Updating Old Adventures


Dungeon Magazine General Discussion

Scarab Sages

Inspired by WotCs recent offering of a 3.5E version of Tomb of Horrors, I have a suggestion for the fine folks at Dungeon. Would it be possible to update some of the more beloved adventures from Dungeon's history in the same way. You could do it as an every-now-and-then feature, as something regular, or maybe once a year. You could even offer them as a web only feature for download. I think it would be great. I haven't been collecting Dungeon for very long, but I often hear about classic adventures the magazine has put out, and would be interested to see them in 3.5E.


I think this would only be possible in the same way as the Dragon compendium, otherwise the effort might be too great. And giving them away for free, like WotC, is likely to be a one-shot. No publisher can afford to do this regularly, the conversion takes quite some time (which must be payed somehow).
And then perhaps copyright issues, like with Dragon Magazine, might rear their ugly heads...

But the idea sure is nice. Who volunteers for Willie Walsh conversions ? ;-))

Stefan


Stebehil wrote:

I think this would only be possible in the same way as the Dragon compendium, otherwise the effort might be too great. And giving them away for free, like WotC, is likely to be a one-shot. No publisher can afford to do this regularly, the conversion takes quite some time (which must be payed somehow).

And then perhaps copyright issues, like with Dragon Magazine, might rear their ugly heads...

But the idea sure is nice. Who volunteers for Willie Walsh conversions ? ;-))

Stefan

You could always try to persuade Willie to do them himself... he frequents these boards on occassion.

- Ashavan


I would love to see "The Keep on the Borderlands" updated. It was a great adventure, and anyone who owned the old boxed set has memories attached.

Scarab Sages

I really enjoyed the Isle of Dread update Dungeon did not too long ago. But I have to agree, I'd love to see someone update the Keep on the Borderlands. I have some fond memories of the module.


Ichabod Drule wrote:
I would love to see "The Keep on the Borderlands" updated. It was a great adventure, and anyone who owned the old boxed set has memories attached.
Temmogen wrote:
I really enjoyed the Isle of Dread update Dungeon did not too long ago. But I have to agree, I'd love to see someone update the Keep on the Borderlands. I have some fond memories of the module.

Oh wow, my dream adventure upgrade to 3.5 would have to be "Night's Dark Terror" (Adventure Module B10).

Set in the eastern part of the Duchy of Karameikos on Mystara (which was still just "The Known World" at the time) it is more than a mere adventure that could almost qualify as a small campaign that drags the PCs across towns, into dungeons and through the wilderness.

{sigh} Those are some great memories.

Jenni


Ichabod Drule wrote:
I would love to see "The Keep on the Borderlands" updated. It was a great adventure, and anyone who owned the old boxed set has memories attached.

Thing is this is one of the easiest modules to update. Its fine adventuring for sure but if some one is going to update something I'd like them to do something thats actually hard to update...Like A Paladin in Hell.


I would like to see have an update for
Into the Fire, Out of the Ashes and A Rose for Talakara.
By chance someone updated them?

Kraschyn.


of actual module I would like to see an update of "Labrynth of Madness" or "Gates of Firestorm Peak"...

of Dungeon Adventures Modules, maybe "Shards of the Day" or "Nemesis" or perhaps "The Unkindness of Ravens".


Its all about Drums on Fire Mountain...

The Exchange Kobold Press

I'd like to see "Mud Sorcerer's Tomb", "Hot Day in L'Trel", and "Kingdom of the Ghouls."

And "At the Spottle Parlor" and "Old Man Katan" for humor.


Simply for the sake of nostalgia, "In Search of the Unknown" would be fun to have in 3.5 style. :-D Seriously!

Stop laughing... I'm old.


Luke Fleeman wrote:
Its all about Drums on Fire Mountain...

Oh yeah!

Master of the Desert Nomads and Temple of Death would round that out nicely.

GGG


Great Green God wrote:
Master of the Desert Nomads and Temple of Death would round that out nicely.

I recently ran these two modules. Did some conversion on-the-fly but I had to stat out (in my SRD-based rules -- Warriors and Wizards, not 35e but still compatible) many of the NPCs. They have the Master and Alrethus over on the Vaults of Pandius (www.pandius.com).

http://www.pandius.com/alrethus.html
http://www.pandius.com/hosadus3.html

--Ray.


Ichabod Drule wrote:
I would love to see "The Keep on the Borderlands" updated.

