Jon Potter said:
How do you guys go about converting an AD&D adventure for use with d20?
The basis for starting my campaign was several higher-level AD&D adventures that inspired me. As my group creeps toward the proper level using the current system, I find myself staring at the seemingly-daunting task of converting four or more adventures.
Any guidance would be helpful to me.
Thanks.
First off - remember that you only need to be one adventure ahead on the conversion curve which should buy you some time.
Secondly - Figure out what tools you want to use. eTools and PCGen both can create characters and monsters in a Stat-block like manner. There are many others - look at the electronic downloads here on ENWorld, or check out the computer forum... There's quite a few of them out there. Also, WOTC published a Conversion Manual for 2e to 3e back in August of 2000. I don't see it on a quick glance, but it may just be hidden up there. If I find it in my archives I'll send it your way.
Third, figure out how you want to approach the conversion -
Do you want to run a faithful conversion, keeping all monsters, treasures, and traps the same?
Do you want a conversion that is more 3e compatible that allows for easier management?
I'm running a Night Below game [plug]see sig[/plug] that is more or less a faithful conversion of the module. The number of monsters and the treasure levels are the same - which will play hob with my world a bit, but I wanted to see what would happen.
The downside to this conversion method is that encounter levels vary widely and depending on your players some encounters could be too easy or instant death. Still, I've had fun doing it this way.
The second method requires a lot more work on your part. You'll have to determine what level you want to run the module at and adjust each encounter and treasure value for something that is more reasonable. For example, in D1-2 for example, the lair of the troglodytes with about 30+ trogs is not a reasonable 3e conversion - For 14th level characters the trogs are individually too weak to be a challenge at all and aren't worth any experience points - worse there's too many of them and it makes it hard to judge just how dangerous they are (DMG recommends no more than 13 creatures per encounter I believe).
Generally speaking I would do a true/faithful conversion of any module I wanted to run. I would stat all the creatures, traps, and magics as faithfully as I could and then tweak afterwards to match the party strength (or make sure they had the opportunity to find out if they were wildly overmatched).
It's easiest to start at the front of the module and work your way through each statted encounter.
For Monsters:
Find the equivalent monster in the MM or SRD or any other monster book you might own (Tome of Horrors has quite a few original 2nd editon monsters).
For Traps:
Try to find the equivalent trap listed in the DMG. You probably won't find the exact trap, but you'll find something close. Poison traps that cause death should be converted to one of the Con draining poisons. I've found that frequently the 2nd edition traps usually top out at CR3 or CR4 traps.
For Magic:
Find the equivalent magic item or spell. For custom items/spells you can either play as is or try to find a reasonable substitute.
Out of curiousity, which adventures are you going to convert? They may have already been converted - You can check the downloads for them, but someone may have a conversion they're willing to share.
