D&D 3E/3.5 Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil 3.5

[Brian Sailor]

I'm currently working on converting Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil to a fully 3.5 version incorporating Book of Vile Darkness, Elder Evils, and Exemplars of Evil (basically all the vile stuff).Anyway, I used to hang out over on Monte Cook's EZ Boards forums where there was a lively community dedicated to just this sort of thing. I'm hoping to reconnect with some of those guys, like Thrommel and Infiniti2000.Anyone know of any threads devoted to this topic?

 

[Brian Sailor]

Sigh. I've been wanting to bounce my ideas off folks. Like, starting out the campaign using Erik Mona's excellent Whispering Cairn adventure (changing all of the background to fit with the whole Elder Elemental Eye/Tharizdun thing). Also, Lareth at Nulb will just be a simulacrum and the real, oh so uber, Lareth will be in the Restored Temple.

Oh, well...

 

[Dandu]

Bounce away.

 

[haakon1]

Bounce away.

Indeed. I haven't done this myself yet, but I'm thinking of running TOEE or Return to TOEE in 3.5e.

Note that the computer game version of TOEE is the original adventure, converted to 3.0e rules.

In the computer game version of TOEE, my party had a cleared most of the first 2 or 3 levels (I forget), when they discovered the noble elves from Celene, who told them Thrommel was there. I sent the party back to town to try to tell the folks at the tower or the church the critical news, but the game doesn't allow for that.

So, I continued on, clearing 2 or 3 levels then trying the Broken Tower. That led to a scenario where TPK seemed likely, and I blamed myself for not doing buffing spells, so I stopped and reverted to saved game -- and then beat myself up for cheating, and tried to replay without buff, but luck was with me the third try and even without buffing it was "all too easy".

After that, in the things below the Broken Tower, about 4 encounters in, Elmo got hit with a spell that turned him against the party. For some reason, I couldn't get him to be a happy member of the party again, so I knocked him out, and dismissed him back in town.

So I was thinking for my real game, with real players, I would alter that slightly as a lead in:
1) Elmo has been sent with news that Thrommel is in the TOEE. His party have continued on, but are calling for backup. The PC's are sent by the King of Furyondy (actually logical in my campaign).
2) When they arrive back, Elmo's brother Otis in Nulb says the NPC party had finished clearing the last level Elmo had been on, and tried the Broken Tower, but had not returned since then.

 

[Brian Sailor]

Real people! Oh, happy day!

[ahem]

Hi, guys! My plan at this point, as outlined above, is to adapt the Whispering Cairn from Dungeon 124 as a tie-in to the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. [Spoilers ahead] By changing all of the references in WC regarding the Battle of Pesh to instead refer to the battle of the all the gods against Tharizdun I can insert lots of background information about the Elder Elemental Eye and the Dark God.

RttToEE mentions that the Earth Temple was, in the recent past, completely overrun by the Fire Temple and that the surviving Earth priests fled the Crater Ridge Mines. In WC, I'm changing Ulavant from a Seeker into one of those Earth priests. He's got information that relics from the old days of Tharizdun's downfall might be buried with the bodies of the victors' armies (i.e. the Wind Dukes fought on the side of the gods, of course). So all of the bodies in the Whispering Cairn will be wearing Elder Elemental Eye paraphernalia instead of Seeker stuff.

One more easy hook to tie the adventures together will be to make Allustan and Spugnoir pen pals and both protegees of Tenser. Thus, Allustan, as a mentor to the party, could encourage the group to head to Hommlet once he sees a connection between artifacts at the Whispering Cairn and reports of weird cultists from Spugnoir.

Also, I can adapt Filge to be a long range agent of the cult of Tharizdun, sent by Hedrack to follow up on the fleeing Earth cultists and make sure they haven't blown the lid open on the cult's plots.

I can even use some of the Three Faces of Evil stuff on the road from Diamond Lake to Hommlet. After all, once the Faceless One learns of weird cult relics found in a local cairn, he's going to want to get a hold of them for himself.

 

[Revan79]

I had lots of fun with ToEE module, though my players didn't really get Homlett. They basically spoke to Bernie and trudged off to Nulb. My players were eventually captured as they preferred to split up and go on a door kicking quest. They died heroes..(Sniff)...

 

[Brian Sailor]

Taking a temporary break from this project. Converting stats from 3.0 can be really annoying.

Also, sometimes a campaign idea will pop into my head and I need to get what I can down so I don't forget if (if it's any good when I step back to look at it).

 

[Ranes]

Taking a temporary break from this project. Converting stats from 3.0 can be really annoying.

You know the people on Monte's forum produced a comprehensive errata and 3.5 conversion document? I initially presumed you had a copy of this but your comment above has me wondering. The document doesn't incorporate some of the books you mention but all of those (apart from BoVD) are 3.5 anyway. Shout if you need a copy, because I have one.

 

[Brian Sailor]

I had a link to the conversion document, but it doesn't work anymore.

At any rate, I need to get the other idea out of my head first.

 

[haakon1]

You know the people on Monte's forum produced a comprehensive errata and 3.5 conversion document? I initially presumed you had a copy of this but your comment above has me wondering. The document doesn't incorporate some of the books you mention but all of those (apart from BoVD) are 3.5 anyway. Shout if you need a copy, because I have one.

Let us know where it is. I might take a look.