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I am starting up a gaming group in d20 Modern and have started to read the Dungeon adventures in the light of how readily they could convert to d20 Modern. For instance, I was reading the latest issue of Dungeon magazine and noticed how readily the Automatic Hound could be converted to a d20 Modern campaign. Has anyone noticed any other adventures out there that translate with relative ease? If you have, which ones are they and what sort of translations did you make.
It also occurred to me that while Paizo isn't publishing any d20 Modern adventures, d20 Modern has OGL. Given that it does and Paizo is entering into the OGL world for its adventures, I sure would appreciate Paizo to consider conversion notes for its adventures into a d20 Modern setting. I am hoping that Pathfinder and Gamemaster aren't too enmeshed in fantasy that they can't convert. Alternatively, I sure would love for Paizo to consider d20 Modern OGL campaigns, too.
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Urban Arcana has a section on converting characters from D&D to d20 Modern. The two big differences are no spells before level for and a 5-level magic spell limit. Magic is much more limited in d20 Modern, but sometimes I like that. I started converting Savage Tide to d20 Modern, but it was way to much work. The only reason I use the APs is because I don't have the time to write all my own stuff. But if your up for the challenge of rebuilding every NPC from scratch then more power to you.
My 2cp
I second the vote for Paizo publishing some d20 Modern/Future adventures. I have a few I would love to submit.
Well, if you look at most of the Eberron adventures they all have a steampunk aspect to them that would be easy to convert. (I am going to be working on converting them to Dawning Star in the next 6 months.) And Vissigoth why not send the adventures to Paizo, and see if they will release them. I couldn't hurt.
Salcor
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But if your up for the challenge of rebuilding every NPC from scratch then more power to you.
Well, that may be a bit of a stretch. Given the Menace Manual and the Core Rulebook, we have a slew of NPCs and monsters to draw from to begin with. Then, if you really want unique BBEGs, design those. Actually, I'm not as concerned about replacing D&D threats with d20 threats as I am with finding adventures that have storylines that are relatively easy to translate, or adventures that people have already converted.
One adventure I'd love to convert to some kind of d20 modern would be Isle of the Ape.
I'd have to revise the plot line significantly of course. Also it would be required that there where lots of extra characters along on this adventure. Maybe have the starting plot hook be along the lines of...
The players take the roles of professional African Safari workers from an African wild life preserve on a plane trip to the United States to attend some fund raising meetings for the World Wildlife Fund when their air plane crashes in the centre of an unknown island in the middle of the south Pacific. Players try and organize an escape from the Island with as many passengers as possible using (initially anyway) only the supplies they can scavenge from the wreck of the plane.
Dinosaurs with really big teeth get an extra special ability not normally associated with them that essentially amounts to 'dragon fear' so that all the NPCs run around screaming when a big carnivorous dinosaur makes an appearance. No children allowed on the plane (NPCs should be essentially buffet items for dinosaurs). DM decides what the starting equipment is by deciding what can be scavenged from the plane. One of the things that happens to be in the cargo hold are a series of well secured cases (with lots of paperwork) for a slew of weapons enroute to law enforcment agencies in French Guiana which would have been off loaded in Cayenne during a stopover before the plane continued on its way to the U.S.
Populate island with interesting ruins like an ancient pirate ship (with gunpowder weapons and cutlasses!) and maybe an abandoned military base. The base camp of a turn of the century big game hunter etc.
Scattered around the island in the varous 'modern' abandoned encampments are the components to allow the players to escape on a small deserted yacht, alternitivly they might find enough components to make a functional radio powerful enough to call for help.
Mini-campaign taking approximately 24-32 hours of game time to play (between 3-8 sessions depending on how long your sessions are).
D&D is far too different from Modern to do anything like a straight conversion. Eberron adventures might be easier to convert, since they're more modern in tone and deal with more investigation, but there's more to D20 Modern than mediaeval fantasy set in the 21st century.
I just noticed that there is a download for a D20 Modern version of Return to the Temple of the Frog. I have not yet read this but it sure strikes me as something along the lines of what is being talked about in this thread.
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I once thought about making the AoW into a Modern thing with lots of archeological stuff and such things. But I never got over the thinking phase...
Kuyss name should be changed, the apostolic scrolls are great in a modern setting, and doing the final fight atop the Empire State Building or something similar would be awesome!
The spire of long shadows could be in the southamerican jungles and so on...
Hm... maybe I should give it a try...
I just noticed that there is a download for a D20 Modern version of Return to the Temple of the Frog. I have not yet read this but it sure strikes me as something along the lines of what is being talked about in this thread.
Sigh.
What I initially though this adventure was about and what it actually seems to be about are not quite the same thing. The basic gist is this is one of the rather common 'return to...' type adventures. In this case Return to the Temple of the Frog. Now in the interests of full disclosure I have read the original but I never 'got it'. I did not like the original adventure but then I've never been able to really get into the whole 'alien invasion' theme that seems so prevalent in the old Blackmoor adventures.
OK on to what this adventure is really about. Basically speaking in the original adventure high 'tech aliens mutinied from a space craft. They attempted to flee and were shot down by the mother ship (which - as I understand it became the space ship found in City of the Gods). Anyway the escape craft crashes into a swamp near a monetary full of monks that worships frogs and frog Gods. The aliens take over the monetary with their high 'tech gear and their green tinted skin and get up to some nefarious activity. Adventures go fourth and destroy the temple killing the aliens and the frog cultists and looting the place.
The premise of the Return to the Temple of the Frog adventure is that the original mother ship sends some cyborgs to eradicate any evidence of their bad alien compatriots. Adventurers go to the temple and bump into the cyborgs as well as mutated creatures and such that have been created either by the now destroyed cult or a reactor leak of the old cult. Adventures fight cyborgs, kill mutants get loot. Not a horrible premise for a D&D game but not really what I wish this adventure had been about.
So here is an alternate idea that probably would only take a little tweaking. Players are an away team with orders to eliminate all evidence of the technology on the temple just like the cyborgs in this adventure. One might want to keep the cyborgs as bad guys in which case their purpose and plot would have to be rejigged. Maybe their old guards or some such of the original temple. That's not completely impossible as the original adventure did not really deal with the escape pod and the premise in Return to the Temple of the Frog assumes that one of the Aliens escaped the adventurers but eventually was laid low a short time later - so what if he had activated the cyborgs guarding the escape pod and ordered them to guard the Temple prior to being laid low.
OK then what about a band of adventurers? The plot line presumes that the band of adventurers are the players - but how about the adventurers being NPCs. For a really interesting twist have the adventurers be good - throw in a Paladin etc. The NPC adventuring party is here to get weapons to fight evil somewhere else and they have learned (maybe through the divination of their Church or what not) that weapons that could be a powerful addition to the arsenal of good can be found here. The PCs (representing an away team) have as their mission erase the presence of themselves and stop their alien technology from interfering with the people and cultures of this planet. Both sides are on an obvious collision course and yet both consider their aims noble and for the greater good - they just each have different priorities regarding what constitutes good. For the fantasy adventuring party anything really useful in battling evil (especially if they need - say a laser to break some kind of unbreakable vault of evil) is good while the away team sees not interfering in the culture of the indigenous people as the highest good.
Of course the DM will have to make the fantasy adventuring party while the players make characters using D20 future. I'd call this a one off adventure for 8th-10th level D20 future characters. Probably take between 2-5 sessions depending on how long your sessions are.