| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So im thinking about running the Campaign Adventure "Night Below" but i want to try and run it strictly with items from pathfinder. This is somewhat difficult because Illithids are not open content. I know that i could just convert the 3.5 stats but, im a stickler for trying to stick with PF. Anyway, any suggestions the Boards have would be nice.
Hope to chat later with you all :)
|
Well, if you're open to 3PP Pathfinder content and ready made fan-conversions, there's plenty of illithids-by-another-name options, an approach Paizo has said they won't be using(for reasons I have to agree with, honestly).
But if you want to use an official PF creature out of the box... Hm.
Denizens of Leng don't really fit the flavor.
Serpentfolk come close to fitting the same roles, and could actually be tucked in pretty well. If you're running in Golarion, it gets tricky since, IIRC, Serpentfolk and aboleths may be on the outs due to old ancient rivalries. Could be wrong there.
Thinking about it further, serpentfolk may be the closest fit flavorwise.
If they're not icky enough...rename them Wormfolk? Nagas can get a new nickname if they need one. ;)
Thanks Mikaze :) i will look into the serpentfolk, and i will have to do a little reading into their relationship with the Aboleth. If anybody reading through this happens to know more about that i would greatly appreciate a little insight :).
|
|
I can't offer any more info on that area, but I did remember one thing.
If one of the things that gave the illithids villanous appeal to you was their feeding habits, the serpentfolk make up for that and then some. They eat their slaves whole and alive, mentally dominating them into docilely accepting their fates IIRC.
That should get the players' outrage and hate-o-rade flowin'. ;)
That would definitely be a bonus, i will look more into :). Thanks again Mikaze
So i have never actually run "Night Below" before, so i don't know what kind of pitfalls i might encounter plus i would like to know which monsters i might have to trade out ( I would like to keep things PF only). I was thinking about using the Snakefolk in place of the illithids (as suggested by Mikaze).
One problem im having is where to set the super adventure/campaign in Golorian. Any suggestions would be helpful plus if any one has any memories from running and/or playing this adventure, those would also be awesome :).
|
So i have never actually run "Night Below" before, so i don't know what kind of pitfalls i might encounter plus i would like to know which monsters i might have to trade out ( I would like to keep things PF only). I was thinking about using the Snakefolk in place of the illithids (as suggested by Mikaze).
One problem im having is where to set the super adventure/campaign in Golorian. Any suggestions would be helpful plus if any one has any memories from running and/or playing this adventure, those would also be awesome :).
You're in luck; I've never run Night Below, but I've been planning to for years. I've got plenty of ideas for how to fit it into Golarion.
With a little imagination, Haranshire can slot into Varisia in the valley between Lake Syrantula, Sanos Forest and the Shimmerglens. I like this location especially because of the canonical Darklands geography; going straight down, you don't get too close to anything important in Nar-Voth or Sekamina, but you do hit a few major passageways. In Orv you eventually come very close to Denebrum, the vault of the neothelids--which to me is a good reason to keep the illithids, but YMMV--but by making the City of Glass Pool to the north instead of to the south of where the party enters the Underdark, it puts you in the middle of an undefined area, where the Sunless Sea fits easily.
If you extend the journey north far enough, you can even place the vault underneath ancient Cyrusian, the realm of the Runelord of Pride. That fits really well, thematically; perhaps the runes of pride took some cues from aboleth glyphs?
I'd change the layout of Haranshire fairly extensively, and create a new map. If you don't want to do that, you could just handwave the geography, but I think it's worth the extra effort. Here's how I'd do it:
Treat Sanos Forest as heavily wooded foothills of the Malgorian Mountains, and make the Blanryde Hills a small deforested section in one of the corners. Lyrchwood is an offshoot of the southern end of the forest. Milbourne is in the same place relative to the two.
I wouldn't bother keeping the New Mire, as its sidequest is boring, and the treasure is ridiculous. If you want it, though, represent it as the Mushfens creeping north past the Yondabakari River.
