Know of a Good Night Below Conversion?

[Brisk-sg]

Hello All,

Does anyone know of a decent "Night Below" conversion online? I have the conversion for the 1st book that is hosted here on ENWORLD, but have not been able to find any decent conversions for the other books.

I would like to find if there is something available to use before I dive into converting the 2nd and 3rd books.

Thank you,

- Josh

 

[Seravin]

A full conversion? No. The most complete I ever found was here and a good critique and some useful stuff can be found here .

Also, you can find a forum dedicated to this here.

Of course you can also go to my story hour here.
The story hour is still within the first book however - though I'd be willing to share my campaign notes if you'd find them useful. My game notes are pretty sparse as I used the conversions at the sites above.

There are some questions you need to ask yourself before you embark upon all of this. The biggest is do you want to do a straight conversion keeping the treasure and monsters as is? Or do you want to modify both treasure and monsters down to 3e standards? Most other questions follow from there.

I decided to see what would happen and I started using straight conversions and kept the monsters and treasure as-is. We've been having fun so far. Right now we're at the end of the 2nd book. What's starting to break down however is that the party is now around 16th level. Which matches them up to the opposition pretty well but they have access to magics that the writer never took into account. I'm expecting multiple Earthquakes at our next game sesssion.

So far the only thing I'd warn you on is the bloody trolls in the second book - it took about six game sessions to get through them all (multiple forays by the players). I was sick of trolls by the end of it. Everything else meshes pretty well with the party's advancement.

 

[Brisk-sg]

Thanks for the resources Seravin.

I actually started the campaign last week, using the conversion document posted here on ENWORLD for Book 1. So far it has been going rather smoothly, though I almost had one TPK when the group went in the Hardlow (spelling?) Woods to seek out some magic items there. Wargs can be rather deadly to a low level party. To help balance out the encounter the group had with the wargs, I reduced all the members of the hunting pack to only 12 hps each with the exception of a pack leader, with the intent that if the leader was dropped the rest would have to make a Will save or flee. But sadly the party rolled terrible and got largely massacred. Since I didn't want to throw the campain away so soon, I had the wargs drag off a random character to eat as well as the party's pack mule after the entire party was dropped.

I started with just using what is in the conversion (which follows what is outlined in the book very closely), but after noticing numerous stat block errors, and a few balance issues, I am starting to rewrite most of the real villains. At this point I will likely be doing the conversion myself. I find I can make the villains a lot more exciting by giving them a level or two in a prestige class and personalizing their magical weapons to be something other then a +x weapon.

At this point, we are a good way into the 1st book. The PCs have finished the following quests:

a. Found and subdued the wear bear. (this was a difficult fight even with the ranger help)
b. Resolved the issues with Giants by getting the Green Dragon to deal with them
c. Retrieved the magic items in the Hardlow woods. I threw out using a wraith as the party had 0 magic items when they embarked on this quest. Instead I created a 4th level Cleric of Cyric with the Bone Creature Template from the Book of Vile Darkness. Gave him desecrate (pre-casted) and some spells to make him difficult to hit. It was a good challenge.
d. Solved the issue with the New Mire & Eelhold by relocating the goblins.
e. Defeated the Death Dogs

The group is now about to find away of tracking down the Red Haired man to try to save the traveling clergy.

Not too bad for only having been playing for a week.

 

[Seravin]

Heck, it's great for a week. It took my party a month or so of playing to even do half of those things - but then we only play 1 four hour session a week.

What level did you start the characters at and what level are they now? It sounds like they're right around 3rd or 4th level - which is about right for the bone-creature-cleric you created...

You're going to have to be careful with the wandering monster numbers, or you're going to end up with more disasters like the warg-encounter.

Cutting down the hit points works reasonably well. The danger of doing that however is that the damage potential of the creature still remains the same. The monsters can still potentially deal out a lot of damage - for monsters weaker than the party this isn't a bad thing as the monster isn't going to stick around very long with the reduced hit points. For monsters about the same strength as the party or stronger it can still be violently lethal.

You'll want to check the treasure levels too. I left them as is to see what would happen. The end result is that the party is ridiculously rich - and they're happy for it. As a consequence of all the extra loot and magic items I started to treat the party as 1 level higher for purposes of xp's starting about 9-10th level. The party is pretty happy about things though.

