I'm currently attempting to solo play thru the Sword of the Dales trilogy from 2E AD&D. More or less converting it for play with my real group. I've found it needs a bit more work than I expected. One thing I found surprising, and not at all what I have seen in a lot of the old modules I gone through lately: The lack of loot! There are oodles of magic items, but almost no $$ type treasures, aside from the odd belt pouch or saddle bag with a handful of coins. At now 4th level, my party is just as broke as they were when I rolled them up- and that's pretty sad, lol. Both of the "dungeons" in the first two modules have bugger-all for treasure. So, before I run it for a REAL group, that needs changed. (otherwise, the torches and pitchforks might come out, lol)
to whit: 2E was lousy with campaign settings. Most of which had all sorts of things- monsters, spells, races, etc unique to that setting. The Forgotten Realms in particular.
So far, I've encountered several monsters for which I can find no 5e equivalant:
Bonebat.
spider skeletons
Verbeeg Skeletons
Hairy Spiders. (in 2E Monstrous Manual)
Darkenbeasts. (a monstrous manual entry is at least included in the module- as well as the spell used to create them)
Does anyone know of any source from 5E for these?
And an ancillary silly Q: The Forgotten Realms campaign setting that recently came out. Is that for 5E, or the new 2024 edition?
I have a bunch of the hardcover modules, as well as the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and Volo's. All but the latter 2 are still buried within to "to read" stacks...
The bonebats intrigue me the most, as there isn't any info in the modules save standard stat blocks. (which like all such, are simple combat stats only, and assume you have the full description in another source.) It is NOT in the Monstrous manual.
The skellys are proving a pita to convert, because none of the 3 stat blocks in the 5E MM even comes close. And they did away with templates like 3/3.5 had. (shakes fist angrily)
I mostly just made crap up that would work in the moment, but I suspect I royally screwed up the DC's for the spider's weak poison, as well as CR's. FWIW, I seem to recall finding the same sort of frustrating nit picky stuff, back in the 3E days, trying to convert old modules.
Any of you guys come up with "cheat codes" for converting old campaign specific stuff like this?
to whit: 2E was lousy with campaign settings. Most of which had all sorts of things- monsters, spells, races, etc unique to that setting. The Forgotten Realms in particular.
So far, I've encountered several monsters for which I can find no 5e equivalant:
Bonebat.
spider skeletons
Verbeeg Skeletons
Hairy Spiders. (in 2E Monstrous Manual)
Darkenbeasts. (a monstrous manual entry is at least included in the module- as well as the spell used to create them)
Does anyone know of any source from 5E for these?
And an ancillary silly Q: The Forgotten Realms campaign setting that recently came out. Is that for 5E, or the new 2024 edition?
I have a bunch of the hardcover modules, as well as the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, and Volo's. All but the latter 2 are still buried within to "to read" stacks...
The bonebats intrigue me the most, as there isn't any info in the modules save standard stat blocks. (which like all such, are simple combat stats only, and assume you have the full description in another source.) It is NOT in the Monstrous manual.
The skellys are proving a pita to convert, because none of the 3 stat blocks in the 5E MM even comes close. And they did away with templates like 3/3.5 had. (shakes fist angrily)
I mostly just made crap up that would work in the moment, but I suspect I royally screwed up the DC's for the spider's weak poison, as well as CR's. FWIW, I seem to recall finding the same sort of frustrating nit picky stuff, back in the 3E days, trying to convert old modules.
Any of you guys come up with "cheat codes" for converting old campaign specific stuff like this?