The Great Rock Dale is to the northeast, a gorge just reaching into the Sanos Forest. To make it more interesting to adventure in, and to fit better with Varisia, I suggest putting Thassilonian ruins at the bottom, and changing the Rosestone into an artifact from Shalast. The Hardlow Woods are just another name for the Sanos Forest directly east of the Dale.
Because the Hardlow Woods don't really divide them anymore, High Moor and Howler's Moor are one. High Moor is still much higher, being close to the Sanos Forest, and Howler's Moor is still much scarier, being close to the Shimmerglens.
Thurmaster is on the south edge of the Shimmerglens, instead of the north edge of Shrieken's Mire. I think the Shimmerglens lend themselves to a more creepy sidequest, though, so I would consider having the fomorians (or better yet, marsh giants) come north from the Mushfens instead, perhaps to Whistledown. For the Shimmerglens, try doing something with the ghost of Lord Shrieken, along the lines of what happens in the Hook Mountain Massacre.
Move Parlfray's Keep south to the edge of Lake Syrantula. The Halfcut Hills don't really need to exist. Since this location is a bit inconvenient to reach for both Magnimar and Korvosa it's fairly plausible that the Parlfray's could be in charge here, as long as they don't mess with Ilsurian.
The Patchwork Hills are fine just north of the Yondabakari, but there's a problem: I'm pretty sure that Aaracokra have not been converted to Pathfinder, and I can't think of a creature that fills exactly the same role. Perhaps you could change Featherhold into a family of Sylphs, with a few Jann as leaders.
The Blessed Wood makes sense, especially since it would be close to Whistledown, but I think Thornwood is kind of weird. It slots in okay, but it's a large, trackless forest with no role but to hide Broken Spire Keep--which isn't necessary, since there's nothing but forest to the north. I'd replace Thornwood with more moorland, and put Broken Spire Keep at the edge of Ashwood, on a crest overlooking Skull River and the Shimmerglens.
Everything else fits more or less where it would otherwise.
...
A few random thoughts that don't fit anywhere else:
Tauster no doubt went to Thurmaster to hide from any of the Stone of Seers, the Twilight Academy, or the Academae. Pick your favourite.
Pretty sure you have to replace one of the rangers with Shalelu. Just because. It'd be interesting to reference the Order of the Black Arrows as well--perhaps Kuiper is a former member. Really, Hook Mountain Massacre is a must-have book if this is where you set Night Below.
You can find at least one thread (on converting Night Below to PF) under the Conversions sub-forum.
(Actually, the Conversions sub-forum is where this thread belongs too.)
@Leadpal - Hey thanks for all the Info :), sorry i didnt post back for a while. I definitely like were your going with all this, on a side note definitely going to try and play up on the more alien aspect of the Adventure (little more Calamari, less Fast Food ;) ). I was also thinking about the sunless sea and making my own map for this.
@Bellona - Yesh i know, i actually made a new thread on the conversion boards :), but thank you for flagging it as i kinda forgot to.
BtB - Only reason im getting outskies with the Illithids is because technically they are not cannon to pathfinder. If they had been, i would totally keep them, However, this does not prevent me from using the Neothelids and other wormlike creatures AS WELL as the snakefolk to interesting effect :P
|
|
It just occurred to me that, canonically, the Sightless Sea is located directly underneath the Arcadian Ocean to the west. It's vastly larger than the Sunless Sea, but there's obviously potential for conversion. You could place the city of Shaboath on the edge near Varisia and keep things mostly the same, or you could make things harder for the PCs by putting it farther away, perhaps south near Cheliax (a prime target to dominate, which also helps explain the devils in Shaboath), or in the Inverted Sea, which, besides being highly dramatic, is right under what was once the heart of the Azlanti Empire.
As a player, I would probably preferred seeing serpentfolk instead of illithids.
