D1-3 Descent/Kuo-Toa/Drow

Garnfellow · Apr 4, 2005

Banesfinger said:
I have found several good CC maps at this person's site (dated):
Halflings CC site

Hopefully that will help.

P.S.: Since my group is at least a month away from starting the 'D-series' of adventures, I will also be doing some conversion. Perhaps we can collaborate...?

That sounds great to me. My philosophy in the conversion is to focus on translating the relative danger of encounters while staying as true to the original modules as possible. So if the original module had X number of weaslebears in one encounter, but weaslebears are twice as tough in 3e, I'm probably going to halve the number of weaslebears in my conversion -- rather than let the the encounter stand as twice as tough as originally intended, or subsituting in X number of weaker, different 3e monsters.

To me, the biggest difficulty -- and probably the main reason why no one else has tackled these modules in the Conversion Library -- is the sheer number of classed NPCs that will have to be translated, and the fact that most of those NPCs used very different multiclassing rules.

This weekend I built a conversion chart for multiclass male and female drow -- so if you have an original reference to an 8/4 cleric/fighter you can use the chart to look up a 3e equivalent: probably something like a Cleric 8/Fighter 2. (I don't have the chart in front of me.)

I think my next step will be to stat out generic drow NPCs, sort of like what the 3.0 DMG did, with standard equipment and feats. Luckily, 1e drow had level limits and few class combinations so I won't have to do 20 levels for every class -- just female fighters, male fighters, female clerics, male wizards.

The Kuo-Toa would need similar treatment, but I haven't thought that far ahead.

This is a lot of up-front work, but once done the rest of the conversion should go pretty quickly -- allowing me to pull a generic level X drow off the chart, modify slightly, and plug in to the module.

qstor · Apr 4, 2005

Some one posted a few of the encounters converted to 3.x on the WOTC Greyhawk boards last year.

Mike

Banesfinger · Apr 4, 2005

qstor said:
Some one posted a few of the encounters converted to 3.x on the WOTC Greyhawk boards last year.

Mike

I think this post might be the one qstor was refering to:
WOTC post

Garnfellow · Apr 4, 2005

Banesfinger said:
I think this post might be the one qstor was refering to:
WOTC post

That's interesting, though I'm not sure I can really get behind all of the methodologies used in that conversion, particularly with regard to one-to-one multiclass level conversion -- and hand-waving in all that special drow equipment.

AD&D didn’t have anything like the standardized gear per level that 3e has. So in the original modules, the drow have lots and lots of extremely nice equipment, including weapons, armor, cloaks, boots, etc. These items usually had enhancement bonuses -- even though they were non-magical -- and often had other special super-duper properties, to boot. I think that the sun-rot feature was tacked on to try and balance all these items in the AD&D game.

In translating this equipment to 3e, you have a few different choices. The easiest method is to just forget about wealth per level tables and port everything over as it was written, balance be danged.

But 3e does have standardized wealth by level tables. Why ignore them?

Personally, I was leaning toward treating all drow equipment as non-magical magical items, in the same vein as psionic items: that is, drow items are just magic by another name. The differences between magical and drow items are largely superficial and do not affect the underlying game mechanics. Sure, these drow items do not radiate magic to detect magic spells and are not created using normal magical item creation feats. They are powered by weird underground radiation, but you still must need special feats to craft these items, just like with magic or psionic items. And in my mind, the sun-rot property is as much a hindrance as a benefit, so I think that property balances out.

So at the end of the day, these drow items should probably be just like regular magical items in terms of pricing, since they're exactly like magical items in terms of game effect: a short sword with a +2 enhancement bonus should still cost about 8,310 gp whether it’s powered by good old arcane might (tm) or drow gamma rays.

I would propose handling drow cloaks and boots the same way: just like elven cloaks and boots in terms of pricing and game mechanics, only powered by radiation rather than magic. One consequence: the price tag on the cloaks and boots means they are no longer standard issue to each and every drow. (Note that treating drow cloaks like this also nerfs them considerably from 1st edition AD&D, since the drow cloaks originally gave spectacular Hide in Shadow bonuses AND fire resistance. Ah, well -- normal elves got hosed in the new edition, too.)

Drow chain is a little trickier. I was initially going to convert these items as regular chain shirts with the appropriate enhancement bonuses. But one could treat them like elven chain. But elven chain is awful pricey compared with with straight-up magic chain.

Can elven chain be given magical enhancement bonuses?

Garnfellow · Apr 5, 2005

Multi-Class Conversion Chart

I've uploaded a conversion chart to my website for male drow fighter/magic-users and female drow fighter/clerics:

http://home.gwi.net/~rdorman/frilond/rul/dm/drow.htm

This is intended to be used as a short-cut for converting multiclass drow into 3e.

Banesfinger · Apr 5, 2005

Garnfellow said:
I've uploaded a conversion chart to my website for male drow fighter/magic-users and female drow fighter/clerics:

http://home.gwi.net/~rdorman/frilond/rul/dm/drow.htm

This is intended to be used as a short-cut for converting multiclass drow into 3e.

