D&D 3E/3.5 Running Wilderlands Campaign- 4e or 3.5?

[Awakened]

So I just ordered the Wilderlands box set so I can run a game out of it this summer.
The question is, should I go 4e or 3.X?
Since Necromancer Games is putting out a monster book at launch and 4e purportedly will be "points of light" oriented and better on the resource management side of things, part of me wants to run the setting through 4th editions shiny new engine.
Then again, with a huge number of 3.X books and the ease of never running into conversion problems, the other part of me wants to continue with 3.5 and just house rule like I always do.
Has anyone thought about doing anything like this? Which system should I use?

(Oh, also, I'm not considering Grim Tales/Iron Heroes/C&C or anything like that.)

 

[Gansk]

I have the same dilemma, but the only solution is to wait and evaluate the 4E products, right? Any decision now would be based on sheer speculation.

I have a feeling that I will stick with 3.5, simply because I want to keep psionics in the Wilderlands, and I don't think 4E psionics will be a top priority for anybody.

 

[Darkwolf71]

OTOH. Wilderlands is like, the original 'Points of Light' campaign setting. Thematically it should mesh well with 4e.

 

[Treebore]

Yeah, thematically, it will mesh very well with 4E. So will DCC 35, for that matter.

I would go with whichever system you have when you want to start. 3E is a great system, so it isn't like 4E can't wait. Especially if your just running it for the summer.

 

[Filcher]

If you're just running it for the summer, stick to 3.5. Much better selection of time tested adventures out there.

 

[haakon1]

It's already written in 3.x, so just play it that way.

Also, we know Wilderlands is made for a D&D world, so it's likely best played with D&D type rules. I suspect 3.5 will look more like traditional D&D once 4e comes out, since I suspect it will rewrite a lot of the basic understandings of how D&D works.

 

[Greylock]

Wilderlands is largely system neutral. Use whatever system you want to use. But, I think Necromancer is out of the Wilderlands, and their new products, I assume, won't be related to the Wilderlands at all. Not to say they won't be usable, that would be silly, but the Widlerlands is pretty much returning to it's old school roots.

 

[S'mon]

Necromancer will be releasing the Wilderlands mega-adventure Tegel Manor for 4e this year. The Wilderlands of High Fantasy Boxed set is nearly system neutral - even the Players' Guide is mostly not dependent on 3e. Not having seen 4e I can't say for sure, but it seems like it would certainly be a viable choice, especially if you wished to use Tegel in your campaign. The PoL/fallen empires ethos of 4e certainly fits Wilderlands precisely. So does having Dragonborn (Orichalans) as a player race.

 

[WereSteve]

It's already written in 3.x, so just play it that way.

Agreed ...

The majority of the early modules produced by Necromancer Games would fit nicely in the Wilderlands with only minor tweaking like establishing location, etc. The same should hold true for Goodman Games' DCC series and then there were three updated Wilderlands modules released through Goodman Games under the Judges Guild imprint.

I am not certain how much of the older Judges Guild material is available thru DTRPG, but based on personal experience it can be a rather time consuming venture to convert the older OD&D and AD&D material to 3.X depending upon how thorough a conversion is desired. Then again, I believe most of the work, at least so far as what I did for Citadel of Fire, involved bringing the module in line with current expectations which are quite different than they were 25+ years ago.

 

[S'mon]

based on personal experience it can be a rather time consuming venture to convert the older OD&D and AD&D material to 3.X depending upon how thorough a conversion is desired. Then again, I believe most of the work, at least so far as what I did for Citadel of Fire, involved bringing the module in line with current expectations which are quite different than they were 25+ years ago.

Ironically I bought Citadel of Fire for use with C&C so I'll have to convert it all back again. I also bought the original in .pdf from rpgnow, probably I can just pencil in the original stats to the Goodman version.

There is *tons* of old Wilderlands material on rpgnow BTW, a search on "Judges Guild" will turn it up. But there's also tons of free 3e material on Necromancer's JG website. And you could pretty much run a campaign with the published 3e conversions:

Start with City State of the Invincible Overlord, has stuff for level 1+ (eg goblin warrens)
Nec's Caverns of Thracia 3-8
Goodman's Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor 10-12
G's Citadel of Fire 12-14
Back to City State for high level stuff (eg tomb of Cynges-Leah)