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So I started a massive undertaking today in order to occupy my time for the summer, and after downloading the following three super-modules from AD&D, I am giving it a go converting them to 3.5:
T1-T4: Temple of Elemental Evil
A1-A4: Scourge of the Slavelords
GDQ1-7: Queen of Spiders
So, any tipcs, requests, links, resources, or other info is appreciated.
Also, feel free to drop in with words of encouragement.
If I can, I will make the OGL statblocks available to everyone once I am done.
I should also mention I plan on running them in Forgotten Realms, with Hommlet near Waterdeep, but so far that hasn't impacted the statblocks much.
So I started a massive undertaking today in order to occupy my time for the summer, and after downloading the following three super-modules from AD&D, I am giving it a go converting them to 3.5:
Good luck with that, Jal! That would be super awesome to see - as I have considered what it would be like to run it under 3.5's system.
I can't offer too much right now off the top of my head - but may pipe in with thoughts at some point down the line.
It's going to be more of a total rebuild than a conversion.
By way of example:
While these can be worked around, it is just that: work.
On the other hand, the descriptive text calls him a swashbuckler. Perhaps you could make him just that and give him a tanglefoot bag or two in place of the rope.
I spent all of highschool DMing TOEE which I converted to 2nd ed. and I can share this with you - there are tons of magic items in that adventure! Remember in 1st ed. all of the magic characters got they had to find. This is something you'll have to keep in mind when converting old adventures to 3rd.
This is especially true later on...
Either reduce the amount of magic/treasure or severely curtail the ability of the players to build and buy magic for themselves (if your players are like mine they will really hate the second option so it probably isn't a good idea).
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil has a good conversion for the orb of golden death in 3rd ed. stats.
Also the swashbuckler thing... in 1st edition that was just the title for a 5th level fighter. I don't want to stifle your creativity or anything but the level title confusion will come up again and again in this adventure: things like myrmidons, footpads, high level wizards being called necromancers, etc., etc. A lot of these terms have meant different things across the editions. I always found level titles to be kind of charming actually :)
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It just so happens that I am currently about half way through DMing a 3.5 conversion of Temple of Elemental Evil.
A good guideline for conversion can be found here.
Good luck, you should enjoy it. I did. :)
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It's going to be more of a total rebuild than a conversion.
By way of example: ** spoiler omitted **
Ideally, I am converting base statistics first (NPCs are the biggest pain) and then doing a wealth-by-level rewrite.
I am not a stickler for a few thousand gp here and there, but the case you point out is a huge issue. I've already noticed similar things,
Thanks for the link Babbage. So far my conversion is almost spot on with theirs, with the major difference being I am statting out each NPC and giving them names and such. Also, I found many of their level 0 characters were listed as warriors (instead of the more apt commoners or experts). Otherwise, it should come in handy at some point!
If you convert all of ToEE to 3.5 without editing it down, the PCs will have leveled well past the challenges that the Slavers present without editing them upward in turn, which might be more effort than you want. The giants, on the other hand, are best tackled starting around 10th level, a bit higher than the initial modules.
Personally, I'd try to edit ToEE down substantially. It kind of drags anyway. I'd cut out all of the 4th dungeon level and the elemental nodes and handle getting the gems for the golden skull thing another way. I'd remap a bit of the lower level dungeons to bring anything important from 4 upward.
I did run the slavers series for appropriately leveled PCs (pretty close to the initial levels) but I still had to curtail XP awards to keep them in the challenge range. Ultimately, you might want to dispense with carefully tracked XPs anyway and level up by some kind of chapter/episode progression instead.
For the dungeon of the slavelords, I had all casters drugged when they were imprisoned. This gave them some damage to their mental stats and, conveniently, kept their spellcasting down. I also worked in a scroll of lesser restoration into the loot they found a few encounters into it, so they'd have to make a strategic choice of whose spellcasting to improve. I found the stat damage mechanism a better alternative than just having lost all prepped spells save the lowest level - that doesn't even work as a justification very much any more. But stat damage worked great!
