D&D 5E Updating classic A&D adventures for D&D 5e: a work under development

E'an Todd said:

Interesting to see other DMs doing the same sort of thing I'm trying; I've been running Lost Mine since late July, and the party just finished it. I'm not really attached to the Realms, in fact fairly blah about them. So I decided to homebrew the setting, just keeping the map but renaming the locations and going from there. I've always wanted to run some of the classic adventures that I've read and reread over the last 30 years, and decided this time to take the opportunity. So I'm adapting A1-4 right now, using copies of both the individual adventures and the rerelease/expansion that had more plot. I'm restatting the Aspis currently, and figuring out encounter balance for the first part. My plan is to use Desert of Desolation after, then move to GDQ.

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We're running in the Realms, and I've loved the FR ever since the little gray box, but it's because I just love the maps and the evocative names and don't give a darn about the lore really. I think I'm going to actually put White Plum Mt. right where Icespire Peak was, smack between Wave Echo Cave and Wyvern Tor, and it makes sense in the context of my campaign now with a beholder lord in a city under the mountains who now has control of the Forge of Spells. I also swapped out Leilon for Saltmarsh, like someone else mentioned, and might transplant the Sinister Secret there.,

ehren37 said:

Vecna Lives is pretty widely considered to be terrible. This review sums up its flaws, nicely, but the fact that it requires all the gods to be idiots and the players RP the Circle of Eight as complete boobs in order to get wiped out. How exactly did they reach such high levels when their plan of investigation consists of "run into an unknown tomb with no preparation".

For all its bright spots, 5th edition is pretty terrible at "party vs one thing" and really should have stolen more from 4E in terms of "simulating stories" of heroes vs. an epic evil. I guess give Vecna the lair power of "Gains 2000 temporary HP" or something, because 8 wizards vs anything is going to be a joke, as he'll be focus fired to death the first round. I'd personally skip the terrible intro and just flash to the actual PC's catching glimpses of their mentor's deaths, and run it with them around 7th level. Knowing the Circle was killed by the thing you now have to go against should be scary enough without them having to sit through the cheating and railroading required to kill them in game time.

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I am reading the adventure and, even considering some metagaming and plot devices that surely are a reminder of the late 80's adventures, I am enjoying the plot and the adventure itself! I was thinking exactly about the points that you and the review addressed, and I believe that including some backstory related to Vecna’s preparation, like the preparation of a ritual created by him that obscured the knowledge of his plans, explaining the reasons for the gods and the archmages of the Circle of Eight are unaware of his plans, could explain a lot of issues. He is (or shall become) the god of secrets, after all!

In addition, in the initial encounter, I included in the map two tombs for creatures that were serving Halmadar/Vecna (in fact, they were serving the artifacts, the Hand and the Eye of Vecna), that were imprisoned along with him. They are exactly the Eye and the Hand, the golem-like creatures that could not be destroyed, and were in turn buried along with Halmadar/Vecna.

This could help me with the problem mentioned by you of the “party vs one enemy” thing. My first idea would be to have Halmadar (in fact, a kind of Apect of Vecna dominated by the artifacts), along with the Eye and the Hand in combat. My second idea was to allow the Aspect of Vecna summon a very powerful creature (a Balor, for example), to fight alongside with him against the Circle of Eight - Vecna made a pact with Orcus, and this "help" could justify the summoning of demons in the combat. Additionaly, since Halmadar´s Tomb had several wards and protections, not every spells of the characters would work properly, indicating that the combat would be more hard than initially expected. In this repect, and considering the experience of forum members regarding Fifth Edition here, how would you create the encounter that could wipe out six players (two members shall be NPCs) using high level wizards in D&D 5e?

I particulary like the introduction, because it can provide the players the reasons to fear and to be aware of Vecna’s power. In addition, it would be interesting (and fun!) to see the players surprised due to the deaths of all members of the Circle of Eight.

I shall check Return of the White Plume Mountain as an option as well. I shall also adapt in the future Expedition to Castle Ravenloft and Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk.

GregoryOatmeal said:

- Expedition to the Barrier Peaks - May go between G1 and G2. Never ran this one before.

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I remember how divisive this module was back in the day (and since, I imagine), because it was a melding of genres. Our group loved it, though.

Bravesword said:

In addition, in the initial encounter, I included in the map two tombs for creatures that were serving Halmadar/Vecna (in fact, they were serving the artifacts, the Hand and the Eye of Vecna), that were imprisoned along with him. They are exactly the Eye and the Hand, the golem-like creatures that could not be destroyed, and were in turn buried along with Halmadar/Vecna.

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Heh, the Eye and Hand thought they were all boss until my fighter/cleric dropped a creeping doom on them. "Ohh, I'm all scary with my whopping 60 HP and Eyebite... Oh god, the bees! They're stinging my giant eyeball head!" Haha, good times, good times.

This could help me with the problem mentioned by you of the “party vs one enemy” thing. My first idea would be to have Halmadar (in fact, a kind of Apect of Vecna dominated by the artifacts), along with the Eye and the Hand in combat. My second idea was to allow the Aspect of Vecna summon a very powerful creature (a Balor, for example), to fight alongside with him against the Circle of Eight - Vecna made a pact with Orcus, and this "help" could justify the summoning of demons in the combat. Additionaly, since Halmadar´s Tomb had several wards and protections, not every spells of the characters would work properly, indicating that the combat would be more hard than initially expected. In this repect, and considering the experience of forum members regarding Fifth Edition here, how would you create the encounter that could wipe out six players (two members shall be NPCs) using high level wizards in D&D 5e?

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Part of the problem is with bounded accuracy and crappy save scaling, its really hard to kill a high level group. Its part of people's complaints with Tiamat in the super module. A town of peons with bows could kill her fairly quickly.

