Advise wanted for running 3.5 TOEE

[Vague Jayhawk]

The game that I am playing in is starting to wind down and a new one needs to begin. The people I currently game with are in their early twenties and have little to no experience with 2nd or 1st ed. I thought that I would introduce them to some of the old school goodness. I asked them if there were any of the old classics that they were curious about playing and they agreed on Temple of Elemental Evil. I went home, looked it over, and got a bit worried.

I will be using the 3.x conversion that is located on this site (modified to my taste). I would love to stay as close to the source material as possible, but I have concerns about the gameplay of it when converted to 3.5.

A large portion of TOEE is just large numbers of low-level mooks. 3.5 assumes (x) number of encounters per day of a challenging EL. What problems does this cause? Too easy? Too hard? What should I look out for?

The BBEG, when converted into 3.5, is a CR 23. I can nerf it some, but I really have little clue how many levels to expect the players attaining before getting there.

I could just play it by ear, but I thought that I would ask all of you first. Has anyone ran a group through TOEE using 3.5 rules? What can I expect? What were your experiences?

 

[Glyfair]

I haven't (my expedition was 3.0), but the best place to look, IMO, Monte Cook's RttToEE forum.

Not only is there a very thorough errata listing & an FAQ but they have had deep discussions about 3.5 conversions and have their own conversion document they came up with. It's certainly the best place to get first hand anecdotes and comments.

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

Thanks for the quick reply. I browsed the website you listed. Although It looks like it is primarily for players of the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, I think I can get some good stuff off of it.

 

[airwalkrr]

I think that conversion is for 3.0.

I have run some of TOEE in 3.5 and it works out fine at the low levels. You have to understand that 1e and 3e are different beasts. In 1e, a fight with a lot of mooks was challenging and not too hard to run unless your DM loaded you down with magic. In 3e, creatures just stop getting challenging when they are 2 or 3 CRs below your level and they become a huge hassle to keep track of. A lot of what works in 1e bogs down the game in 3e. There are a few ways to control this if you want to run TOEE basically as written.

1) Be as straightforward in treasure conversion as in monster conversion. If the PCs do not find +5 armor, they can't have it.
2) Cut out item creation feats (other than Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, and Craft Wand) or raise the caster level prerequisites. If the PCs are not able to have exactly the item that they want, low-level mooks remain as challenging as single high-CR opponents.
3) Put overwhelming numbers of bandits on the road to prevent lengthy sojourns to large cities where the PCs could purchase better equipment. Force them to survive using what they buy in Hommlet and Nulb and what they loot from the temple. This is reasonable if you use an apocalyptic kind of rationale behind the temple's return. As the temple grows, more and more evil folk are attracted to the place.
4) Try to emphasize creative solutions to difficult encounters. 1e is full of tricks and traps. Try to focus on that rather than combat. It is hard with the 3e mentality, but it can be done.
5) Simplify creatures a bit by standardizing equipment statistics. TOEE has lots of rooms where among 12 bugbears there are five or six different kinds of weapons and three different kinds of armor. Don't worry about the exact weapons and armor of the creatures in question. Just use the same stats for each one. Feel free to let the PCs scrounge up the same equipment as listed in the adventure since they will likely never know the difference. Even if they do realize that the bugbear in leather has the same AC as the bugbear in scale, that can be passed off as saying the bugbears have different feats (like Improved Natural Armor).

Overall, I would not worry about the challenge level. If you would feel guilty about not tailoring a campaign to the PCs, simply warn them that determining whether or not they are sufficiently equipped and trained to deal with an encounter is going to be up to them and part of the game. Make certain they are aware of the fact that some encounters will be pushovers while others will be overwhelming if they are not careful about leaving escape routes. When I played TOEE, we ran many a time.

The best way to do it though is to just run it in 1e. It isn't that hard to learn.

 

[the Jester]

I suspect that it will work fine as long as you forewarn the players not to be willfully stupid. You shouldn't have too much trouble with numbers of mooks, though; instead of hp, they expend the party resources in terms of spells, charges, etc. It works out pretty well, ime and imho.

 

[Festivus]

Just as a thought, for getting conversion ideas you could look at a walkthru of the computer version of it?

http://www.gamebanshee.com/templeofelementalevil/walkthrough.php

I am still playing through it but there are some rooms in this conversion where you see a room full of kobolds, and just send the fighter in with cleave and combat reflexes to clean the room out using zero party resources.

