Yeah, I only DM-ed the first 4/5's of the module and skipped the dungeon crawl because I really didn't see the point. I thought it was even more redudant than you and skipped the whole thing.When you get to the big dungeon, there are a lot of superflous fights and encounters. Things in rooms that don't really add to the story or tone but exist to make sure that the PCs get the right xp and treasure. It's not a big deal in 5e with quicker encounters, but when you're blowing an entire thirty minutes on a room it had better be important.
Just wanted to add-in that this adventure is excellent and was one of the best of the 3.5 era for sure. It has a solid mix of wilderness/battle encounters and some fun small-dungeons. I also really enjoyed the "metagame" of managing Campaign "Victory Points" acquired for accomplishing objectives across the Nentir Vale.
Reading this, for some reason, makes me wonder:
How many times can you blow up the Deathstar...
...before you need to come up with another ending.
I'm working on a 5e conversion, and will be running the first session this week.
Current party is 5 lvl 5 pcs, but one of the PCs can't be there for the first session (the mage). I'm actually a bit worried that the first encounter I've created will now be a TPK without some arcane AOE support. We'll see how it goes.
So far for a conversion, many of the monsters are a simple drag-n-drop from the MM or online basic rules. It is a bit more difficult with the levelled humanoids, as I don't want to scale them up too much by just adding full character levels. I'm also trying to reduce the number of magic items, as many of the opponents have +X weapons/armor/etc. But on the whole, the conversion isn't too bad.
I'm working on a 5e conversion, and will be running the first session this week.
Current party is 5 lvl 5 pcs, but one of the PCs can't be there for the first session (the mage). I'm actually a bit worried that the first encounter I've created will now be a TPK without some arcane AOE support. We'll see how it goes.
So far for a conversion, many of the monsters are a simple drag-n-drop from the MM or online basic rules. It is a bit more difficult with the levelled humanoids, as I don't want to scale them up too much by just adding full character levels. I'm also trying to reduce the number of magic items, as many of the opponents have +X weapons/armor/etc. But on the whole, the conversion isn't too bad.
DittoLove to see your notes when your done.