Advice updating 'Return to the Tomb of Horrors' [Archive] - Wizards Community

Advice updating 'Return to the Tomb of Horrors' [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
phramulo
08-02-07, 01:26 PM I've recently returned to gaming after a 2yr hiatus, and wanted to incorporate this module into a campaign for my new group. I've purchased the revised version of 'tomb of horrors', so a small portion of the work has already been completed.

I have traps and treachery I & II, and all of the MM's, but I've never converted modules to 3e+. Hell, I haven't even played in quite some time. I've got some time before we get to this adventure to make preparations. Any advice? :confused:
Ganeldil
08-03-07, 02:45 PM Hey there, I don't have any worthwhile advice but I did want to wish you good luck :)

Good Luck!
Downtym
08-03-07, 07:19 PM I've recently returned to gaming after a 2yr hiatus, and wanted to incorporate this module into a campaign for my new group. I've purchased the revised version of 'tomb of horrors', so a small portion of the work has already been completed.

I have traps and treachery I & II, and all of the MM's, but I've never converted modules to 3e+. Hell, I haven't even played in quite some time. I've got some time before we get to this adventure to make preparations. Any advice? :confused:

1. Rewrite it so there's a real plot.

2. Get rid of the screws. The revised version did some work to get rid of the "You find a trap, Merry Christmas." attitude of the original, but there's still some sick player screws in there.
phramulo
08-05-07, 01:32 PM well the 'story' side is part of the campaign. I'm not running -just- this adventure. So, that part is understood. I mean you need something to lead in for ~12 lvls, and something to lead out with for another 3-5.

This adventure is being used mostly for the dungeon drop, and slightly for other aspects (like quandry of the souls in the phylactery).

As far as the screws go, that's life man. This is a thinking module. There are meant to be inherent 'costs' involved in making mistakes. Many things will now have saves, which will help the players tremendously, but I see nothing inherent in the module that is necessarily a 'screw'. You should always check things before messing with things.

My confusion for the adjustment comes in with setting the CR and whatnot of particular traps, and making effective monster adjustments. I thought MM and whatnot would make the adjustments already for a direct port, but now when I read the revised version of the original tomb, things were not ported. Ex. the 4 armed gargoyle now has 199hp rather than 82 (If I remember right). I'm not sure what brings on these types of changes.
Downtym
08-06-07, 03:32 PM As far as the screws go, that's life man.

Funny, when I'm playing a game I'm usually trying to avoid life for a few hours and have some fun - you know, that thing that life usually isn't. So, if I'm going to play a module based around the idea of "HAHA, YOU CAN'T WIN!", I might as well just suicide my character or kill all the other characters in the first 5 minutes so I can get the couch to myself while I watch TV and sleep.

This is a thinking module. There are meant to be inherent 'costs' involved in making mistakes. Many things will now have saves, which will help the players tremendously, but I see nothing inherent in the module that is necessarily a 'screw'. You should always check things before messing with things.

How do you check things? You roll a die.

See, this is the inherent problem with what you're arguing. You "check" things by rolling a die. That die introduces randomness into the equation. So, it's *almost* never my fault that I didn't find that trap or know that X monster was resistant to Y form of damage or that Z disease can only be cured by W thing or J symbol on the wall is obviously of Egyptian origin so the McGuffin of Ultimate Awesomeness has to be behind the door on the northwest side of the room (Come on, didn't you commit your ancient Egyptian mythology to memory just in case it was important in D&D?!).

At best, it's never my fault that I fail a check, it's the die's fault, Fate's fault, Karma's fault, someone else's fault. At worst, I didn't think that I would need to explicitly declare that was I searching the door when I said that I was searching the entire room for traps or I didn't expect a 9 foot long spike to shoot out of the ceiling randomly.

A thinking module would be like Chess. There is no randomness, no probability, and you have full knowledge of the game rules including everything your opponent can do - even up to seeing his side of the board. The Tomb of Horrors as written isn't a Thinking Module in this way, rather it's a rollercoaster you get on and when it's done having its way with you then you either go, "Well that was fun" or "God that sucked."

