Has anybody converted the 3.5e version of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft?
Nope, but I'd be interested in seeing it. I ran this once upon a time and, truthfully, there are so many errors that it was painful to run. Story could have used some work too (um, how about providing a conclusion? lol).
I won't likely run it under Pathfinder for some time to come but I do plan on doing a modified version of it set in the modern day (using either D20 Modern or GURPS, haven't decided). If somebody has updated it for PF, however, I would also love to see it.
M
My friend is currently running it as a Dark Heresy game so I can't imagine converting would be terribly hard lol
Has anybody converted the 3.5e version of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft?
No, but I wish Pathfinder was out when I did run it. I would have updated it. The new Turning rules would have made it a much more difficult adventure.
Still a classic though!
(I would do now, but I sold my book on Ebay!)
-Windquake
This is sort of an old thread, but I am in the process of converting Expedition to Castle Ravenloft to Pathfinder now, if the original poster had any questions or suggestions! I would say I'm about halfway through the book. I'm revising a lot of things as I go, and plan to start running in a few weeks.
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Just for fun, here's Pathfinder Strahd: (I hope I'm allowed to post this!)
COUNT STRAHD VON ZAROVICH CR 15
Male vampire (human) necromancer 10
Lawful Evil
Medium Undead (augmented humanoid)
Init +7 (+3 dex, +4 improved initiative)
Senses darkvision; Perception +18
Languages Common, Barovian, Vistani, Draconic, Abyssal, Infernal
AC 28, touch 22, flat-footed 24 (+6 force armor, +2 deflection, +3 Dex, +1 dodge, +6 natural armor)
HP 80 (10HD, d4 +1 favored class, +3 Cha, +1 Toughness)
Fort +9 (+3 Cha, +3 cloak), Ref +11 (+3 Dex, +3 cloak, +2 feat), Will +13 (+3 Wis, +3 cloak)
Immune sunlight, undead immunities
DR 10 / silver, magic
Resist acid 10, cold 10, electricity 10, fire 10, positive energy 10, sonic 10
Special Defenses fast healing 5, +4 turn resistance, ring of counterspells (dispel magic), nondetection, shadowless
Weaknesses vampire vulnerabilities, except sunlight
Speed 30, spider climb 20
Melee slam +9 (1d6+4 magic plus energy drain)
AoO Combat Reflexes, Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Grapple
Str 18, Dex 16, Con --, Int 20, Wis 17, Cha 16
Base Atk +5, CMB +8 (+10 grapple), CMD 21
Skills Appraise +9, Bluff +16, Diplomacy +8, Disguise +4, Fly +7, Intimidate +13, Knowledge (arcana) +18, Knowledge (history) +14, Knowledge (local) +18, Knowledge (religion) +14, Perception +18, Sense Motive +18, Spellcraft +18, Stealth +16
Passive Feats Alertness, Combat Casting, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Energy Drain, Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Positive Energy Resistance, Toughness
Metamagic Feats Enervate Spell, Fell Drain
Item Creation Feats Scribe Scroll
Notable Possessions bead of force, cloak of resistance +3, lesser silent metamagic rod, ring of counterspells, ring of protection +2, Strahd’s ruby amulet (gem of seeing)
Active Feats and Abilities
Arcane Bond (Sp) Strahd has made his heirloom ruby amulet into a bonded object, allowing him to cast any spell from his spellbook (except from an opposition school), unprepared, once per day. It also functions as a gem of seeing, and can be used for up to 30 minutes per day to use true seeing by looking through the gem.
Bead of Force (ranged attack) Upon sharp impact, the bead of force explodes for 5d6 force damage in a 10 foot burst around it. It then functions as a resilient sphere spell (Reflex DC 16 negates) with a radius of 10 feet and a duration of 10 minutes. This is a single use item.
