Beyond the Crystal Cave

[wizarddog]

So I have been digging up old adventures to see if I could use them for possible 1e or 4e conversions and this one has come up as possibility.

After reading it through it almost makes me think... what is the point of the adventure? It populates the garden with ultra powerful good creatures, with treasure, and the point is not to fight the creatures, but to try and negotiate through without messing up the place. I can see the appeal of that in a 1e adventure, where slaying monsters is the norm, but it seem the whole thing is overkill by having really powerful beings, magic limitations, etc to the point you want to burn down the garden. It also seem to provide little in ways to complete the quest fully.

I notice this adventure does not come up as the best adventure written in most polls. I know if I had ran it back in the day, it would not be so enjoyed. I just want to Know if any others have opinions about the mod...

[Rilonor]

I have never heard of "Beyond the Crystal Cave." What version was it written for?

Maybe an evil group (a very powerful...) can just go through and massacre everything.

[wizarddog]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Crystal_Cave

Yes, evil or neutral PC's could go in and massacre everything (and in 1e, that was real option). I just think placing treasure at all the encounters was a waste of space if the intention was for walking on eggshells.

One option of can think is to make all the creature hideous evil versions of the good--if combat is the more suitable approach to this module. But I feel my group could handle the skill challenges.

One DM I read actually created a rival group of evil NPC's wandering around the grounds, so I might use that idea to get some nice combat scenarios.

[jasonj]

The purpose of the module was to NOT kill anything , but to have the group navigate and use there wits . 1e didn't have a lot of adventures of this nature . I would think it would be a lot easier to switch it to a 3.5 game , with all the skills involved . As far as it being a popular module , it wasn't . It needed a lot of tweaking . If your looking to update 1e module you must consider the fact that most modules were meant to be dropped into your home brew campaign . 1e modules were setting and dungeons to be adjusted to your game .

[Malruhn]

Crystal Cave was an "anti" module that was written to combat the attitude that D&D was nothing but hack and slash. The problem was that it went overboard and intendede that NOTHING be battled.

You might as well run a scenario of, "You are sitting in a tavern for eight hours - and nothing happens."

I give it five craps in my crappity-crap scale of crappiness. Oh - but the cover art was neat!

[agoraderek]

C'mon, the mud men in the beginning could be slaughtered with abandon! It's just after that the module got silly ;)

Seriously though, if you're running it for 4e, just change the whole thing into a series of skill challenges. Play up the roleplaying aspects. It can work in any edition, but it is kind of a lame module. It being UK1 almost made me miss some real gems in the UK series, like "When a Star Falls"...