My memories of the Tomb of Horrors are that it would have been a great B horror movie to watch, but playing it was like pulling teeth out of my posterior. The "Suspense" of the game was watching the rogue declare that he was searching over and over again, listening to the clatter of dice on the table, and then yawning when the DM said for 9,000th time, "You don't find any traps." Every now and then he said, "You find a trap!" Oh, then it was exciting as everyone tried to figure out how to get the heck out of the room so that when the trap went off the rogue was the only one who died (Or got dropped into a pit or slid down a slide into a secret room or got knocked out or got jumped by a gang of creatures). And, of course, every now and then he said, "You hear a click and..." and then the trap we didn't find went off because the die had decided it was in a bad mood or the rogue had fallen victim to carpal tunnel so bad his wrist hurt too much to roll anymore or we as a party just got fed up with the Search-every-inch-of-the-dungeon procedure that we barreled ahead full steam in a desperate bid to suicide our characters and get to dinner early.

I think over the course of the weekends that we tried to play through both the original Tomb and the Return to the Tomb there was probably 10 minutes of actually good fun in both of those modules combined - and I don't just mean combats, I mean RP, actually neat traps, etc.
Caligula
08-07-07, 03:07 AM Funny, when I'm playing a game I'm usually trying to avoid life for a few hours and have some fun - you know, that thing that life usually isn't. So, if I'm going to play a module based around the idea of "HAHA, YOU CAN'T WIN!", I might as well just suicide my character or kill all the other characters in the first 5 minutes so I can get the couch to myself while I watch TV and sleep.

How do you check things? You roll a die.

See, this is the inherent problem with what you're arguing. You "check" things by rolling a die. That die introduces randomness into the equation. So, it's *almost* never my fault that I didn't find that trap or know that X monster was resistant to Y form of damage or that Z disease can only be cured by W thing or J symbol on the wall is obviously of Egyptian origin so the McGuffin of Ultimate Awesomeness has to be behind the door on the northwest side of the room (Come on, didn't you commit your ancient Egyptian mythology to memory just in case it was important in D&D?!).

At best, it's never my fault that I fail a check, it's the die's fault, Fate's fault, Karma's fault, someone else's fault. At worst, I didn't think that I would need to explicitly declare that was I searching the door when I said that I was searching the entire room for traps or I didn't expect a 9 foot long spike to shoot out of the ceiling randomly.

A thinking module would be like Chess. There is no randomness, no probability, and you have full knowledge of the game rules including everything your opponent can do - even up to seeing his side of the board. The Tomb of Horrors as written isn't a Thinking Module in this way, rather it's a rollercoaster you get on and when it's done having its way with you then you either go, "Well that was fun" or "God that sucked."

My memories of the Tomb of Horrors are that it would have been a great B horror movie to watch, but playing it was like pulling teeth out of my posterior. The "Suspense" of the game was watching the rogue declare that he was searching over and over again, listening to the clatter of dice on the table, and then yawning when the DM said for 9,000th time, "You don't find any traps." Every now and then he said, "You find a trap!" Oh, then it was exciting as everyone tried to figure out how to get the heck out of the room so that when the trap went off the rogue was the only one who died (Or got dropped into a pit or slid down a slide into a secret room or got knocked out or got jumped by a gang of creatures). And, of course, every now and then he said, "You hear a click and..." and then the trap we didn't find went off because the die had decided it was in a bad mood or the rogue had fallen victim to carpal tunnel so bad his wrist hurt too much to roll anymore or we as a party just got fed up with the Search-every-inch-of-the-dungeon procedure that we barreled ahead full steam in a desperate bid to suicide our characters and get to dinner early.

I think over the course of the weekends that we tried to play through both the original Tomb and the Return to the Tomb there was probably 10 minutes of actually good fun in both of those modules combined - and I don't just mean combats, I mean RP, actually neat traps, etc.

