Has anyone done a 3.5 revision of City Of The Spider Queen

[Sunderstone]

Diaglo- Thanks.

Jhallum- Ours will likely be done with 6 characters, we may even begin at 9th level. So I'll likely leave the ELs alone, except the 3.5 Bebelith is more powerful so the two in the Dordrien Crypts will be replaced by one.

Glassjaw- Haste has been toned down much to my liking, so I'll likely leave that alone as well.

As for the hackfest, I'm aware of this issue. My players are 65% roleplay and 35% hack&slash. They love to flesh out characters all through their careers. Night Below (another hackfest) was one of their favorites, they turn every hackfest into an enjoyable role-play filled adventure.

If I do decide to take it on, I'll likely rebuild every classed enemy from the ground up. No easy task, but this way I get to use alot from the Underdark HC, and maybe a few things from other books like the Draconomicon.

Right now we are doing Necromancer's Lost City of Barakus, I'm thinking about planting an early hook in there by making Sizret another of Irae T'sarran's nieces.

Sigh.

Thanks for all the input so far gang.

 

[Arnwyn]

but just about every creature with classes need to be redone.

Are you sure all that stuff needs to be redone? I'm unsure if a +1 or +2, one less smite per day, or a couple of spells really makes that much of a difference.

There is a clear cost/benefit difference, here.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You really need to decide what to do with Haste. Every drow caster (and there are a lot of them) has it.

For the record, I hated this module. It read a lot better than it played. The book itself is gorgeous. The quality is excellent and the maps are very well done. In hindsight, there are definitely a lot of things you can borrow from it without having to run it as a full campaign. I ran the first two sections and it was like pulling teeth. Just a big hackfest with annoying drow.

I had a similar sentiment after a few drow adventures (I believe City of Spider Queen was one of them). Drow seem stupid now. Planning great invasions that are halted by 5 adventurers who stumble upon them, half the time not even bothering to guess what the drow are planning, since you can solve the problem without knowing it...

 

[GlassJaw]

Haste has been toned down much to my liking, so I'll likely leave that alone as well.

Oh, I definitely like it too but every caster in the module starts by casting Haste. You'll have to change all their spell lists and tactics.

I had a similar sentiment after a few drow adventures (I believe City of Spider Queen was one of them). Drow seem stupid now. Planning great invasions that are halted by 5 adventurers who stumble upon them, half the time not even bothering to guess what the drow are planning, since you can solve the problem without knowing it...

Definitely. I also kept asking myself during the adventure, "Why wouldn't the drow do this or that?" It didn't make sense.

For the record, I didn't like RttToEE either the drow make this module especially annoying. Drow have definitely jumped the shark.

 

[Mr. Kaze]

Drow have definitely jumped the shark.

Absolutely. The ability to use Cloudkill to get around SR (why don't the duergar just do that to all of the drow, hrm?), the weenification of Darkness and the PrCs that allow PCs to extend darkvision really kicked the Drow off of their lofty perch.

Frankly, City of the Spider Queen was very likely the pinnacle of 3.0 published campaigns. It made good use of all sorts of things in the rules. The problem is that many of those things -- SR and "Spell Immunity" most notably -- changed in 3.5. So not only are the basic tactics of the enemies (Haste to do multiple spells) no longer valid, but the general premise of how their evocation/necromancy heavy civilization survives when conjurations are much more reliable for killing folks with SR is called into question. Which makes role-playing in the campaign under 3.5 a bit difficult 'cuz you're always wondering why a pack of good guys didn't come and nerve-gas the entire underdark a few hundred years earlier...

If you don't mind running a pure hack-and-slash campaign with very little creativity required to make consistently successful tactics (at least for the first third), then CotSQ is still a good campaign. But if you're looking for something genuinely mid-to-high-level that challenges the players in new and creative ways then you shouldn't be trying a straight Spider Queen conversion to 3.5.

::Kaze (notes that allowing psionics like Crystal Shard into the 3.5 "SR doesn't apply" mix only makes this situation worse)

 

[Sunderstone]

If you don't mind running a pure hack-and-slash campaign with very little creativity required to make consistently successful tactics (at least for the first third), then CotSQ is still a good campaign. But if you're looking for something genuinely mid-to-high-level that challenges the players in new and creative ways then you shouldn't be trying a straight Spider Queen conversion to 3.5.

Thanks for telling me what I should be doing to challenge my group in creative ways. I appreciate the relevance this had to the overall nature of this thread.

If youve read my above posts you would know that my players turn everything into role-playing romps. Im blessed with good players so maybe Im just lucky.
As a DM, I never leave anything alone and Im obsessed with sub-plots that focus around every player's character in my typical campaign.
So I already have Ideas which will be integrated into anything I run. We also enjoy the classic elements of Underdark exploration. We enjoyed D1-D3 back in the stone age of first edition, and we've enjoyed Night Below (which people also called a hackfest) back in the hayday of second edition.

As for your comment on creativity, thats up to the individual DM.
James Wyatt did a great job on CotSQ, IMO. Its up to the DM to take it from there and make it memorable for his players.


Late Edit*** sorry if I came across too harsh :\