Did your group get the ring of water elemental command? If so did they get it with all powers on? Or do they get to work for it?

Things to watch for in the first book:
If your party tracks the red-haired man to the mines I suggest you ensure that they are at least 3rd, if not 4th level before they get to the bottom of the mines. The final encounter is going to be tough. Note that the fighter has boots of speed.

Consider placing a large city within a few days of Milbourne or Thurmaster so the party has some place to sell their loot.

All in all, the 1st book is the easiest to convert to 3e - it's mostly just a matter of watching the number of wandering monsters and making sure the party gets some xp's to match the encounters they're facing.

Also for character conversions - consider using the warrior NPC class over fighters (reduces the cr by 1). I did not do this for the named bad guys and I stopped doing it all together after the first half of book one (except for a brief stint on the derro in book two).

For multi-class characters consider using the conversion book that WOTC put out with 3e. It's still available as a pdf somewhere on the wizards site. If I recall though, take the highest level of the character and add the value of their secondary class divided by 3 (So a Clr12/Rog9 would be 15th level). Divide the resulting number amongst the the two classes. I tended to favor the spell casting class over the non spellcasting class and made sure the converted character had the highest level spell slot available after the conversion.

Things to watch for in the second book:
The trolls. I hate trolls. There's like 30 of them between those two caves. The only thing that made this workable is that I paid attention to the map distances. I also decided that the trolls were never in a big hurry to actually start running towards fights until the the third or fourth foray the party made.

The same thing about the trolls rolls over to most of the other encounters - most of the caves have large numbers of critters that can quickly overwhelm the party. The hook horrors and quaggoths come to mind here.

If you keep the critter numbers up then I suggest keeping the treasure vaues near the same. Things are going to escalate pretty quickly through the second book. The books assumes the party is going to be around 12th level or so by the end of the 2nd book - mine are higher than that and it changes the tactics. But then the city is populated by classed-monsters - Notably there's a mind-flayer who's a 12th level priest. Arguably he isn't really a 20th level challenge, especially due to a lack of gear - but he's still formiddable. Throw in the kuo-toan dukes and there's some serious spell power going on (note that the converted dukes have a cr of around 16-17).

If you tone down the number of critters and the amount of treasure you should probably think about toning down the monsters with levels - but that depends on your party's playing style too.

For that matter think about how the bad guys are going to communicate with each other. In my game I decided that most of the bad-guys were fairly isolated. So when Broken-Spire was taken, the folks in the mines and the orcs in the caves were oblivious.

When the orcs were taken, it took the mind flayers a month to find out that something happened (partly because the party deliberately tried to attract oozes to dispose of the evidence). By the time the group hits the derro there should be a more organized resistance. Anything done to the derro should be discovered within 2-5 days (presuming a total wipe-out) by the City of the Glass Pool. With the assault on the city, I've had the upper level priests doing communes (I presumed that each priest was at the mid-point of advancement so had that many xp's to spend). Worse, the city of Shaboath now has some idea of the party and their capabilities, though I've deemed the leaders feel pretty secure regardless.

Also, I nearly forgot that the city was populated by priests. Any important folk who die has a chance at a raise-dead from a surviving priest.

That's the stuff that immediately comes to mind. Apologies for the verbosity.

edited by the grammar fairy

 

[Brisk-sg]

What level did you start the characters at and what level are they now? It sounds like they're right around 3rd or 4th level - which is about right for the bone-creature-cleric you created...
[/i]

We started at 1st level with four PCs (controlled by two players). They just made 4th level and have expanded to 6 pcs, currently the party is composed of the following:

• Flight, Wildelf Archer - 2nd lvl Rogue / 2nd lvl Fighter
• Grom Silverbeard, Gold Dwarf Cleric of Clangeddin Silverbeard – 4th lvl Cleric
• Gurog, Half Orc Barbarian – 2nd lvl Barbarian / 2nd lvl Fighter
• Silvasa, Human Wizard – 4th lvl Wizard
• Audric Cane, Human Monk – 4th lvl Monk
• Annora, Aasmir Bard – 2nd lvl Bard

You'll want to check the treasure levels too. I left them as is to see what would happen. The end result is that the party is ridiculously rich - and they're happy for it. As a consequence of all the extra loot and magic items I started to treat the party as 1 level higher for purposes of xp's starting about 9-10th level. The party is pretty happy about things though.
[/i]

I will likely leave the treasure levels about the same, though I am determined to tweak many of the magical weapons found to give them a little spice and flavor. I hate bland magic items that simply have a higher +X.

