AD&D to D&D: How to

Jon Potter · Apr 28, 2004

Seravin said:
Check out this link.
It's in the computer forum and there are a number of Mac users there who are giving recommendations on the tools they use.

Thanks for pointing me in that direction. I didn't even know that there was an ENWorld computer forum.

the Jester said:
One thing to keep in mind about converting 1/2e to 3e is that the levels don't really mean the same things.

That and the fact that most 1/2e adventures are built for parties with more than the standard four PCs. All of the adventures I'm looking to convert are for 6-8 PCs.

Add the two factors together and I'm suddenly looking at the adventures "power-creeping" well out of my current group's reach. Not something I want to have happen.

Crothian said:
I try to keep to the theme of the module and when needed I replace creutures to get things of the appripriate CR.

I think that's exactly what I'm going to be doing, both for the reason mentioned above and to take advantage of 3E's bells and whistles (Templates, Prestige Classes, etc.).

If this were something I was doing for mass consumption (ie, for public download) I'd be much more concerned with adhering to the letter of author's story. But since I'm merely using it for personal gain, I don't mind tailoring the adventures to suit my needs and tastes.

And BTW, I've tried to download PCGen, but the download site seems to be down currently. It looks very cool though, so I'll keep trying.

Piratecat · Apr 29, 2004

Unlike Seravin, I wouldn't necessarily keep the amount of treasure and the number of monsters the same. I think you'll need to tweak up and down the scale to reach the right power level.

Arnwyn · Apr 29, 2004

Like others, I recommend tweaking, and - contrary to popular belief, I think - I've found converting 1e/2e adventures a snap.

My (basic) steps for converting adventures:

1) First, I read the entire adventure and record - for each and every encounter - what the ELs would be using the adventure as written.

2) Now that I have a range of ELs, I can now determine what levels the PCs should generally be so that I would have to do the least amount of converting (for example, if many of the ELs are around 5-8, then I would likely decide that it would be easiest for me to convert this adventure for 6th level characters). However, I take careful note of any "signature" or necessary encounters that are the essence of the adventure - these I want to keep as close as possible to the original (obviously), so that might affect what character level I peg the adventure at (see "Notes", below).

3) Once I decide on the character level, I go to the encounters with outlier ELs and convert those (if necessary - sometimes those outliers are a good thing if they are "side encounters" and not necessary to complete the adventure successfully) to make it better fit with the level I've decided.

4) Finally, I look at the treasure and wipe out (or rarely, add) treasure to fit the appropriate levels, location, and sometimes PCs. (However, I do this for EVERY adventure regardless, so it's not really an extra step.)

Notes:
- Everything is surprisingly easy to convert - except for those "signature" encounters. Thankfully, however, they are rare (and the most fun, anyways!). If it's a character-class NPC, often I've found that the level of the character isn't as important as I thought. If it's a monster, though, then that could affect the entire adventure. Now, the good thing is the monster advancement in 3e - if the signature monster is weaker than the overall adventure, you can simply advance it. Woo! If it's stronger, however, then you're in for a bit of work if you want to keep it, as you'll have to adjust the EL of the rest of the encounters to fit. (The cool thing about this, though, is that you can simply add a couple more creatures, or add levels, or advance the other creatures.)

- For uninteresting NPCs, I use "generic" statistics (often from the 3.0 DMG or my own generic NPC stats I did a while back). If an encounter is just a bunch of "bandits", then I use a generic Rogue (or Fighter). Designing full and unique NPC stats for these schlubs is just a waste of your time.

- If you're trying to convert 1e/2e adventures and don't own the Tome of Horrors - you're nuts. However, ENWorld's creature conversions are very good, so you should be fine.

Just a bit of insight how I do it.

Seravin · Apr 30, 2004

Piratecat said:
Unlike Seravin, I wouldn't necessarily keep the amount of treasure and the number of monsters the same. I think you'll need to tweak up and down the scale to reach the right power level.

Well, I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but surprisingly it has worked out pretty well. It certainly brings back some of the flavor from 15 years ago...

I did it to see how the rules would handle the increase. So far so good, but more than anything it highlighted what I liked and what I didn't like about the rules. Nothing like stretching the rules to the breaking point to find that out.

If I was going to do something like this over, I would probably do it the way arnwyn suggested.

johnsemlak · May 19, 2004

arnwyn said:
Like others, I recommend tweaking, and - contrary to popular belief, I think - I've found converting 1e/2e adventures a snap.

My (basic) steps for converting adventures:

1) First, I read the entire adventure and record - for each and every encounter - what the ELs would be using the adventure as written.

2) Now that I have a range of ELs, I can now determine what levels the PCs should generally be so that I would have to do the least amount of converting (for example, if many of the ELs are around 5-8, then I would likely decide that it would be easiest for me to convert this adventure for 6th level characters). However, I take careful note of any "signature" or necessary encounters that are the essence of the adventure - these I want to keep as close as possible to the original (obviously), so that might affect what character level I peg the adventure at (see "Notes", below).

3) Once I decide on the character level, I go to the encounters with outlier ELs and convert those (if necessary - sometimes those outliers are a good thing if they are "side encounters" and not necessary to complete the adventure successfully) to make it better fit with the level I've decided.

4) Finally, I look at the treasure and wipe out (or rarely, add) treasure to fit the appropriate levels, location, and sometimes PCs. (However, I do this for EVERY adventure regardless, so it's not really an extra step.)

Notes:
- Everything is surprisingly easy to convert - except for those "signature" encounters. Thankfully, however, they are rare (and the most fun, anyways!). If it's a character-class NPC, often I've found that the level of the character isn't as important as I thought. If it's a monster, though, then that could affect the entire adventure. Now, the good thing is the monster advancement in 3e - if the signature monster is weaker than the overall adventure, you can simply advance it. Woo! If it's stronger, however, then you're in for a bit of work if you want to keep it, as you'll have to adjust the EL of the rest of the encounters to fit. (The cool thing about this, though, is that you can simply add a couple more creatures, or add levels, or advance the other creatures.)

- For uninteresting NPCs, I use "generic" statistics (often from the 3.0 DMG or my own generic NPC stats I did a while back). If an encounter is just a bunch of "bandits", then I use a generic Rogue (or Fighter). Designing full and unique NPC stats for these schlubs is just a waste of your time.

- If you're trying to convert 1e/2e adventures and don't own the Tome of Horrors - you're nuts. However, ENWorld's creature conversions are very good, so you should be fine.

Just a bit of insight how I do it.

This is very useful summary Arnwyn. I'm saving this on my computer for reference.