TheAuldGrump Posted April 26, 2017 Share Posted April 26, 2017 3 hours ago, Gargs said: Plus, clearly the ancient, super powerful lich who runs the dungeon won't show up until the bottom of the dungeon, by which point we'll have earned numerous more levels and thus, be adequately equipped to defeat him! Except for The Slumbering Tsar - there the ancient, super powerful lich who runs the dungeon is upstairs, in the town, selling the adventurers supplies, and loaning them money at usurious rates. The Auld Grump 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 ....Is it too much of a mood-killer if I stick a Helm Horror with a Magic Mouth spell on it to utter "None Shall Pass" as it guards a bridge, in the middle of a story about the party trying to get to a white dragon that's out to get them? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unruly Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 So I just started to wonder, and this could be a bad thing for my group. How much easier of a conversion to 5e would say, Slumbering Tsar or Rappan Athuk be if one were to start with the Swords and Wizardry versions rather than the Pathfinder ones? I know Swords and Wizardry is a 0e clone, and, while I don't have any experience with anything pre-3e, I've heard that 5e is closer to the old days in feel. I looked at trying to convert Pathfinder stuff over, and my head started to hurt because of how certain things changed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crowley Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 (edited) 11 hours ago, BlazingTornado said: ....Is it too much of a mood-killer if I stick a Helm Horror with a Magic Mouth spell on it to utter "None Shall Pass" as it guards a bridge, in the middle of a story about the party trying to get to a white dragon that's out to get them? Nope. I love it. 5 hours ago, Unruly said: So I just started to wonder, and this could be a bad thing for my group. How much easier of a conversion to 5e would say, Slumbering Tsar or Rappan Athuk be if one were to start with the Swords and Wizardry versions rather than the Pathfinder ones? I know Swords and Wizardry is a 0e clone, and, while I don't have any experience with anything pre-3e, I've heard that 5e is closer to the old days in feel. I looked at trying to convert Pathfinder stuff over, and my head started to hurt because of how certain things changed. Start with S&W, it'll be a far easier conversion. Fewer fiddly bits to worry about. Edited April 27, 2017 by David Brawley Spelling... :-P 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 7 hours ago, Unruly said: I looked at trying to convert Pathfinder stuff over, and my head started to hurt because of how certain things changed. Oh cool so it's not just me. I've been wanting to convert this "Ghalshoaton" creature from a PF AP over to 5E because it's a croc-headed cobra-cowled scorpion-tailed-and-clawed monster of awesomeness but I go crosseyed trying to figure these gigantic blocks of... things. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuldGrump Posted April 27, 2017 Share Posted April 27, 2017 One of the kids sent me an e-mail that leaves me mouth agawp in amazement... Dain, who plays the wizard, would very much prefer NOT doing Rappan Athuck, for three reasons - 1. It's a deathtrap! 2. It is way too long 3. It's a DEATHTRAP! (Yes, I am quoting.) He actually wants to try the one I was working on before I let myself get seduced by the massive tome that is Rappan Athuck - and really wants to try Kings of War. But the thing that amazes me is that while getting the free rules for KoW, he discovered and forwarded me about the Terrain Crate Kickstarter - and when he mentioned the Wizard's Study... he used the word Orrery... How many eight or nine year olds can use that word in a sentence?! So, sending out e-mails, asking the kids which they would prefer, and going with the majority. (To be honest, it was the KoW part that had allowed me to talk myself out of it in the first place- but since at least one of the kids wants to try... ) The Auld Grump 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted April 28, 2017 Share Posted April 28, 2017 I'm having the most terrible suggestions for encounters. I was building a one-shot for 3rd level adventurers (one of my players is missing Saturday's session and I didn't want to leave her out of the current adventure's ending) and was poking around monster stats. Noticed the Guardian Portrait and Animated Table... Made for a good CR3 encounter, if a bit zany. Then I remembered the Rug of Smothering. So I pocketed the idea away for later as it's grown unbalanced (White Plume Mountain is in the future and one of the nations is going to reward the players with a keep that's a bit... infested at the time, and clearing it out will be the next adventure, so maybe there's a nicely furnished room in there...), but shared it. And the vile ideas were submitted to me. "Add a suit of armor, a hanging cloak and a chest in there." "Don't forget to have the rug throw itself in the fireplace after it's smothered someone!" 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jokemeister Posted April 28, 2017 Share Posted April 28, 2017 4 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said: But the thing that amazes me is that while getting the free rules for KoW, he discovered and forwarded me about the Terrain Crate Kickstarter - and when he mentioned the Wizard's Study... he used the word Orrery... How many eight or nine year olds can use that word in a sentence?! RPGs are fantastic at getting children to read different things which is useful in building vocabulary. I recall using the word ethereal to describe a ghost in a story I was writing in school (many, many moons ago!). My teacher was wandering around the classroom and saw that I had used that word correctly. He was so shocked that I knew such a word and his reaction so extreme that I was initially convinced that I had used it incorrectly. I (naturally) immediately clammed up and got super nervous! