[Legend] What's a good 3.5 module to update?

[Zaq]

So, I want to get my friends involved in a game of Legend (http://www.ruleofcool.com/), of which I remain a loyal devotee (despite the fact that it hasn't really seen a lot of motion in, um, way the hell too long). It falls to me to GM it, because I'm the one who's most involved with the system—my friends are willing to learn a new system well enough to play it, but none of them want to learn the system well enough to GM the inaugural campaign. It's a reasonable sentiment overall, but it's slightly problematic in that I'm not actually that good at GMing. The hope is that this initial campaign will get people sufficiently acquainted with the system that we'll be able to revert to our old round-robin style of GMing, but one step at a time. First, I have to GM this campaign, and I'm not actually good at GMing.

Now, I can build monsters all day long (I actually turned the entire 3.5 MM1 into Legend stubs (http://www.ruleofcool.com/smf/index.php/topic,1369.0.html)), and in certain systems (especially 4e), I'm pretty good at coming up with engaging combat environments, but when it comes to creating a consistent narrative with a good reason for the party to be fighting those monsters in those environments? Eh, not my strong suit. My 3.5 campaigns have been riddled with problems that I won't go into here, and I just don't really feel confident in my ability to make a campaign that's more engaging than "here's a series of rooms with monsters to fight in them; go through them one by one, because reasons." Add in the fact that Legend doesn't have any actual premade monsters yet (so if the PCs go in a direction I don't expect, I can't just grab the Monster Manual and find something appropriate—I have to build it from scratch), and it seems to me that I'm going to have better luck with a canned adventure than with something I come up with myself.

Yeah, canned adventures tend to be kind of corny and predictable, but this way, when it's corny and predictable, that's WotC's fault (or Paizo's fault, or whatever), not my fault. Now, of course, there are no premade adventures for Legend, so I'm going to have to take a 3.5 adventure and update it myself. That's not hard for me to do (like I said, I can build monsters all day long), but I'm not actually that familiar with a lot of 3.5 adventures. I've played a couple premade 4e adventures, but since Legend is much more strongly based on 3.5 than 4e, I don't think it would be a great idea to try to update a 4e adventure—plus, most of the people in this putative Legend game were the very people I played through those 4e adventures with, so the ones I'm actually familiar with are too familiar to be any good. But the point is that I've never played a premade 3.5 adventure, so I'm not sure what to look for.

So, we come to the meat of the question: what are your favorite premade 3.5 adventures, and why? I'm looking for something probably in a mid-level range—levels in 3.5 do not map to levels in Legend, and I know better than to try to get a one-to-one ratio, but the point is that I'm not looking for anything really low-level or anything really high-level. Don't worry too much about how easy it would be to update the monsters—as I've said, I'm good at building monsters, and if I can't make any of them match perfectly, I'll just make a new monster to take its place. Plot elements can remain just that—plot elements, so even if a spell or an item or a specific ability doesn't exist in Legend, anything that's critical to the module can be presented as a plot element. (For example, there's no hard and fast rules for planar travel in Legend, but if the adventure calls for the party to get Plane Shifted somewhere, then I'll have an NPC Plane Shift them somewhere. Just because there aren't PC rules for it doesn't mean I can't make it happen.) What I really need more than anything else is a starting point and a premade structure on which to hang the new system.

So, whatcha got? Any modules you've had good luck with in the past? Any modules you've read and want to run, even if you've never actually played them? I'd prefer it if the adventure isn't spread across ten different issues of Dragon or something (I mean, I can probably find them on Amazon or something, but I'd rather not have to), but if you've got something that's really good, I want to hear it, even if it would be a little fussy to find. I'd prefer to stay away from Pathfinder stuff, because while I know 3.5 like the back of my hand, I haven't really kept up with Pathfinder, so I can't read the statblocks as easily or have as intuitive a feel for what something actually does (and thus it will be harder to convert). That said, it's all being converted one way or another anyway, so if you've got something really good from Pathfinder, I'm still willing to listen. Any and all suggestions are welcome at this point.

[Just to Browse]

You can't use modules that require a great deal of out-of-combat power, so I recommend converting dungeon crawls. This is actually fairly good because old 3.5 designers didn't understand how high-level wizards could play, so there are dungeon crawls at both high and low levels. I enjoyed the Sunless Citadel and its sequels. The monsters tend to be pretty boring, so you can spice them up with some decent.

[Zaq]

Okay, that's a start. Thanks for the suggestion. Was Sunless Citadel published as a standalone book, or was it in Dungeon/Dragon? If it was in a magazine, which issue or issues do I need to track down?

