D&D 5E Other Classic Adventure Remakes?

[Guest 6801328]

Against the Giants.

It may be a quaintly antiquated dungeon crawl by current standards, but sometimes it's fun to...well...just kick in the door, kill the monster, and take it's treasure.

 

[sunrisekid]

double post

 

[sunrisekid]

The Isle of Dread from the playtest was immensely fun with group, definitely up there as among my best gaming experiences. I would pay for a Slavers-Giant-Drow remake, which they have done with prior editions, and it's a series that was widely considered among the best ever produced in the history of the game.

The hardcover reprint of Slavers is available, and is tempting for me, but it seems like I would have to spend some time converting all the encounters to match the party... personally, that does not appeal to me.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

The Keep on the Borderlands is my all-time favourite module of all time. And not just because it was the first one I ever played. Out of all the modules I own (which is probably 75%'ish of all 1st edition AD&D and D&D modules), this one is the most bang for your buck in terms of raw, untapped, open-ended fantasy'gasm for a campaign start.

I have run multiple multi-year campaigns with this puppy (as in 2+ years each, and nobody ever leaving the area of the "wilderness map" pull out of the module). Each one with most of the same exact group of players. And each campaign was totally different from the others. How many adventure "modules" can pull that off? Not many. I think Isle of Dread and maybe The Secret of Bone Hill could stand next to KotBL and not feel ashamed.

If you want to see what and how much the KotBL could be 'expanded', you have to try and track down a copy of Kenzer & Co's The Little Keep on the Borderlands, for Hackmaster (4th Edition...not the 'newer' version...the old one based on 1e/2e). It clocks in at almost 150 pages, chalked FULL of adventure. Everything in it is expanded, without being all tied and linked together so tightly that removing one unravels the whole thing. The organized humanoids in this thing are organized. And the Kobolds? Don't. Just...don't. Go try and find the ogre or minotaur....those kobold bastards will kill you dead before you even see them or their cave! Honestly, I can't say enough good things about this HM4 adventure. Find it, buy it, play it (preferably in Hackmaster 4, but hell, any 'D&D' version would work...just remember to remove 20hp from everything...it's a HM thing...).

Oh, I thought of a more recent adventure that I'm actually in the process of 'converting'; The Night Below. The area around Harenshire is one of those "mini-campaign areas" that can be used for an entire campaign. So many cool areas and things to explore! A slight re-imagining of this boxed set for 5e would rock on toast! Mmmmm.... Hopefully my pitiful scratch notes do it justice when we start it in a few sessions (I don't suspect the current 'bad guy' campaign is going anywhere; we just don't really like playing bad guys...but the players had an itch and we are currently scratching it; won't last much longer, I figure).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Ath-kethin]

I'll cast another vote for The Gates of Firestorm Peak. It would allow another option for integrating psionics, deal with the Far Realm and itrs effects in more detail. and possibly provide a frame for more optional rules modules.

 

[Shiroiken]

Against the Giants.

It may be a quaintly antiquated dungeon crawl by current standards, but sometimes it's fun to...well...just kick in the door, kill the monster, and take it's treasure.

Would work if Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Vault of the Drow, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits was added. Probably would need a setup adventure to start things off with.

 

[JonnyP71]

The DM would have to seriously slow the levelling rates of the PCs though... or reduce the size of the adventures! They worked well in 1E because the experience point requirements were massive beyond levels 8/9.

If my group go into Isle of Dread this week it will be because the boat (in which they are being transported as slaves to be sold) will be caught in a storm and washed up on the shore near the main village, and the main story arc will be for them to retrieve the 'Sacred' black pearl in return for the villagers helping to rebuild the boat.

Bring in the pirates, and add some Yuan Ti (slavers who survive the storm), with catmen, flying raccoons and dinosaurs and I reckon they'll enjoy it.

 

[Patrick McGill]

I ran both the Saltmarsh (both parts) and the first Dragonlance module during the end of the playtest, converting on the fly. Both worked very well, and it was fun rolling up the Heroes of the Lance in 5e terms. I did fluff both of them up quite a bit; Saltmarsh because it was a side quest in my ongoing campaign, and DL because it needed some umph.

The problem with Dragonlance seems to me one of railroading. If it were remade, in the style of Curse of Strahd (that is, a re-imagining), I would very much like them to present it as a series of sandboxes with various goals you can complete in non-linear order.

 

[oknazevad]

Truth is, there's quite a few over the years that could be used as basis for modern adventures. Even a more recent one like Red Hand of Doom. But I'll agree that if that's all they do, then there'd be no new classics. CoS is a distinct opportunity because it allows them to reintroduce the Ravenloft setting. So I'd almost expect future adaptations of classics to be ones that can be used to reintroduce settings and/or are fairly self-contained stories within distinct settings. Like the original Dragonlance AP. Heck, that's been updated for each subsequent edition (except 4e), so it wouldn't surprise me at all.

 

[JonnyP71]

I ran both the Saltmarsh (both parts) and the first Dragonlance module during the end of the playtest, converting on the fly. Both worked very well, and it was fun rolling up the Heroes of the Lance in 5e terms. I did fluff both of them up quite a bit; Saltmarsh because it was a side quest in my ongoing campaign, and DL because it needed some umph.

The problem with Dragonlance seems to me one of railroading. If it were remade, in the style of Curse of Strahd (that is, a re-imagining), I would very much like them to present it as a series of sandboxes with various goals you can complete in non-linear order.

The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is one of the best for converting, especially on the fly... break it into 3 parts:

- main 2 levels of the house - PCs at level 1
- they should be level 2 by the time they discover the cellar/caves
- and level 3 for the boat sequence

It's perfectly paced to do that and hit those targets, and the enemies work well as written for those level ranges too.