D&D 5E Good Low Level Sandbox
- Thread starter Thalionalfirin
- Start date
pming
Legend
Hiya!
The "Little Keep on the Borderlands" may be a bit easier to convert than Frandors Keep (the 5e 'version' of the keep). Normally, HM4e creatures have AD&D 1e stats...for the most part...plus a 20 hit point kicker (yes, this includes kobolds and goblins). That said, the monsters are still (mostly) taken from AD&D, so when your PC's encounter a group of 6 goblins, you can just use 6 5e goblins. The skill system is based on %, overall, so figuring out DC's probably wouldn't be too hard. The only thing I can see needing some pre-emtive work is monster numbers; in HM4e the PC's may end up fighting 20 goblins at level 1...not a good thing in either game. The tone of HM comes through in the adventure design...meaning there WILL be some encounters that PC's first declaration of action should be "RUN!!!!!" The Hackmaster game puts adventuring as something only crazy people do...because doing so quite often results in horrible, horrible death.
But...as I said...the module itself sits at about 90 pages of adventure, and another 50 made up of stats, player hand outs and maps. NPC-wise, there are 52 "Notable NPC's" in there as well. Each notable NPC has stats, skills, equipment, spells, etc, and a section called "His Story" that lays out what the NPC is doing at the keep, why, how long he's been here, what his goals are, etc...all that "story kind of thing". It really is a kick-ass module.
PS: It's easy to rip out or otherwise ignore any of the parody stuff (of which there really isn't that much...in fact, LKotBL almost didn't get published because WotC decided it wasn't "silly enough" when Kenzer & Co first gave them the draft [the pre-approved thing was part of the deal from the lawsuit WotC lost against them, from what I remember anyway]).
PPS: I don't think there was ever any 'official' PDF of it, though...and, as I said, it may be a bear to find a physical copy for a reasonable price.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
The "Little Keep on the Borderlands" may be a bit easier to convert than Frandors Keep (the 5e 'version' of the keep). Normally, HM4e creatures have AD&D 1e stats...for the most part...plus a 20 hit point kicker (yes, this includes kobolds and goblins). That said, the monsters are still (mostly) taken from AD&D, so when your PC's encounter a group of 6 goblins, you can just use 6 5e goblins. The skill system is based on %, overall, so figuring out DC's probably wouldn't be too hard. The only thing I can see needing some pre-emtive work is monster numbers; in HM4e the PC's may end up fighting 20 goblins at level 1...not a good thing in either game. The tone of HM comes through in the adventure design...meaning there WILL be some encounters that PC's first declaration of action should be "RUN!!!!!" The Hackmaster game puts adventuring as something only crazy people do...because doing so quite often results in horrible, horrible death.
But...as I said...the module itself sits at about 90 pages of adventure, and another 50 made up of stats, player hand outs and maps. NPC-wise, there are 52 "Notable NPC's" in there as well. Each notable NPC has stats, skills, equipment, spells, etc, and a section called "His Story" that lays out what the NPC is doing at the keep, why, how long he's been here, what his goals are, etc...all that "story kind of thing". It really is a kick-ass module.
PS: It's easy to rip out or otherwise ignore any of the parody stuff (of which there really isn't that much...in fact, LKotBL almost didn't get published because WotC decided it wasn't "silly enough" when Kenzer & Co first gave them the draft [the pre-approved thing was part of the deal from the lawsuit WotC lost against them, from what I remember anyway]).
PPS: I don't think there was ever any 'official' PDF of it, though...and, as I said, it may be a bear to find a physical copy for a reasonable price.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
Ravenheart87
Explorer
If you're not afraid to convert stuff, Doom of the Savage Kings is a very good mini sandbox adventure. Most of the Goodman Games modules are pretty easy to insert into a sandbox too.
Plaguescarred
Hero
IMO the Village of Hommlet can serve as a good sandbox with its adventure base as a village and the environant locations to explore, starting with the moathouse.
CapnZapp
Legend
I'm in the market for more 5e sandboxes like Lost Mine of phandelver.
I really wish I won't have to wait long for more products of this sort.
(I am completely uninterested in having to do conversion, though - I specifically want adventures made that showcase the official 5e design: encounters, monsters, treasure, the lot.)
I really wish I won't have to wait long for more products of this sort.
(I am completely uninterested in having to do conversion, though - I specifically want adventures made that showcase the official 5e design: encounters, monsters, treasure, the lot.)
meomwt
First Post
If you can cope with converting from 3E, the Necromancer Games' book Lost City of Barakus is a great sandbox. City, wilderness and dungeon adventuring, designed for levels 1-5, but with a "slowing down" XP scheme to ensure that it remains challenging throughout.
With 5E and bounded accuracy, that may be less of an issue, and adding nasties at higher level may be more feasible than it was with 3E.
The city is well-described, and there are multiple ways to get dragged into political factions, in-house fighting, guilds and the like.
The dungeon itself is well-designed, even if there is a CR5 solo on the first level (assumed first-level parties!) which (old-school) might prompt PC's to run.
If you want to add supplementary encounters to it, there are a lot of adventures in there.
With 5E and bounded accuracy, that may be less of an issue, and adding nasties at higher level may be more feasible than it was with 3E.
The city is well-described, and there are multiple ways to get dragged into political factions, in-house fighting, guilds and the like.
The dungeon itself is well-designed, even if there is a CR5 solo on the first level (assumed first-level parties!) which (old-school) might prompt PC's to run.
If you want to add supplementary encounters to it, there are a lot of adventures in there.
casterblaster
First Post
Scourge of the Sword Coast would be good. I know you don't want to convert but it was written with the play test rules as you may already know so I wouldn't think it would be too hard to convert up.
Nebulous
Legend
I'll have to second (or third, of fourth) Lost Mine; it's fairly sandboxy by default, but you can dial it up to 11 if you want to. Plus, there' s no conversion needed, as others pointed out. In fact, you can even dig around here in similar threads and find how other people have completely reinvented the whole last part of the module.
RealAlHazred
Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
If you really like Keep on the Borderlands but want to minimize conversion hassles, you can check out Against the Cult of Chaos. It was the first D&D Encounters module that supported the D&D Next rules, and was a mashup/update of Keep on the Borderlands, The Village of Hommlet, and Against the Cult of the Reptile God, all good classic modules. I myself thought it was a decent module, and with plenty of room for expansion; my co-DM in our Encounters group uses it whenever people want an introduction to D&D 5E.
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