D&D 5E Quests From The Infinite Staircase

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

TSR looooved a hex crawl that would take a huge amount of time in real life. I blame the wargaming.

 

[pukunui]

Wow! OK. Maybe it’s the level of detail on the map that is throwing me off. It looks like a much smaller area.

 

[MerricB]

TSR looooved a hex crawl that would take a huge amount of time in real life. I blame the wargaming.

I blame... Outdoor Survival!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In any case, the Isle of Dread is about the size of Ireland, which feels like it's really spreading the good bits out waaay across the map unnecessarily.

 

[pukunui]

I finally finished reading Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and I have to say, much like The Lost City, I'm finding I really dislike that old school style of plonking random monsters in adjacent rooms with little-to-no thought about how they got there or how they live. For instance, how did an adult black dragon get into the greater caverns and what is it doing in that small-for-it cavern? This whole adventure has "monsters sitting in rooms waiting to be killed by the adventurers" written all over it!

Dungeon ecology isn't something I actively think about, but clearly I notice its absence.

Also, I'm sick of all these relatively miniscule locations. I want BIG places with points of interest scattered about. Think 4e's Thunderspire Labyrinth or LotR's Moria.

When I ran Lost Mine of Phandelver back at the beginning of 5e, that's what I did with the eponymous lost mine. I took all the keyed rooms and spread them out with abstract amounts of old mining tunnels in between them.

I think if I were to run Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, I'd have to do something similar.

 

[Parmandur]

I finally finished reading Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and I have to say, much like The Lost City, I'm finding I really dislike that old school style of plonking random monsters in adjacent rooms with little-to-no thought about how they got there or how they live. For instance, how did an adult black dragon get into the greater caverns and what is it doing in that small-for-it cavern? This whole adventure has "monsters sitting in rooms waiting to be killed by the adventurers" written all over it!

Dungeon ecology isn't something I actively think about, but clearly I notice its absence.

Also, I'm sick of all these relatively miniscule locations. I want BIG places with points of interest scattered about. Think 4e's Thunderspire Labyrinth or LotR's Moria.

When I ran Lost Mine of Phandelver back at the beginning of 5e, that's what I did with the eponymous lost mine. I took all the keyed rooms and spread them out with abstract amounts of old mining tunnels in between them.

I think if I were to run Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, I'd have to do something similar.

Fun fact: Gygax originally stocked the Dungeon alphabetically, so each room's Monster comes sequentially by starting letter (the Black Dragon substitutes for a Dracolisk).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Fun fact: Gygax originally stocked the Dungeon alphabetically, so each room's Monster comes sequentially by starting letter (the Black Dragon substitutes for a Dracolisk).

Which would in fact be easier to get down there, and wouldn't need food.

Tsojcanth was very random, but it was also very very early.

 

[plecostomus]

In an effort to understand D&D better (I have only ever been a player in a long-term homebrew 5E campaign), I started reading Quests from the Infinite Staircase and the 2024 DMG.

For Infinite Staircase, I've gotten through the first module, The Lost City, and I have a few questions.

1. Unless specified, secret doors in the Lost City module "blend in with their surroundings". There are a few rooms where the secret door outlines are obvious. Beyond that, PCs have to examine a wall and succeed on a DC 15 Perception check to notice a secret door. Would you give more hints than the module provides for these unspecified doors, or rely on PCs actively examining all the walls?
   
   
2. In Room B3: "Secret Room", there are 4 stirges sleeping on the ceiling. They are described as being engorged with the blood of their recent victim, whose corpse is on the floor of the room. These stirges are not included in the description box (that the DM should read from when PCs enter).
   
   [B3 Description] A shriveled humanoid corpse in blue robes and a brass mask lies in the center of this stale-smelling room. The corpse's stiff, wrinkled hand stretches toward a toppled leather pouch just out of reach. Glittering, blue gemstones have spilled from the bag onto the dusty floor.
   
   The module specifies that bright light or any noise louder than a whisper will wake the stirges, who then attack. If a PC tries to retrieve some gemstones from the corpse in the room, they must make a DC 15 Stealth check to not wake the stirges.
   
