Updating classic 1E adventures

[MrFilthyIke]

Way less work that way. (I'm a lazy person ... very lazy.)

And I'm just trying to create a new catch phrase among geeks, it's not working :\

( and I undserstand lazy ALL too well... )

 

[BJP]

Thanks for all the comments.

take a look through EN World's conversion library

Hadn't noticed the conversions - will have a look through. As you yourself suggested though, I'm using the modules more for inspiration than a straight-forward conversion.

I'm converting the Sentinel and Gauntlet modules, I'm rewriting every word, and finding the monsters and then writing the stat blocks, including for the random encounters, is suprisingly time consuming.

True - but it's good practice for me to get used to the idiosyncracies of 3.5, plus it allows me to individualise the encounters - as noted above, using them more for the ideology as opposed to a straight port.

Pay close attention to CRs. Several monsters (Giants and Dragons most notably) have radically different power levels now).

Think about adding 3e concepts like PrCs. I actually like looking at 1e classics and thinking about what PrCs would be appropriate to add.

NPC mutliclass spellcasters (the iconic elf fighter/magic-user for example) may cause some issues.I would imagine the best way to convert such characters is to have such characters be single classed spellcasters.

Yeah the change in CR's was one of the reasons for upping player levels from the 1e suggestions. Personally I think Dragons, in particular, have the right level of power now (I remember playing through the Dragonlance series and thinking - well - they were a bit wimpy really!).

Pretty much anything with class levels I am customising to 3.5. Am interested in what you feel are the issues with multiclass NPCs. With the drow in particular I was planning on sticking with the old style (the multiclassing, drow magic items (I also have 'City of the SpiderQueen' - and it's just not the same when 90% of the magic items aren't chainmail, bucklers and maces), and the original drow feats - I believe reborn in a recent dungeon magazine as the 'Highborn Drow' feat).

I recently reworked D-2 (Blibdoolpoolp!) for my campaign, and it was an absolute blast. I've rerun the first two giant modules, too; as John says, you need to reduce treasure and keep a close eye on CRs. Personally, I think it's more fun to fight a whole lot of drunk (slightly nerfed in power) giants than fewer full strength ones.

Ah yes, been going through the monitors and whips recently. Monitors in particular come out nasty - although I have problems seeing the usefulness of the lightning strike ability of the whips. I also agree with the hordes of giants comments - my solution was to up the player levels, hadn't considered lowering the monster effectiveness - thanks, will consider.

Of course you could just use something like C&C

Forgive my ignorance - but what's C&C?
Edit : Ignore this question - I assume this is Castles and whatever-it-was (darned short term memory) that has a long topic posted about it about 3 messages away from this one.

I've been looking over the hosted conversion for the Giants modules too, wanting to run my 12th level group through some classics. IMO, it's best to just take the module as a guideline and loosely rework it to fit your players/PCs. Its just as important to take your players' gaming style into account when adjusting these adventures (this is true for any published adventure, really).

So true - and this is what I'm up to. I always prefer using published work as inspiration as opposed to running it verbatim. This is one of the reasons I always liked the Vault of the Drow - so many things to do that are hinted at, but left to the DM (and the players) to thrash out.

One big difference I've found is that low-level monsters in AD&D were still effective against mid-level PCs. Not so in 3.5, once PCs reach a certain level, increasing the number of 1/2 CR orcs just isn't going to make a difference. For this reason, I'm converting the bugbears in the dungeon level of the hill giant's lair to duergar with class levels (they'll be the masterminds behind the giants, since in this campaign, we've already done the drow thing).

I quite like the idea of some 'cowardly custards' lurking around. Can always through in some class levels to spice things up a bit. Personally I like the idea of throwing in a mix of CR monsters - so I'd use bugbears and fire giants together - combined arms approach. The bugbears may only be an annoyance, but whilst they're dealing with them they're still being hit on by the giants.