 

[jodyjohnson]

The ToEE was the centerpiece of our last campaign.

1. Redo the maps with the same feel. There are a lot of large creatures in the temple. 10' hallways will not give you dramatic combats. I'd switch all the hallways to 20'. Some of the rooms do fine at actual size but some should be doubled in size.

2. ToEE is a campaign set-piece. Don't try to run it as a continuous scenario. Make it something the party explores and comes back to later and then maybe leaves and comes back to. If you introduce the major plot to them don't put it on a time-table.
A. The moathouse, Nulb, and an initial foray into Level 1 might be the first stage. Then they can do something else, or maybe they need a McGuffin from another adventure or information.
B. Several levels later make a run at level 1 and 2 maybe stop at 3.
C. In the teens take a shot at the 4th level and likely the elemental nodes. The nodes are almost a mini level to themselves. The nodes should end up with the party in the prison.

3. Introduce the agents of the ToEE in other adventures hopefully in situations where the party won't try to kill them (if they die replace them). Establish the political nature of the factions - they won't see it if they just hack-n-slash from room to room. At the very least establish some of the history of Veluna/Furyondy as it applies to the temple.

4. Retool the encounters based on the party and which way they go. While the names might not change the levels can slide up or down. I'd raise the levels on the temple heads right off. Try to keep the flavor of the encounters.

5. Make it so the seals on the Temple prevent access in/out via planar travel (Ethereal and Astral). Allow Teleportation within the temple. I'd say that any demons or extraplanar creatures can't leave the temple unless the wards are broken.




Our campaign had a couple intro adventures (Keep on the Borderlands) during which the party met Prince Thrommel and then went off to do other things.

Second adventure was Baltron's Beacon where the group met the wizard of level three (I also went back and made this an access point to the Tomb of Horrors).

The group finds out the Thrommel disappeared and went after the Slavers to find him (A1-A4). That took a while and then the group did it's own thing a bit.

We skipped the Moathouse because I've used it before. However later I had the group find out that Lareth (one of the Princes campanions) was seen at the Moathouse. This set them off to investigate ToEE.

After the initial foray they retrieved information on the orb. It was in the Tomb of Horrors so they went to the Tomb via Baltron's Beacon. They recovered the Orb but stopped rather than face Acerarak.

They recovered the Orb and returned to the ToEE finding out more information and discovering the nature of who was imprisoned. They needed an Epic weapon or two so Tenser sent them off to the Isle of the Ape.

They recovered some Epic wepons from the Isle and returned to the ToEE to explore the nodes and find their way into the Prison and the final confrontation.

 

[Glyfair]

Thanks for the quick reply. I browsed the website you listed. Although It looks like it is primarily for players of the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, I think I can get some good stuff off of it.

Oops! That's what I get for reading when I'm half asleep

 

[Lidgar]

4. Retool the encounters based on the party and which way they go. While the names might not change the levels can slide up or down. I'd raise the levels on the temple heads right off. Try to keep the flavor of the encounters.

5. Make it so the seals on the Temple prevent access in/out via planar travel (Ethereal and Astral). Allow Teleportation within the temple. I'd say that any demons or extraplanar creatures can't leave the temple unless the wards are broken.

There are some great suggestions in this post - the above two are the best IMO. Upping the levels of the leaders is the first step, and upping the levels of some of the mooks while possibly reducing there numbers is a second. Depending on how much time is spent in the nodes, the party will likely be around 10th-12th near the end. For Zuggtomy, you could use a beefed up version of her fiendish aspect:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060609b
Have fun!

 

[airwalkrr]

I say let them fight the FCI version of Zuggtmoy (CR 21) and let them deal with it. By this time they should have the orb and possibly Fragarach anyway, making the task easier. I think the PCs should at least have a shot at her in this fashion, although it will be tough and there will be deaths. That is the way an epic campaign like this SHOULD be concluded. Do not use the Dragon magazine version though. That would be a definite slaughter. The FCI version is more or less supposed to be her manifestation on Oerth while the Dragon version is what she would be like if the PCs encountered her on her home terrain in the Abyss.