Blood Drain (Su) Strahd can suck blood from a grappled opponent; if he establishes or maintains a pin, he drains blood, dealing 1d4 points of Constitution damage. Strahd heals 5 hit points or gains 5 temporary hit points for 1 hour (up to a maximum number of temporary hit points equal to his full normal hit points) each round he drains blood.
Change Shape (Su) Strahd can use change shape to assume the form of a bat, wolf, dire bat, or dire wolf, as beast shape III.
Children of the Night (Su) Once per day, Strahd can call forth 1d6+1 rat swarms, 1d4+1 bat swarms, or 2d6 wolves as a standard action. These creatures arrive in 2d6 rounds and serve him for up to 1 hour.
Create Spawn (Su) Strahd can create spawn out of those he slays with blood drain or energy drain, provided that the slain creature is humanoid. The victim rises from death as a vampire in 1d4 days. This vampire is under Strahd’s command and remains enslaved until Strahd’s destruction. Strahd may have enslaved spawn totaling no more than 20 Hit Dice; any spawn he creates that would exceed this limit become free-willed undead. Strahd may free an enslaved spawn in order to enslave a new spawn, but once freed, a vampire or vampire spawn cannot be enslaved again.
Dominate (Su) Strahd can crush a humanoid opponent's will as a standard action. Anyone he targets must succeed on a Will save (DC 17) or fall instantly under the vampire's influence, as though by a dominate person spell (caster level 12th). This ability can be used only at close range
Energy Drain (Su) A creature hit by Strahd’s slam attack (or other natural weapon) gains two negative levels. This ability only triggers once per round, regardless of the number of attacks he makes. At the same time, Strahd gains 10 temporary hit points and a +2 bonus on skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws for 1 hour.
Gaseous Form (Su) As a standard action, Strahd can assume gaseous form at will (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability.
Grave Touch (Sp) As a standard action, Strahd can make a melee touch attack that causes a living creature to become shaken for 5 rounds. If Strahd touches a shaken creature with this ability, it becomes frightened for 5 rounds if it has fewer that 5 HD. Strahd can use this ability 8 times per day.
Improved Counterspell (Sp) Strahd can counterspell by using any spell of the same school being cast.
Life Sight (Su) Strahd can use this ability for 10 rounds per day as blindsight to detect living and undead creatures and distinguish between them. Constructs and other creatures that are neither living nor undead cannot be seen with this ability.
Power over Undead (Su) Strahd can Command Undead 8 times per day, save DC 18.
Wizard Spells (Sp) Strahd can cast 4 cantrips and 6 / 6 / 5 / 5 / 4 leveled spells per day. As a necromancer, one of Strahd’s slots must be a necromancy spell and preparing a spell from the abjuration or illusion schools costs two slots.
Wizard Spells Known
• 5th – blight, cloudkill, cone of cold, hold monster, magic jar, mind fog, permanency, prying eyes, symbol of pain, teleport, wall of force, waves of fatigue
• 4th – animate dead, arcane eye, bestow curse, charm monster, confusion, contagion, crushing despair, detect scrying, dimension door, enervation, fear, locate creature, mnemonic enhancer, resilient sphere, scrying, shout, solid fog, stoneshape, stoneskin
• 3rd – arcane sight, clairaudience/clairvoyance, deep slumber, fireball, fly, gentle repose, halt undead, haste, hold person, lightning bolt, protection from energy, ray of exhaustion, slow, stinking cloud, suggestion, tongues, vampiric touch, wind wall
• 2nd – acid arrow, blindness/deafness, bull’s strength, cat’s grace, command undead, darkness, detect thoughts, dispel magic, eagle’s splendor, false life, fog cloud, glitterdust, ghoul touch, gust of wind, hideous laughter, levitate, locate object, scare, scorching ray, see invisibility, shatter, spectral hand, touch of idiocy, web
• 1st – burning hands, cause fear, charm person, chill touch, comprehend languages, detect undead, expeditious retreat, hypnotism, identify, mage armor, magic missile, obscure object, obscuring mist, protection from chaos/evil/good/law, ray of enfeeblement, shield, shocking grasp, sleep, true strike, unseen servant
• Cantrips – all
Passive Abilities
Dayheart (Su) Strahd’s connection with this artifact renders him immune to sunlight.