   Room B3 is 20x20 feet, with a 15-foot-high ceiling. All rooms in the ziggurat have no light sources of their own; "Area descriptions assume the characters have a light source or other means of seeing in the dark."
   
   In the case that PCs are using torches or the Light cantrip to see, does this mean the stirges wake immediately when they enter? Or would you apply the triggers for the stirges only if someone approaches the corpse?
   
   Assuming the stirges are not immediately triggered, do you wait until a PC says "I look at the ceiling" to mention the stirges? They are tiny in size. Would you give hints like the sound of fluttering wings or blood dripping from the ceiling, or expect PCs to figure out on their own that they need to look up?
   
   The module specifies that a character can perform a DC 13 Medicine check on the corpse to realize it has been drained of blood. But based on the triggers as written, when a PC tells the rest of the party this fact at a conversational volume, the stirges will wake up.
   
   At this point in the module, based on milestone leveling, the PCs would likely be a party of 3-5 Level 1s. 2024 stirges are CR 1/8 with 2 HP each and AC 14. I'm guessing it's completely fine for them to surprise the PCs at any point. But is there anything you would change for presentation's sake, or something else I'm not thinking of?
   
   I really liked the lore of this particular room, so maybe that's why I'm so focused on how it appears to players.
   
   
3. For people who have run Lost City, did you add anything to the empty rooms, like murals or hints to later parts of the module?
   
   
4. One look at the stat block for the boss of the module will tell you it is not appropriate for the Level 4 PCs that might encounter it. The module specifies it will be a social encounter if PCs are below a certain level. But in that case, the PCs will simply turn around and leave and that's the end of the module until they have leveled up later.
   
   Or if the PCs choose to exit the ziggurat when given an earlier opportunity (the boss is on an optional floor), there is no particular resolution to the module at all, except that the party survived it.
   
   If you use Nafas as the framing device (i.e. Nafas sends the PCs to the Lost City), his instructions suggest this will be the case. He asks the PCs to simply "Return to me with [the Lost City's] story" rather than asking them to fix what's wrong. For people who have run this module, how did players react to there being no final boss or essentially not being able to do anything to the boss?
   
   In the homebrew campaign I play in, we know we are way off from ever seeing our final boss. But every place we go, we usually accomplish something. We change something about the place we went to. But we also don't do these multi-session dungeon crawls*, so this whole structure is pretty new to my experience.

*We did do 1978 Tomb of Horrors with the DCC system as part of a dream sequence.

 

[jasper]

Plecostomus B3 is poorly written and you will have to decide on a trigger.
the boss monster is a social encounter or die monster. My group bribe them. Read my session write up 1 to 6 which covers the lost city.

 

[Stormonu]

1. Depends. If the characters are on a quest and have an idea there might be one in the area - or they search, I'd probably throw in some extra description to alert the party to something that might get them to further examine or fiddle with the area until they find or successfully manipulate the door through interaction. Things like a bit of an air current, fresh tracks that end at the wall, faint light seeping from the other side, a knock or other distant sound from the area or the like.

2. In B3, the party might have darkvision, which might make retrieving the gemstones easier. Otherwise, being already full, the stirges may not stir unless provoked or the characters get too close. Depending on how you want to run it, if the party flubs the roll only one stirge (the runt of the group who didn't get a very filling meal) might be the only one to descend at a party's approach, the others only following suit if the party makes a real ruckus. Really depends on how dangerous you want to make this encounter.

3. No, the empty rooms give the characters a spot to catch their breath or to lower the party's guard for when they walk into a real dangerous room. If the party lingers, its still possible for random encounters to run across them. Faded murals, discarded and abandoned signs of a previous inhabitation and story bits though can enliven the adventure, giving the story of the city and its fall a deeper meaning.

4. In the original module, the boss's location was concealed, making it unlikely the party would accidentally stumble on it, and going after the creature was meant to be a climatic quest for something like 7th level, after the party had interacted with the city below and discovered clues to the boss's location (and method of destruction). An early forced encounter likely means death if a fight breaks out.