Nice site Garnfellow.

However, could you walk through a few calculations with me?

Your calculations quoted

Per the guidelines in the D&D Conversion Manual, to convert multi-class characters, first find the highest level the character has reached in any class. Then divide each level the character has achieved in any other class by three and round down. Add these numbers together to get the converted 3e character level.

So, from your charts: for example, (male) Magic User-5/Fighter-7 was converted to Wis-5/Ftr-3
Now, I understand that you stated:

...we gave preference to the spellcasting classes first in order to maintain, where possible, the drow's access to their highest level spells.

So, I realize why you took the MU/Wis over the fighter. However, if you divide the 7 fighter levels by 3 and round down you should only get Ftr-2 (instead of 3).

Other than this rounding, I like what you have done here (including adding the Eldritch Knight prestige class).

Gentlegamer · Apr 5, 2005

Garnfellow said:
That sounds great to me. My philosophy in the conversion is to focus on translating the relative danger of encounters while staying as true to the original modules as possible. So if the original module had X number of weaslebears in one encounter, but weaslebears are twice as tough in 3e, I'm probably going to halve the number of weaslebears in my conversion -- rather than let the the encounter stand as twice as tough as originally intended, or subsituting in X number of weaker, different 3e monsters.

This is generally a good idea; however, the level guidelines for the module should be taken into account and translated into 3e. The general party level for the series is 9-14, which was pretty much the top levels for AD&D. On top of that, it assumed party size of about 6-12 (players, henchmen, etc.). I think that could reasonably be translated to a 3e level guideline of 13-16 and perhaps higher if the party is only four characters.

Garnfellow · Apr 5, 2005

Banesfinger said:
Nice site Garnfellow.

However, could you walk through a few calculations with me?

[snip]

So, from your charts: for example, (male) Magic User-5/Fighter-7 was converted to Wis-5/Ftr-3

[snip]

So, I realize why you took the MU/Wis over the fighter. However, if you divide the 7 fighter levels by 3 and round down you should only get Ftr-2 (instead of 3).

Many thanks for giving those tables a look-see. I made them pretty quickly with Excel, so a QC is much appreciated.

As to your question, I first got the total 3e character level by taking the highest level in ANY class, and then adding 1/3 of the second class. Then, when I redistributed the total character level back over the classes, that's when I gave preference to the spell caster. So for a 7/5 Fighter-Magic-User I got 7 + 5/3 = 8.

qstor · Apr 5, 2005

Banesfinger said:
I think this post might be the one qstor was refering to:
WOTC post

Yeah, that was it. Someone saved the info to a .doc or .pdf file as well. I have it at home.

I didn't check out the details of the conversion, just trying to point folks to a conversion thats been done

There was some details on the Vault of the Drow in Dragon #298 but none of the NPC's at least as of CY591 where stat'd out.

It would be cool if this series could be added to the conversion library. Keep us posted as to your work GentleGamer.

Mike

Garnfellow · Apr 5, 2005

Gentlegamer said:
This is generally a good idea; however, the level guidelines for the module should be taken into account and translated into 3e. The general party level for the series is 9-14, which was pretty much the top levels for AD&D. On top of that, it assumed party size of about 6-12 (players, henchmen, etc.). I think that could reasonably be translated to a 3e level guideline of 13-16 and perhaps higher if the party is only four characters.

This is great point, also made by Dan Collins in his excellent conversion of the Giant modules. Of course, establishing a recommended party composition for a module was always something of a dark art back before 3e standardized everything. And the G-D-Q modules were written very early in the design history of 1st Edition, so their recommended party compositions should probably be taken with a big grain of salt. Later AD&D designers, at least, were able to use average, minimum, and total party levels to help narrow their recommendations. Without the benefit of APL, TPL, and so on, the G-D-Q modules offer a sprawling and somewhat unhelpful range of suggested levels and numbers of PCs.

So given this uncertainty in intended difficulty, I think there’s plenty of evidence to suggest, as you do, that the G-D-Q modules could be translated into 3e by pushing the encounters toward the tougher end of the conversion spectrum: the huge size of the recommended parties is probably exhibit number one of this argument.

But on the other hand, much of this material was written for tournament play, where characters were normally outfitted with considerably less magical equipment than characters built up during actual campaign play—this point probably suggests that the encounters could be pushed toward the weaker end of the conversion spectrum.

So, OK, there’s great latitude in converting the difficulty of these encounters. Personally, I lean toward pushing my conversion of D1 toward the lower end of the difficulty spectrum because I am looking to make the G-D modules playable as a sequence. I’m envisioning a progression something like this: G1 (8-9th level), G2 (9-10th level), G3 (10-11th level), D1 (11-12th level), D2 (12-13th level), and D3 (13-14th level).

If the early modules get pushed too far toward the high end of difficulty, the PCs will be much too powerful by the time they reach end of the sequence.