I agree with you to some extent, but the dice is not the only factor that determine the players chances of success or failure. It's actually their decisions just as much, or even more in fact. The players decisions on how to tackle a challenge, a trap, or a problem will decide their chances of success and failure to a larger extent in my opinion. This may vary of course, but the dice are not the only factor that determine failure/success and should not be in any campaign.

In my opinion "Return to the Tomb of Horrors" is a very good campaign-adventure and one of my personal favorite modules. Players who are clever and ingenious will be successful without just relying on maxed out PCs or fantastic dice-rolls. You can beat the Tomb and you can beat Acererak with clever play.

I will run this module as well in the future. It will be interesting to see how my very experienced players fare with this challenge.

And good luck to Phramulo! Check out the boards for suggestions and read the Conversion Manual for guidelines. The best advice I can give you. :)
ORC_Sinister
08-12-07, 08:02 AM I like tomb alot but I'm not sure I would ever run it as part of campaign. Normally something like this is something I do as it's own thing, like "survive the tomb of horrors" night.

In fact I often run it as a challenge with 20 levels, that means as a player you are given 20 levels to attempt to defeat it. You could make 20 level 1s or 1 level 20 or any mix. Those who survive win.

I find running this sort of thing with characters people have a vested interest in causes alot of hard feelings and pulled punches from me. On the other hand, pre-mades, I have no problem stomping out your character.
AlamoMelt
08-12-07, 10:58 AM Wizard's updated plain old "Tomb of Horrors" to 3.5 here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051031a

I'm not sure what the difference between the original and "Return" is, but there's the original in full 3.5 glory.
ClobberinTime
08-13-07, 01:30 PM I thought Return was great as well, when I ran it in 2ed I put a sword the PCs needed to get in Acerak's lair. Plus Moil is a tough ride for the PCs. It has a great evil feeling and is unexpected.

My only problem with the 3.5 redux of the Tomb, like my recurring problem with many of the modules published recently is that they should be for higher level PCs. I mean there is a DemiLich in 3.0 3.5 rules, its just that it has a CR of 21 (I think).
phramulo
08-23-07, 04:59 PM Thanks for the input, especially caligula. I couldn't have worded it better myself. The reason that I love 'Return...' so much is because it creates more dynamic party interaction. With a diverse party, each person approaches the various problems and challenges from a different perspective and skill-set. The limited amount of creature distractions give them more time to really discuss with each other about how to proceed. Personally, I usually get a lot more 'role-play' out of my players here as the stress on the characters highlights various character flaws, quirks, or even assets.

As far as incorporating into a campaign, I'm using some other lesser challenges, puzzles, and intrigue to get the players in the right mindset to deal come up with creative solutions, as well as, setup the moral dilemmas that should put character's philosophies and actions at odds. It's part of a greater 'what is good? what does it mean to be good? Or, more importantly, what do -I- (the character) believe good is?' style story.

Those who've run the adventure, understand how the various ways the pcs might deal with acererak can play into this (not to mention pieces of the earlier story, but the ending is the culmination of that). Thus, it provides an excellent lead-in for the concluding adventures in the campaign that will resolve the moral questions. Does the paladin fall? Does the cleric atone? Or, are their convictions and beliefs simply reinforced? What have they learned about each other or better yet themselves?

But all of that aside, my main issues with translating this into 3.5 is that the tomb revision seemed to be...umm..liberal in places.. things seemed to be altered, rather than ported and I wasn't sure where this came from (even after reading Libris Mortis). So I'm trying to ensure that everything can be reconciled at the proper EL for the party. I have a feeling that most of that will just have to be done 'on the fly.'

Alamomelt-I have that adventure. Thank you though. Return is much more than that though. There's a lead-up adventure that revolves around a 'previous parties expedition' and other events, and then culminates in a deeper post-tomb adventure, which imo, is scarier than the tomb itself. I like return because it's more than a pointless tomb-dive.
Caligula
08-24-07, 01:42 AM The Conversion Manual and all the resource books such as the Monster Manuals, the Magic Items Compendium, Libris Mortis:The Book of Undead, The Spell Compenidum, etc, are great resources. :thumbsup: But there will arise situations where you as a DM must make a choice. I personally think this choice should be based on the story. The motives of the key characters in the module and their background can guide you in your decision-making process.

