Tales from the Infinite Staircase (AD&D/Planescape Adventure) [Paperback]

Monte Cook (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786912049
• ISBN-13: 978-0786912049
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,138,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Exotic, Mutilayered Quest, October 20, 2000

By 

Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine (Fairfax, Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales from the Infinite Staircase (AD&D/Planescape Adventure) (Paperback)

Planar travel without gates or portals, and a mystery to solve . . . Prepare your party for a lot of climbing as you journey through the Planes in search of adventures and answers. Author Cook has prepared an exotic layered quest for not only the Planescape campaign but also any other AD&D adventures.

Tales from the Infinite Staircase is an intricate set of eight interwoven adventures written around a central mystery, adventures that can be played alone or as the components of a single journey.

This volume introduces the concept of the Infinite Staircase throughout the Planes, linking it to the independent adventure For Duty & Deity (Forgotten Realms), which may be used along with Tales for Forgotten Realms and Planescape alike. Detailed notes are provided in each book for weaving the two together, or for playing any or all of the eight adventures in Tales in any Prime Material Plane campaign. The Tales themselves run a little toward the creepy, and vary from good places for getting lost and exploring to areas for finding necessary components in solving the book's central mystery. The variety here makes possible the extraction of any one tale for individual use, or for the party to visit, leave for a game year, and come back to re-enter the mystery if desired. Characters of good alignment are guaranteed to be badly stressed out by the beings they may need to ally with and the places they must go.

Presented as a stand-alone AD&D product for any campaign as well as for Planescape, this book contains the most basic information beyond the core AD&D rulebooks to run adventures out on some of the many Planes of existence. The imaginative non-Planescape dungeon master whose gaming group is not composed of book-bound rules lawyers will be perfectly able to manage here. However, many DMs new to the Planescape may end up wanting additional background on creatures, Planes, and the structure of the Planar universe, and the Planescape Monstrous Appendix I & II books will be of the greatest help here. Other helpful books and sets to beg, buy, or borrow for use with these adventures are the Planewalker's Handbook, A Guide to the Astral Plane, Planes of Law, and Planes of Chaos. The web of connections among these eight tales is quite complex and these volumes will cut down on the amount of notetaking, bookmarking, and sheer inventing that a dungeon master may require. The amount of Planescape slang (from the city of Sigil) in this book is fortunately kept to a minimum, easing beginner traumas.

Frankly, the statistics and information Cook gives for creatures and individuals could be much more conveniently arranged. Because monsters may pop up in many tales but are only fully described in one tale, the creature information should have either been all collected in one place, or, given the size of each section, more specific cross-references beyond "see Tale 8" ought to have been included.

This adventure is intended for a party of 3rd to 5th level Planescape characters, or for higher level characters from other campaigns. Possible adjustments for difficulty level are included in this book and the independent companion piece For Duty & Deity.

--Sharon Daugherty for Skirmisher Online Gaming Magazine

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kill the bad guy, take the loot?? Not precisely......., June 28, 1999

By 

Diego Santelices Herrera "Diego Santelices" (Santiago, Reg. Metropolitana, Chile) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tales from the Infinite Staircase (AD&D/Planescape Adventure) (Paperback)

This book consists of 8 linked adventures which you can play separately or one after the other, in any order the players or DM choose(es). At the beginning of each adventure, DM notes tell you which modifications to make to that scenario depending on which adventures the characters already went through. The plot of the 8 adventures revolves around the same idea (defeating the iron shadow), with many subplots in the way, that can be further developed by the DM into short adventures. The only but is the effort/treasure ratio, in my opinion. Players with non-good alignment will need some extra motivation which, however, can be easily provided by the DM. Overall, a very nice work, most enjoyable for the DM and players alike.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most fun we've had playing in a long time!, October 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Tales from the Infinite Staircase (AD&D/Planescape Adventure) (Paperback)

As adventures come and go it all seems to go stale. This sprawling, non-linear adventure has made D&D fun again, like it was when everything was new. The worlds are fantastic, the storyline complex and involved, making the party do more than "hack and slash". A real pleasure to DM.