[Larkas]

I'd recommend Rise of the Runelords. It's got all the storyline you'll need, so you can focus on what you're actually good at.

[Zaq]

Cool. The more suggestions I get, the better. My same question remains: where can I find this Rise of the Runelords? Is it just going to be as simple as looking for a book with that name, or am I going to have to track down several issues of a magazine (and, if so, which issues)?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Zaq
Was Sunless Citadel published as a standalone book, or was it in Dungeon/Dragon?

Sunless Citadel was a standalone 3.0 module, which my first 3.5 group had a lot of fun with. Still available from third-party sellers (http://www.amazon.com/Sunless-Citadel-Dungeons-Dragons-Adventure/dp/0786916400/) on Amazon.

Note that Sunless Citadel was intended for first-level characters; it's part of a loose progression of modules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=17071499&postcount=4) that takes PCs from first to nearly twentieth level.


Originally Posted by Zaq
My same question remains: where can I find this Rise of the Runelords?

Rise of the Runelords (http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Adventure-Path-Runelords-Anniversary/dp/1601254369/) has been reissued as a hardback collection, at the low, low price of all your money.

[dysprosium]

Has the Red Hand of Doom been suggested yet?

I have this module. Have had it for years but have not had a chance to run it yet.

[kellbyb]

I'd like to see Tomb of Horrors updated for Legend. I might even do it myself if college doesn't give me too much work.

...which means I'm never going to do it.

[Zaq]

I'd like to see Tomb of Horrors updated for Legend. I might even do it myself if college doesn't give me too much work.

...which means I'm never going to do it.

I updated and ran ToH in a Kobolds Ate My Baby! game, so I don't really feel the need to do it in Legend. I don't think it really fits the Legend paradigm, anyway, though it worked beautifully for KAMB.

[Eldan]

Desire and the Dead, which is available for free on Planewalker.

I've run it three times now with newer groups. Specifically, I like it because it's pretty much the only 3.5 adventure I know that's not the usual standard dungeon crawl/fightfest. PCs can go in with weapons swinging, but they are in a city most of the time and can retreat and rest as often as they want wihle solving a variety of mysteries and random encounters while trying to figure out how they are all connected. BEing in a city and hired in a semi-official capacity with the locals, they can also bring a lot of friends with them if they can make them among the locals. Diplomacy and investigation should go a lot farther than brute force, with few exceptions and the PCs can make a lot of useful political connections for later adventures.

[Zaq]

Desire and the Dead, which is available for free on Planewalker.

I've run it three times now with newer groups. Specifically, I like it because it's pretty much the only 3.5 adventure I know that's not the usual standard dungeon crawl/fightfest. PCs can go in with weapons swinging, but they are in a city most of the time and can retreat and rest as often as they want wihle solving a variety of mysteries and random encounters while trying to figure out how they are all connected. BEing in a city and hired in a semi-official capacity with the locals, they can also bring a lot of friends with them if they can make them among the locals. Diplomacy and investigation should go a lot farther than brute force, with few exceptions and the PCs can make a lot of useful political connections for later adventures.

Sounds interesting, and if it's free, you can't beat the price. Where is this Planewalker of which you speak?


Has the Red Hand of Doom been suggested yet?

I have this module. Have had it for years but have not had a chance to run it yet.

I've seen it mentioned here and there, but I've never looked into it. It seems to be relatively popular, at least. My same question keeps popping up: was it a standalone book, or was it in a magazine somewhere, and if so, which issue(s)?

[dysprosium]

I've seen it mentioned here and there, but I've never looked into it. It seems to be relatively popular, at least. My same question keeps popping up: was it a standalone book, or was it in a magazine somewhere, and if so, which issue(s)?

It was a stand alone adventure soft cover book.

[Eldan]

Sounds interesting, and if it's free, you can't beat the price. Where is this Planewalker of which you speak?

Planewalker.com, the semi-official 3.5 Planescape fansite. Sadly - and I just saw this for the first time - it seems their website crashed badly and they are recovering databases. They had several quite nice fan supplements out there, like their own campaign setting book, two monster manuals and several adventures, all with original art.

Though after some searching, it seems that the Mimir saved a copy. http://mimir.planewalker.com/sites/default/files/Desire_And_The_Dead.pdf

[Zaq]

Planewalker.com, the semi-official 3.5 Planescape fansite. Sadly - and I just saw this for the first time - it seems their website crashed badly and they are recovering databases. They had several quite nice fan supplements out there, like their own campaign setting book, two monster manuals and several adventures, all with original art.