The key here is to read the module thoroughly and really get into the skin of Acererak. Think like Acererak! Become Acererak for a few days. Read everything you can about him and about Liches. They search everlife and the almighty power to control their universe. They want to become Gods.

Try also to flesh out the followers and the sekt that follows Acererak and wants to reinstate him as a God. Some of these NPCs should really be unique and cool! :cool:

I'm sure you will create a great conversion and please share your future decisions with us!

Myself I will soon update City of the Spiderqueen from 3.0 to 3.5...

Good Luck!!! :)
Saric
08-29-07, 01:26 PM The best advice I can give you is re-arrange some of the encounters in the adventures before entering the tomb. For example, the tower citadel of the mage infested by giants calls for mountain giants. Mountain giants appeared in the mm 2 and are CR 26. (even though they are theoretically weak for that cr)
Consider placing monsters of the same type/category of a more closer CR to the party's level. (you said you had all the mm's right?)

The stat blocks of certain npc's you will have to readjust, especially if the party convinces that one armed guy to come along. The npcs in skull city also have to be recreated if a fight ever breaks out. (since I don't know what other splatbooks you have access to I can't offer many suggestions for prc's or stats.) Consider using barbarian for the one armed guy, and typical (necro) wizards for the skull city people. (true necromancers and pale masters would go a long way here, matching the feel of the setting.)

Add a few random jungle encounters from the mm's. spawns of tiamat are good from mm4, or jungle trolls from mm3. fiend folio you can use the yellow musk orcs/plant.

Lastly aquaint yourself with the planar traits when the party enters acerak's citadel. Also, some of the abilities that are part of the citadel don't carry over well from 2nd edition into 3rd. (use an unhallow spell and tie a spell of your choice to deter the party.) (see invisibility)

