5d10, but save for 1/2 damage

...crucially, 5E characters also have more hitpoints than their 1E counterparts, so 5d10 - average 27 - save 13 - barely a scratch... but 27hp damage could easily kill a Mage in 1E of around 10th-12th level.[/sblock]

 

[Onslaught]

OK. I was mostly looking at The Sunless Citadel and The Forge of Fury. The treasure values are nearly identical. There are going to be some very wealthy (and possibly overpowered) PCs coming out of those adventures!


EDIT: Nightscale's Hoard (The Forge of Fury):

3e version
6,200 sp
1,430 gp
2 garnets (20 gp each)
black pearl (50 gp)
wand of magic missiles
+2 dwarven waraxe w/ Durgeddin's mark
large steel +1 shield
potion of cure light wounds
potion of levitation

5e version
6,200 sp
1,430 gp
2 garnets (20 gp each)
black pearl (50 gp)
wand of magic missiles
+2 greataxe w/ Durgeddin's mark
+1 shield
potion of healing
potion of flying

I understand that the dragon hoard is valuable, but other tresure spread across the dungeon are also copy-pasted instead of adapted?

 

[DEFCON 1]

One of the biggest reasons why the Tomb of Horrors has never been as deadly in any of the 3E, 4E or 5E versions compared to the original is simply due to the change in DMing style with the introduction of skills. Which has been pretty much true for all trap-based encounters.

Back in the day, the prototypical methodology for most DMs would be to recite the boxed text or narrate casually what was list in any particular room, and then the players had to spend all their time narrating exactly what they were doing. Any any narration that didn't specifically mention specific types of traps they were looking for / avoiding, or specific things they were looking at and *how* they were looking at them... basically gave the DM license to just let the PCs blunder into things. "You forgot to tell me what specific measures you took walking down this corridor unlike the last seven, so you fall into this pit." and so on.

But once they introduced skills into the game, it changed how many DMs ran things. No longer was overly-precise (and let's face it, in many cases completely lucky and arbitrary) language expected or needed... now the PCs just would say "I'll make a Search check!" or "I'll make a Perception check!" and DMs have become more conditioned to tell the players outright the kinds of things they notice that are more likely important (either positively or negatively). No longer do they have to spend every 10 feet tapping the ground with poles, or verbalizing "What do I see on the ceiling here?" "What are on these walls?" "Tell me specifically what these frescoes depict." etc. etc.

To really get back to the spirit of playing ToH in the classic sense... every DM needs to fight their more modern impulses and really not tell their players ANYTHING unless they ask. And take everything they say (or don't say) as their word of what they're doing (and only that) and adjudicate results appropriately. And for goodness sake never let the players use "Can I make a Perception check?" or "Can I make an Investigation check?" to get information, rather than actually narrating everything they feel like they need to observe *and* make them actually manipulate / test objects to see what happens (and usually blunder into the traps in the process of trying to figure them out.)

Quite frankly? I don't know if many more modern players would actually enjoy something like ToH if truly run in AD&D style, because it not only doesn't have the DMs give players any hints... but also because so many traps (and their solutions to get around them) are so completely arbitrary that you aren't really "figuring" stuff out, you're just throwing stuff at the wall (usually the lives of dozens of PCs) to see what sticks and works.