Playability of older edition modules in 3E

[Darren]

Several recent threads have made me curious... what adventures from earlier editions of D&D 'translate' well to 3.x? I seem to be in a bit of a minority group on these boards: people who never played D&D prior to third edition. I personally have no desire to learn an old rule set to experience these modules in their original glory, (Heresy, I know. Deal with it. It's hard enough where I live just finding a 3E group... ) but I wouldn't mind doing some conversion work in order to experience at least a little of the 'good old days.'

Specifically, I'm interested in the 'playability' of older adventures, not so such their importance in the history of D&D for introducing a new race or style or whatever that seemed to dominate the recent Dungeon list. (Tomb of Horrors, for example, is right out. I honestly fail to see the fun of one save-or-die --or sometimes just die-- trap after another. Heresy again, I know. I guess one just had to be there at the time to appreciate it.)

Anyway, what is EN World's collective experience with this?

Thanks

 

[Stegger]

a totally unnessesary bumb

Since I would also like to hear peoples view on this in regard to the thread about the top 10 adventures in Dungeon magazine.
Thanks,
Stegger

 

[DragonLancer]

It depends on the individual module I think. Most don't translatw well due to the differing power levels of different editions of the game. I've only converted a few and I had to make changes to keep things fair.

Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh works rather well for a low level module, since you don't need to convert much.
I did give a go to converting Temple of Elemental Evil but there is a big scale on the powers of the opponents in the module that it would take much longer than I wanted to go through and make nessecary changes.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

They play just fine -- I use old BD&D and 1e products in my game all the time.

The trick is to do a conversion of the monster stats, then tweak the encounters to provide the appropriate EL (add monsters, subtract monsters, add some class levels here and there, that sort of thing). Save DCs for traps & searches will usually have to be added.

Changing the rules mechanics doesn't make the adventures more or less playable, IMO -- all it requires is the work to do the conversion. I've done a couple full-module conversions, and it's taken about 3-4 hours each -- about the same amount of time it might take me to develop an original, but significantly shorter, adventure. So I find it much easier to convert if the adventure fits -- more play time for effort expended.

 

[Agamon]

My last campaign started with a translation of Return to the Keep on the Borderlands. I was going to do Keep on the Borderlands, but that just looked way too harsh if DMed properly (ie, the monsters don't just sit in their room waiting to be killed).

As it was, RttKotB was pretty brutal, too, but they managed to preservere with only a couple PCs dead. I changed things around a bit, the Temple's clerics were to Shar and Kiaransalee (it was set in the Silver Marches in FR), so some of the preists were drow and the necromancer used the Shadow Weave.

After that they moved onto the Slavers series, or I should say just Slave Pits of the Undercity. They did really well sneaking into the temple, but most of the fights in there are far more than 4th/5th level group can handle. They managed through a couple sessions before they're luck ran out and there was a TPK.

To sum up, I've come to the conclusion that older mods are too rough for 3E characters. In the future, if I try something like this again, I'll take the suggested level and raise it a couple levels to give the PCs a decent chance at getting through it.

 

[VirgilCaine]

(Tomb of Horrors, for example, is right out. I honestly fail to see the fun of one save-or-die --or sometimes just die-- trap after another. Heresy again, I know. I guess one just had to be there at the time to appreciate it.)

It's not intended for general campaign usage. It's supposed to be a special module, used to challenge very overconfident players and such.

 

[was]

You can convert them, it just takes a little work. First you replace the monster stats as necessary (sometimes you have to replace monsters due to CR's but that's not very difficult). Next you adjust the awards to fit your needs. Then you assign DC's and saves to the traps using your own common sense (or the DMG). Finally you convert the NPC's using the new rules, but keep their personalities and motivations (unless you want to change them).. ..
In the end, it's just like re-tooling any module to fit your campaign. You still get to keep the textual flavor of the adventure. We've played some old first ed. modules in 3rd and 3.5. Thus far, it has proven worth the effort.
-If I've forgotten a step here, someone please fill it in.-

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

From my experience, I have been able to use some of the old ones but it takes some work to go through and make sure the critters work well and you have the right stats. I suppose, though, you could just wing it, honestly.

 

[Geoff Watson]

It's not intended for general campaign usage. It's supposed to be a special module, used to challenge very overconfident players and such.

Yeah, though why Gygax thinks writing out the 'You all die! I win!' module beforehand makes it 'fair' is beyond me.

Geoff.

 

[MonsterMash]

Like other posters on this thread I'd say it does need a bit of forethought and conversion work up front to deal with big differences in power levels between creatures in 1e and 3e (never tried it with a 2e module) and there may be tricky things with spell effects to get workrounds on.

In theory 3e CR and EL should make it easier to tailor to the party level, but these don't always work that welll I find.