Did your group get the ring of water elemental command? If so did they get it with all powers on? Or do they get to work for it?
[/i]

The group was able to work out a deal between the Nixie and the goblin tribe with the help of Shiraz. The goblins were able to keep the ring as a result, so the PCs have not acquired the ring for themselves at this point. If they had, I was going to enforce the identifying rules for it and follow what is outlined in the book as I am not too fond of low level characters running around with major magic items.

If your party tracks the red-haired man to the mines I suggest you ensure that they are at least 3rd, if not 4th level before they get to the bottom of the mines. The final encounter is going to be tough. Note that the fighter has boots of speed.
[/i]

I am looking through the section on the mines right now, converting all of the stats over. I think it should be a challenging encounter, but not beyond their current abilities.

Consider placing a large city within a few days of Milbourne or Thurmaster so the party has some place to sell their loot.
[/i]

I placed Haranshire between the Sword Coast and the Western Heartlands region of Forgotten Realms. They are about 5 days journey (by foot) from Baldur’s Gate. For the “Peril on the River” encounter with Ranchefus, I had the party transporting Count Palfray’s property from a recently sold estate in Baldur’s Gate. The party had already solved the “Mystery of the New Mire” quest at this point, receiving a 1000 gp, so I thought it best to give them a market to spend it in.

Also for character conversions - consider using the warrior NPC class over fighters (reduces the cr by 1). I did not do this for the named bad guys and I stopped doing it all together after the first half of book one (except for a brief stint on the derro in book two).
[/i]

I have been doing this on most of the mook warriors, though the Thieves I am using the rogue class for.

For multi-class characters consider using the conversion book that WOTC put out with 3e. It's still available as a pdf somewhere on the wizards site. If I recall though, take the highest level of the character and add the value of their secondary class divided by 3 (So a Clr12/Rog9 would be 15th level). Divide the resulting number amongst the the two classes. I tended to favor the spell casting class over the non spellcasting class and made sure the converted character had the highest level spell slot available after the conversion.
[/i]

I might do this, though I think I will likely redesign them instead, thinking more in 3rd Edition terms. This will allow me to maintain better balance, and allow me to finally use some of my hoards of 3rd Edition books.


Once again, thanks for the great advice.
- Josh

 

[Leopold]

my party is at the City of the Glass pool now mowing their way through it. I have converted it 98% complete of book 2 and will prolly post it shortly after my group has gone through it so they don't spoil it.

TAke heed in book 2: There are TONS of monsters, the party will level very very quickly if you keep the amount of monsters the same as they have it in the book. My group fears: trolls, grell, and kuo-toa now!!

The derro are a hoot with their fiendish flying spiders!



3rd book: Pray for your soul here, the PC's have 1 month to complete this quest once the city has been reached. If they fail they will need to make will saves in the low 30s to not succumb to the aboleths mind influencing affects. This place is hard as hell, tons of monsters, lots of class creatures that can rip the party to shreds, it's underwater so freedom of movement and potions will be needed. Its a breeding ground for disaster for parties that charge in and don't think.

Timing is crucial on the 3rd book. Feel free to mark off the days the PC's dally and do nothing. Remember this is the final staging grounds for the aboleth and the quasi diety that is there. That blood queen is at least Gargatuan and with levels in cleric and sorcerer she is near 26th level at least. CR of 28 or so to defeat her. Pray for your sanity!

 

[Brisk-sg]

Hey Leopold,

I would be interested in getting your conversion notes for the 2nd book when they become available. It makes it allot easier if you don't have to convert everything in the book.

Good suggestion for counting off the days. I have a few blank calendar sheets, I will likely use on the of the month ones once I get to that point and begin marking off each day. If they don't make it, I wonder if it would be enjoyable to have the party begin serving their new Aboleth masters... hum... could be an interesting evil campaign. Of course I hope it doesn't come to that. It will probably be a while until I have to deal with such things. We are making a brisk pace however. Almost done with book one.

They just had a large scale battle with bandits in the Garlstone mines.

Being really bored right now (at work), I might as well write out what happened.

