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Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition
Quests from The Infinite Staircase
This anthology weaves a cosmic thread through six classic Dungeons & Dragons® adventures, updated for the game’s fifth edition. You can run these unforgettable quests individually or as a worlds-spanning campaign that takes characters from level 1 to level 13.
6 remastered classic adventures from D&D’s history: The Lost City, When a Star Falls, Beyond the Crystal Cave, Pharaoh, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and Expeditions to the Barrier Peaks.
6 remastered classic adventures from D&D’s history: The Lost City, When a Star Falls, Beyond the Crystal Cave, Pharaoh, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and Expeditions to the Barrier Peaks.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2024
6 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Wizards of the Coast
399 books428 followersWizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 20, 2024
This book of adventures for Dungeons and Dragons 5e, published by Wizards of the Coast, cements my growing belief that WotC's best adventure books aren't the big campaigns (like Vecna: Eve of Ruin, Descent into Avernus, etc.) but their adventure anthologies. I really enjoyed running adventures from Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Yawning Portal, Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, and Keys From the Golden Vault, and this book of 6 mid-sized adventures got me excited to run some of these adventures too. So what's in this book? Quests from the Infinite Staircase presents six classic adventures that have been updated for 5th edition plus expanded, given a shiny coat of paint (maps, art, etc.) and a loose setting of sorts (the Infinite Staircase itself, first introduced decades ago in the Planescape setting) to tie them all together, though the book also makes it easy to run them as stand-alone adventures. I'll list my quick thoughts on the individual adventures below and whether I'd consider actually running them.
Adventure 1 - The Lost City: very strong adventure mixing up a fun dungeon crawl with intrigues between three (or four if you also count the evil cult) factions, with impressive addition of a whole city and an extra dungeon if you want to spin it out into a full on major campaign. Very impressed with it, would definitely run. It has somewhat weak quest objectives but it's an easy fix and the authors provide some ideas to do just that.
Adventure 2 - When the Star Falls: in my opinion this is the weakest of the bunch due to its nonsensical overcomplicated plot, fairly boring dungeons, weak objectives, an overland hex map that's functionally unnecessary. This one I will definitely be skipping.
Adventure 3 - Beyond the Crystal Cave: I really liked this adventure because of its cool fun faerie setting, strong Shakespearean comedy vibes, a lot of fun NPCs, and a strong quest hook. The PCs are tasked with traveling into the faerie realm to bring back a pair of young lovers who ran away from their respective families. It could use some more work to flesh out the setting outside of the cave itself and I think it doesn't need to be quite so high level - a lower level party will do just fine in this one.
Adventure 4 - Pharaoh: this one is kind of a middle of the road for me. It's a giant dungeon crawl in a funhouse dungeon (as in there are many of those old school bizarre traps and puzzles and whatnot). There are also way too many NPCs in this dungeon (like why is this so populated when the adventure literally says that the pyramid in which the adventure is set has been lost for hundreds of years?) and too many of those NPCs are likely to backstab the players. The story setup and quest hook is also weak. However, as a dungeon - it's really well designed and I'd run it just with a different quest hook, objective, and NPCs.
Adventure 5 - The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth: this one is an update of a beloved classic and I can definitely see why it is so revered. On the one hand it's a massive dungeon (veering into the megadungeon territory) with a whole lot of combat and loot to be had. But on the other hand there are also so many fun roleplaying encounters, puzzles, interesting NPCs, and gnarly combat and non-combat puzzles to solve. While I think it lacks a good strong hook as presented in this book, it's a very solid adventure and a great example of good dungeon design. It also has an overland hex map that's bizarrely blank - not sure what the point of it even is here. I'd just start this adventure with the PCs already at the mouth of the cave and skip the overland travel bits.
Adventure 6 - Expeditions to the Barrier Peaks: I love this adventure, I think it's probably my favourite of the bunch. It mixes science fiction and fantasy as the players delve into a dungeon only to discover that it's a giant crashed spaceship full of wonders and horrors from a dozen worlds, controlled by less-than-trustworthy artificial intelligence. There's so much fun stuff to find and interact with in this adventure and it's a welcome departure from yet another cave, underground tomb, or dungeon. If I had any criticisms of it is that it's a little TOO big and there are a little too many combat encounters that are trivial for the suggested party level of 11-13.
