Night Below

Rudar Dimble · Feb 21, 2005

I'm going to run the Night Below-campaign. I've played it myself about 6 years ago and want to offer my players (which a fairly new to the game) the same great experience I had when I just started playing.

I want to run it in 3rd edition and after Night Below I want them to play City of the Spider Queen with the same characters. I know they will be like 14th level when they complete Night Below, but I've tweaked CotSQ, since I don't like the start of the campaign.

Does anyone have advice on running the Night Below? And on running it in 3rd edition of the Forgotten Realms?

Thanks!!!

Darkness · Feb 21, 2005

For starters, you'll need to tone the monetary rewards down - waaay down. They were necessary in 2e because it required you to use the gp = xp rule so the PCs would advance quickly enough. In 3.5, they'll advance quickly enough anyway and the vast amounts of gold will create campaign problems. (Unless you don't let 'em spend it but if so, why give it to them in the first place?) Cutting most treasure from book II on down to 1/10 the listed value is a start but even that might not suffice.
Magic items are plentiful as well. You might want to reduce them some, both in numbers and power. They probably were too plentiful for 2e as well, considering the

Mordenkainen's disjunction trap in book III.

What's more, much of book II can be skipped by the PCs for the same reason that the treasure needs to be reduced: It's just there so the PCs can get xp.
That part of Night Below is also a grueling hack-and-slash sequence. If your players are into that kind of thing, they might want to go there anyway. My players lost much interest in the campaign because of that part back when I ran it, though.

Also, if you make a direct conversion, some combats might be too hard for the PCs. Specifically, the

shadow dragon and the kuo-toa dukes/priest-king

might be a bit hard. You might want to either make them tough but manageable instead.
Some fights might also be too easy but probably none of the important ones so it's not really an issue.

Lastly, 14th level at the end of Night Below when running it in 3.5 is a pessimistic assumption. If you run the adventure mostly as written and they don't skip very many areas, they might be quite a bit higher - perhaps even 18th or so. Which they probably need to to win/survive in this case anyway.

I hope that helps.

Rudar Dimble · Feb 21, 2005

That certainly helps! Good advice on the gold-thing. I would probably have been giving them all the money and they would become way to powerful.

I think my players want to skip the h&s-part. They like combats, but h&s isn't their thing (lucky me, cause I don't like it either). May be I can tweak some of the stuff in book III in a way they can complete the quest on lvl 14 instead on lvl 18 or so...

More help is welcome!

BOZ · Feb 21, 2005

i do beleive someone in the conversions forum had converted most or all of this boxed set.

Psion · Feb 21, 2005

Rudar Dimble said:
Does anyone have advice on running the Night Below?

Does "skip the second book up until the city of the Glass Pool" suffice? Or at the very least, give PCs some outs or alternatives to some of the combat grinds it throws in in book 2.

Rudar Dimble · Feb 21, 2005

Psion said:
Does "skip the second book up until the city of the Glass Pool" suffice? Or at the very least, give PCs some outs or alternatives to some of the combat grinds it throws in in book 2.

I already decided to skip and/or change most of book 2.

Capellan · Feb 21, 2005

Check out Seravin's Night Below Story Hour:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=42399

And don't forget to ask him for his comments and advice.

Rudar Dimble · Feb 22, 2005

Thanks for the link. That indeed is a good thread!

I also got my hands on a 3.5 conversion, so that shouldn't be a problem either.
Last problem...where do I set up the campaign in the Forgotten Realms? Shadowdale, may be? Or Icewind Dale? Any good ideas on this?