D&D 5E Quests from the Infinite Staircase: How Is It?

[dave2008]

Big matter of YMMV here, for sure, bit at least these look nothing like any other map theybhave published, which is nice in thst the original was a pretty classic blue plain map:

Absolutely agree. I will say they seem more DM friendly printed in the book than they do on my computer screen with DnD Beyond.

 

[dave2008]

I also found myself disappointed with Yawning Portal's lack of doing any updates or improvements to the old adventures. Even in cases where the updates were available to them (for example, Chris Perkins had done a huge update to the Against the Giants Adventures for 4e, that included very nice Schley Maps, more named NPCs, and a whole new Stone Giant part, but they just colorized the original maps and dropped it into 5e, largely unchanged.

While I agree with you, I feel like some of the point of that books was to say: "hey look, you can use old adventures with minimal changes!"

 

[Parmandur]

Absolutely agree. I will say they seem more DM friendly printed in the book than they do on my computer screen with DnD Beyond.

The big "wow, that's amazing" par for me is how the map color codes the doors, so it's easy to tell what is accessible to players at a glance: the original module inspired a bazillion video games woth the color key card gimmick...and the map was in blue and white, not easy at a glance to figure out what connected where.

The big, full page printing is pretty easy to read, too.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

While I agree with you, I feel like some of the point of that books was to say: "hey look, you can use old adventures with minimal changes!"

Yes, that was probably why they did it that way. And I agree with them - I've run a bunch of non-5e Adventures using 5e, without doing much, if any, pre-prep to "translate" them.

... But I still like Infinite Staircase's approach to old adventures more than I like Yawning Portal's - and Yawning Portal is an excellent book!

 

[Parmandur]

While I agree with you, I feel like some of the point of that books was to say: "hey look, you can use old adventures with minimal changes!"

Apparently most of the hard work in YP was converting the two 3E Advebtures, specifically the Monsters and NPC stat blocks.

 

[dave2008]

Yes, that was probably why they did it that way. And I agree with them - I've run a bunch of non-5e Adventures using 5e, without doing much, if any, pre-prep to "translate" them.

... But I still like Infinite Staircase's approach to old adventures more than I like Yawning Portal's - and Yawning Portal is an excellent book!

Agreed!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would also say that there was more about Nafas and the infinite staircase than I was expecting (though once I got into it I thought there might be a map of his palace and there wasn't). It only lightly touches each adventure, but it is something that could easily work into anyone's campaign. I didn't think I wanted another method to connect to different worlds/planes, but evidently I do! Seems easier to drop into any campaign than Sigil or the Radiant Citadel or the Rock of Bral

I do love a good transitive plane, even if they don't use that terminology in this book. (I still think the 3E Manual of the Planes breakdowns of how planes work is the gold standard for such things.)

 

[Demetrios1453]

I do love a good transitive plane, even if they don't use that terminology in this book. (I still think the 3E Manual of the Planes breakdowns of how planes work is the gold standard for such things.)

It might be fun to drop it into the Vecna campaign, instead of just using portals to all the various settings and planar locations. It would mean that the characters would have to do some research or talk with Nafas to find the correct doorway, and said doorway probably won't dump them immediately next to their destination, like many of the portals in the book do. I might actually do this when I run the game.

 

[J-H]

As a parent myself, I appreciate the question, but kind of hard to answer in the abstract: how ild are your kids, what sort of media are they comfortable with, what sort of media are you comfortavle with for them, etc.

Firm PG-13, I would say, these all have pretty old school pulp influences going on

That's a good enough answer, thanks!

 

[TravDoc42]

I'm a big fan of the way the Infinite Staircase is portrayed in this! The details about the Iron Shadow and the various portals to different parts of the multiverse allow for DM leeway for more adventures than even just the anthology ones!

As well, the monsters are cool and well designed! I'm a big fan of the art for the robots and the android!