What to do with all those 3e adventures?

[Glyfair]

And sometimes, even that's not necessary.

After all, in many cases, the changes in the monsters are pretty minor. It's not going to hurt the adventure at all if the kobolds have the wrong skill distribution, or if the hill giant's hit points are off by 5 or 10.

Now, there are some monsters that have changed a lot more than that, certainly, so you'll want to compare the stat blocks in the module to 3.5 sources. But honestly, unless you see major differences, I wouldn't worry about updating at all.

I agree. For the most part you can run 3E adventures off the shelf. As long you aren't concerned with everything lining up perfectly (I doubt John Cooper would do this), the changes won't be noticed.

There are a few exceptions, most deal with tactic used by NPCs. For example, often mid-high level spell caster statblocks assumed they were casting various Bear's Endurance spells on themselves in the morning and had them on all day. That doesn't quite work in 3.5, but can be worked around sometimes.

Psionics is another exception. The rules just changed so much, they usually require an major update.

 

[Dykstrav]

I'd suggest that you move to 3.5, I like 3.5 characters better. The ranger was the thing I was most satisfied with the tweaks: a lower hit die, but more skill points and a choice between being an archery specialist or a two-weapon fighter. Nifty.

There are alot of changes to spells, both blatant and subtle. For example, haste works more like 2E or 1E versions of the spell (giving you an extra attack and a few bonuses) rather than just flat-out giving you an extra action. The tweaks to the spells are where you're going to find the most differences.

The Monster Manual was vastly improved in my opinion. Besides having more critters, it also gives you level adjustments for all of them, and hit dice from a creature's type now function mostly like class levels. Good stuff.

I've found that 3.0 adventures are entirely compatible with 3.5 with very little or no tweaking. Sure, maybe it's not "accurate" if you really care about how many skill ranks a displacer beast actually has in 3.5 versus 3.0. But players will never notice these continuity issues, and I really don't feel like it's worth my time to comb adventures for extremely minor changes (especially something like Rappan Athuk).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Other things to watch out for:

Some character classes changed a lot. You would need to re-write 3.0 rangers or monks, for instance ... or don't bother, as NPC rangers are kind of weak and monks are very weak regardless.

Also, kobolds went from 0.5 HD to 1 HD... that's kind of a big change, IMO.

 

[nb5e]

Cool, thanks everyone. I was hoping that the consensus would be moving to 3.5 and just handling the differences on the fly. My real worry was with anything that would make ELs effectively higher and me not being experienced enough to foresee it, causing unexpected player kills. But since the classes are stronger on the whole and, for example, the change in damage reduction has the effect of making it easier to get around DR, I'm probably worried needlessly. I'm definitely excited about the clarified rules, like combat: I'm not going to miss whole "standard action vs move action vs move-equivalent action" nonsense, for example.

I'll just give my 3e set to him for his birthday and order myself that awesome 3.5 boxed set!

 

[RichGreen]

Hi,

I've been using my library of 3.0 adventures in my 3.5 games without any problems. Like most people say, it's not worth the bother of converting stat blocks just to sort out a few skill points. You do need to watch out for spells such as haste but that's about it.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Voadam]

I switched over from 3.0 to 3.5. I use a bunch of 3.0 modules and convert stuff as I go. Demons change to have more physical punch and less spell like abilities. DR changes, some spells, and class features change.

In my experience it is no big deal to use 3.0 stuff in a 3.5 game.

I've used Demon God's Fane, Lord of the Iron Fortress, and A Dark and Stormy Knight converting them from 3.0 to 3.5.

 

[Laman Stahros]

I ran the WotC 3.0 series of adventures on the fly using 3.5 and the main problem I had was some of the creatures changed size. Really mucked up a couple of the encounters in Heart of Nightfang Spire. But otherwise you shouldn't have any real problems.

 

[Steel_Wind]

And sometimes, even that's not necessary.

Now, there are some monsters that have changed a lot more than that, certainly, so you'll want to compare the stat blocks in the module to 3.5 sources. But honestly, unless you see major differences, I wouldn't worry about updating at all.

I agree.

In the vast majority of cases, you can run 'em straight up without any worries that have any discernable impact upon the game.

If you want to tweak and restat - feel free. The chances of this having much impact on your game session are fairly low.

 

[jdrakeh]

In the vast majority of cases, you can run 'em straight up without any worries that have any discernable impact upon the game.

Here, here! Unless your players are serious rule nit-pickers, there shouldn't be many problems with running them as-is.

 

[Delta]

While a few of the more glaring exploits in 3.0 were fixed by 3.5, the majority of smaller changes IMO negatively impact the game.

I wouldn't worry to much about it. Play 3.0 and when you find yourself having problems with Haste, Polymorph, Persistant Spell, or something of the sort, look at 3.5 edition and see what they did to fix it and if that fix is one you approve of or if you can think of something better.

I totally agree with Celebrim. Especially if you have any other priorities in your life, I would highly recommend not committing yourself to do a whole lot of conversion work, it's a drag. (Even if the end changes are minor, you still have to look at every monster and spell to confirm whether or not there were any changes).

I suggest using your 3.0 materials, borrow the 3.5 changes for haste, harm, and heal and throwing out partial actions, and be done with it.