One of my favorite Dungeon adventures, perhaps the favorite, is Ex Libris (Dungeon #29, Vol. V Issue 5). I have ran it in 2E and 3.xE, so I thought I'd add it into my 4E campaign.
Like many adventures designed in previous editions, the main problem I am having is designing encounters. In the module, most of the combat is against a solo book guardian or a small group of corrupted priests or NPCs. The corrupted priests, originally huecuva, will probably be replaced with wights or phantom soldiers/priests. I don't see a problem there.
The real problem is dealing with the book guardians. These were almost exclusively solo fights. I really don't want to slog through nearly a dozen Solo (as in a 4E Solo) fights to make the adventure work. Solo fights are fine every once in a while, but multiple solo fights together make for a boring and tedious dungeon crawl. So the question remains: what would be guarding those books?
I am having some writer's block, so any ideas are welcome.
What did you use in previous editions?
In both 2nd and 3rd I used the adventure as written: abishai and guardian daemons. This worked well: the adventure was written for 2E, and it translated well to 3E.
Jezred, the 4E write up of the huecuva (they're a template now) can be found in Dragon 364, which I believe is still free from the Wizard's site.
I'm surprised you found they worked well. The basic concept for the adventure is truly inspired but I always found the actual encounters to be something of a weak point.
As a suggestion you might consider something like a pack of Guardian Demons, I'd allow the Demons to teleport around the complex so that they can do hit and run raids on the players, they regenerate back to full strength unless the players find their weakness which would be in the books. Not certain I'll go down this path (I need to update this adventure myself for my 4E campaign - but I don't even expect to start that for a couple of years when our current Scales of War campaign ends) but its the way I'm leaning.
Essentially the goal is to add more of a dynamic feel and put in time pressures (how long can you live before the Demons kill you) on top of the moving rooms. The goal is to make the moving rooms even more of a curve ball then they were when the module was originally printed. As it stands the moving rooms causes consternation among the players but its pretty quickly regulated to the category of 'odd dungeon feature'. Making it into an actual impediment to the players ability to deal with the adventure by putting it on a clock.
Other options I'm toying with are redoing the room descriptions and infesting the place with various types of 'Demon Spawners'. Essentially create something that results in groups of demons panning out to adjacent rooms.
Anyway if you do run your players through some version of this adventure I'd love to get a report of your experience with it since any kind of feedback on your experience might help with my own attempt.
You could mix in some skill challenges instead of the combat in some of the rooms. I ran this one when it was published but never converted it to 3.5 let alone 4e. I am thinking about running a modern game, something like a Dark Matter or possibly a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen type of game, and was debating on converting it to a D20 Modern.
I always liked the moving puzzle aspect of the adventure- it's a good concept.
In both 2nd and 3rd I used the adventure as written: abishai and guardian daemons. This worked well: the adventure was written for 2E, and it translated well to 3E.
Then why would you have to switch to solo guardians now? Just use the same monsters. If abishai and guardian demons aren't available, just use monsters of the appropriate level with a similar role. You could even reskin the existing monsters as abishai and guardian daemons with no effort whatsoever.
In both 2nd and 3rd I used the adventure as written: abishai and guardian daemons. This worked well: the adventure was written for 2E, and it translated well to 3E.Then why would you have to switch to solo guardians now? Just use the same monsters. If abishai and guardian demons aren't available, just use monsters of the appropriate level with a similar role. You could even reskin the existing monsters as abishai and guardian daemons with no effort whatsoever.
I am guessing you have never seen or ran the adventure. The basic premise is that some of the books in the library have a lone monster trapped inside, either an abishai or a daemon. When the PCs open the book, the monster jumps out and attacks.
Thus if I ran it as written, the PCs will face a lot of single monster encounters. If a make them standard monsters, the encounter will be over in one round most of the time and will not be a challenge. If I make it challenging to the PCs by upgrading them to Solo monsters, then the adventure will bog down into a series of long, annoying slugfests. Thus the adventure as written does not translate well into 4E.
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I am guessing you have never seen or ran the adventure. The basic premise is that some of the books in the library have a lone monster trapped inside, either an abishai or a daemon. When the PCs open the book, the monster jumps out and attacks.
Jezred, why not simply change the premise behind the book? Instead of having a lone monster trapped inside, what if the books created a temporary portal so some alternate plane/whatever that spills a standard encounter's worth of critters into this location? I mean, it's not much a stretch to go from demon imprisoned in a book to demons imprisoned in a book.
I am guessing you have never seen or ran the adventure. The basic premise is that some of the books in the library have a lone monster trapped inside, either an abishai or a daemon. When the PCs open the book, the monster jumps out and attacks.Jezred, why not simply change the premise behind the book? Instead of having a lone monster trapped inside, what if the books created a temporary portal so some alternate plane/whatever that spills a standard encounter's worth of critters into this location? I mean, it's not much a stretch to go from demon imprisoned in a book to demons imprisoned in a book.
After much thought, I will probably go with this solution. It would probably be the easiest way to go.
Thank you all for your assistance in hashing this out.