Quote from: Justin Alexander;940671Off-hand I can't think of a better "ruined dwarven fortress" scenario at the sort of medium-scale that Forge of Fury provides. So I think it's a great choice for WotC.

But then, how many Moria-style dungeons did TSR/WotC do?

Without consulting my shelf only these come to mind:
N5 Under Illefarn
DL4 Dragons of Desolation (and Thorbardin is not even a ruin)
...?

What I think they should do is reprint the most popular self-published/indie modules as a best of compilation with 5E stats. Hasbro easily could afford to purchase rights to do a 5E version of Tomb of the Iron God, Anomalous Subsurface Environment, Deep Carbon Observatory, etc. It would be a win/win for Hasbro and the module writers. Solid adventures for Hasbro + increased exposure for the writers.

Quote from: estar;940145If they keep releasing retread products then I would worry. Otherwise I don't see anything wrong with this release. It consistent with marketing of 5e that it does new things while respecting the old.

Bingo.

And I'd rather see this than another rigid 10 or 12 level adventure path.

Quote from: One Horse Town;939392Tales from the Yawning Portal (or something like that) is a compendium of 7 adventures updated to 5e rules. Classics like Against the Giants, White Plume Mountain and Tomb of Horrors get re-skinned to the new edition.

Considering the zillions of adventures available at rpgnow for peanuts, personally, i think this is not needed as it's basically a piece of piss to convert old adventures to 5e.

Maybe they're running out of steam already.

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/tales-yawning-portal

I'm firmly in the "less Path in my Adventures, please" camp. While I would have preferred to see some new standalone stuff, I have been pleasantly surprised at how little rehash there has been to this point, so I don't begrudge a collection like this at all. Conversion might be fairly straight forward for those familiar with the various editions, but making these modules accessible to newer players is a worthy goal.

Also, if this ends up providing updated artwork and unkeyed maps for online use, that would be a bonus.

I have a warm, squishy soft spot for Tamoachan, so that might be swaying my judgement a bit. If they end up doing something I don't like to my baby, I reserve the right to come back here and say it was all a terrible idea and that I was against it from the start.

I will be buying Yawning Portal. All those adventures in one book already converted for the D&D edition that I currently quite enjoy.

Correction... I just preordered it.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;940209A remake of Curse of Strahd?  Now this?  I'm seeing the beginning of one. I could, of course, be wrong.  Time will tell.

Reading the Curse of Strahd the focus didn't strike me as a literal translation of the original module. Rather in a expansion into a full blown campaigns like the Realms of Terror version. The Yawning Portal on contrast more focused on literally translating the older modules into 5e.

I wonder if they are going the fix the ultimate treasure in the Tomb of Horrors like they did with the 3e version. That was pretty cheesy to do in the 3rd edition version which was otherwise a faithful translation.

Quote from: estar;940871I wonder if they are going the fix the ultimate treasure in the Tomb of Horrors like they did with the 3e version. That was pretty cheesy to do in the 3rd edition version which was otherwise a faithful translation.

One of the issues for Tomb of Horrors is that it's not very rewarding for the risk involved.  If they keep it the same, I can tell you, a lot of local players will not have fun (Which is purely anecdotal, and does not represent the entire D&D market.)  There has to be reason the players should be willing to accept all the cheap deaths and 'gotchas'.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;940892One of the issues for Tomb of Horrors is that it's not very rewarding for the risk involved.  If they keep it the same, I can tell you, a lot of local players will not have fun (Which is purely anecdotal, and does not represent the entire D&D market.)  There has to be reason the players should be willing to accept all the cheap deaths and 'gotchas'.

Not very rewarding ? Then you didn't pay enough attention to the descriptions

QuoteThese doors are 14' wide and 28' tall. They are made of solid mithril, 3' thick, and impregnated with great magicks in order to make them absolutely spell and magic proof.

But not dwarven mining proof.

I ran this module back in the day. The exchange went something like this.

QuoteMe: At the top of the stairs you see a pair of doors. These doors are 14' wide and 28' tall. They are made of solid mithril, 3' thick, and impregnated with great magicks in order to make them absolutely spell and magic proof. Where these valves meet, at about waist height, is a cup-like depression, a hemispherical concavity, with a central hole.
Tim: I start examining the door jamb carefully for traps and then look at the center part with the hole.
Dwayne: Wait! Rob read that again.
Me: OK, These doors are 14' wide and 28' tall. They are made of solid mithril .....
(me starting at the text for a few seconds)
Me: Oh shit.
Dwayne: Guys the treasure isn't what inside the treasure is those damn doors.

