D&D 5E Converting Old Adventures

[Voadam]

In my conversions of Pathfinder 1e adventure paths to 5e I have been ditching a lot of magic item loot, just keeping stuff that feels appropriate and redoing mechanics to fit a 5e vibe (a boss villains power gauntlet, a different mini boss's magic chainsaw, a 5e monster power to summon ghouls into a wand that can summon undead, for instance in my current Iron Gods one).

I expect I would do the same with AD&D modules.

AD&D and 3e systems have a much higher magic item expectation than 5e does.

 

[J-H]

I'm running a Baldur's Gate 2 campaign, and I'm basically just backing +1 to +6 down to +1 to +3, and keeping most other loot as-is, aside from fiddling with magic resistance (+ to saves vs spells). So far the party is around 7th level and I haven't found any problems with them all having +armor, +weapons, and full attunement slots. There's a +2 shield, a +2 staff, some +1 longswords, a +2 flail, etc. Nothing requires attunement unless it provides full immunity, alters base stats, gives substantial spells per day (like the Staff of Thunder & Lightning, which I'm using the 5e version of), etc.
However, I'm also running 5e as intended, which means 5-8 combats per long rest in a dungeon. They hit hard, but they also have developed a habit of stocking up on 10+ healing potions!

The only I have had so far was a whole enemy party ambushing them, and half of them getting wiped out due to bad initiative rolls when the party went Fireball, Fireball, Lightning Bolt! That was annoying, but also consumed most of their 3rd level slots for the day, with plenty of other fights to come.

I saw someone mentioning attuning to items for extra benefits. I did do that with the Ring of Fire Resistance. Wear it, and you're resistant to fire. Attune to it, and you're immune.

We'll see how it goes at high levels, but at that point they'll be facing several fire giants / illithid / etc. at a time. My big concern there will be keeping combat moving quickly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can have a magic weapon without + bonuses if you feel it's essential, but if you use the 5e versions of monsters, you will find there are very few which cannot be fought without magic weapons.

More's the pity. I prefer real restrictions you can't just power through with more damage.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I found that when converting old adventures I needed to cut magic and gold in half, at least. I even cut a lot from the 5e Against the Giants chapter in the Yawning Portal book since the people updating it did not do much. I find that I also need to add plot and usually add clues to find. This might be on top of the normal amount to fit it into my game world.

You don't need to cut gold in half if you make sure there's something to spend it on in the campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

You forget a fundamental aspect of AD&D: PGs could die at any time!

Also, magic items could "die" at any time. All it took was the item's carrier to fail a save vs AoE damage, and then the item to fail its own save.

Which meant a DM could give out way more magic, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn't all stick around forever.

 

[James Gasik]

You don't need to cut gold in half if you make sure there's something to spend it on in the campaign.

This. I just finished the mega-dungeon I was playing in today, and we have something like 30k in gold laying around at level 9. Everyone wants to head to a major city to spend our gold, and I'm thinking "100 healing potions, 10 more healer's kits, 5000 gp in diamond dust...what are we going to do with the other 20k?".

And sure, you can make magic items available (and I know our DM will, when we get back to that campaign), but there's really only so many you'd want to have, and there's some you probably don't want players to have (we found a Cube of Force and a Horn of Blasting in the BBEG's lair and I'm scared...).

For my campaign, I'm going to need ways to make money investments that do things the players will care about. Every game I'm in, we go out of our way to make a base of operations, but then we basically never go back to it (in a Fantasy Craft campaign, I received the deed to an Inn as a quest reward and I kept throwing money at it to upgrade it, but we never did go back to that town).

I have some NPC's who can train players in various things with some downtime, so that might burn up a little- in Fighter's Challenge you're meant to return a chunk of treasure to the town, and I certainly made doing just that have benefits (so hopefully the PC's don't take the money and run, lol). There are hirelings available, some good, some...yeah.

But the big wall I keep running into is that I don't want gold to turn into just another kind of xp, where it's just a way to get power in a different way than leveling up- I want it to do more, but the essential D&D game loop is adventure > grow in power > more adventure. Even if you add rules for keeps and followers, it's mostly just busy work if the heroes keep wandering the world unless I want to try and incorporate some kind of mass combat system.

And I don't want to create a money sink either- with that, I could just as easily have them run afoul of taxes or thieves, or not give them treasure at all!

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Also, magic items could "die" at any time. All it took was the item's carrier to fail a save vs AoE damage, and then the item to fail its own save.

Which meant a DM could give out way more magic, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn't all stick around forever.

Fun Fact: Pathfinder 1e had this rule as well, so it's likely that Dungeons and Dragons 3e had it too.

 

[Faolyn]

More's the pity. I prefer real restrictions you can't just power through with more damage.

You could always power through with more damage. You just needed weapons with higher pluses or that were made out of different materials.

What D&D (and D&D-alikes) really needs to do is lean into monster weaknesses, have monsters be weakened or repelled by the presence of a mirror or the scent of burning herbs or the sound of a rooster crowing. Have cockatrices actually die if forced to battle a weasel, or zombies die if they eat salt. Give dragons that weak spot on their breast. Things like that. Other than some monsters being weak against silver or iron, a half-hearted attempt to use "true names," and the "Ravenloft specific" various Van Richten Guides, they never really explored that idea.

 

[James Gasik]

Fun Fact: Pathfinder 1e had this rule as well, so it's likely that Dungeons and Dragons 3e had it too.

Another Fun Fact: In Pathfinder 1e, Make Whole can fix destroyed magic items (at 0 hit points or less), and restores the magic properties of the item if your caster level is at least twice that of the item. Items with charges (such as wands) and single-use items (such as potions and scrolls) cannot be repaired in this way. When make whole is used on a construct creature, the spell bypasses any immunity to magic as if the spell did not allow spell resistance.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Another Fun Fact: In Pathfinder 1e, Make Whole can fix destroyed magic items (at 0 hit points or less), and restores the magic properties of the item if your caster level is at least twice that of the item. Items with charges (such as wands) and single-use items (such as potions and scrolls) cannot be repaired in this way. When make whole is used on a construct creature, the spell bypasses any immunity to magic as if the spell did not allow spell resistance.

Who prepares make whole?

Did Advanced Dungeons and Dragons have make whole as well?