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If you convert all of ToEE to 3.5 without editing it down, the PCs will have leveled well past the challenges that the Slavers present without editing them upward in turn, which might be more effort than you want. The giants, on the other hand, are best tackled starting around 10th level, a bit higher than the initial modules.
Personally, I'd try to edit ToEE down substantially. It kind of drags anyway. I'd cut out all of the 4th dungeon level and the elemental nodes and handle getting the gems for the golden skull thing another way. I'd remap a bit of the lower level dungeons to bring anything important from 4 upward.
...edited for space...
I like the 4 nodes, and I want to try to get the whole module converted to be fair to others who may run it. I think your chapter progression idea would probably work the best, and it saves the DM some time too, and since CR will be included, it can be switched back easily enough. I might balance treasure the same way (adding up totals per chapter rather than by CR and comparing to my level awards). The reason I want to do the whole shebang is for precisely the reason you mention, to balance Slavers and Queen of Spiders with ToEE.
Words of encouragement!
I ran parts of all of these back in the day and have very fond memories. I too curtailed some of the slog thru TOEE.
I found a pdf version of Return to TOEE somewhere I wonder how it ranks with the original, never really looked into it. But the slavers, I LOVED running the slavers, besides the fact of a party wipe that many friends have never gotten over or forgiven me for allowing to happen. (These 7th level characters had saved the world! And were killed by those wretched ant-thingies, so pathetic.) I have all three original mega-adventures but I assume you do too. my TOEE map book is filled with all sorts of hand written notes from my adolescence, it is pretty funny to see nowadays. (I remember a certain pair of bugbears on lvl 2, Guido and Guano I Called them...) And this one room "Safe Haven!" one of my players kept calling it, I thought he wanted to move in or set up shop, he was so excited about this room. lol good times
Yep good stuff. A lot of work though, stat block generation is my biggest gripe as a DM. GL!
J~
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Words of encouragement!
Yep good stuff. A lot of work though, stat block generation is my biggest gripe as a DM. GL!J~
Fortunately I have a handy shorthand for statblocks that makes typing them a breeze and yet leaves nothing important out. Perhaps you will see it if I ever finish. I use it whenever I run adventures to copy blocks from the books to my notes.
I'm approaching completion of a 3.5e Slave Lords conversion. The first important note is that it spans a LOT more levels than the 1e versions, because of 3e's super-rapid advancement system; that's one thing to be on the lookout for.
One of the early mods heavily featured organized (LE) orcs and human-appearing half-orcs (the standard in 1e). The fact that orcs are CE in 3e (and that 3e half-orcs never look like humans) has the potential to create a problem, unless you use hobgoblins instead and make human-appearing "half-hobgoblins" or something... or just return to the 1e assumptions there (which might seriously contradict "normality" in various campaigns).
For Dunegeons, you'll need to give out extra XP for lower CR encounters, because the PCs have no gear. This is NOT easy, as there are no real guidelines for converting gp of gear into an xp equivalent. I ended up keeping the CRs the same, but having the PCs temporarily gain xp as if they were 2 levels lower than actual.
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I'm approaching completion of a 3.5e Slave Lords conversion. The first important note is that it spans a LOT more levels than the 1e versions, because of 3e's super-rapid advancement system; that's one thing to be on the lookout for.
One of the early mods heavily featured organized (LE) orcs and human-appearing half-orcs (the standard in 1e). The fact that orcs are CE in 3e (and that 3e half-orcs never look like humans) has the potential to create a problem, unless you use hobgoblins instead and make human-appearing "half-hobgoblins" or something... or just return to the 1e assumptions there (which might seriously contradict "normality" in various campaigns).