The Night Below was one of the first D&D games I ever played. I remember my DM spent like 4 hours right before the game getting things ready for an encounter with illithids that were leading a slave caravan or something (it has been a long time) and my party and I were so terrified we fled the Underdark entirely and never went back. The DM usually had a good poker face about unexpected stuff the party does, but when we all decided that was what we were going to do, he pretty much threw his books down and said "Damnit!" That was the last session we played I believe.
Looking back, if we had seen serpentfolk we might have kept going. There is just something about an illithid that makes me run away.
Anyway I just wanted to support Mikaze's idea if you so choose to use it.
Thanks for the input, and yeah im seriously thinking about going with the serpent. Even have some work done for it, though a lot of it is put on hold though (life happens :( ) hopefully going to get the group together in the next month or so to try out the "Night Below" Pathfinder edition! :)
I'm not sure, but I think the Behir will have to go; not sure if the Linnorm live underground.
If you intend using a psionics element in your NB conversion, I highly recommend the Intellect Devourer. Same domination and brain eating habits, if a lot less fearsome in melee (and lacking the mind-crush cone effect).
Was going to say the Svirfneblin can be swapped out for gnomes, but there is a PF version of them.
Does anyone know about the Xorn near the bloodstone ruby tree? Or am I mis-remembering my adventures?
|
I'm running Night Below in Pathfinder, and I used Intellect Devourers instead of Illithids. They also replaced the fishy potions whilst still having a bad smell.
Kuo Toa become Skum.
I replaced the Rockseers with Pech, because I liked the derro tie in.
As suggested in one of the other Night Below threads, I'm going to be using aquatic cloakers to replace the ixians.
There's quite a few monsters in book 2 that aren't in Pathfinder. (A couple of those are in the Tomb of Horrors, however.) I didn't worry about a direct conversion of those; I just used whatever Pathfinder underground monsters took my fancy.
Ropers in Pathfinder can be darn dangerous. (I don't know if they were as dangerous in 2nd edition, because I never had the pleasure of encountering any.) I'd be very wary of using them in the numbers given in the adventure.
I over compensated in the troll encounter by removing too many trolls. The ability in Pathfinder to shut down troll regeneration is a big help when fighting them, and since the PCs were mostly heavily armoured dwarves, the trolls struggled to hit the party.
The party are currently 8th level, and I haven't dared use any CR 12 purple worm encounters yet. I've tried to create the right atmosphere by mentioning large worm holes from time to time.
Buying and selling magic items is difficult in the adventure as written, so I added a "neutral" underground city the PCs could visit more or less safely to trade.
I'm going to use the Hands of Slaughter from the Rivals Guide as the Slavers Group encounter. The PCs met the awakened dire ape in the neutral city, and are looking forward to taking him down a peg or two.
I highly recommend that you change the names of some of the towns and the wizard. My players spent more time giggling over "Toaster" the wizard and the village of "Thighmaster" than paying attention to the plotline. Seems like there was another one as well that drove me crazy, but fortunately I've managed to blot it from my memory!
I also used the Caves of Chaos from Return to the Keep on the Borderlands to create some sidequests to up their experience level.
Ever so often I drag the box set out and think about trying to start up the campaign again. It's such a great concept and plot!
some reason you cant just use 3.5 ilithids? Not like your publishing the adventure or anything.
Good luck with your campaing. I runned Night Below under the 3.0 and 3.5 rules, but never completed it. We had to stop because two of the players moved in other cities. It's a shame because the PCs were just about the launch their final assault against Great Shaboat (the final chapter). I still hope that we will reunite some day to finish this module.
One thing I noticed while running this module is that there's a lot of hack'n'slash in it, maybe even to much for my taste. Using the 3.X progression table, the PCs leveled way to fast for the module, so I had to crank up the difficulty a little. Thus, I recommand you to use the medium or even the slow progression table for Pathfinder, unless you remove some monsters from the module.
Also, some part of the module can be really hard, because some monsters that were weak in D&D 2nd edition became very strong in the 3rd edition. For example, there's a Troll Cave in the module, where the PCs need to defeat a huge bunch of them. Trolls were weak in the 2nd edition, but they can be very deadly in 3rd edition/Pathfinder, so watch out.