As I see it, 3rd edition was the mathy spreadsheet edition, where you had to justify every piece of a monster. 5th edition is more back to the "f it" style of previous editions. If you want to do the intro, I'd run a few balanced high level set pieces, to let them get a feel for how capable the party that Vecna takes out is compared to the much weaker PC's that they'll be running in the adventure. "If the guys who killed 2 balors in 2 rounds died, what chance do we have?!"

Then just maul them with Vecna. I wasn't joking about his lair action of "gain 2000 temporary hit points". You can also give him an ability that makes all present make a Con saving throw. The person who gets the lowest total dies. The initial Vecna fight is about railroading a TPK. You can waste time stating up the 40th level NPC required to guarantee the TPK, or you can just handwave it, roll a few dice for show and say "rocks fall, everyone dies. Now the real adventure starts". After all, the party never actually beats Vecna in Vecna Lives directly, they just summon Iuz to do everything for them at the end, so his stats don't ever matter. Vecna has the special ability "unvincable" until the party achieves the non HP dependent win condition. Its how demigods roll.

The rest of the adventure adapts fairly straightforward IIRC, assuming you run it with lower level characters to limit spell solutions and beef up the Hand and Eye significantly (to the chagrin of my 14 year old self).

Good, I was exactly thinking on some previous encounters and traps in the dungeon that could use some of the resources of the PCs in order to present a more difficult encounter for them. I shall also consider a lair action that would grant him some additional hit points as well, or a “save or die” effect to scare them.

I wish to run effectively the encounter, exactly to avoid the railroad sensation in the table, even if I need to fake some rolls behind the screen – also to manage a high level Fifth Edition encounter, starting the “real” adventure right after.

The point of “summon Iuz and let him do the rest” is one of the issues that I would like to avoid. Of course, Iuz could show up and blast Vecna in order to leave him more weakened, allowing an encounter against the PCs – I am even thinking to have the PCs fighting alongside Kas and Iuz in order to face a more powerful and godlike Vecna in the last encounter. These issues are points that I consider that could be adjusted better in order to have an adventure more suited to D&D 5e.

I have the initial dungeon already mapped in Dungeon Tiles – Halmadar’s Tomb. The Stone doors of the cave lead to the starts at the beginning of the dungeon.


I shall describe the encounters and monster soon enough!

I ran this module back when it first came out. It wasn't a great adventure but some of the middle parts were fun. The encounter with Kas was cool and there was an outdoor ritual that was also a fun encounter. But yeah, the first and last encounter are force-fed to the point that the players are merely spectators. I remember Dave Cook gives a long-winded spiel about fear and that death is the ultimate way to scare your players. Don't be fooled by this; the first encounter with Haldemar did not scare my players in the least, it only annoyed the crap out of them.

Ehren37 has pretty much summed up my advice about handwaiving the introductory encounter, but if you're hellbent on running it then I'd make liberal use of legendary and lair actions. Time stop is not the trump card it once was, maybe it is more dangerous when used by Vecna/Haldemar inside the tomb. I'd also add some sort of graven lair effect that each PC suffers a 1d10 penalty to initiative while in the tomb as well as possibly restricting bonus and reactions. Also, the demilich has a pretty nasty howl, maybe borrow that ability for Haldemar but increase the DC? Just a thought. I think just making the tomb itself extremely hazardous when Haldemar/Vecna emerges will drive the point home that this he is extremely powerful.

Nice work with the dungeon tiles, by the way.

Nebulous said:

I also swapped out Leilon for Saltmarsh, like someone else mentioned, and might transplant the Sinister Secret there.,

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Dude. THIS IS FRIGGIN WEIRD.

I actually Photoshopped the map about a month ago - with Saltmarsh in the same place. Even the white mask you used resembles mine. I actually considered putting White Plume Mountain in their as well.

I was considering the Fire Giant Hall in Mount Hotenow also, for what it's worth...

Here's the map. I guess it didn't embed in the last post. It's weird...even the mask looks a bit like mine.

My map was designed to hide things the players wouldn't have known about at the start of the campaign.

Chase Freedom MC said:

I remember how divisive this module was back in the day (and since, I imagine), because it was a melding of genres. Our group loved it, though.

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My group loves that stuff. I did a cave module where they discovered a chainsaw and a blunderbuss and a bunch of reprogrammed modrons. They loved it.

I'm pretty sure the idea that D&D should be boxed into a genre died a long time ago.

Bravesword said:

Good, I was exactly thinking on some previous encounters and traps in the dungeon that could use some of the resources of the PCs in order to present a more difficult encounter for them. I shall also consider a lair action that would grant him some additional hit points as well, or a “save or die” effect to scare them.

I wish to run effectively the encounter, exactly to avoid the railroad sensation in the table, even if I need to fake some rolls behind the screen – also to manage a high level Fifth Edition encounter, starting the “real” adventure right after.

The point of “summon Iuz and let him do the rest” is one of the issues that I would like to avoid. Of course, Iuz could show up and blast Vecna in order to leave him more weakened, allowing an encounter against the PCs – I am even thinking to have the PCs fighting alongside Kas and Iuz in order to face a more powerful and godlike Vecna in the last encounter. These issues are points that I consider that could be adjusted better in order to have an adventure more suited to D&D 5e.

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This could work. Demigod vecna is tied up doing his ritual. The pc's fight some of his minions and with the help of the clerics of Ius, they break the magic dongle that then lets Iuz appear on the prime material plane. Iuz blast away his divinity, leaving Vecna mortal again. Then, since its not the Forgotten Realms and gods don't normally rub shoulders with mortals, Iuz says "finish it yourself" and departs. PC's, Kas and remaining Iuz clerics then fight a 20th level lich + whatever leftover minions he had.

Great map btw!