Hope that helps.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
phramulo 08-02-07, 01:26 PM	I've recently returned to gaming after a 2yr hiatus, and wanted to incorporate this module into a campaign for my new group. I've purchased the revised version of 'tomb of horrors', so a small portion of the work has already been completed. I have traps and treachery I & II, and all of the MM's, but I've never converted modules to 3e+. Hell, I haven't even played in quite some time. I've got some time before we get to this adventure to make preparations. Any advice? :confused:
Ganeldil 08-03-07, 02:45 PM	Hey there, I don't have any worthwhile advice but I did want to wish you good luck :) Good Luck!
Downtym 08-03-07, 07:19 PM	I've recently returned to gaming after a 2yr hiatus, and wanted to incorporate this module into a campaign for my new group. I've purchased the revised version of 'tomb of horrors', so a small portion of the work has already been completed. I have traps and treachery I & II, and all of the MM's, but I've never converted modules to 3e+. Hell, I haven't even played in quite some time. I've got some time before we get to this adventure to make preparations. Any advice? :confused: 1. Rewrite it so there's a real plot. 2. Get rid of the screws. The revised version did some work to get rid of the "You find a trap, Merry Christmas." attitude of the original, but there's still some sick player screws in there.
phramulo 08-05-07, 01:32 PM	well the 'story' side is part of the campaign. I'm not running -just- this adventure. So, that part is understood. I mean you need something to lead in for ~12 lvls, and something to lead out with for another 3-5. This adventure is being used mostly for the dungeon drop, and slightly for other aspects (like quandry of the souls in the phylactery). As far as the screws go, that's life man. This is a thinking module. There are meant to be inherent 'costs' involved in making mistakes. Many things will now have saves, which will help the players tremendously, but I see nothing inherent in the module that is necessarily a 'screw'. You should always check things before messing with things. My confusion for the adjustment comes in with setting the CR and whatnot of particular traps, and making effective monster adjustments. I thought MM and whatnot would make the adjustments already for a direct port, but now when I read the revised version of the original tomb, things were not ported. Ex. the 4 armed gargoyle now has 199hp rather than 82 (If I remember right). I'm not sure what brings on these types of changes.
Downtym 08-06-07, 03:32 PM	As far as the screws go, that's life man. Funny, when I'm playing a game I'm usually trying to avoid life for a few hours and have some fun - you know, that thing that life usually isn't. So, if I'm going to play a module based around the idea of "HAHA, YOU CAN'T WIN!", I might as well just suicide my character or kill all the other characters in the first 5 minutes so I can get the couch to myself while I watch TV and sleep. This is a thinking module. There are meant to be inherent 'costs' involved in making mistakes. Many things will now have saves, which will help the players tremendously, but I see nothing inherent in the module that is necessarily a 'screw'. You should always check things before messing with things. How do you check things? You roll a die. See, this is the inherent problem with what you're arguing. You "check" things by rolling a die. That die introduces randomness into the equation. So, it's almost never my fault that I didn't find that trap or know that X monster was resistant to Y form of damage or that Z disease can only be cured by W thing or J symbol on the wall is obviously of Egyptian origin so the McGuffin of Ultimate Awesomeness has to be behind the door on the northwest side of the room (Come on, didn't you commit your ancient Egyptian mythology to memory just in case it was important in D&D?!). At best, it's never my fault that I fail a check, it's the die's fault, Fate's fault, Karma's fault, someone else's fault. At worst, I didn't think that I would need to explicitly declare that was I searching the door when I said that I was searching the entire room for traps or I didn't expect a 9 foot long spike to shoot out of the ceiling randomly. A thinking module would be like Chess. There is no randomness, no probability, and you have full knowledge of the game rules including everything your opponent can do - even up to seeing his side of the board. The Tomb of Horrors as written isn't a Thinking Module in this way, rather it's a rollercoaster you get on and when it's done having its way with you then you either go, "Well that was fun" or "God that sucked." My memories of the Tomb of Horrors are that it would have been a great B horror movie to watch, but playing it was like pulling teeth out of my posterior. The "Suspense" of the game was watching the rogue declare that he was searching over and over again, listening to the clatter of dice on the table, and then yawning when the DM said for 9,000th time, "You don't find any traps." Every now and then he said, "You find a trap!" Oh, then it was exciting as everyone tried to figure out how to get the heck out of the room so that when the trap went off the rogue was the only one who died (Or got dropped into a pit or slid down a slide into a secret room or got knocked out or got jumped by a gang of creatures). And, of course, every now and then he said, "You hear a click and..." and then the trap we didn't find went off because the die had decided it was in a bad mood or the rogue had fallen victim to carpal tunnel so bad his wrist hurt too much to roll anymore or we as a party just got fed up with the Search-every-inch-of-the-dungeon procedure that we barreled ahead full steam in a desperate bid to suicide our characters and get to dinner early. I think over the course of the weekends that we tried to play through both the original Tomb and the Return to the Tomb there was probably 10 minutes of actually good fun in both of those modules combined - and I don't just mean combats, I mean RP, actually neat traps, etc.