One of the survivors of an ambush on a band of traveling cleric's was brought to Palfrey's keep where the party was being given a grand feast by Count Palfrey. The party, accompanied by Lyntern (after a stirring speech that convinced his father to allow him to "handle this responsibility of lordship"), went to the scene of the ambush and was assaulted by Death Dogs. After defeating them, they were able to enlist Keuper to track the assailants. Not wanting the young Lyntern to tag along, no matter how heroic, the party convinced him to go back to Palfrey keep to assemble the man at arms for an assault.

The party was able to follow the trail to the Garlstone mines. They sent the Wizard's Owl familiar with a note to palfrey keep with the location of the bandits base, asking for support in the assault. During the night they heard the screaming of several of the capture pilgrims and decided to make an assault. The attack on the mines defeated the Red haired man, most of the defenders and the lower level cleric. But due to disease from a previous encounter with the death dogs, stopped there and retreated to the surface. Half the party left to find a cleric who could cure their serious maladies while the other half watched the cave. They spent several days in a holding pattern because of this. Young Lyntern then arrived with a whopping 24 men-at-arms and retainers. After much consideration of the party members, he gave full command to Annora, the Aasmir Bard he was crushing on.

Annora led the large party, flush with armored warriors into the caves. They explored areas they had previously avoided, and came upon a large underground lake. Grom Silverbeard, being a dwarf, spied some gold upon a far ledge and approached, grabbing it. He was then plucked from the stone outcropping by a large white eel who took him to the bottom of the lake. It took Keuper and his ring of free action to save the dwarf from being drowned in the crushing teeth of the large eel. During the confusion, the remaining cleric led an assault of zombies (18), bandits (2), and Bloodskull Orcs (16) upon the party.

Under the command of Annora, the men-at-arms were able to decimate the zombie and orc menace, with minimal losses (lost 10 men-at-arms, half of those due to the evil cleric herself). Annora (who is Jeleneth's cousin) discovered Jeleneth's ring and cloak, and is very eager to find her cousin.

Now that they have won the day, they will likely rest up at Palfrey's Keep and learn of more kidnappings. They still have not found out where the man with one-eye is based. Lyntern will be suggesting they check out the keep of his ancestors shortly.

So at this point, we only have two major encounter/dungeons left in book 1. Most of the side quests have already been handled (the Rosette Stone being the only one I can really think of that hasn't been done), so I think we should be done with book 1 within the next two weeks (or sooner seeing as how fast we have come in just three weeks).


Anyhow, thanks for all the advice and assistance.

- Josh

 

[Seravin]

For your consideration...

This isn't really a conversion note, but since you were talking about personalizing the place somewhat...

Vog came about because I felt the shrine to Jubilex needed a caretaker. He was also a good explanation for all those bloody oozes on the encounter charts. His stats were pretty much assigned (as a match to some of the rolls the characters made). His hit points were also manually set just because I knew the players damage dealing capacity. This was copied off of some old notes and I know the feats and the skills are a little off, but it should be mostly workable.

Depending on your group's level when they reach him, you may want to scale his level and or items back. My group took care of the dragons first (as well as an unrelated side adventure) so Vog's level was upped accordingly.

Finally, he was to provide a counterpoint to the way the party wizard was being run. He was fun to play.

Vog
Svirfneblin, Male
Wizard 5 /Oozemaster 10 (Caster Lvl 10)
HD: 5d4 + 10d8 + 45 (120hp)
Init +3
Spd: 20
AC: 18 (Ring of Protect +2, Amulet of Nat Armor +2, Small +1, Dex +3) (33 with Mage Armor, Shield, and Haste)
Atk: melee: +9/+4 ; ranged: +13/+8
Fort: +18, Ref +14, Will: +17
Str:8 , Dex: 17, Con: 16, Int: 20, Wis: 17, Cha: 6
Alchemy +13, Hide +13, Listen +5, Swim +3, Concentration +11, Spellcraft +13, Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, Great Fortitude, Silent Spell, Spell Focus (Transmutation), Greater Spell Focus (Transmutation), Lightning Reflexes, Iron Will
Spell Like Abilities: Blindness, Blur, Change Self (DC 10+spell lvl)
Special Qualities: Nondetection (DC 25), SR 25, Darkvision 120ft
Oozemaster Abilities:
Minor Oozy Touch I: Grey Ooze
Minor Oozy Touch II: Ochre Jelly
Major Oozy Touch I: Black Pudding
Major Oozy Touch II: Gelatinous Cube
Major Oozy Touch III: Green Slime
Oozy Glob 5/day
Slithery Face, Mallebility, Indiscernible Anatomy
Slime Wave: DC 20
One with Ooze: Blindsight 60', Immune to Flanking, Poison, Sleep, Paralysis, Stunning, Mind Influencing Spells, and Polymorph

