Updating Dungeons

[Stormsparrow]

Hello everyone!

I'm a brand sparkly new DM, who has only ever played 4th edition D&D. Having said that, I'm a big fan of the old school charm that made this game what it is today, and would love to run some dog-eared classics in my upcoming campaign.

So how difficult is it to update AD&D adventures to 4th edition? Do the stories and encounters translate well?

Thanks!

 

[Rechan]

I think one of the easiest would be Keep on the Borderland. I found Isle of Dread very easy to convert (I stole a lot of it for my campaign), as well as Dwellers in the Forbidden City.

However, others are a little more hedgy. Take the Slave Lords series. I understand that the series is about being captured by slavers and stripped of all your equipment; you break out, and have to use improvized/poor weapons while working your way through to freedom. 4e would be less interesting, since all your powers work no matter what equipment you're using, so it loses a little of that charm of 'bare bones limitation'.

 

[lkjopajdowma]

I've actually been working on converting one for a level 8-11 adventure for our group (we're trying a DM rotation so every gets a chance to play at the various tiers). I came into a pile of older adventures a few years ago, and was finally looking through them. I settled on N1 - "Against the Cult of the Reptile God" because I liked the flavor of the adventure. The original module was designed for levels 1-3, but a lot of the creatures in the module that are present in 4e actually translate into monsters in the 8-12 range, which is surprising and kind of cool since I can keep a similar flavor.

For the most part, the story in this one seems to translate pretty well (I'll have to figure out a "4e way" that people are becoming charmed into this cult, since 4e doesn't really have any sort of ongoing charm mechanic...I'll probably use a ritual). Encounters definitely are going to need to be reworked from the ground up in a lot of cases, though. I mean, undead can easily be replaced with other level-appropriate undead, but there's other things like goblins which are just going to be too low level for a party of level 8 or 9 that I need to rework. Part of that is the fact it was originally a level 1-3 adventure, which is what I was looking at converting it to early on before we decided on a DM rotation, and I was disappointed that I'd have to change the BBEG, so the revelation that I'd be running one for level 8-11 and that there was the same creature for the BBEG in the 4e MM as a level 12 elite made my day.

 

[I'm A Banana]

This is one of those slightly sketchy things, because "old school charm" could mean a lot of different things to different folks.

BUT, my general advice for converting would be to go in broad strokes. Don't worry about specific encounters, just worry about general "monster palette" and the overall storyline.

Just watch out for stories that revolve around weakening the PC's somehow, or that revolve around specific monster abilities or somesuch. Those have a lot of philosophical mis-match with the current edition. Aside from that, most scenarios should translate pretty well, if you go in broad strokes. Don't get caught up in specifics.

 

[Jack99]

It's usually somewhere between fairly easy and doable.

 

[S'mon]

Re N1 - it was originally written with the BBEG vastly too powerful for the intended 1st-2nd level party (7d6 fireball!) - it's the hermit's Minor Globe of Invulnerability that gives the PCs a chance. To keep the dynamic you want the final encounter to be well over PC level, but winnable with aid and fortune. If the BBEG is a 12th level elite then I'd say the PCs should be ca 5th level in 4e.

 

[Lanefan]

Unless the story revolves around some specific effect that no longer exists, general story conversion from any edition to any other is trivial.

Specific encounter conversion, however, could be a biznitch. Someone mentioned Keep on the Borderlands - that one would require re-statting of well over 50 different monsters (assuming some Goblins become minions, some become skirmishers, etc., and repeating for all), and that's a long job if you're not really familiar with 4e. If your 4e-fu is really good, though, the monster conversion in most cases could be done on the fly.

Watch out for terrain. Something innocent in 1e (e.g. a cliff) can become deadly in 4e once people start shifting and sliding. (as an aside; I'd not thought of this before, but there's a disconnect between combat on a small boat and shift-slide effects - first move effect wins!)

