After a first glimpse of Infinite Staircase Queststhe next D&D adventure anthology, I was left with mixed feelings. I nearly died exploring its very first adventure, but the experience felt oddly safe for an old-school dungeon crawl.
My preview of the next one MDN Book transported me to The Lost City, a level one to three adventure first published in 1982. D&D designer (and our Dungeon Master for the session) Makenzie De Armas tells me that the anthology's first course can be “a really good starter adventure” that features “all levels of play.”
In The Lost City, your party wanders through a half-buried desert ziggurat (why? Because why not?). Along your journey, you'll first encounter a series of strange factions, each with their own unique ideas and masks. It seems like the focus is on roleplaying and social intrigue at this level, but as you descend deeper into the Ziggurat, the dungeon crawling begins.
This is where De Armas threw us in for the preview. Wanting to be useful, I had created a swashbuckling thief who could backstab and fill in the skill gaps in our party. Unfortunately, two of my companions had thought the same thing (one of them even choosing the same Mdn Subclass). This left us with three Rogues and a Loner DND Warlock.
Now you start to understand why a quasi-TPK was on the table. All begin GOOD. The group received a “Rogues, Rogues, Rogues!” » singing in progress. Despite the overlap in playstyles, we handled the situation fairly amicably, with minimal nudging when looking for traps.
We didn't find many traps. Every door we scrutinized turned out to be, yes, a door. The few environmental hazards we saw were clearly marked and fairly easy to get around. Maybe it was just like that because We were all thieves, but the wizard did very well too.
Given the “introductory” feel this adventure is going for, these choices all seem intentional. After all, this book comes out just before the new era of A DND begins, and it might be the first adventure many people play with the new rules. Wizards of the Coast needed an adventure that would be suitable for players who are just learning how to play dungeons and dragons once again.
“We wanted to make sure the transition was as smooth as possible,” says De Armas of moving from the fifth edition to the next edition.
The fights started to pile up as we explored deeper. A few Supernatural Blasts and stabs were enough to take out a few skeleton enemies, and our high Perception and Stealth levels helped us evade dangerous beasts on more than one occasion. Backstabbing dominated the day. But as we dug deeper, we grew cocky.
Enter the Banshee. On the first turn of combat, this ghostly foe let out a piercing scream that immediately sent two party members rolling. DnD death savesOur wizard quickly found himself running out of means to heal the group.
The thieves couldn't do much other than weakly stab the Banshee, which was clearly resistant to non-magical damage. Plus, we missed her half the time. As my Swashbuckler lay on the ground, potentially breathing its last, all that expertise seemed pretty useless.
We barely survived this part of the adventure. Somehow we got everyone back, banishing the Banshee and allowing the ghost from the nearby tomb to Finally take a rest. Death almost got us, but the fight never seemed Also threatening.
Apparently, things change a little further into the ziggurat. Deeper underground is a secret cult, worshiping a huge tentacled monster that is said to be indestructible.
The video above can tell you more about that – and so can we, once we’re able to share our full Quests from the Infinite Staircase review. Keep your eyes peeled for that one. In the meantime, here’s everything you can expect in this year’s review DND Release Schedule – plus some tips for choosing DnD Course And DnD races.
