D&D 5E In Search of the Unknown: The BECMI Chronicles 5E.

I have been thinking about this thread for a while now. Basically my idea is to read through the adventure line for the old BECMI adventure modules. So why now? Goodman Games is releasing a new book with the original B1 and B2 adventures along with conversions of them to 5E+ added material. Also interesting is the BECMI Rules Cyclopedia has been added to print on demand. Also in a lot of ways 5E borrowed a lot of concepts from BECMI. The tiers of play, magical weapons and armour topping out at +3, the tiers, Basic D&D, the drive towards simplifying the game, and the starter set one could argue all came from BECMI vs AD&D, 3E and 4E.


Some of these are very famous and usually turn up in the lists of various greatest D&D adventures of all time (B1- B4, X1) while others have more or less fallen off the radar of the D&D player base (usually the CMI part and the later half of the B/X part). I will be going through them and sharing my thoughts on them in regards to converting them to 5E. To be fair I will also take into consideration when they were made, what the goal of the adventure was, and how interesting they are to read. Note this is mostly an impression, I do not have time to play through them obviously. I suspect you could probably play for several years in weekly games using the original BECMI rules, clones of those editions or converting them to 5E.

They will be not be marked down for being an example of their times although I might comment on some things such as cheesecake art or other 80ism's. So they will not be penalised for B/W art of dubious quality, being to simple, or having copious amounts of treasures. I also will not mark it down for what may be sexist or racist by modern standards (rescue the princess, Polynesian orcs, some of the art work etc). The product line was an example of an organic world (The Known World/Mystara), and some cultures there are based on real world cultures so you have things like fantasy Arabs riding flying carpets interacting with D&D Djinn's. You also have things like fantasy Teutonic Knights doing things in parts of the world not to far removed what they got up to in the Baltic states. Early D&D drew heavily on medieval myths, tropes and legends sprinkled in with things like Arabian Knights and the myths of Greece and Rome.

The things I will be looking at are.

1. Is this adventure interesting/ a good read. Basically do I want to play it. If it was a bad adventure back then obviously the appeal of converting it to 5E is not really there unless the conversion fixes mechanics that made the adventure bad. Older adventures tended to not have a particularly strong hook or metaplot so I won't judge them to badly for that.

2. How easy is it to convert to 5E? Some of these can be converted to 5E more or less by replacing 6 goblins with 6 5E goblins. This approach however can backfire very very badly due to changes between the editions. For example 20 kobolds in BECMI could be rough but you had things like larger parties and sleep spells. 20 kobolds in 5E is a probable TPK to a low level party (potentially back then as well depending on various factors).

3. Overall impression of the module. I will rate the adventure overall. Note this is just an IMHO and some adventure play better or worse than what you can pick up on just by reading it. Its mostly a first impression.

What is BECMI and the Expectations?

There used to be 2 D&D line back in the day (very briefly 3), that were in print. You had Advanced D&D (which became 1E), and D&D. D&D was more basic than AD&D- you only had 7 classes/races, there was no distinction between class and race so you could be a Dwarf but not a Dwarf Fighter. The Basic line was level 1-3, expert level 4-14, Companion 15- 25 and Masters Level 26-36. The Immortal line was for PCs that have basically ascended to godhood. Put together you have BECMI. The B line was mostly about low level dungeon delving, the X (Expert) line introduced a ot of wilderness adventures, the C line was establishing domains (becoming rulers), while the Masters line was about world and continent spanning threats. The Immortal line was effectively a different game. In 5E terms it roughly corresponds to the 4 tiers of play (page 36 DMG) with the Immortals tier basically being dropped.

The expectations of early D&D are also a bit different than modern D&D. Basically a lot of modern players have wondered how players survived past level 2. For the most part the B series adventures were not that hard, party sizes were often larger (6-8 players) and you might have an assortment of hirelings and henchmen to help out. Monsters were also a lot weaker, for example Kobolds might have 2 or 3 hit points, +0 to hit and deal 1d3 damage. NPCs ere also often located in the adventure to help out (read heal) the PCs so co-operation and being a hero was rewarded. The game had things like morale checks and a high charisma was heavily rewarded in terms of trying to talk your way out of trouble (reactions were rolled on 2d6 not d20 so +1, +2 or +3 bonus from charisma was huge). Monsters would often break and run due to flunked morale checks as well so you did not have to kill everything. You might encounter a large group of orcs, mow a few of them down with archery/sleep spells and the rest would run.

