Sunken City of Pazar battle mat/map (I3 spoliers ... 32 years late!)

[LabyrinthLord718]

My 5e conversion of the 1e module PHARAOH is going great thus far and thought I would share my foamcore/Fat Dragon battle mat/map for the sunken city of Pazar.

Made for a fun playing experience. Build time was approximately 2 hours including rescaling the map for 5e.

 

[D'karr]

This is really cool. I've been using battlemats and miniatures since time immemorial and always like seeing how others create their terrain, maps, etc.

Very well done.

 

[LabyrinthLord718]

Thanks! I love using terrain as well, and whilst a lot of people say it's not necessary, I personally enjoy making the terrain and feel it enhances crawls and/or major encounters. I would say that dice-fiddling at the table waiting for your turn goes down 80% when there's 3D terrain on the table. The players are riveted to the action.

 

[hoffrg86]

nice work, how has the process been going for you in converting 1e to 5e?

 

[LabyrinthLord718]

nice work, how has the process been going for you in converting 1e to 5e?

Thanks.

As I am brand-new to 5e (as we all are), I find my encounters swinging between too easy and too hard still, but my players are patient. One thing I have noticed is that, proficiencies aside, having an iconic party (thief, magic user, cleric, fighter) seems to work best.

There is also a core assumption in 1e that the party is typically larger than what would be used today, along with a small army of hirelings, so I am having some balance issues on that front, as well.

I have augmented the party with 2 allied (for the moment ) NPC's; a halfling wizard and rogue.

Last session, the party went against an Efreeti and all of the players went into the encounter assuming they were going to be chopped meat; however, a fortunate initiative roll in the party's favour and failed Will save left the Efreeti caught in a hold spell after the first round and that essentially ended the encounter. I was a little nonplussed by the experience, but I played the Efreeti as I interpreted him in the module, not the way I would typically play it [cast invisibility and run away lol]. However, the players LOVED the encounter.

Just outside the sunken city there are supposed to be 2 Giant Spiders, but I changed this to a small tribe (20) of nomadic Gnoll type creatures (using the Gnoll Chieftain as the template for all of them), and that encounter was CRAZY difficult for them; one character was killed and the party barely escaped with their life. The player introduced a new character (5th level Ranger) and one Pass Without Trace spell later, they were inside the sunken city.

Tonight they should be entering the actual temple attached to Amun-Re's tomb; this section is a bit of a meat grinder, so I will have some experience trying mobs again...

All that being said -- as far as FEEL is concerned, I think that 5e handles the difference the best that I have seen yet; I wouldn't even TRY converting this module to 3.5/Pathfinder. Combat is also much easier/quicker than my beloved Labyrinth Lord ... so far 5e is my favourite iteration of D&D to date.

 

[LabyrinthLord718]

Here is the temple map for tonight's session; it's a bit more meta, but there are a lot of pieces to it. I'm not really sure HOW I am going to do the tomb, yet; I have some ideas, but will need to give it serious thought to execute it in a way that will have 'wow' factor...