Does anyone know about the Xorn near the bloodstone ruby tree? Or am I mis-remembering my adventures?
Yep, it almost caused a TPK in my game because of the antimagic field. :)
As a player, I would probably preferred seeing serpentfolk instead of illithids.
The Night Below was one of the first D&D games I ever played. I remember my DM spent like 4 hours right before the game getting things ready for an encounter with illithids that were leading a slave caravan or something (it has been a long time) and my party and I were so terrified we fled the Underdark entirely and never went back. The DM usually had a good poker face about unexpected stuff the party does, but when we all decided that was what we were going to do, he pretty much threw his books down and said "Damnit!" That was the last session we played I believe.
Looking back, if we had seen serpentfolk we might have kept going. There is just something about an illithid that makes me run away.
Anyway I just wanted to support Mikaze's idea if you so choose to use it.
Illithids are very frightening until the PCs can cast Mind Blank. After that, they're just squishy. (;
I was DM in this campaign and it has a lot of pitfalls.
Book 1 is mostly there to get the players up to a certain level. It seems to have a lot of randomness in the encounters, like the marsh that gets bigger etc. At the start of the campaign you'll find something about a missing apprentice. The problem is, by the time the players encounter her, she'll be long forgotten allready.
When the adventure in the underdark starts players have no choices at all about the adventure. If they get out of the underdark the campaign is over. This part will need a lot of flesh to keep players busy and interested.
The biggest problem with the campaign is the fact that every smart player would try to get some help. Unless you place the campaign in a very remote area, you'll find them running to the nearest big city to report what they have seen/found out.
Agree there was a few pitfalls, but with some planning they can be overcome.
We did ALOT of side quests and sandlot like exploring; my group settled their own village "Silburn" and our Druid became a protector of the wilderness/ally of the "Lady of the Mire"
I also linked the campaign to The Illithiad series settling up the mind flayers as direct rivals to the main foes. Thus above ground my players will still dealing with prophecies, plots [related and isolated] - meant a high level of book keeping by me and some of the players but they enjoyed the grand scale of it all.
The endgame caused a rift in the planes and I planned to run the Kingdom of Ghouls adventure from Dungeon #70 against the then-powerful and semi retired heroes...
Try and have some above ground plot development kicking in... and seeking out sages/assistance/quests works really well and makes the journey back underground all the sweeter...
Got me thinking about this awesome campaign again... pbp anyone???
|
|
some reason you cant just use 3.5 ilithids? Not like your publishing the adventure or anything.
No reason at all. The OP just wants to run it only using Pathfinder monsters. I felt the same way. Its no big deal.
I found this a very helpful site about some of the problems with Night Below :-
Illuminating the Night Below
So by chance is their anyone who is really good at map making?
Define "really good," and maybe I am. Why do you ask?So by chance is their anyone who is really good at map making?
Well primarily because i am very tempted to redo the map as was suggested earlier. However, im admittedly not the best at map making (i do passable work) and would like a professional map (or at least decent work if you follow me).
So if you could redo the Haranshire map to be inline with what lead pal was suggesting that would be phenomenal (when i eventually finish i will post on the interwebs the conversion along with all the maps and other fun stuff (handouts, music suggestions, etc.) But i am only one person. If possible awesome, if not, eh no big deal :)
That is totally cool NobleDrake, the fact that your going to at all is more then i could even think about :). Hopefully when this all eventually said and done it will be pure liquid awesome :D
|
I too have thought about running this as a short AP. I like the idea of the Citizens or Lang replacing Mind Flayers and Skum for Kuo Toa.
A few notes about using 2ed adventures in Path finder.
1. Rebuild all the NPCs don't use a point by point conversion. 2ed had a completely different system for base stats and a point by point just doesn't work.
2. The CR for encounters are going to be all over the palace. Careful attention must be paid so the encounters are not too easy or a constant replay of TPK theater.
|
|
I too have thought about running this as a short AP.