This has been updated, as well as a lot of other old classics. Check out www.enworld.org

Once you subscribe click on 'EN World downloads' and then 'Conversion Library.'

I agree that there should be some conversions of some of the classic Dungeon adventures. I have converted "The Moor Tomb Map" from Dungeon #13 and "The Inheritance" from Dungeon #26. Now I just need to get them typed up and posted to ENworld. It would be nice to see more people doing the same.


Laeknir wrote:

Simply for the sake of nostalgia, "In Search of the Unknown" would be fun to have in 3.5 style. :-D Seriously!

Stop laughing... I'm old.

I think that would be pretty easy, considering that the DM was supposed to populate the dungeon on his own before running the adventure. "In Search of the Unknown" was the first adventure I played in--it's up there in nostalgia like my "Permanent Waves" 8-track for my '76 Ford Granada.

Now YOU stop laughing!!!

Liberty's Edge

I would love to see a conversion of the Desert of Desolation series. Another good one would be a conversation of The Sential and the Guantlet series.

Liberty's Edge

farewell2kings wrote:
Laeknir wrote:

Simply for the sake of nostalgia, "In Search of the Unknown" would be fun to have in 3.5 style. :-D Seriously!

Stop laughing... I'm old.

I think that would be pretty easy, considering that the DM was supposed to populate the dungeon on his own before running the adventure. "In Search of the Unknown" was the first adventure I played in--it's up there in nostalgia like my "Permanent Waves" 8-track for my '76 Ford Granada.

Now YOU stop laughing!!!

Hey I had "Moving Pictures" on 8 track. Granted, my 8-track player wasn't in my car because it's not like I was old enough to drive or anything...

Yeah. I'm old too.


Man, I just realized my very first D&D game I ever played was Keep on the Borderlands. Duh. The only part I remember (I was 10, gimme a break) was the Caves of Chaos. Solo game, my brother DM'ed. My mage got smeared into a fine red paste so many times.

But it was fun - and it was the start of a beee-yootiful relationship.

Hey, I've been thinking...I've been looking into Fantasy Grounds, and I think KotB would be a fun module to run in it. Anyone game for it?

The Exchange

farewell2kings wrote:
Laeknir wrote:

Simply for the sake of nostalgia, "In Search of the Unknown" would be fun to have in 3.5 style. :-D Seriously!

Stop laughing... I'm old.

I think that would be pretty easy, considering that the DM was supposed to populate the dungeon on his own before running the adventure. "In Search of the Unknown" was the first adventure I played in--it's up there in nostalgia like my "Permanent Waves" 8-track for my '76 Ford Granada.

Now YOU stop laughing!!!

Hey wow! I had a 76' Granada too. It was an ugly butterscotch color with the Landue roof (pleather). What a hunk of .....

Anyway, I would love to see ANY of the originals redone, but especially In search of the unknown and Keep on the Borderlands. Love the redoes for White Plume Mountain and Tomb of Horrors over at wizards' site.

FH


By the way, does anyone know if "The Temple of Elemental Evil" has been updated to 3.5? If so, does anyone know the link to that site?

Back onto the main subject. I loved playing and running "The Keep on the Borderland". I also have warm, fuzzy feelings about all of the older modules. They were such fun. Can we do them again?

The Exchange

I'm actually in the middle of updating RttoEE to 3.5, though it is intended for an Eberron game and so many of the good NPCs have been lowered in level, and there are some changelings and shifters running about- It's certainly not a "word-for-word" conversion, but it implements information from books like MMII, MMIII, a splash of psionics/incarnum, and a bit of Heroes of Horror.

As I said, it's a divergence, but I'd be happy to make what I have (and I what I develop) available to interested folks... you'll need the book to run it, as maps and several rooms are excluded for space.


Lilith wrote:
Hey, I've been thinking...I've been looking into Fantasy Grounds, and I think KotB would be a fun module to run in it. Anyone game for it?

I so, so, so wish. I suppose Fantasy Grounds costs money though...

Liberty's Edge

Sharoth wrote:
By the way, does anyone know if "The Temple of Elemental Evil" has been updated to 3.5? If so, does anyone know the link to that site?

There's an unoffical conversion on ENworld. But the site has been down for a few days.

Mike


Have started on redoing the maps for KotB in Dundjinni. They're looking pretty swanky so far, will do some post-editing in Photoshop when I'm done (and will post links to share when I'm done).