Finally there are two appendices for new magic items (and futuristic tech!) and for monsters. The magic items are solid, the monsters are OK. Some are just updated and slightly upgraded in level versions of existing monsters (looking at you ancient froghemoth and vegepygmies) but there are also a couple of neat new monsters.
Overall, very solid book, good variety of adventures, almost all of them look fun on paper and most of them feature very good dungeon design.
Adventure 1 - The Lost City: very strong adventure mixing up a fun dungeon crawl with intrigues between three (or four if you also count the evil cult) factions, with impressive addition of a whole city and an extra dungeon if you want to spin it out into a full on major campaign. Very impressed with it, would definitely run. It has somewhat weak quest objectives but it's an easy fix and the authors provide some ideas to do just that.
Adventure 2 - When the Star Falls: in my opinion this is the weakest of the bunch due to its nonsensical overcomplicated plot, fairly boring dungeons, weak objectives, an overland hex map that's functionally unnecessary. This one I will definitely be skipping.
Adventure 3 - Beyond the Crystal Cave: I really liked this adventure because of its cool fun faerie setting, strong Shakespearean comedy vibes, a lot of fun NPCs, and a strong quest hook. The PCs are tasked with traveling into the faerie realm to bring back a pair of young lovers who ran away from their respective families. It could use some more work to flesh out the setting outside of the cave itself and I think it doesn't need to be quite so high level - a lower level party will do just fine in this one.
Adventure 4 - Pharaoh: this one is kind of a middle of the road for me. It's a giant dungeon crawl in a funhouse dungeon (as in there are many of those old school bizarre traps and puzzles and whatnot). There are also way too many NPCs in this dungeon (like why is this so populated when the adventure literally says that the pyramid in which the adventure is set has been lost for hundreds of years?) and too many of those NPCs are likely to backstab the players. The story setup and quest hook is also weak. However, as a dungeon - it's really well designed and I'd run it just with a different quest hook, objective, and NPCs.
Adventure 5 - The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth: this one is an update of a beloved classic and I can definitely see why it is so revered. On the one hand it's a massive dungeon (veering into the megadungeon territory) with a whole lot of combat and loot to be had. But on the other hand there are also so many fun roleplaying encounters, puzzles, interesting NPCs, and gnarly combat and non-combat puzzles to solve. While I think it lacks a good strong hook as presented in this book, it's a very solid adventure and a great example of good dungeon design. It also has an overland hex map that's bizarrely blank - not sure what the point of it even is here. I'd just start this adventure with the PCs already at the mouth of the cave and skip the overland travel bits.
Adventure 6 - Expeditions to the Barrier Peaks: I love this adventure, I think it's probably my favourite of the bunch. It mixes science fiction and fantasy as the players delve into a dungeon only to discover that it's a giant crashed spaceship full of wonders and horrors from a dozen worlds, controlled by less-than-trustworthy artificial intelligence. There's so much fun stuff to find and interact with in this adventure and it's a welcome departure from yet another cave, underground tomb, or dungeon. If I had any criticisms of it is that it's a little TOO big and there are a little too many combat encounters that are trivial for the suggested party level of 11-13.
Finally there are two appendices for new magic items (and futuristic tech!) and for monsters. The magic items are solid, the monsters are OK. Some are just updated and slightly upgraded in level versions of existing monsters (looking at you ancient froghemoth and vegepygmies) but there are also a couple of neat new monsters.
Overall, very solid book, good variety of adventures, almost all of them look fun on paper and most of them feature very good dungeon design.
September 7, 2024
An adventure anthology that pays tribute to the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons, this book brings together adventures from the early years of the game revamping them in terms of both rules and content to best fit the fifth edition of the game and the sensibilities of 2024.
It's a pretty good collection which brings together stone-cold classics that many fans interested in the history of the game will know (such as Expedition to the Barrier Peaks) as well as other really good adventures that never got their deserved fame (When a Star Falls).
The framing story of an interplanar infinite staircase ruled by the djinn Nafas is also pretty cool, providing DMs with an easy way to either tie the disparate adventures together or make them pop into an ongoing campaign. All in all one of the best Anthology volumes to come out in the last few years.
It's a pretty good collection which brings together stone-cold classics that many fans interested in the history of the game will know (such as Expedition to the Barrier Peaks) as well as other really good adventures that never got their deserved fame (When a Star Falls).
The framing story of an interplanar infinite staircase ruled by the djinn Nafas is also pretty cool, providing DMs with an easy way to either tie the disparate adventures together or make them pop into an ongoing campaign. All in all one of the best Anthology volumes to come out in the last few years.