So they dealt with the lich, they sacrificed their bag of holding by empyting it and pushing the demi-lich inside of it. Gathered what they could of the treasure, used it to hire a bunch of mercenaries, and a company of dwarves. Made sure that the one group watched the other. And had the dwarves dig out the entire room. Focusing on the two slabs of mithril and the two smaller doors/panels made of adamantite. The party used it split it 50/50 with the dwarves.

Then promptly when to the Invincible Overlord of City-State and traded about 2/3 of their slab for the right to carve out a Duchy in the name of the Overlord. Used the rest to hire and train a army.

All and all they were quite satisfied with what they got out of the Tomb.

The 3.5e version nerfed this by explicitly saying that the mithril and the adamantite were just a thin veneer.

Quote from: estar;940896Not very rewarding ? Then you didn't pay enough attention to the descriptions



But not dwarven mining proof.

I ran this module back in the day. The exchange went something like this.



So they dealt with the lich, they sacrificed their bag of holding by empyting it and pushing the demi-lich inside of it. Gathered what they could of the treasure, used it to hire a bunch of mercenaries, and a company of dwarves. Made sure that the one group watched the other. And had the dwarves dig out the entire room. Focusing on the two slabs of mithril and the two smaller doors/panels made of adamantite. The party used it split it 50/50 with the dwarves.

Then promptly when to the Invincible Overlord of City-State and traded about 2/3 of their slab for the right to carve out a Duchy in the name of the Overlord. Used the rest to hire and train a army.

All and all they were quite satisfied with what they got out of the Tomb.

The 3.5e version nerfed this by explicitly saying that the mithril and the adamantite were just a thin veneer.

It's clear you never had any geologists, or wannabe smiths (who do the research) cuz the doors are worth a fair amount, but as art pieces, not as raw materials.  And you wouldn't get enough to pay more than the dwarves for the work.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;940955It's clear you never had any geologists, or wannabe smiths (who do the research) cuz the doors are worth a fair amount, but as art pieces, not as raw materials.  And you wouldn't get enough to pay more than the dwarves for the work.

Two Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty Two cubic feet of solid mithril is more than ample to enable exactly what the PCs wanted to do with their characters.

Assuming Mithril is equal to the density of silver that roughly 700 lbs per cubic feet. Mithril worth 2,500 gp per pound (in accordance with the G-D-Q series). Multiply that by 700 and then 2,352 and the worth of the two doors are 4 billion gold pieces.

Of course the economy couldn't absorb that but since Mithril is useful for making +4 armor and weapons the player can realize enough of that to enable their plans. Even if you peg Mithril at a hundreths of that it still a staggering amount of money.

Quote from: estar;940971Two Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty Two cubic feet of solid mithril is more than ample to enable exactly what the PCs wanted to do with their characters.

Assuming Mithril is equal to the density of silver that roughly 700 lbs per cubic feet. Mithril worth 2,500 gp per pound (in accordance with the G-D-Q series). Multiply that by 700 and then 2,352 and the worth of the two doors are 4 billion gold pieces.

Of course the economy couldn't absorb that but since Mithril is useful for making +4 armor and weapons the player can realize enough of that to enable their plans. Even if you peg Mithril at a hundreths of that it still a staggering amount of money.

I'm eargerly looking forward to the aggressive cognitive dissonance soaked responce post  from Mssr Brady.

Quote from: estar;940971Two Thousand Three Hundred and Fifty Two cubic feet of solid mithril is more than ample to enable exactly what the PCs wanted to do with their characters.

Assuming Mithril is equal to the density of silver that roughly 700 lbs per cubic feet. Mithril worth 2,500 gp per pound (in accordance with the G-D-Q series). Multiply that by 700 and then 2,352 and the worth of the two doors are 4 billion gold pieces.

Of course the economy couldn't absorb that but since Mithril is useful for making +4 armor and weapons the player can realize enough of that to enable their plans. Even if you peg Mithril at a hundreths of that it still a staggering amount of money.

All right, a few things here.  First, the doors are magical, yes?  I'm going to assume that you're a rather lenient GM, and didn't realize that if those doors were not magic'ed for lightness, no one would have been able to open them.  At all.  Ever.  We're talking several TONNES worth of metal.  And taking them down?  You probably had several deaths in the process.


