With that said, here's the catch: Recent events in my life have limited the time I have to prepare for our gaming sessions, therefore I'm thinking strongly about using slightly modified premade modules rather that scratch designing my adventures. Since I haven't had any luck finding any of the limited number of Dark Sun modules TSR released back in the day for a reasonable price that leaves me with more recent modules released for other settings that would have to be converted to be compatible with Dark Sun. Thats where you blokes come in.
I would like some feedback on which of two premade adventures to use, and then once I've made that decision I would like to use this thread as a sounding board for my conversions. Think you can help me with that? It would be very much appreciated.
The two adventures I'm considering are "The Red Hand of Doom" and "Worlds Largest Dungeon" Both have a lot of pro's and con's and I can quickly concieve of a basic converted premise for each.
Lets start with "Red Hand of Doom". The Red Hand, rather than being a conquering army of Hobgoblins could be a conquering Draji Army, setting across the wastes conquering villiages as they make their way on another City State. Major stumbling blocks here are the fairly heavy divine connection, and the reliance on Dragons. These points would take the most conversion work. A few of the good points are that the Higher starting ECL would allow for Half-giant, Kreen, Mul, and Aarokacra PCs, and that it would get the PCs out into the wastes of the tablelands and give them a more complete picture of the Darksun Experience.
World's Largest Dungeon on the other hand is written with a very loose story that could easily be altered, and infact almost has to be in order to be playable. I envision the discovery a long lost ruin, from the green age, which some Sorcerer-King envisions as the greatest arena of all time. The PCs are introduced into the campaign as slaves thrown into the dungeon to compete against gladiators from every city state from across the wastes to see who can survive. The orginal theme of the Dungeon as the prison of a powerful demon need not be changed, its not necessary that the Sorcerer-King who discovered the ruin and began the tournement knows the ruins true purpose. The biggest hurdle here is the conversion of Monsters to more appropriate Athasian creatures, though many of the SRD creatures would be fine on Athas others would have to change either because their not thematically suited to Athas (like aquatic creatures), or explicitly don't exist on Athas (like Orcs).
Right now I'm leaning towards World's Largest Dungeon, what does everyone think?
Lets start with "Red Hand of Doom"....
Change it from hobgobins to gith. Instead of ties to Tiamat make it that its a cult tied to one of elemental lords or elemental princes (Imix, Ogremach, etc...). That would fit DS pretty nicely.
World's Largest Dungeon on the other hand is written with a very loose story that could easily be altered...
WLD would be trickier to covert IMO. I'm currently a player in a WLD campaign and can see the difficulties you would go thru in trying to make it Athasian. You could tie it to Rajaat in that its his prison vs that of a demon lord. Even still, you would have your work cut out for you.
If your up for the challenge go with WLD. However, if your going to invest all that time doing major conversions (and believe me, you will) to THE biggest module/adventure ever to be created you could find the time to plan your own original adventures. I'd suggest going to RHoD due to the light conversion work needed for it in order to make it fit DS.
Hope that was at least somewhat helpful/useful
Change it from hobgobins to gith. Instead of ties to Tiamat make it that its a cult tied to one of elemental lords or elemental prince (Imix, Ogremach, etc...). That would fit DS to nicely.
I thought the same thing, and this would in some ways be the simpler of the two to convert, but it is also the one that requires me to have greater knowledge of the setting, since its been 10 years since I last played a DS campaign and this would be my first time behind the screen on such a game I think the relative isolation and self contained nature of WLD might allow me to ease into the setting again, before tackling the tablelands as a whole.
WLD would be trickier to covert IMO. I'm currently a player in a WLD campaign and can see the difficulties you would go thru in trying to make it Athasian. You could tie it to Rajaat in that its his prison vs that of a demon lord.
Rajaat was my plan for the imprisoned one. I'm not sure I agree that it would necessarily be more work, granted I've only read through regions A and B, but so far it seems as simple as changing some of the NPCs and monsters the PCs encounter.
If your up for the challenge go with WLD. However, if your going to invest all that time doing major conversions (and believe me, you will) THE biggest module/adventure ever to be created you could find the time to plan your own original adventures. I'd suggest going to RHoD due to the light conversion work needed for it in order to make it fit DS.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll be making my decision soon and then will get to work on the conversion. Your thoughts have been a big help.
Anyone else have any thoughts?
Thanks for the feedback. I'll be making my decision soon and then will get to work on the conversion. Your thoughts have been a big help.
No prob.
One last idea for WLD. Instead of Rajaat you could make it that its a prison for a insanely powerful rhulisti nature-bender locked away by the nature-masters shortly before the Rebirth and the start of the Green Age.
The next question then is where to set it. I was thinking the region around the smoking ring mountains had most the necessary terrians to run the module. Probably use the forest rim instead of the Wyrmsmoke mountains. What does everyone think?
Honestly magic would be a huge problem in the dungeon due to the nearly complete lack of plant life in such a huge area.
Does anyone implements delays when wizard characters draw their energy while underground or in the middle of a vast defiled patch? In Cleft Rock Sadira had difficulty pulling energy because of the nature of the porous stone around her, but for a while she could, as long as she stayed near the exit and called on energy from outside of the area. Also, when she tries to do battle with Nok in hte desert, IIRC, she has to get her energy from farther away than usual because the ground underneath her is defiled over a large area.
Maybe in those circumstances a delay of 1 round would be appropriate.
Thoughts?