The modules also have a copious amount of magic items by 5E standards but they were mostly low powered ones. You could also find a copious amount of treasure, B2 for example has over 30k gold worth of loot in it. This was because 1gp=1xp back in the day and you required 1200-2500xp to reach level 2. A Kobold was worth 5xp, a Hobgoblin 15xp. You were better off being sneaking and grabbing the loot rather than trying to wade in. Also the average sleep spell back then could knock out 18 Kobolds (or 9 Goblins/Hobgoblins) vs 4 or 5 in 5E.

This thread if people are interested will likely take several months to go through all of the modules, and like most APs might die off in the mid levels. I hope to make it to at least the C part of the BECMI line.

B1 Into The Unknown 1980

B1 is being redone by Goodman Games, and it seems to be a good place to start. First things 1st the module is aimed at beginning players. My PDF is 36 pages but only 16 are the actual dungeon itself which is a medium sized Dungeon of around 50 rooms. One thing that stands out is that it a build your own dungeon- for example the rooms do not actually have encounters in them it is up to the DM to put encounters in them. This means the module can play out differently under two different DMs only the map will be the same. I did not like this feature much and it was rarely used again in the line (B3 IIRC) but its not a bad idea in theory from a how to learn to play the game as it is basically teaching you how to build n adventure- they have just done a lot of the work for you.

The rest of the module is mostly full of advice on how to run the game (the 1st 8 pages or so), and the Dungeon has a bit of a backstory on who built it and why and why they have left the area. They also provided 25 encounters along with loot to be placed as you see fit. The module also makes it clear that it is for 3-6 players and 48 NPCs have been produced to fill out the party if they are short of numbers. The NPCs may be little more than a stat line and they have some tables for what they have and there are some personality tables. You could even use those stat lines in a 5E game, Glendor the Fourth for example has 17 strength, 10 intelligence, 9 wisdom, 13 con, 9 dexterity and 14 charisma. Stick him in heavy armor, apply racial modifiers (which BECMI lacked) and that is not to bad of a stat array.

There is also a basic wandering monster table of 6 encounters.

So there is a little bit of DIY involved.

For converting this module you could more or less run it as is right out of the book. However sometimes the B line adventures can kick you the ass doing this. For example most of the encounters are easy mostly 1d6 Goblins or whatever but one encounter is 2-7 orcs (1d6+1) and due to power creep between the editions that could be a big big problems and an inexperienced DM might use that as an encounter (level 2 and 3 maybe, level 1 is TPK material). There are also some Gnolls and Hobgoblins in that table- 1d4 and 1d4+1. Mostly its Goblins, skeletons, insects typical low level fodder in multiple editions of the game. It gets very high marks for a ease of use running it as written in a 5E game just be aware of some of the monsters on the construct your own table.

Overall I really liked this adventure and most of the advice in it and the module itself apply to 5E as well. If you ran it more or less as is you could probably get to level 4 or 5 and have a similar amount of equipment as Lost mines of Phandelver (and a +2 spear OP or what. The major downside though is it requires a bit of work to run (although you could wing it), and the actual dungeon itself is not the most exciting thing in the world being a 53 room dungeon hack with fairly minimal reason to be there. You have a few rumours but it is very old school here is a dungeon go and have a crack at it. As a learning tool its great and I loved reading it and they crammed a huge amount of material into it. The dungeon itself is nothign special however. Still its easy to sex it up a bit (AKA add some NPCs and a very basic plot eg Lord so and so wants this area explored). Most of it will come down to DM skill and how they use the pregenerated encounters and where and how they place them as it might get very odd with the mix of all the monsters. Not all of the rooms have to have combat encounters and even if you used all 25 over half the rooms are empty or will have treasure and other features.

Rating it out of 5 I would give it a 3.5/5 overall, 4/5 as a teaching aid, 5/5 for 5E conversion it doesn't get much better in ease of conversion- run it as written being careful with some of the tougher monster placement. And a 5E Rogue is a lot better than a BECMI Thief. Come to think of it so is a 5E cleric. Fighters and wizard basically do the same thing.