Forest Sign (Su) As a result of his connection to the forests of Barovia, Strahd benefits from a constant nondetection effect on himself and his gear, as the spell (caster level check DC 19). If Strahd’s connection to the Forest Fane is severed, Strahd loses this benefit and his CR is reduced by 1.
Mountain Sign (Su) As a result of his connection to the mountains of Barovia, Strahd is surrounded by a field of force armor that grants him a +6 armor bonus to his AC. Because it is made of force, this armor protects him against incorporeal attacks and applies when Strahd is in gaseous form. If Strahd’s connection to the Mountain Fane is severed, he loses this benefit and his CR is reduced by 1.
No Vampire Aversions Strahd has no aversion to garlic or mirrors. Though he can be turned, characters cannot keep him at bay by presenting a holy symbol. He can enter any building in Barovia, whether he is invited or not.
Shadowless (Ex) Strahd casts no shadows and shows no reflection in a mirror.
Swamp Sign (Su) As a result of his connection to the swamps of Barovia, Strahd has resistance to acid 10, fire 10, and sonic 10. If Strahd’s connection to the Swamp Fane is severed, he loses this benefit and his CR is reduced by 1.
This is sort of an old thread, but I am in the process of converting Expedition to Castle Ravenloft to Pathfinder now, if the original poster had any questions or suggestions! I would say I'm about halfway through the book. I'm revising a lot of things as I go, and plan to start running in a few weeks.
Very cool. We are running this next. Any way I could get the PF conversion from you?
This is sort of an old thread, but I am in the process of converting Expedition to Castle Ravenloft to Pathfinder now, if the original poster had any questions or suggestions! I would say I'm about halfway through the book. I'm revising a lot of things as I go, and plan to start running in a few weeks.Very cool. We are running this next. Any way I could get the PF conversion from you?
Sure! I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't converted everything yet, but I've been running it for eight sessions now and it has gone very well! Two questions:
1) can you please just confirm for me that you own the 3.5 book?
2) I'm assuming you just want stat blocks, yes? I've done some substantial rewriting of the module itself.
You can email me at balsamic [no space] dragon [at symbol] gmail [dot] com.
Balsamic Dragon
This is sort of an old thread, but I am in the process of converting Expedition to Castle Ravenloft to Pathfinder now, if the original poster had any questions or suggestions! I would say I'm about halfway through the book. I'm revising a lot of things as I go, and plan to start running in a few weeks.Very cool. We are running this next. Any way I could get the PF conversion from you?Sure! I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't converted everything yet, but I've been running it for eight sessions now and it has gone very well! Two questions:
1) can you please just confirm for me that you own the 3.5 book?
2) I'm assuming you just want stat blocks, yes? I've done some substantial rewriting of the module itself.
You can email me at balsamic [no space] dragon [at symbol] gmail [dot] com.
Balsamic Dragon
I also own the book and plan on using PF to run a mini-Ravenloft campaign in the not so distant future. What sort of modification have you done to module itself?
I also own the book and plan on using PF to run a mini-Ravenloft campaign in the not so distant future. What sort of modification have you done to module itself?
Well, I'm not sure whether any of my players on are this board :) If so GO AWAY PLEASE!
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Thank you :)
I've added a lot more intrigue to the game, mostly. All of the big bads in the Castle are more active and have their own motivations and agendas. Madam Eva is a more active character and has her own plans, which only sometimes run in parallel with the party. Sasha, Lucian, Rafail, Kavan, Krysterix (or however you spell it) all have extended backstories and more to do. The party was actually invited to a dinner party at Strahd's court to praise them for handling the zombies :) So they have met all of these individuals in a non-combat setting, offering more opportunity for roleplaying. Of course, they did not know exactly who they were dining with! I've set the game in the world of Seventh Sea, so it is more gentile and less hack and slash, but still gothic horror.