For Antagonists I was thinking what if the Red hand were an army of Dray, replace the clerics from the adventure with Templars, changing any ties to Tiamat to Dregoth. Also with thier genocidal hatred of Surface dwellers it makes sense that eventually a charismatic Dray would raise an army.
With the antagonists thusly pinned down, it simplifies the choice of location, since, if I remeber my Athasian geography correctly, the Dray would be marching out of the south, near the deadlands. Suitable areas near there could be Walis or Kalidnay.
All that leaves is a hook. Once the PCs are aware of the Red Hand and the threat they pose self preservation may be hook enough, but an initial motivation for the PCs to encounter this plot is still necessary. Since my players are new to Dark sun I would like to give them a taste of life in the City states, so starting in Balic seems like a good idea. I'm toying with the idea of starting the PCs as gladitorial slaves in Balic and play out there escape as an introdutory adventure, its kind of a cliche way for a darksun game to begin, but since my players have never played darksun cliches might be just what the doctor ordered. If I use the gladitorial escape hook I could have NPCs hint at Walis as a good place to lay low where the templars of Balic have less influence and the PCs could escape there persuit. This leaves them destitute former slaves hiding in a free wasteland villiage in the middle of nowhere, at that point a few ceramic from the town speaker should be all the motivation I need.
What do people think?
Does anyone implements delays when wizard characters draw their energy while underground or in the middle of a vast defiled patch? In Cleft Rock Sadira had difficulty pulling energy because of the nature of the porous stone around her, but for a while she could, as long as she stayed near the exit and called on energy from outside of the area. Also, when she tries to do battle with Nok in hte desert, IIRC, she has to get her energy from farther away than usual because the ground underneath her is defiled over a large area.
Maybe in those circumstances a delay of 1 round would be appropriate.
Thoughts?
I pretty much butchered the magic system for my DS game, and although I don't impose a casting delay for situations like that (given that a round is 6 seconds long, an extra second or two spent summoning spell energy probably won't make that big of a difference), I do require a Spellcraft roll with a DC based on the terrain whenever a spellcaster casts - if they fail they suffer some sort of penalty to the casting, based on their caster type (I have defilers, preservers, necromants and shadow wizards as base variants of the wizard class rather than the latter two as prestige classes), and if they succeed by 10 or more they gain a bonus of some sort. For those rolls, preservers or defilers standing in a defiled area count as being in terrain 1 step worse than normal (IIRC...hehe I don't even remember my house rules half the time).
The only problem I see with that is that it stomps all over the adventure Dregoth Ascending. You might as well run that instead of RHoD if you tie it to Dregoth.
Actually I wasn't aware of Dregoth Ascending until after I made my previous post, and at the moment I'm getting a 404 error when I try to read the first part of the adventure.
For Antagonists I was thinking what if the Red hand were an army of Dray, replace the clerics from the adventure with Templars, changing any ties to Tiamat to Dregoth. Also with thier genocidal hatred of Surface dwellers it makes sense that eventually a charismatic Dray would raise an army.
With the antagonists thusly pinned down, it simplifies the choice of location, since, if I remeber my Athasian geography correctly, the Dray would be marching out of the south, near the deadlands. Suitable areas near there could be Walis or Kalidnay.
The city of Guistenal, from which the Dray hail is located on the Western Shore of what was once known as the sunrise sea, nearest to Raam and the Ivory Triangle Region. The deadlands are located in the southern most reaches of the known world (released maps). The Ivory Triangle, Esturary of the Forked Tongue and Endless Sand Dunes seperate the two.
Actually I wasn't aware of Dregoth Ascending until after I made my previous post, and at the moment I'm getting a 404 error when I try to read the first part of the adventure.
I was able to view it with no problem. When you're able to view it, give it a once over. You'll see that it's a pretty good adventure.
I was able to view it with no problem. When you're able to view it, give it a once over. You'll see that it's a pretty good adventure.
I'm still getting a 404 error, both at home and at the office. I'll keep trying. It seems that the second part starts at Lv 13, what is the level range on the first?
Maybe Red Hand could be run an adjunct of the Kreen invasion, of course I would have to do some more research on that.
I'm still getting a 404 error, both at home and at the office. I'll keep trying. It seems that the second part starts at Lv 13, what is the level range on the first?
Maybe Red Hand could be run an adjunct of the Kreen invasion, of course I would have to do some more research on that.
Its pretty high level. The whole adventure is for 12th-16th level characters. For RHoD, instead of dray or gith you could always have it be an elf or slave tribe.
I'm still getting a 404 error, both at home and at the office. I'll keep trying.
The only part of the site that doesn't seem to work for me is the picture of Sadira on the main page - it shows a missing image.
What is the link you are trying to access? This one works for me:
http://www.athas.org/releases/dregothascending/da_chapter3-alpha1.pdf
The only part of the site that doesn't seem to work for me is the picture of Sadira on the main page - it shows a missing image.
What is the link you are trying to access? This one works for me:
http://www.athas.org/releases/dregothascending/da_chapter3-alpha1.pdf
That link you provided is to the third part of a 3 part adventure, I have no problems downloading parts 2 or 3 its part 1 that is missing.
Here's the link that should take you to part one:
http://www.athas.org/releases/dregothascending/da_part_1_v1.1.pdf
That link you provided is to the third part of a 3 part adventure, I have no problems downloading parts 2 or 3 its part 1 that is missing.
Here's the link that should take you to part one:
http://www.athas.org/releases/dregothascending/da_part_1_v1.1.pdf
oops, my bad... didn't read your post closely enough
and yes that link does not work for me either, flip must be having technical difficulties I guess?