Caligula 08-07-07, 03:07 AM	Funny, when I'm playing a game I'm usually trying to avoid life for a few hours and have some fun - you know, that thing that life usually isn't. So, if I'm going to play a module based around the idea of "HAHA, YOU CAN'T WIN!", I might as well just suicide my character or kill all the other characters in the first 5 minutes so I can get the couch to myself while I watch TV and sleep. How do you check things? You roll a die. See, this is the inherent problem with what you're arguing. You "check" things by rolling a die. That die introduces randomness into the equation. So, it's almost never my fault that I didn't find that trap or know that X monster was resistant to Y form of damage or that Z disease can only be cured by W thing or J symbol on the wall is obviously of Egyptian origin so the McGuffin of Ultimate Awesomeness has to be behind the door on the northwest side of the room (Come on, didn't you commit your ancient Egyptian mythology to memory just in case it was important in D&D?!). At best, it's never my fault that I fail a check, it's the die's fault, Fate's fault, Karma's fault, someone else's fault. At worst, I didn't think that I would need to explicitly declare that was I searching the door when I said that I was searching the entire room for traps or I didn't expect a 9 foot long spike to shoot out of the ceiling randomly. A thinking module would be like Chess. There is no randomness, no probability, and you have full knowledge of the game rules including everything your opponent can do - even up to seeing his side of the board. The Tomb of Horrors as written isn't a Thinking Module in this way, rather it's a rollercoaster you get on and when it's done having its way with you then you either go, "Well that was fun" or "God that sucked." My memories of the Tomb of Horrors are that it would have been a great B horror movie to watch, but playing it was like pulling teeth out of my posterior. The "Suspense" of the game was watching the rogue declare that he was searching over and over again, listening to the clatter of dice on the table, and then yawning when the DM said for 9,000th time, "You don't find any traps." Every now and then he said, "You find a trap!" Oh, then it was exciting as everyone tried to figure out how to get the heck out of the room so that when the trap went off the rogue was the only one who died (Or got dropped into a pit or slid down a slide into a secret room or got knocked out or got jumped by a gang of creatures). And, of course, every now and then he said, "You hear a click and..." and then the trap we didn't find went off because the die had decided it was in a bad mood or the rogue had fallen victim to carpal tunnel so bad his wrist hurt too much to roll anymore or we as a party just got fed up with the Search-every-inch-of-the-dungeon procedure that we barreled ahead full steam in a desperate bid to suicide our characters and get to dinner early. I think over the course of the weekends that we tried to play through both the original Tomb and the Return to the Tomb there was probably 10 minutes of actually good fun in both of those modules combined - and I don't just mean combats, I mean RP, actually neat traps, etc. I agree with you to some extent, but the dice is not the only factor that determine the players chances of success or failure. It's actually their decisions just as much, or even more in fact. The players decisions on how to tackle a challenge, a trap, or a problem will decide their chances of success and failure to a larger extent in my opinion. This may vary of course, but the dice are not the only factor that determine failure/success and should not be in any campaign. In my opinion "Return to the Tomb of Horrors" is a very good campaign-adventure and one of my personal favorite modules. Players who are clever and ingenious will be successful without just relying on maxed out PCs or fantastic dice-rolls. You can beat the Tomb and you can beat Acererak with clever play. I will run this module as well in the future. It will be interesting to see how my very experienced players fare with this challenge. And good luck to Phramulo! Check out the boards for suggestions and read the Conversion Manual for guidelines. The best advice I can give you. :)
ORC_Sinister 08-12-07, 08:02 AM	I like tomb alot but I'm not sure I would ever run it as part of campaign. Normally something like this is something I do as it's own thing, like "survive the tomb of horrors" night. In fact I often run it as a challenge with 20 levels, that means as a player you are given 20 levels to attempt to defeat it. You could make 20 level 1s or 1 level 20 or any mix. Those who survive win. I find running this sort of thing with characters people have a vested interest in causes alot of hard feelings and pulled punches from me. On the other hand, pre-mades, I have no problem stomping out your character.