Wizard Spells (4/6/5/4/4/3) DC: 15 + Spell Level (19 + lvl for Transmutation)
0) Detect Magic x2, Ray of Frost, Prestidigitation
1) True Strike x2, Expedtious Retreat, Shocking Grasp, Charmp Person, Magic Missile
2) Silent Shield, Silent Mage Armor, See Invis, Silent Magic Missile, Silent Ventriloquism
3) Protection/Elements x2, Silent Darkness, Silent Deafness
4) Silent Haste, Silent Fly, Silent Displacement, Silent Dispel Magic
5) Silent Improved Invis, Teleport, Transmute Rock to Mud

Items: Headband of Intellect +4, Amulet of Natural Armor +2, Ring of Protection +2, Cloak of Resistance +3, Scroll (Mass Haste, Greater Dispelling, and Slow), Potion of Invisibility x3, Potion of Endurance x3, Potion of Cure Serious Wounds x2

Description
Like all svirfneblin, Vog has gray skin and bright blue eyes. He is compeletely hairless and looks like he's on the edge of starvation. He has long ago forgotten what hygiene is, but his oozy powers keep him generally clean.
He generally wears a patch-worn, torn, gray tunic that's covered with burns and has many tears and holes. At his side is a large pouch filled with flasks. His cloak and ring are his ownly obvious magic items as all else are hidden.

History
Vog was an alchemist in Carmararen's community of Svirfneblin. He held a semi-prominent position if only because his job was so dangerous. His job also demanded that he travel through the underdark collecting the items he needed to make his alchemical things. In particular Vog was interested in the slimes and oozes about the caves as they were a source of particular potent acids.

About fifty years ago Vog did not come back from one of his expeditions. The little gnome had stumbled upon the shrine to Jubilex. Since then Vog doesn't even remember his past life. He serves the idol, protecting the caves nearby, and occasionally travelling about on strange errands (Like seeding empty caves with some ooze or another).

If he does travel, Vog takes an ooze with him for protection. He will always cast a fly spell on the ooze and if meeting people will pour an invisibility potion over it too.

Outside of his caves, Vog is genial if obviously a little touched in the head. Inside his caves he becomes viscious and straightforward, casting his protective magics first and then opening up with a Transmute Rock to Mud over his opponents.

 

[Brisk-sg]

I am definitely going to steal that NPC.

I think a few rumors concerning a lot of unusual ooze activity recently will also work its way into interactions in the Svirfneblin community. Things such as "Don't mind me, just cleaning up. One of those oozes was in my pantry again...". Make it into a sort of side quest where they may even learn the identity of the ooze master before they reach him, maybe even find a book detailing his transformation, thus allowing any wizard PC who wants to begin moving into the prestige class after some research. (Though I doubt any of my PCs would bite, but you never know)

Thanks

 

[Brisk-sg]

I also have an NPC that is going to become a reoccurring villain at points. One of the Halfling rogues in the Garlstone mines escaped. He was put to sleep by a sleep spell and tied up by Gurog, who did not have any points in use rope.

After the battle, the dwarven cleric began to interrogate him in a rather condescending fashion. I went ahead and rolled an Escape Artist check… Natural 20. His hands were unbound, but the dwarf did not notice.

I then rolled a Pick Pocket check… Natural 20. He took the dwarves axe from his belt and rolled to hit. Rolled an 18, since the dwarf was flat footed, the rogue was able to sneak attack with the dwarves own axe. Did about 22 points of damage. He then fled toward the cave entrance before being captured again.

Well, the party carried him with them while they explored the cavern and when they setup camp. When I asked about him, they said they just left him tied up in a corner. I rolled an escape artist check every day they camped (3 days), setting the DC so I would have to get a natural 20 for him to escape. On the 2nd day, I rolled a natural 20. They were not able to spot or track him due to his Halfling wiles.

The players hate that halfing, and thus he will defiantly be back later on.