Once again, thanks all for the comments - keep 'em coming!

Jim.

 

[Chaldfont]

I quite like the idea of some 'cowardly custards' lurking around. Can always through in some class levels to spice things up a bit. Personally I like the idea of throwing in a mix of CR monsters - so I'd use bugbears and fire giants together - combined arms approach. The bugbears may only be an annoyance, but whilst they're dealing with them they're still being hit on by the giants.

I go back and forth on this. On one hand, players get tired of monotonous waves of low CR monsters that they don't get xp for (which can happen a lot with some of these AD&D module conversions). On the other hand, these lackeys can give the challenging monsters the time and breathing room to try out their more entertaining attack modes. And nothing is more satisfying than dropping a 10d6 fireball on a mass of 1HD monsters and watching the DM knock over all those figures on the battle mat! Or getting to finally use Great Cleave or Whirlwind Attack!

 

[jodyjohnson]

When deciding what the best level for a 4 member 3.5 party would be for each module I usually calculate the EL of the toughest 4 encounters (an even them out slightly if one is way out of range) and use that for target party level. Then just leave the rest to give the party a chance to show how powerful they really are (great for showing off whirlwinds, great cleaves, 2 weapon-fighting, AE damage, etc).

For example, we're in the Slaver modules now and I trying to get the party to do each as a single day of adventuring without retreat/resting.

Another thing I'm trying to get them away from is searching every room, and clearing out every creature/foe. It's more about picking and chosing how to handle each challenge.

I also tend to have more creatures run away, surrender, parley, and switch sides as the situation warrants so it's not just about killing everything as you move from room #7 to room #8.

 

[Arnwyn]

I'm converting the Sentinel and Gauntlet modules, I'm rewriting every word, and finding the monsters and then writing the stat blocks, including for the random encounters, is suprisingly time consuming.

And I've found conversions to be extremely fast.

However, I certainly do not waste my time "rewriting every word", nor unnecessarily (IMO) re-doing stat blocks that are already done for me in my 3e MMs. This makes conversion (simply listing the ELs, modifying the number of creatures to fit the EL that you want, and only doing stat blocks for monsters with classes and/or templates). However, I do acknowledge that some people don't like to use their MMs during gameplay and prefer to use stat blocks... then it's a lot of work (but that's only by choice, not necessity). In the end, it's the ELs of all the encounters that are important. Once you go through the entire adventure and get a handle on that, then you go back and do the actual stats.

It's taken me no time at all in blazing through all my Dungeon Magazines (from #1 to #49 so far - I'll be up to #81 in a jiffy).

For the GDQ series, I upped it to begin at around Level 13 or 14 characters, and continue up from there. There was a bit of a level hiccup in the beginning of the "D" sections (such as the Shrine of the Kuo-Toa), but I simply gave them all class levels (and used some of the nifty PrCs found in the FR Underdark book, like the Kuo-Toa Whip kind of stuff). That was where most of my work occured.

As others have said, by the time you get to "Q", you can use a beefed up Aspect of Lolth or you could use an avatar of Lolth (I used avatar).

 

[Treebore]

If I was simply doing this for myself I would just leave it the way I have done it, go through the modules and note which of my monster manuals it is in and on what page. Then create a folder of print outs for the monster conversions i was only able to get on line from Scott Greene, Erica B., and BOZ.

But I want to do a full rewrite/conversion to make available to gamers on the boards I frequent, so I am putting in all the extra work. If I knew everyone interested in a Sentinel/Gauntlet conversion had a copy of MM 1, MM 3, ToH 1, and ToH 2, I would just do it the simplest way possible. Not to mention knew about BOZ, Scott Greene, and Erica for the on-line conversions.

 

[Arnwyn]

Ah, I see.

Yes, I agree, as soon as it's for public consumption, the amount of work can become insane. Thankfully, that has little to do with the amount of conversion work required for the original poster's normal home use.