Lilith wrote:
Have started on redoing the maps for KotB in Dundjinni. They're looking pretty swanky so far, will do some post-editing in Photoshop when I'm done (and will post links to share when I'm done).

I look forward to seeing them!

The Exchange

Lilith wrote:
Have started on redoing the maps for KotB in Dundjinni. They're looking pretty swanky so far, will do some post-editing in Photoshop when I'm done (and will post links to share when I'm done).

Just got Dundjinni not too long ago and haven't really done much with it yet. Can't wait to see what you did considering how the NPC database turned out.

FH


I would LOVE to see The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh updated to 3.5. I love that module (as I may have said once or twice before :)

I wouldn't think it would be too hard to update, since the monsters were fairly basic. Maybe I'll take a stab at it myself one of these days ...


Marc Radle wrote:

I would LOVE to see The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh updated to 3.5. I love that module (as I may have said once or twice before :)

Seems perfect for the WotC online freebies they have been doing and consdering the example town in DMGII is Saltmarsh....what are they waiting for!?

I think this was the first adventure I ever used for DMing AD&D, simply a classic. If I remember correctly the stirges made quite an impression on the PC's.


Marc Radle wrote:

I would LOVE to see The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh updated to 3.5. I love that module (as I may have said once or twice before :)

I wouldn't think it would be too hard to update, since the monsters were fairly basic. Maybe I'll take a stab at it myself one of these days ...

Marc -

I've done a conversion, and I have to say that it was NOT an altogether easy one. Almost every creature is a humanoid with class levels, so it was quite time consuming. Worthwhile though! the party really enjoyed it.

- Ashavan


Craig Clark wrote:
Marc Radle wrote:

I would LOVE to see The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh updated to 3.5. I love that module (as I may have said once or twice before :)

Seems perfect for the WotC online freebies they have been doing and consdering the example town in DMGII is Saltmarsh....what are they waiting for!?

I think this was the first adventure I ever used for DMing AD&D, simply a classic. If I remember correctly the stirges made quite an impression on the PC's.

While I'd love to see it done officially, I suspect they'll avoid it because it's part of a series.

- Ashavan


Lilith wrote:
Have started on redoing the maps for KotB in Dundjinni. They're looking pretty swanky so far, will do some post-editing in Photoshop when I'm done (and will post links to share when I'm done).

I did this myself. Well except that I did Return to the Keep on the Borderland and was using Gimp. I choose to go with an isometric perspective in order to get a good grasp on how the different levels stack on top of each other since all the caves are at different hieghts. I was pretty happy with the result - worked out well for my second try at this sort of thing (a map of Vulture Point was my first try). That said there were a lot of things I learned along the way and some things I'll do differently next time I redo a big map.

Silver Crusade

Wouldn't mind a Dungeon Compendium with some of the best (1e & 2e) adventures updated to 3.5.

Of course, getting a majority to agree on which adventures to update.. that's going to be the tricky part.


I just had it occurring to me that there is one big problem with updating old adventures, no matter what the source: If you want to use them in a campaign, you have to look carefully at the amount of xp the characters earn, if you use the RAW. My group is playing the old Slavers campaign, they started the first part (the old temple in Highport) when they were 3rd level or so, now they are blasting their way into the crater in which Suderham lies at 9th level. (They try to force their way through the heavily-fortified mointain pass, and thanks to the sorcerers Dimension Door, they are making quite some progress).
The whole campaign was meant for characters level 4-7 or something like that, so I had to modify it heavily.

Just watch out for this effect.

Stefan


I had this problem to some degree in the Saltmarsh adventures... the characters would have been way too powerful after the first several if I hadn't made adjustments.

Also, the number of creatures encountered is often so high as to skyrocket the EL -- which also often needs adjustment.

That said, they emerged from U3 just over 6th level, which isn't too far off.... and they barely snuck out having discovered the information they needed for the town to mount its attack. I would say for balance that U2 was the most difficult as characters would be much too high level if they had taken a hack and slash approach to this module... they lucked out and chose (inadvertantly) a path that led them to the chief, who was willing to listen to them (based largely on a stellar intimidate check from the party's main fighter at just the right time).

- Ashavan


Anyone looking for classics to be updated should start at ENWorld...

They have an area where you can dowload and upload conversions.

There are no text and graphics, however, as that would be a copyright violation. Just a bunch of statblocks listed for such-and-such pages.

There are quite a few conversions listed - most of the faves that were mentioned in this thread.