July 24, 2024
Another excellent collection of adventures. WotC really has been doing a great job with this type of book - mid-sized classic adventures updated and arranged around a theme. This book collects a variety of interesting tales, and conjures a rather useful thread to bind them together. Useful as is, or as a place to mine adventures and/or ideas from. I look forward to putting this to use with my gaming groups.
January 6, 2025
In celebration of the 50th anniversary one of the slew of books released was this selection of adventures from Basic and Advanced DnD from the 80s. Following the format of anthologies such as The Yawning Portal and Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and taking a narrative inspiration to link them together as other anthologies (Candlekeep, Radiant Citadel, Golden Vault) we have a selection of six adapted adventures on offer.
The premise is quite cool: the disparate adventures (which could easily be part of a Greyhawk campaign as most were designed for) are accessed via portal doors from the mysterious Infinite Staircase, which is similar in idea to Sigil/Planescape. The patron if required is a genie called Nafas who lives in a palace on the Staircase and is responsible for it's supervision. I think for some groups this would work, others less so (like the other anthologies I suppose).
The Lost City is an update of B4, held to be one of Basic DnD's best and written by Tom Moldvay. It's a fairly fun low level dungeon set inside a ziggurat with various factions vying for domination against the threat of a cult of an elder evil. Essentially the PCs have to escape the ziggurat once inside. It's fun with the factions but suffers from the scale needed for low levels, namely there's only a dozen members of each faction detailed. A meatier scrap against Zargon would be fatal, until maybe 8th level; the additional material fleshes out the setting nicely, and would be fun to play, although perhaps ruining the flow of a larger Staircase campaign. Oddly the adventure gave me early Dr Who vibes.
Next is the update of When a Star Falls, UK4, by Graham Morris. It retains the quirkiness of the UK modules (which featured as U1-3 in Ghosts of Saltmarsh), with a perhaps more modern vibe than others from the early 80s. It has a strong story base, which woupd become more of a fashion with Dragonlance. And it's a good yarn, with some intruige, some good set encounters, and a superb hook with the memory web. Yet it feels a little disjointed, and some of the maps are terrible (the wilderness one, and a mistake on the tower map).
I really enjoyed Beyond the Crystal Cave, which was originally UK1, and presented a different tone to other modules of the time, being story-focused and not especially combat orientated. The premise has been kept, with a Fey twist, and the PCs embark upon a journey to a Fey Realm to retrieve two young lovers. It has aged well, although I'm not sure given the de-emphasis on combat that the recomended levels are required. The maps are well done, and the new monsters well designed.
Pharaoh (originally I3) was Tracy Hickman's first offering for TSR pre Dragonlance and Ravenloft. It is truncated here, removing much of the wilderness section, and locations in the desert. It focuses on the pyramid which I love as a clever dungeon, and as a 3d structure. Having the original helps as the maps aren't as deductive when presented here, and the side plan which helps a lot is tiny in the images. It's a great (slightly daft) dungeon crawl in a pyramid with a great BBEG and some cool locations. Definitely a good choice (although the comedic spoon gnome still makes no sense on how he's lived 5 years with just spoons).
Perhaps my favourite is the faithful update of the Gygax dungeon, the Lost Caverns of Tsojancth (S4). I've reviewed the original elsewhere, but this update has stood the test of time. It's a hardcore dungeon crawl with constant combat, challenge, daft traps/puzzles, and environmental features to overcome. It works even without the "it's magic" handwave, and the lower Caverns demonic incursion is well written. The finale with Drelzna is one of my favourites as, if played right, is damned tough as they battle in a giant ball in essence. Missed some of the OG monsters (like the Xag Ya, Xag Ye) but appreciate page count might have precluded 5e versions.
Finally, we have the legendary S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. At the time this was a marmite adventure wherein DnD did sci-fi, at a convention module, to raise awareness of both versatility and other games like Metamorphosis Alpha. 40+ years on, with Spelljammer etc under our belt its not so novel but still fun. I'm glad they kept the style of the original energy weapons as the art was my favourite part of the original. The update here has kept the key aspects, but shifted around the encounters (to increase chance of PCs doing the cool stuff and not just empty rooms or hordes of vegepigmies), dropped a couple of levels, and shoe-horned a narrative in. The narrative kind of works, and would need some skill at DMing to play the computers duplicity correctly. I'd also suggest the clue about the sole scientist survivor being better signposted than just the android barman. Overall, it's a sympathetic update and I enjoyed it, although I disliked the map style (black maps are too dark for me; they did similar with Revels End in Golden Vault and it sucked).
