Anyone ever run a Diablo II based campaign

[Dr Clayton Forrester]

Hi, I'm new to this great forum and have a quick question. My players are nudging me into running a campaign based on the Diablo II CRPG. Was curious if anyone here has experienced something similar or has any ideas or suggestions. We generally play 1E D&D. Thanks!

 

[Talmun]

Well, I've adapted/adjusted several of the monsters from WotC's 3.0 Diablo book for use in my games, but most of the stuff in that book is either bland beyond belief or over-powered beyond reason.

To answer your question, in short: no.

 

[Voadam]

Hi, I'm new to this great forum and have a quick question. My players are nudging me into running a campaign based on the Diablo II CRPG. Was curious if anyone here has experienced something similar or has any ideas or suggestions. We generally play 1E D&D. Thanks!

Find the 2e supplement for Diablo II, it has the module from diablo I and great conversions for tough monsters into 2e which are completely compatible with 1e used straight. Also the magic items in there are fantastic. The spells are a little unbalanced, but nothing too bad for 1e and a little DM oversight.

It is a great book and I would highly recommend it.

 

[Psion]

I used to adapt some of the creatures (I may be strange, but I love flaming skeletons -- though it's a ridiculously simple creature adaptation to make), hellhounds, and goatmen and used to populate certain segments of my game with them.

I also used to dig the random item prefix/suffix generator, but I think I've outgrown that one.

 

[HellHound]

I've rebuilt three of the core classes from D2 for d20 (so they work better than the D2 RPG versions, at least, IMO). But never got around to the spell casters because switching them to the same system will be some serious work.

I can link to them here, if you are interested.

 

[Dr Clayton Forrester]

Thanks for your answers, but I'd also like any opinions on the following (and please bear with me, I'm a newcomer to pen & paper):

1) What type of organization would the "Rogues" be considered? A priesthood of some sort?

2) The Smith (Act I in the barracks) I would change to a minotaur, but what of Andariel? The Countess?

3) Would I need to convert monsters to AD&D mnsters, like fallen to goblins, goatmen to satyrs, etc?

Thanks again!

 

[Thanee]

You know that there is actually a Diablo II campaign sourcebook for D&D 3rd Edition?

Diablo II: Diablerie
Diablo II: To Hell And Back

Not sure, if there were any other, those were the ones I could find on ebay with a quick search.

Oh, wait... 1E/2E/OD&D

Bye
Thanee

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The 3E books were also awful, as compared to the relatively sane 2E book.

 

[pogre]

The 3E books were also awful, as compared to the relatively sane 2E book.

True, but they could be a starting point for something decent. I would not use the classes they give, but the monsters and map making sections are OK.

 

[Nightcloak]

I bneeded to DM on short notice with little prep time for a hack n' slash group a while back so I decided to pull out D2 and give it a go.

The Good:
1. The magic system for magic items is a lot of fun, but like Psion iI got over it after a while.
2. I really enjoyed the monsters, expecially since monsters are a "catagory" with many critters scaled to level.
3. The back drop was easy for everyone to grasp and get into. The characters knew this was a linear adventure and just rode with it (did I mention it was a hack n' slash group).
4. Using the PH classes and races worked just fine.

The Bad:
1. The adventure in the book (3E version at least, I don't own the 2E version) is very bland as written IMHO. I needed to fall back on my knowledge of the game to give the adventure flavor.
2. Maps. Or lack thereof. There was not many maps and I ended up needing to create a lot on my own. Now I realize that encluding all the maps for the entire D2 game would have been expensive. But I would have paid extra for more maps or maybe a cool map geomorph system or something that I could reuse late. Having to do all the maps with adding to the adventure text really became time intensive considering this is a prepared adventure
3. Bordom. I hate to say it. But playing the CRPG and fighting all those creatures over and over again is quite entertaining. But doing it in a RPG got old real fast, at least from a DM perspective. Variety is a lot better.

I think it could be a lot of fun with some rework and time put into it, but it just wasn't worth it since the point of me running it was to save time in the first place.

Oh, and the Smith: I got real bored with the creatures by the time the players reached the monestary (look - more little demons to fight!), so I swaped out the smith from the book with a two-headed troll from ToH. That shook things up

Hope that helps