I've done it the other way - I ran 4e's Keep on the Shadowfell (without the Kobold prelude) in my 1e-based game. Some of the upper-level set-piece battles that probably work really well in 4e kinda fell flat in 1e, mostly because 4e assumes so much more movement; but the last 3 or 4 battles at the end really rocked.

One huge difference in how it played out was that the 4e version assumes the party's going to wade through the whole thing in one or two game days; between repeated trips back to town and other delays my crew took a few game months, so I had to dream up reasons why Kalarel hadn't finished opening the rift yet. The reverse will also be true: something that a 1e party might take weeks to do, a 4e party could plow through pretty fast - 4e parties have a bit more of the Energizer bunny in 'em - and you'll want to keep that in mind.

Lanefan

 

[Piratecat]

Stormsparrow, it's great having you here. Welcome.

I think thematically a lot of those dungeons translate fairly well. Be cautious about 2nd edition modules, though; they went through a really strong "we're railroading you for the story" phase that left a bad taste in many peoples' mouths.

Monsters won't translate quite as easily as the plots. You'll want to pick and choose, using the DMG's rules on raising and lowering a monster's level in order to get the right degree of power. I'm not sure how many people use those rules, but I love them; they give a DM a ton of flexibility, which is needed if you're trying to convert an old adventure where (for instance) a gelatinous cube is a minor annoyance instead of a major foe.

 

[mearls]

Hello everyone!

I'm a brand sparkly new DM, who has only ever played 4th edition D&D. Having said that, I'm a big fan of the old school charm that made this game what it is today, and would love to run some dog-eared classics in my upcoming campaign.

So how difficult is it to update AD&D adventures to 4th edition? Do the stories and encounters translate well?

My current campaign is based on the original Temple of Elemental Evil. I found that the moathouse was a lot of fun to convert, but it did require some thought.

1. Don't be afraid to combine a few encounters into one, both to give the PCs more room to move around and to draw a number of monsters together. For instance, a single ogre in a room is a dull 4e encounter, but having that ogre move from his room to the ghoul room next door in the middle of the fight is interesting.

2. Modify the map to avoid encounters with too many chokepoints. Keep in mind that the 1e maps had a 10 foot per square scale, and in AD&D you were meant to fit three characters in a 10-foot wide corridor. I'd break each 10 foot square into a 3 by 3 square area for 4e. That alone creates a ton of space.

3. Aim for the feel of the encounter when converting monsters, rather than a straight conversion. For instance, if a room has 12 hobgoblins, I might use a few different hobgoblins from the MM to fill different roles, along with a bunch of minions to bulk up the encounter.

4. The important thing is to aim for the adventure's feel, rather than a straight conversion. For instance, the first level of the moathouse is inhabitated by a bandit gang. I changed the gang into a group of goblins and <insert critter from MM 2 here>. They were still bandits, but their mechanics made for an interesting, hit and run defense of the moathouse.

Look at the adventure as a template, not a script, that you can use to drive your campaign forward. I ended up making a few changes to the adventure as we played through it, adding a ghoul warren dungeon and a hidden temple beneath the moathouse. They worked well for the campaign, since the PCs had some loose ends to work through before traveling to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

 

[lkjopajdowma]

Re N1 - it was originally written with the BBEG vastly too powerful for the intended 1st-2nd level party (7d6 fireball!) - it's the hermit's Minor Globe of Invulnerability that gives the PCs a chance. To keep the dynamic you want the final encounter to be well over PC level, but winnable with aid and fortune. If the BBEG is a 12th level elite then I'd say the PCs should be ca 5th level in 4e.

Yeah, i did notice that it basically says the only way the PCs stand a chance is to give them the Globe (either through the hermit or a scroll) . I don't think I'm going for a final battle that is nigh-impossible though. I'll definitely add a few other creatures to the end and level up the Naga a bit so it's difficult, but I don't want to TPK them.

And luck is definitely not on our group's side...just last week we had a 2 round streak of rolls under 6. It's something special.