Hussar
Legend
I tried some time ago to update The Lost City (B4? I misremember the tag) and one thing that I noticed is exactly what's being talked about here. 3e monsters aren't just a little bit tougher, they're a LOT tougher.
I remember in one of the early encounters in the module, they had something like 10 or 15 stirges. This is pretty much a guaranteed TPK against a 1st level party because of the con drain and the damage they do.
You likely will have to drop the numbers considerably to make the challenges work. You mention the Temple of Tharizudun (or howeverdahell you spell that). IIRC, that module has one massively honking big encounter right near the entrance to the temple where pretty much the entire population of dungeon attacks you at the same time.
In 1e, you could do this because the monsters did so little damage AND they had next to no bonuses to hit. Sure, their THACO might be about 10 or so, but, the fighters by that level are running negative AC's and a buff spell or two can make that even better. When the monsters are only hitting 20-30% at best and doing d6 or d8 per attack with no bonuses, you can afford to dump 15:1 ratios at the party.
That won't work in 3e. You'll just splat the party.
The idea of just using higher level PC's has problems too. If the PC's are too high of a level, two things could happen: First, the PC's cakewalk the encounter because they have resources the baddies can't counter (blade barrier for example will massacre a large encounter of lower level opponents) or; Second the PC's get competely overwhelmed by the encounter because of the numbers and some lucky rolls on the part of the DM.
IME, when you start dealing with encounters with these large numbers like you have in the old modules, encounters can very quickly turn binary - cakewalk or TPK with nothing in between.
Just something to be wary of.
I remember in one of the early encounters in the module, they had something like 10 or 15 stirges. This is pretty much a guaranteed TPK against a 1st level party because of the con drain and the damage they do.
You likely will have to drop the numbers considerably to make the challenges work. You mention the Temple of Tharizudun (or howeverdahell you spell that). IIRC, that module has one massively honking big encounter right near the entrance to the temple where pretty much the entire population of dungeon attacks you at the same time.
In 1e, you could do this because the monsters did so little damage AND they had next to no bonuses to hit. Sure, their THACO might be about 10 or so, but, the fighters by that level are running negative AC's and a buff spell or two can make that even better. When the monsters are only hitting 20-30% at best and doing d6 or d8 per attack with no bonuses, you can afford to dump 15:1 ratios at the party.
That won't work in 3e. You'll just splat the party.
The idea of just using higher level PC's has problems too. If the PC's are too high of a level, two things could happen: First, the PC's cakewalk the encounter because they have resources the baddies can't counter (blade barrier for example will massacre a large encounter of lower level opponents) or; Second the PC's get competely overwhelmed by the encounter because of the numbers and some lucky rolls on the part of the DM.
IME, when you start dealing with encounters with these large numbers like you have in the old modules, encounters can very quickly turn binary - cakewalk or TPK with nothing in between.
Just something to be wary of.