Though after some searching, it seems that the Mimir saved a copy. http://mimir.planewalker.com/sites/default/files/Desire_And_The_Dead.pdf

Hmm. I've spent some time reading this Desire and the Dead, and while it's got some interesting parts, I'm not convinced it's what I'm looking for. For one, it's a little bit too low-level for the monsters to really map well to Legend—actual Legend characters (other than Mooks) always have something interesting about them. Legend doesn't do monsters that are just piles of numbers. (Well, okay, you can KINDA do that, but still, I can't do much to Legendify level 2 Monks and level 3 Fighters.) I think I need something a little bit higher level.

Also, the EL of the various encounters seemed to vary really wildly, which is something I'm mostly going to stay away from. Legend characters don't tend to get worn down the way 3.5 characters do, which is by design . . . but that means that throwing tons of little encounters against them is mostly just a waste of time. By the same token, it takes a fair bit of luck and really good tactics to beat an encounter that's even just a few levels above you, because in Legend, there's no such thing as a "dead level" that just makes a couple numbers bigger. You always get new abilities. So encounters that are too low-level just aren't going to be noticed (and since it's all but guaranteed that the PCs will recover any HP damage they take before the next encounter, they don't work to just grind the party's resources down much at all), and encounters that are too high-level are very likely to be lethal. I know that I'm the one converting these encounters to begin with, so it's up to me to make them fit or not fit the party's level, but the module seems to be very deliberate about making different encounters vary wildly in difficulty, and that just seems like one more obstacle I'd prefer to stay away from. Especially given just how puny the weak encounters are. I'd be making them up totally from scratch, because they've got absolutely nothing of interest to them.

I know that I'm not going to find a perfect module that requires no work from me to update it. 3.5 design principles are not Legend design principles, and that's okay. I'm fully aware that I'm going to have to do more than just Legendifying the monsters themselves—I'm going to have to Legendify the encounter structure, too. And that's okay. But I'm not convinced that Desire and the Dead is going to be what I'm after.

So, tl;dr: what else is out there? Anything more appropriate for a mid-level group? Of the ones that have been suggested in this thread, I see that Red Hand of Doom is the only one that doesn't start at or near level 1, so I'm kind of leaning towards that one for that alone. I'd love to get some more opinions, though, either vouching for or against Red Hand of Doom or suggesting something else.

[Eldan]

Well, it's a Planescape adventure. The idea is that really, combat should always be avoidable. Most can be talked through, for others, one can find allies or just ways to walk around them. I think my players got through it once with only one serious combat and in that, the tavern ogres did most of the fighting.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Zaq
So…what else is out there? Anything more appropriate for a mid-level group?

You might look at City of the Spider Queen, which is a book-length Forgotten Realms module intended to take characters from tenth to eighteenth level. That might be a little farther than you had in mind, and it may have more encounters than you'd want to run through, but it might have some interesting elements you could adapt.

It's 3.0 rather than 3.5, but that probably won't matter much if you're converting to a different system.

[Zaq]

You might look at City of the Spider Queen, which is a book-length Forgotten Realms module intended to take characters from tenth to eighteenth level. That might be a little farther than you had in mind, and it may have more encounters than you'd want to run through, but it might have some interesting elements you could adapt.

It's 3.0 rather than 3.5, but that probably won't matter much if you're converting to a different system.

Hmm. I'll consider it. It's definitely a better starting level than most of the other suggestions. Of course, it sounds like it involves drow, huh? I'l be honest, I tend to get sick of drow pretty quickly. (At least it's not fire giants. I'm pretty sure my party would stand up and walk out if the adventure centered around fire giants.)

And Eldan, while it's admirable in some sense for an adventure module to have a "fighting should not be the first resort" attitude, I will mention that my goal is to get people used to a new system, and it's a new system that's arguably even more combat-centric than 3.5 is (if for no other reason than that there are fewer abilities that have no combat use and are just for utility/problem-solving). Like I said, I do want there to be a little bit more than "here's a series of rooms with monsters in them," but an adventure where we're just talking our way out of everything isn't going to give us a good feel for how the system really works (especially when I have to convert all the Diplomacy/Sense Motive/whatever DCs on the fly, because the skills scale slightly differently). I think Desire and the Dead (or something in its vein) might make a decent second adventure, but for the purposes of getting our feet wet with a new system, I think we need something a little more action-oriented.