Overall, these are good updates of six originals and I'd play all six. The last four work better for me, but that might be taste. 5 stars, and would happily read more of the same!
The premise is quite cool: the disparate adventures (which could easily be part of a Greyhawk campaign as most were designed for) are accessed via portal doors from the mysterious Infinite Staircase, which is similar in idea to Sigil/Planescape. The patron if required is a genie called Nafas who lives in a palace on the Staircase and is responsible for it's supervision. I think for some groups this would work, others less so (like the other anthologies I suppose).
The Lost City is an update of B4, held to be one of Basic DnD's best and written by Tom Moldvay. It's a fairly fun low level dungeon set inside a ziggurat with various factions vying for domination against the threat of a cult of an elder evil. Essentially the PCs have to escape the ziggurat once inside. It's fun with the factions but suffers from the scale needed for low levels, namely there's only a dozen members of each faction detailed. A meatier scrap against Zargon would be fatal, until maybe 8th level; the additional material fleshes out the setting nicely, and would be fun to play, although perhaps ruining the flow of a larger Staircase campaign. Oddly the adventure gave me early Dr Who vibes.
Next is the update of When a Star Falls, UK4, by Graham Morris. It retains the quirkiness of the UK modules (which featured as U1-3 in Ghosts of Saltmarsh), with a perhaps more modern vibe than others from the early 80s. It has a strong story base, which woupd become more of a fashion with Dragonlance. And it's a good yarn, with some intruige, some good set encounters, and a superb hook with the memory web. Yet it feels a little disjointed, and some of the maps are terrible (the wilderness one, and a mistake on the tower map).
I really enjoyed Beyond the Crystal Cave, which was originally UK1, and presented a different tone to other modules of the time, being story-focused and not especially combat orientated. The premise has been kept, with a Fey twist, and the PCs embark upon a journey to a Fey Realm to retrieve two young lovers. It has aged well, although I'm not sure given the de-emphasis on combat that the recomended levels are required. The maps are well done, and the new monsters well designed.
Pharaoh (originally I3) was Tracy Hickman's first offering for TSR pre Dragonlance and Ravenloft. It is truncated here, removing much of the wilderness section, and locations in the desert. It focuses on the pyramid which I love as a clever dungeon, and as a 3d structure. Having the original helps as the maps aren't as deductive when presented here, and the side plan which helps a lot is tiny in the images. It's a great (slightly daft) dungeon crawl in a pyramid with a great BBEG and some cool locations. Definitely a good choice (although the comedic spoon gnome still makes no sense on how he's lived 5 years with just spoons).
Perhaps my favourite is the faithful update of the Gygax dungeon, the Lost Caverns of Tsojancth (S4). I've reviewed the original elsewhere, but this update has stood the test of time. It's a hardcore dungeon crawl with constant combat, challenge, daft traps/puzzles, and environmental features to overcome. It works even without the "it's magic" handwave, and the lower Caverns demonic incursion is well written. The finale with Drelzna is one of my favourites as, if played right, is damned tough as they battle in a giant ball in essence. Missed some of the OG monsters (like the Xag Ya, Xag Ye) but appreciate page count might have precluded 5e versions.
Finally, we have the legendary S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. At the time this was a marmite adventure wherein DnD did sci-fi, at a convention module, to raise awareness of both versatility and other games like Metamorphosis Alpha. 40+ years on, with Spelljammer etc under our belt its not so novel but still fun. I'm glad they kept the style of the original energy weapons as the art was my favourite part of the original. The update here has kept the key aspects, but shifted around the encounters (to increase chance of PCs doing the cool stuff and not just empty rooms or hordes of vegepigmies), dropped a couple of levels, and shoe-horned a narrative in. The narrative kind of works, and would need some skill at DMing to play the computers duplicity correctly. I'd also suggest the clue about the sole scientist survivor being better signposted than just the android barman. Overall, it's a sympathetic update and I enjoyed it, although I disliked the map style (black maps are too dark for me; they did similar with Revels End in Golden Vault and it sucked).
Overall, these are good updates of six originals and I'd play all six. The last four work better for me, but that might be taste. 5 stars, and would happily read more of the same!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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