Scarab Sages

Sharoth wrote:

By the way, does anyone know if "The Temple of Elemental Evil" has been updated to 3.5? If so, does anyone know the link to that site?

Hey Sharoth,

I've been running a 3.5 conversion of the Temple of Elemental Evil, but almost all of my material is in d20pro. If anyone owns that software (It's a virtual tabletop software) - I can send it to you.

I am also converting the maps using Dunjinni and Photoshop at a crushing scale of 100 pixels per 5 ft. That makes for some seriously huge jpg files, but they are worth it. Check out my maps for the Temple on my website: The Temple of Elemental Evil: Map Conversions

Scarab Sages

I'm also working on a conversion of Dungeon #35's great module: The Ghost of Mistmoor.

Here is a sneak-peak at part of the 1st floor map.

Does anyone know if this is a gross violation of copyright? Who should I speak with to get written permission to post these publicly? I would really love to get full sanctioning to re-envision some of these old modules.


Wolfgang Baur wrote:

I'd like to see "Mud Sorcerer's Tomb", "Hot Day in L'Trel", and "Kingdom of the Ghouls."

And "At the Spottle Parlor" and "Old Man Katan" for humor.

A Hot Day in L'Trel is a tough one to convert. The basic assumptions of the adventure don't really line up with 3.5. Its really more of a campaign then an adventure and that strains the system further. I felt that it was conceptually a masterpiece but implementation was something of a weak point.

In particular this adventure reallies heavily on DM intervention and making the rules up as you go along which is really not the hallmark of 3.5 which is highly mechanics focused.

The Exchange

Ichabod Drule wrote:
I would love to see "The Keep on the Borderlands" updated. It was a great adventure, and anyone who owned the old boxed set has memories attached.

I combined it in the 80's with a few others to become part of a Dark Theocracy Campaign in which Clerics of Chaos are attempting to destabilize part of the Kingdom of Karameikos so they can set up a Theocracy of Chaos and Evil up in a Mountainous/Hilly region in the North East of the Kingdom. They have roving warbands and lay siege to a few Keeps with Undead (skeletons and zombies wearing amulets vs turning). There were also a bunch of Dungeon Adventures with Clerics of Chaos...so it all fitted together nicely.

By the end... the PCs were leading a small militia into battle and we had serious wargames going on.


tintagel wrote:

I'm also working on a conversion of Dungeon #35's great module: The Ghost of Mistmoor.

Here is a sneak-peak at part of the 1st floor map.

Does anyone know if this is a gross violation of copyright? Who should I speak with to get written permission to post these publicly? I would really love to get full sanctioning to re-envision some of these old modules.

I'm not sure regarding the copyright issues but I'm basically certain that you'd be fine if you distributed the map so long as your not making money off of it.

Its a map for a really old adventure in Dungeon. Now I doubt any one at Paizo or WotC is in a position to make money from this product one way or another (all the older issues are sold out) but they won't loose any money either and your just enhancing a product that already exists.

Should some one at WotC take offense at what your doing, which is highly unlikely, they'd send you a cease and desist letter basically telling you you got to stop. Their not going to jump down your throat as long as you comply and where clearly just part of the D&D fan movement - after all its the fans that make D&D profitable. Its not in WotCs best interest to make the fans unhappy. Hence I figure your basically safe....so umm - which web site I go to to download my copy of your map?


Add me to the fanlist of the Keep of the Borderlands! This ended up in our homebrew campaign world, although Kobolds took over the caverns after an adventuring party cleared out everything but them, and began stocking it with monsters they had captured -- eventually running a giant bee hive, and trading queen bee jelly and honey with the Keep for minor magic items. They once manipulated the adventurers to wipe out a band of lizardfolk who were encroaching on their territory, and later raced the adventurers to find a relic that was rumored to allow its possessor to command ogres.

One of our PCs, Kerith the Paladin took over the Keep when he became 10th level, another (Lelith the Monk) became his Captain of the Guard, the dwarven cleric Ironhead Mountainroot established the Chapel of St. Murphy there, and Jot Savage, halfling bard, opened the Blue Halo Tavern.

Then we started the next round of adventurers with their henchmen/loyal followers/evil pirate twin sister with werecat abilities.

We added the remains of a former colony in the marsh -- it's amazing how much creativity the Keep still inspires!

Community / Forums / Archive / Paizo / Books & Magazines / Dungeon Magazine / General Discussion / Updating Old Adventures All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in General Discussion