AlamoMelt 08-12-07, 10:58 AM	Wizard's updated plain old "Tomb of Horrors" to 3.5 here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20051031a I'm not sure what the difference between the original and "Return" is, but there's the original in full 3.5 glory.
ClobberinTime 08-13-07, 01:30 PM	I thought Return was great as well, when I ran it in 2ed I put a sword the PCs needed to get in Acerak's lair. Plus Moil is a tough ride for the PCs. It has a great evil feeling and is unexpected. My only problem with the 3.5 redux of the Tomb, like my recurring problem with many of the modules published recently is that they should be for higher level PCs. I mean there is a DemiLich in 3.0 3.5 rules, its just that it has a CR of 21 (I think).
phramulo 08-23-07, 04:59 PM	Thanks for the input, especially caligula. I couldn't have worded it better myself. The reason that I love 'Return...' so much is because it creates more dynamic party interaction. With a diverse party, each person approaches the various problems and challenges from a different perspective and skill-set. The limited amount of creature distractions give them more time to really discuss with each other about how to proceed. Personally, I usually get a lot more 'role-play' out of my players here as the stress on the characters highlights various character flaws, quirks, or even assets. As far as incorporating into a campaign, I'm using some other lesser challenges, puzzles, and intrigue to get the players in the right mindset to deal come up with creative solutions, as well as, setup the moral dilemmas that should put character's philosophies and actions at odds. It's part of a greater 'what is good? what does it mean to be good? Or, more importantly, what do -I- (the character) believe good is?' style story. Those who've run the adventure, understand how the various ways the pcs might deal with acererak can play into this (not to mention pieces of the earlier story, but the ending is the culmination of that). Thus, it provides an excellent lead-in for the concluding adventures in the campaign that will resolve the moral questions. Does the paladin fall? Does the cleric atone? Or, are their convictions and beliefs simply reinforced? What have they learned about each other or better yet themselves? But all of that aside, my main issues with translating this into 3.5 is that the tomb revision seemed to be...umm..liberal in places.. things seemed to be altered, rather than ported and I wasn't sure where this came from (even after reading Libris Mortis). So I'm trying to ensure that everything can be reconciled at the proper EL for the party. I have a feeling that most of that will just have to be done 'on the fly.' Alamomelt-I have that adventure. Thank you though. Return is much more than that though. There's a lead-up adventure that revolves around a 'previous parties expedition' and other events, and then culminates in a deeper post-tomb adventure, which imo, is scarier than the tomb itself. I like return because it's more than a pointless tomb-dive.
Caligula 08-24-07, 01:42 AM	The Conversion Manual and all the resource books such as the Monster Manuals, the Magic Items Compendium, Libris Mortis:The Book of Undead, The Spell Compenidum, etc, are great resources. :thumbsup: But there will arise situations where you as a DM must make a choice. I personally think this choice should be based on the story. The motives of the key characters in the module and their background can guide you in your decision-making process. The key here is to read the module thoroughly and really get into the skin of Acererak. Think like Acererak! Become Acererak for a few days. Read everything you can about him and about Liches. They search everlife and the almighty power to control their universe. They want to become Gods. Try also to flesh out the followers and the sekt that follows Acererak and wants to reinstate him as a God. Some of these NPCs should really be unique and cool! :cool: I'm sure you will create a great conversion and please share your future decisions with us! Myself I will soon update City of the Spiderqueen from 3.0 to 3.5... Good Luck!!! :)
Saric 08-29-07, 01:26 PM	The best advice I can give you is re-arrange some of the encounters in the adventures before entering the tomb. For example, the tower citadel of the mage infested by giants calls for mountain giants. Mountain giants appeared in the mm 2 and are CR 26. (even though they are theoretically weak for that cr) Consider placing monsters of the same type/category of a more closer CR to the party's level. (you said you had all the mm's right?) The stat blocks of certain npc's you will have to readjust, especially if the party convinces that one armed guy to come along. The npcs in skull city also have to be recreated if a fight ever breaks out. (since I don't know what other splatbooks you have access to I can't offer many suggestions for prc's or stats.) Consider using barbarian for the one armed guy, and typical (necro) wizards for the skull city people. (true necromancers and pale masters would go a long way here, matching the feel of the setting.) Add a few random jungle encounters from the mm's. spawns of tiamat are good from mm4, or jungle trolls from mm3. fiend folio you can use the yellow musk orcs/plant. Lastly aquaint yourself with the planar traits when the party enters acerak's citadel. Also, some of the abilities that are part of the citadel don't carry over well from 2nd edition into 3rd. (use an unhallow spell and tie a spell of your choice to deter the party.) (see invisibility) Hope that helps.