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Ozreth
2011-01-10, 12:03 AM
If a group of people playing a 2e game want to run this module is it completely compatible?

Also, anybody know what levels it is off hand?

Thanks : )

Roland St. Jude
2011-01-10, 12:06 AM
6-8 characters levels 5-7. It was written for AD&D 1e, so without looking it over and thinking about the specific encounters, I'd say fairly compatible. But completely compatible? I'd give it a careful look over, checking monsters against the 2e Monstrous Compendium/Manual and making sure PCs had access to necessary spells items before running it.

Ozreth
2011-01-10, 12:22 AM
6-8 characters levels 5-7. It was written for AD&D 1e, so without looking it over and thinking about the specific encounters, I'd say fairly compatible. But completely compatible? I'd give it a careful look over, checking monsters against the 2e Monstrous Compendium/Manual and making sure PCs had access to necessary spells items before running it.

I see. Well myself and the people who would be playing are brand new to 2e (we havent played a session of it yet) and were thinking about playing Ravenloft. Do you know how the new 3.5 ravenloft module holds up against the AD&D one? I guess they are supposed to be similar...

Thurbane
2011-01-10, 12:46 AM
I played the original Castle Ravenloft module a bunch of times back in our 1E days.

I'm also just about to wrap up DMing my EtCR (3.5) mini-campaign.

...the two modules share some similarities in overall plot, and the layout of the castle itself is very similar, but the two play very differently. EtCR has a ton more going on than the original module, and plays more like a mini-campaign than a one shot module. It does, however, give suggestion on how to modify it if you only want to play it as a one shot.

Ozreth
2011-01-10, 12:49 AM
Which would you suggest we play first?

Did you use minis in your 1e game? Do you think that using them in EtCR would take away from the suspense? I mean by pausing to draw/erase things and place monsters.

Also, which has more of a romantic/gothic feel to it? Both about the same?

Sorry for all of the mundane questions.

Thurbane
2011-01-10, 01:02 AM
Sorry for all of the mundane questions.
No probelm at all...

Which would you suggest we play first?
If you plan to play both, I'd recommend the 1E version first. It runs a lot quicker, is a lot more concise, and possibly won't have as many spoilers for the 3.5 version compared to running them the other way around.

Did you use minis in your 1e game? Do you think that using them in EtCR would take away from the suspense? I mean by pausing to draw/erase things and place monsters.
We did used to use grids and minis back in our 1E days, but not as intensively as we do for 3.5. Drawing maps and placing monsters can be a real pain with a map as complex and relatively open as Castle Ravenloft, although our group is fairly used to it now, so I don't think it really impacts too much on the suspense. My overall advice is that if you can get away with running the game without minis, it's probably going to be easier and more fun - it really depends on how reliant on minis and grids your group is. 3.5 tends to rely on them a lot more heavily than earlier editions did.

Also, which has more of a romantic/gothic feel to it? Both about the same?
Both have somewhat of a romantic/gothic feel to them, but for my 2 cents, the 1E version did it a lot better. :smallwink:

Ozreth
2011-01-10, 01:35 AM
Thanks : )

Looks like I can grab the 1e module on amazon for $10 so I'll go ahead and do that.

I wish my group could learn to play 3.5 without as much dependency on minis but it's hard once you've grown accustomed to it.

Matthew
2011-01-10, 06:43 AM
It will be about 99% compatible. There probably will not be any THAC0s included in the module, so you will have to keep the hit dice to THAC0 chart handy, and there may be occasional changes between monsters, but nothing you would actually notice running the module with second edition rules.

hamlet
2011-01-10, 08:41 AM
As Matthew said, it's about 99.9% compatible, though you can have a little bit of fun pulling in some stuff from 2nd edition. For example, older vampires in 2nd edition tended to gain a few extra powers now and then that might tickle your fancy and screw with the players' perceptions.

Also, if you're really interested, there was a 2nd edition version ofthe module produced, though I can't truly recommend it. House of Strahd was, ostensibly, a 2nd edition update for I6, but for the most part it was nothing more than I6 on steroids. More monsters, more powerful monsters, and higher level recommendations. It can be used, though, to run the original module as is, just ignore the update suggestions in the text.

That said, I woulnd't recommend I6 as an inroad into 2nd edition. It will make players cry, especially when level draining starts to smack them in the face. Hard. You can solve that particular aspect by "fixing" level draining to cause an "XP deficit" but not actually cause a lost level, which is what I've done in the past and it's something that's both kinder and crueller to the PC's. Or, you can pick up one of the other 1-3rd level modules available for AD&D 2e and utilize them instead as a lean in.