Secondly, wouldn't the magic as evidenced by this statement:

Quote...[a]nd impregnated with great magicks in order to make them absolutely spell and magic proof.

Wouldn't that make it nigh impossible to remove the joints, cuz the weight?  And like it said, magic would be impossible to use.

The main reason my team (I never ran it, and we didn't get far anyway, but it was a one shot meant to try it out) didn't take down the door was because it was just ungainly to haul back to a town that frankly had no resources to actually do anything with it.  No magical bank with millions of gold to throw around.

It seems like the DM was being a little too lenient compared to what the adventure was meant to be.  An unfair meat grinder, a supposed eff you to some players claiming they 'won' at D&D.  (My opinion on that is:  So what?  You're not in my game.)

My initial claim to fame as a referee back in the day that I was the referee who allowed PCs to "trash" my campaign. Have a plan to toggle the king and take it for yourself. Feel free to try. Note the word try. People liked my campaigns not because I gave them this stuff. They had to work for it like they had to work for any adventure. Most referee I knew and still knew. Get really bent out of shape if the players try to make major alterations to the setting. My approach in contrast was to say "OK if that what you want to do, here what you know, give me a plan to make it happen.". Sometime the plans worked, sometime they didn't. Most of the time it would with the PCs achieving something altogether different than what they set out to do due to the way things unfolded. This was the time of the hex and counter wargame craze so I was well aware of how to create a scenario and how to use various kinds of rules to handle high level situation. The result was as fun and interesting for my players as poking around dungeons and wildernesses.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;940992All right, a few things here.  First, the doors are magical, yes?  I'm going to assume that you're a rather lenient GM, and didn't realize that if those doors were not magic'ed for lightness, no one would have been able to open them.  At all.  Ever.  We're talking several TONNES worth of metal.  And taking them down?  You probably had several deaths in the process.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;940992Wouldn't that make it nigh impossible to remove the joints, cuz the weight?  And like it said, magic would be impossible to use.

Quote...[a]nd impregnated with great magicks in order to make them absolutely spell and magic proof.

Oh you are quite right, but note the THEM. Says nothing of the surrounding earth and stone matrix. And the Tomb of Horrors is a single level dungeon, which means you can get it at it from above, given enough time.  It a totally impracticable approach when you are first doing the adventure. But once you cleared it out and are able to map it properly. Then all you need is time and labor to get at them.

It didn't happen with a wave of my pencil. They had to go to the dwarves, go to the Overlord, make the deals, do some favors, keep the site secure. It was THE focus for the next few session. And in the end, it was a fair ruling that they were able to get the doors out and secured their share of the wealth.

Also it helped that the PCs were rootless wanderers. One was name level and had a keep to his name. The other was just about name level and had connections lined up. So forth and so on. They lev

Quote from: Christopher Brady;940992The main reason my team (I never ran it, and we didn't get far anyway, but it was a one shot meant to try it out) didn't take down the door was because it was just ungainly to haul back to a town that frankly had no resources to actually do anything with it.  No magical bank with millions of gold to throw around.

The problem here you are thinking of ways they can't leverage the door to their advantage. Whereas I am willing to deal with alternatives that are hard to achieve but are doable. And

Quote from: Christopher Brady;940992It seems like the DM was being a little too lenient compared to what the adventure was meant to be.  An unfair meat grinder, a supposed eff you to some players claiming they 'won' at D&D.  (My opinion on that is:  So what?  You're not in my game.)

Context is everything, and can redeem any adventure including a meat grinder like the Tomb of Horror. The context in this case was a player reaching name level, then earned a keep from the Overlord, and was clearing the Wilderness around when he stumbled on the Tomb. And the demi-lich was connected to a nearby culture that was centered on death worship.

I guess I can place you in the referee who don't like their setting "trashed" in ways they don't approve of.

Quote from: estar;941019Also it helped that the PCs were rootless wanderers. One was name level and had a keep to his name. The other was just about name level and had connections lined up. So forth and so on.

Ah, I see, your team had more resources available to them, than the one shot (we had like 3-5th level characters) we tried it out for.  Fair enough.  I still don't like it, but I can understand how some other players were able to get stuff out of it.

Interesting.  In my current 5e game, I ran the players through both Sunless Citadel and Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.

So yeah, this seems like a good idea to me.