My recollection, and this is going way way way back so it could be faulty, is that those wandering monster tables really could result in TPK encounters even back when the adventure came out. I recall us losing some PCs to wandering monsters with either this adventure or B2 or maybe both. In fact, Hobgoblins were quite rough I seem to recall.

Mistwell said:

My recollection, and this is going way way way back so it could be faulty, is that those wandering monster tables really could result in TPK encounters even back when the adventure came out. I recall us losing some PCs to wandering monsters with either this adventure or B2 or maybe both. In fact, Hobgoblins were quite rough I seem to recall.

Click to expand...

Hobgoblins were 1+1 HD and had a THAC0 of 18 (+2 to hit). Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs had +1 to hit and were half a hit dice, 1-1 and 1 HD. ACs were similar so you get hit a lot more in 5E and take more damage when you look at 5E stats.

Its why a direct translation is often a bad idea ie 8 orcs in B/X becomes 8 Orcs in 5E. A level 1-3 BECMI adventure is more like level 3 and 4 in 5E, once you hit level 5 it tends to become very easy (fireball). You will also probably level up to fast and Gnolls and Orcs in 5E can often very quickly lead to TPK territory if encountered in large numbers (5 or 6+).

Zardnaar said:

Hobgoblins were 1+1 HD and had a THAC0 of 18 (+2 to hit). Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs had +1 to hit and were half a hit dice, 1-1 and 1 HD. ACs were similar so you get hit a lot more in 5E and take more damage when you look at 5E stats.

Its why a direct translation is often a bad idea ie 8 orcs in B/X becomes 8 Orcs in 5E. A level 1-3 BECMI adventure is more like level 3 and 4 in 5E, once you hit level 5 it tends to become very easy (fireball). You will also probably level up to fast and Gnolls and Orcs in 5E can often very quickly lead to TPK territory if encountered in large numbers (5 or 6+).

Click to expand...

Ah, well I guess my recollection is faulty or else we just ran into some bad luck with hobgoblins then

I agree this is the sort of stuff you'd need to be very careful with when converting. It's not a one for one substitution.

I guess there is some baseline to compare with some yawning portal adventures?

B2 Keep on the Borderlands

KotBL is the other Basic module being converted to 5E by Goodman games. There have been fan based conversions of this module and it was used during the D&D Next playtest. Written by Gary Gygax himself the module is a perennial favourite in lists of the best D&D module of all time. Personally I think it is a bit over rated, its not even the best of the B series but it is probably the greatest selling D&D module of all time. If you stacked all the copies of this adventure sold togather and used in in a D&D trap it would probably deal 3d10 or 4d10 damage with a saving throw vs death for half damage. If you're reading this you are probably a 0 level human with 1d8 hit points and proficiency in D&D so you're basically dead even if you make the save.

This adventure a long long time ago was the 1st adventure for D&D I ever played back in 1994, at least in a campaign and we completed it. So what is KotBL? Its basically a big dungeon hack with some advice on how to run the D&D game, and unlike the playtest materials includes the map of the Keep that happens to be on the borderlands. Its still fairly early in the D&D lifecycle here, 1980/81. Technically D&D came out in 74 but this came out around the start of the golden age- very few people played OD&D relative to 1E and B/X. Due to its age it kind of gets a free pass on a few things like a lack of a plot and th adventure is designed for 6-9 players. The assumption was D&D groups back then were a bit bigger. Back in the day we had 6 players, but the DM houseruled a few things such as max hp at level 1 and I think we used 4d6 drop the lowest and -10 hit points vs 3d6 and death at 0. Poor old Andal my 1st level fighter had a 16 strength (+2), and +1 for con and dex scores.

Even compared with B1 there is also not much of a back story, our DM added a basic plot about the Clerics daughter at the keep being kidnapped by humanoids. A bit cliche perhaps but at least we did not meet in an Inn. There is a basic wilderness map, and some encounters but nothing that exciting to be found, most of the action is located at the Caves of Chaos an infamous D&D location perhaps beaten by the village of Hommlet and the Tomb of Horrors. This adventure is not an outright deathtrap like the Tomb of Horrors although bad things can definitely happen. One can stumble into the wrong cave at level 1 and get swarmed, come up against Ogres, Owl Bears, zombies etc. If you have played the D&D Next playtest you get the idea. Its not a favourite adventure of mine but I do not love it and regard it as a slightly above average adventure and a classic dungeon hack which I am not overly fond of mindless ones myself.