I've also played up as a major theme the corruption of the land itself. I've rewritten the Knights of the Raven to be more ranger/druid-like, and their job is to protect both the land and the people. This makes freeing the fanes a goal in and of itself, rather than just to weaken Strahd.
Balsamic Dragon
Those sound like pretty good changes. I did some similar things when I ran this under 3.5 (i.e. introducing more roleplaying opportunties and more developed NPCs with deeper motivations). I did, however, leave almost all of the townsfolk complete cardboard (they were completely clueless...or fatally apathetic). It was fun because the PCs wanted to take care of Strahd and his "associates" but they really had not much sympathy at all for the villagers.
M
Has anybody converted the 3.5e version of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft?
Okay, I'm posting about a year after the original post, but I'm about to run this minicampaign in Pathfinder. I am going to put the adventure in the standard Pathfinder campaign world: I have the revised Inner Sea Campaign Guide, but I thought that putting it in the land of Ustalav would be problematic-- too much undead intrigue already. I am instead placing the village of Barovia in the land of Varisia, west of the village of Ravenmoor, in the Malgorian Mountains.
I'm taking over the GM duties of my gaming group. We had been playing 3.5, and this will be everyone's first experience with Pathfinder. Since our current adventure is rather lighthearted, I am planning to move the party from Sandpoint to Ravenmoor and ratchet the level of horror upward from a "normal" game to a horror game with five adventures, before we make it to Barovia.
Any pointers from others who've run this campaign in Pathfinder?
--Hal
This is sort of an old thread, but I am in the process of converting Expedition to Castle Ravenloft to Pathfinder now, if the original poster had any questions or suggestions! I would say I'm about halfway through the book. I'm revising a lot of things as I go, and plan to start running in a few weeks.
I actually got little response when I first posted this, so forgot I ever did, lol. I appreciate the feedback still, since I have not ran this as of yet. I would still like to sometime in the future.
I have started a campaign blog for my Pathfinder-Ravenloft game:
http://thewatcherofthemist.blogspot.com/
We haven't started playing quite yet, but I expect we'll have our fist session in early May.
The above blog will be a campaign log, mainly for the players themselves, and won't be primarily a discussion of technical stuff, but I'll probably put a few rules mods or other such things in.
There's only one post so far, but there will definitely be more to come.
--Hal
Has anybody converted the 3.5e version of Expedition to Castle Ravenloft?Okay, I'm posting about a year after the original post, but I'm about to run this minicampaign in Pathfinder. I am going to put the adventure in the standard Pathfinder campaign world: I have the revised Inner Sea Campaign Guide, but I thought that putting it in the land of Ustalav would be problematic-- too much undead intrigue already. I am instead placing the village of Barovia in the land of Varisia, west of the village of Ravenmoor, in the Malgorian Mountains.
I'm taking over the GM duties of my gaming group. We had been playing 3.5, and this will be everyone's first experience with Pathfinder. Since our current adventure is rather lighthearted, I am planning to move the party from Sandpoint to Ravenmoor and ratchet the level of horror upward from a "normal" game to a horror game with five adventures, before we make it to Barovia.
Any pointers from others who've run this campaign in Pathfinder?
--Hal
I thought I'd chime in because what you're doing sounds very familiar to what I did a few years ago (before Pathfinder, so I can't really help you with a conversion. Pathfinder came out while I was still running the campaign, but we finished it out with 3.5).
I started the campaign in Sandpoint, using the first two books of Rise of the Runelords (Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw Murders) to lead into Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. I changed a lot around, and expanded the role of many NPCs from both sources to create a pretty involved campaign that touched on a wide variety of horror themes.
