D&D 3E/3.5 3E converted adventures

[Vander]

Is it just me, or are the converted "classic" adventures much, much tougher than the originals.
My group has characters much tougher than 32 pt. buy, and we are getting slaughtered in the Rod of Seven Parts, and are getting our %&@* handed to us in the converted Keep on the Border Lands.
Now, I know these are not "official" conversions, but the creators seem to have gone off the deep end in nostalgia. I mean, my group is experienced. Most of us have played for over 15 years, and the DM insists he is not beefing up the encounters for us. He seems to be enjoying handing our heads to us every session.
Just wondering if its just me, or what?

 

[dcollins]

The most important thing to realize in this regard is that the expected number of players has changed between ruleset editions. Most 1st Edition AD&D adventures expected 5-10 player characters, not the "4 average" now expected -- you can check this on one of the first pages of any of the adventures you're talking about.

This is why it's important for conversions to also calculate the current "Encounter Level" for any encounter, and probably need to boost the expected levels of the PCs from what was originally listed. Or else allow hiring of significant mercanaries/ NPC adventurers/ cohorts/ players running multpile characters, etc.

 

[kamosa]

It could also be that the monsters have been bumped up in 3E. I've noticed the most mid and high level monsters are quite a bit tougher then their 1E and 2E brothers. I think this was done with all the best intentions as the PC's are much tougher then they were in 2E (Rogues and Priests BAB is much better then 2e Thaco's etc...) It just means that if you do a straight conversion, you can get quite a bit tougher module then you had before.

That's why I'm not looking to run "Against the Giants" anytime soon against my PC's.

JMTC

 

[exempt]

Agreed -- converted modules do seem to be over the top with regards to the character level they're supposed to cater to.

To teach ourselves 3e, we ran Return to Keep on the Borderlands, which was for levels 1-3. It was indeed tough, and by the end, if some slick, rotten, good-for-nothing DM hadn't messed with the XP, they would have been level 5 by the time it was done. That is, there were enough monsters in there to "feed" a 1-5 level progression, and we were playing with 6 characters!

 

[Albereth]

That's why I'm not looking to run "Against the Giants" anytime soon against my PC's.

Sure you aren't I can just see the glee escaping from that DMs eyes already.