So how suitable is it to convert to 5E? Well since it has already been done for the playtest one would assume very easy/suitable to convert? Well the monsters in the playtest are a lot weaker than the final monsters that made it into the final version of 5E. If you are more or less running it as printed for 1st to 3rd level PCs you will probably have a TPK, if 20 kobolds do not get you the Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls , etc probably will. By most accounts Goodman Games is converting it as is which I think is both lazy and probably catastrophic. It was designed for 6-9 PCs with vastly weaker enemies where things like sleep on an average roll will take out 18 kobolds (or 9 orcs/hobgoblins) vs the handful it gets now. Its more like level 2-4 if not 3-5 and you would probably want 6+ PCs and the right party composition and things like a light cleric will be very good for the AoE Radiance of the Dawn ability. This doesn't mean you can't run it without a lot of work, but I think it does require some amount of conversion or higher levels and/or a larger party and you will have to do some amount of work to convert it such as traps, encounters, and perhaps using milestones over xp as you level up a lot faster killing monsters in 5E than B/X. And there are a lot of Kobolds, Gobling, Orcs, Hobgoblins and Gnolls to kill along with undead, Ogres, Minotaurs, and an Owlbear.

Overall I would give it a 2.5/5, 3/5 as a teaching aid and 3.5/5 for a 5E conversion as it will require some work or running it at higher level than intended. Being a bit harsh perhaps I would wonder why bother as there are better adventures in the B series 2 of which are coming up very soon. Of course you could sex it up a bit, put a decent amount of effort into it and add something like a basic plot line and backstory, its not a bad adventure just more average and Gygax wrote better even at a similar time frame. T1 The Village of Hommlet for AD&D for example. Personally I would prefer to run it with a clone or the Rules Cyclopedia as originally intended as it requires less work and if you have a larger group it would run better than a 6-9 person 5E group. Unless you are a hard core fan of KotBL or have a lot of time on your hands there are better adventures for conversion.

Zardnaar said:

Hobgoblins were 1+1 HD and had a THAC0 of 18 (+2 to hit). Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs had +1 to hit and were half a hit dice, 1-1 and 1 HD. ACs were similar so you get hit a lot more in 5E and take more damage when you look at 5E stats.

Its why a direct translation is often a bad idea ie 8 orcs in B/X becomes 8 Orcs in 5E. A level 1-3 BECMI adventure is more like level 3 and 4 in 5E, once you hit level 5 it tends to become very easy (fireball). You will also probably level up to fast and Gnolls and Orcs in 5E can often very quickly lead to TPK territory if encountered in large numbers (5 or 6+).

Click to expand...

I'm currently running a 2e adventure I've converted to 5e, and this is a big issue. Cannon fodder is just not the same!

Ancalagon said:

I'm currently running a 2e adventure I've converted to 5e, and this is a big issue. Cannon fodder is just not the same!

Click to expand...

Nope I ran pt 1 The Night below more or less as written and I think one encounter was a dozen orcs maybe 10. That was almost a TPK and the PCs were level 4 or 5 IIRC.
Conversion (easy way) add more levels.
or
Redo the encounters. Level 5 adventures can often be done the same way. Depends on the encounters and levels. I have seen a B/X encounter for level 9-12 that is 4 CR 3 spellcasters in 5E but they pack lightning bolts so the PCs can take 32d6 lightning damage per turn (well over 2 rounds then they run out) from Tritons riding dolphins.

That is probably not that bad in 5E terms come think of it for high level PCs.

The quantities of monsters in the older modules are probably one of the biggest issues. In some of them (B2); Night's Dark Terror (B10) etc. have hordes. As you rightly pointed out, that causes more issues in this edition. I mean in the 1e & 2e (I believe) days, if something had under 1 hit die, you'd get the number of attacks equal to your level I believe so there is definitely an action economy scale going on. One possible alternative is use the 'mooks' or 'minion' rules where one hit kills but that's still a crap ton of attacks. The fact that the Goodman is just doing a straight conversion as opposed to re-swizzling the encounters I think definitely doesn't bode well for the product...

The next major battle in the adventure is vs a large horde and I'm not quite sure how to convert...

Sent from my [device_name] using EN World mobile app