From the goblin horrors in Burnt Offerings to the haunted mansion and serial killer in Skinsaw Murders, (I also reimagined Magnimar into a Victorian-era London to create a Jack the Ripper-style villain), the Paizo stuff created an excellent lead-in to the Ravenloft adventure.
Of course, I had to expand that, as well. I made Barovia a much larger city, so I could work in a haunted carnival, a "Fall of the House of Usher" family drama, and other horror tropes.
I posted my write-ups on the campaign a while back on these boards. Let me know if you want me to find them and link them to you.
I always wanted to run a modified Castle Raveloft that more resembles the plot of Dracula where Strahd invites the players to tell him about their homeland and guard his coffin while he travels and Strahd would keep the players imprisoned in his castle and they would either wait it out or try to escape the castle.
It could include a lower level side-quest to fight a "Bloofer Lady" analog. Only to find it was one of the NPC's turned by Strahd.
It would still end much the same way with an epic fight in Castle Ravenloft, because that's the name of the adventure.
I thought I'd chime in because what you're doing sounds very familiar to what I did a few years ago (before Pathfinder, so I can't really help you with a conversion. Pathfinder came out while I was still running the campaign, but we finished it out with 3.5).
I started the campaign in Sandpoint, using the first two books of Rise of the Runelords (Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw Murders) to lead into Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. I changed a lot around, and expanded the role of many NPCs from both sources to create a pretty involved campaign that touched on a wide variety of horror themes.
From the goblin horrors in Burnt Offerings to the haunted mansion and serial killer in Skinsaw Murders, (I also reimagined Magnimar into a Victorian-era London to create a Jack the Ripper-style villain), the Paizo stuff created an excellent lead-in to the Ravenloft adventure...
Thanks for the tip, Stalwart! I wasn't familiar with "Rise of the Runelords," so I just bought the "Burnt Offerings" PDF. Wow-- this is extremely similar in flavor (if not specifics) to what I had planned, but also WAY more detailed. (Obviously-- it's made by pros, not just some guy.)
I had imagined the City of Sandpoint to be very different-- a much older walled city-state, on friendly relations with (and with an inferiority complex toward) its much-larger neighbor Magnimar. I'll probably integrate the NPCs I'd already developed with the ones from the published adventure. "Burnt Offerings" also is much heavier on dungeon crawling that I had planned-- I had written more wilderness-based adventuring. I think I may excise the first dungeon (which is listed as optional anyway), and replace it with two shorter wilderness adventures I'd planned.
But I had also been planning a goblin raid on the city to draw the characters together, and the party's victory would elevate their station in the city. I was also planning to use the serial killer hook mentioned in the "Inner Sea Campaign Guide" gazetteer on Sandpoint.
It's kind of ironic that I'll need to convert "Burnt Offerings" to Pathfinder, as it's written for d20 3.5 rules!
BTW, I wasn't able to find the notes you mentioned on the boards-- if you could link to them, I would appreciate it!
Thanks so much fo the encouragement!
--Hal
I also own the book and plan on using PF to run a mini-Ravenloft campaign in the not so distant future. What sort of modification have you done to module itself?This is sort of an old thread, but I am in the process of converting Expedition to Castle Ravenloft to Pathfinder now, if the original poster had any questions or suggestions! I would say I'm about halfway through the book. I'm revising a lot of things as I go, and plan to start running in a few weeks.Very cool. We are running this next. Any way I could get the PF conversion from you?Sure! I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't converted everything yet, but I've been running it for eight sessions now and it has gone very well! Two questions:
1) can you please just confirm for me that you own the 3.5 book?
2) I'm assuming you just want stat blocks, yes? I've done some substantial rewriting of the module itself.
You can email me at balsamic [no space] dragon [at symbol] gmail [dot] com.
Balsamic Dragon
Ohh if you are willing I would love to get my hands on these! Email sent! I am working on converting this for my group.