For Dunegeons, you'll need to give out extra XP for lower CR encounters, because the PCs have no gear. This is NOT easy, as there are no real guidelines for converting gp of gear into an xp equivalent. I ended up keeping the CRs the same, but having the PCs temporarily gain xp as if they were 2 levels lower than actual.
Did you mean playing/DMing a conversion, or writing one yourself?
I don't mind the concept of LE orcs, but the human-looking half-orcs could be a problem, especially in large numbers. That might require some finesse - maybe even making them human but revealing they are 1/4 orc or something.
Ya for stat blocks, what I have started doing is copy-texting the MM manual entry off the pdf MM I have and pasting it to a text file and printing a 1-page sheet for each baddie. Sometimes I use word and do columns to fit 2-4 on a page. I do have fond memories of the short 1-e style stat paragraphs, and would like a similar thing. Feats, skills and ability scores of monsters and that type of thing, I try to just know in advance rather than trying to fit every single mechanic onto the page.
I would be interested in any major hurdles that come up, like, oh off the top of my head, the main final enemy in TOEE, how does her 'stat block' compare to other 3E godlings. Are you starting them in Hommlet at lvl 1?
I was just thinking, you know there is a whole computer game called no less than The Temple of Elemental Evil... Should definitely check it out.
I'm approaching completion of a 3.5e Slave Lords conversion.
Would you be willing to make this available?
Did you mean playing/DMing a conversion, or writing one yourself?
I'm writing it. Finished drafts of A1 and A3, mostly done with draft of A4, but I don't actually own A2, so that one's proving a problem. Paul, I'd rather not email them out until I've got them finished, and worked out the kinks (like making sure the XP and level progressions all work out, which is a MAJOR pain in the butt even with spreadsheets). When I'm done, I'd be delighted to share, so long as I don't violate any copyrights thereby.
Whatever you're comfortable with. I appreciate anything really.
Thanks. I appreciate your hard work in this endeavor.
Whatever you're comfortable with. I appreciate anything really.
Tell you what -- if you give me your email address, I'll send the draft of A3 (the closest to being complete) as it is, and you can decide if the others are worth waiting for or even looking at -- or if you want to maybe collaborate and help finish the others (my enthusiasm is starting to wane; I normally prefer to write my own stuff, rather than convert existing modules).
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Okay, so I have been provided a decent conversion of ToEE from EN World, and Kirth is working on a Scourge of the Slavelords...which I also would not mind a copy of, by the way! (As long as you keep to OGL/names/plots info, you should be good).
I'm starting to think this might be an unnecessary project.
Of course, I could skip ahead to Queen of Spiders, if no-one has that done...?
One of the things that really cracked me up about this adventure are the penniless frogs outside the moathouse. Check out their entry and you'll see what I mean.
As far as advancing too quickly, perhaps using one of the two slower Alpha 3 experience progressions would keep everything about par.
As far as advancing too quickly, perhaps using one of the two slower Alpha 3 experience progressions would keep everything about par.
You could just halve all XP and treasure awards for the equivalent 3.5 encounters (with some extra treasure added here and there to account for burning through more charged/single use items at each level; compared to 3.x, 1st/2nd Ed AD&D treasure awards were pretty wacky). The change in advancement rate is one of the bigger problems with 1st/2nd Ed AD&D conversions to 3.x, along with encounter scaling.
Whatever you're comfortable with. I appreciate anything really.Tell you what -- if you give me your email address, I'll send the draft of A3 (the closest to being complete) as it is, and you can decide if the others are worth waiting for or even looking at -- or if you want to maybe collaborate and help finish the others (my enthusiasm is starting to wane; I normally prefer to write my own stuff, rather than convert existing modules).
my email is: ackerman_paul@yahoo.com
If you send it to me.. I'll take a look over and see what I can figure out on converting as well.
If you send it to me.. I'll take a look over and see what I can figure out on converting as well.
Sent A1, A3, and A4. Some of them still need some work. Let me know what you think.