I don't know about "short"; our party are 9th level and haven't quite got to the City of the Glass Pool yet. We are using a super-fast advancement track though (PCs level whenever player whining gets too much for me to bear).
They are going to need to be high level in part 3
They are going to need to be high level in part 3
** spoiler omitted **
Those are side quests and can be easily avoided by the players.
|
|
Those are side quests and can be easily avoided by the players.
They are going to need to be high level in part 3
** spoiler omitted **
If you look at it that way, the whole of part 3 is a side quest apart from the final encounter. However, the adventure as written encourages the PCs to explore the Sunless Sea region in order to get some XP before the final onslaught.
I'd rather take the encounters out than leave them in hoping the PCs will avoid them. However, my prefered solution is to have the PCs high enough level to stand a chance of surviving what I think are some pretty interesting encounters.
|
|
Here's a really awesome sketch of what I had in mind for a map. (You can tell it's awesome because I used MSPaint).
Should help you to make a real map. I made a few minor tweaks from my description--most importantly I decided not to bother putting Milbourne on there. Whistledown and Ilsurian are so close that there isn't much reason for the PCs to ever go there, and nothing particularly important happens in Milbourne anyways. Just move all desirable NPCs to one of the three other towns.
Wow, just wow. Very cool Leadpal, i guess this means i need to focus more, though ill admit i didn't expect you to make a map or anyone to heed my request (nobledrake you truly are noble :) ). Gentleman (or ladies) I guess my time of only passing through this and thinking about this are over lol.
Again i have to say these boards are awesome, and the people on them equally so. TheNobleDrake, should you choose to make this map into utter amazing, awesome, Epicness; i will be grateful. I also imagine while i am running this for my players i will have to post any updates i make (and people will hopefully be inspired to run their own campaigns again ;) ).
Anyway, thanks again guys for all the help, advice, and general aptitude for being incredible.
So now that i have gotten my thank you's and praise done :), thought i would put some thoughts out there. I will probably be posting ideas and whatnot for the first book for now and see what everyone thinks.
Definitely want to use the skum in place of the Kuo-Toa, Dagon in place of Blibdoolpoolp(just my thoughts on the matter). Im thinking of using the gillmen (people?) as a go to and to maybe help the PC's of getting an Inkling of whats going on.
Now when it comes to Jelenneth, im almost tempted to put her in earlier for the characters to gain some sort of emotional attachment. Plus with the Aboleth being the primary antagonists of the story, there are a lot of avenues to go with. anyway just some random musings to start with. Let me know what you think.
|
|
My players would have completely forgotten about Jelenneth by the time they were supposed to encounter her, so I put her in much earlier.
Her role later on will be taken by another escaped prisoner; the PCs have found this prisoner's NG soulbound doll, who is encouraging them to mount a rescue attempt (and casting the occasional heroism spell to help out).
I have a Robin Hood vs Sheriff of Nottingham thing going on in Haranshire, to make it clear that the authorities are not interested in helping out against any vague Underdark menace - they have an outlaw to catch.
The fight against the Hands of Slaughter (mentioned in an earler post) was awesome. The players were fully expecting PC deaths after the carnage of the first round, but in fact managed to avoid fatalities because the party cleric has a feat or something that allows him to channel as a move action; he spent most of the fight channelling twice a round to keep people alive (hopefully that is allowed!). I let the Hands to ambush the party, which with hindsight was a mistake as it made the fight deadlier than I intended.
Nicely done NobleDrake i love the map, need to figure out how to move the Milborne Npc's moved, but ill do it on my day of (which i think is on the morrow). Yeah man if you want to post it by all means :). Still need to figure out how everything is going to mesh lol.
|
|
Nice map noble drake.Thanks for the compliment.
I went ahead and quickly colored the map... and I think that's all I'm doing with it today. labels should be easy enough to sneak in there tomorrow before my Serpent's Skull session.
That's a very impressive map.
Is it intended to be seen by the players? There is a potential spoiler on it.