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unruly Posted April 28, 2017 Share Posted April 28, 2017 3 hours ago, Jokemeister said: RPGs are fantastic at getting children to read different things which is useful in building vocabulary. I recall using the word ethereal to describe a ghost in a story I was writing in school (many, many moons ago!). My teacher was wandering around the classroom and saw that I had used that word correctly. He was so shocked that I knew such a word and his reaction so extreme that I was initially convinced that I had used it incorrectly. I (naturally) immediately clammed up and got super nervous! Just having an interest in fantasy and sci-if can have that effect, as well as making you get really involved in your own fiction. My freshman year of high school my English teacher had us all write a short story. Everyone else turned in a story that was 3 or 4 pages long. I turned in one that was 15. In D&D related news, I'm planning on dragging my friends through White Plume Mountain once my turn to DM comes up again. We're doing a rotation where we all take turns DMing something relatively short, that can be run in 3-6 sessions, and then we just level up when the new guy takes over. Right now we're level 6, but when my turn comes up again we'll be level 8 so it will be perfect. Just a dungeon crawl with the only driving impetus being phat loot. It may take longer than 6 sessions, since our sessions are only about 3 hours long, but I think that if it needs to go longer no one will care. We started the rotation solely because our group is only 4 people total, and so we were trying for bite-sized adventures. Then, when my turn comes up again, I'm thinking of trying to convert The Bonegarden by Necromancer Games/Frog God Games and throwing them into that hell. But man, it's a level 11+ 3.5e adventure. It's going to be a pain in the rear to convert... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuldGrump Posted April 28, 2017 Share Posted April 28, 2017 The trick with conversions is 'Don't Sweat the Details' - don't try for a complete one to one conversion, go for the flavor and the monsters. When they get to the disks and chains over the chasm, don't try to figure out the original math - go for a level appropriate challenge (For that, I would go with a Hard challenge.) When a monster is not level appropriate (too low or too high) feel free to substitute - but don't forget that the adventure is supposed to have some encounters that are high or low, so only change out ones where there would be nothing that the party could do to injure/take down a given critter. When I converted Bone Hill to 3e, there was an encounter with a Wraith - a critter fully capable of wiping out the low level party - who had only the wizard that could damage it - the cleric would have needed a 20 to do anything with Turning it.. So, instead I went with a Ghost - which had the advantages of being something that the party could deal with, and that could come back after a while, even if they killed it. (I could have used a Shadow, instead, but Ghosts are more fun to role play.) The Auld Grump 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unruly Posted April 29, 2017 Share Posted April 29, 2017 Well, one of the good things about White Plume Mountain is that it got an official update in Tales From the Yawning Portal, so I don't have to sweat at all on the conversion there. I'm just going to preroll a bunch of the random encounters so that I know what they're going up against, and then I'm going to run it as written. But The Bonegarden is something that will take some converting. Not a whole lot, but major players in the adventure will need redone as well as some recurring enemies, though the book does give some helpful suggestions on substitutions. It's going to be interesting trying to figure it all out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuldGrump Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Perfect timing! The party managed to figure out who would know about a gate to the First World, just as the pizza guy got to the door! I don't know why it took them so long - it's not as though they had never talked to The King Under The Wood.... (Twelve foot tall giant, green, with antlers, and magical abilities.... Subtle he is not....) The Auld Grump Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlazingTornado Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Has anyone ever shared the thought process in D&D of turning the Chimera from this To this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cranky Dog Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 (edited) 3 hours ago, BlazingTornado said: Has anyone ever shared the thought process in D&D of turning the Chimera from this To this? A wizard done it because something, something, fire breathing dragon heads are way cooler than snake heads? It also allows for interesting variants: From Pathfinder's Jade Regent AP. Same stats, cold based powers instead of fire. Now I want a blue dragon desert one (lightning), black swamp one (acid) and forest green one (poison gas). Edited April 30, 2017 by Cranky Dog 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pingo Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 3 hours ago, BlazingTornado said: Has anyone ever shared the thought process in D&D of turning the Chimera from this To this? I am not privy to anyone's thought processes in this, although I am by profession an artist-illustrator. On a guess, I would hazard that the earlier Dungeons and Dragons artists did not have the skills to match their imaginations, and the later ones did. I've got no problems with the mutations of the creature. They're interesting perspectives and probably help players visualize the world. I do note with some interest that the ancient Greek representation of the Chimera has a female body. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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