Look for Feedback on 5E Adventure, C01 (5E): Alagoran's Gem

[rhammer2]

I am looking for a good dungeon or tomb adventure (not TPK like Tomb of Horrors) for a party of 5-6 5th to 8th level PCs.

Alagoran's Gem is rated just below that, but I can kick it up a little if it looks good.

- Robert

[Gwydion]

I picked up Alagoran's Gem a while back. I don't recall if it was on sale or I did it on a whim. My group isn't ready for it yet as they are just starting out, so I haven't spent any time on it. If you give me some ideas on what you're interested in (maps, adventure hooks/background, encounter difficulty, length), I'm happy to poke around in the module and give you my thoughts. Just know it won't be from any real sessions, just my thoughts as I read through it. In the meantime I'll spend a little time in it to get familiar with it.

[Gwydion]

Here is some initial, high-level info. For others reading, warning, SPOILER ALERT!

Adventure Hooks: Four general/semi-specific hooks as ideas for how your party came to the dungeon.

Synopsis: They make it a point to ask you to read an article from Gary Gygax on what "old school style" means. My read is this is going to be a little more dangerous than a typical romp and if the party tries to fight everything, they might be in trouble. The link article they link to is https://rotgrub.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/the-old-school-style-of-early-dd/

Dungeon itself: The map looks pretty cool. I count 29 locations (some very small) with some rooms that appear to have assortment of traps/unique items (e.g. platforms over acid). It appears there are MANY traps in this dungeon....

Encounters: A sampling of monsters the party will encounter include: Carrion Beast, Skeletal Champion, Otyugh, several others

Other: Interestingly, there is a section titled "Death of a PC" which goes into detail as to how to handle if one of the PC's dies. It discusses options on creating a new character one level lower that shows up later in the dungeon. They must really believe this is dangerous!

My overall VERY quick read is that there will be a number of dangerous traps to avoid which could easily result in the death of a PC or TPK if the party level is in the range of what it is rated for (party of 4, 4th level). As you noted earlier, you might want to ratchet up the difficulty given the level differential of your current party.

Let me know if there are other things you'd like to know about. Hope this helps!

[rhammer2]

Thanks for your input Gwydion. I'm familiar with old school (I'm old school DM/player). Sounds like what I'm looking for.

BTW, if anyone has modularized Tomb of Horror for 5E, I would love to look at it. I fondly remember the 4 groups of adventurers that died in those unholy halls.

- Robert