The Shackled City Adventure Path (5Th Edition)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Shackled City Adventure Path (5th Edition) Conversion Guide Introduction: Originally published in Dungeon® Magazine, the Shackled City Adventure Path is a series of adventures for 3rd Edition DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®. It was subsequently updated to 3rd Edition (v.3.5), bundled, and sold in hardcover. I picked it up in 2007 and ran the entire campaign for a superb team of players over seven years. When everything was said-and-done, the consensus was that no campaign in our combined 100+ year D&D gaming careers came close to the detail, intrigue, and immersion offered by this adventure path. My new 5th Edition group really wanted to give the campaign a try, so I decided to convert the adventure path. A several hundred-hour adventure for 1st–20th level characters by Roy Simpson ([email protected]) DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms, the dragon ampersand, Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, Dungeon Master’s Guide, D&D Adventurers League, all other Wizards of the Coast product names, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast in the USA and other countries. All characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast. This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America.Sample Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permissionfile of Wizards of the Coast. ©2016 Wizards of the Coast LLC, PO Box 707, Renton, WA 98057-0707, USA. Manufactured by Hasbro SA, Rue Emile-Boéchat 31, 2800 Delémont, CH. Represented by Hasbro Europe, 4 The Square, Stockley Park, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB11 1ET, UK. CONVERSION PREFACE CONVERSION GUIDE REQUIRED TEXTS CAMPAIGN SETTING The Shackled City Adventure Path is required to use this To conform to the guidelines on DMsGuild.com, I have document. All comments are based solely on the 3rd Edition removed all references to Greyhawk-specific content from (v.3.5) hardcover edition; however, you can get by with the this conversion even though the original adventure path was DUNGEON MAGAZINE 3rd Edition issues (97, 98, 102, 104, set in that campaign setting. 107, 109, 111, 113 – 116). If you plan on running this campaign using the magazines, Storyline Modification. Greyhawk Deities there will be some discrepancies in content and titles, but The deities mentioned in the Shackled City Adventure nothing you can’t overcome. It is important to note that Path are from the Greyhawk campaign setting. Chapter 2 of the hardcover (Drakthar’s Way) does not exist Typically, it would be a simple matter to swap deities in the DUNGEON MAGAZINE issues. Therefore, you will need for their Forgotten Realms counterparts; however, the to supplement a short adventure to get the characters up to original adventure path relies heavily on some of these an appropriate level to begin Chapter 3 (Flood Season). gods, and, as such, you might have some significant The following core books are necessary to properly run this conversions to go through. For convenience, I am listing campaign. the prominent deities mentioned in the Shackled City Player’s Handbook, Adventure Path and their counterparts in the Forgotten Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Realms here. Monster Manual Erythnul = either Cyric or Malar Farhlanghn = Selune or Shaundakul OPTIONAL TEXTS Heironeous = Torm or Tyr Hextor = Bane or Loviatar Additionally, I used quite a few other resources in the process Kord = Lathander (sports), Tempus, or Uthgar of this conversion. Many creatures from the original Nerull = Cyric or Talona adventure path do not exist in the core DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Olidammarra = Oghma, Sune, or Tymora rulebooks. As such, you will often find I have replaced the Pelor = Ilmater, Lathander, or Torm original creatures with some from the following optional St. Cuthbert = Helm, Hoar, or Tyr sources. If you only have the Monster Manual as a sourcebook for creatures, then you will have to get creative. Vecna = Shar or Velsharoon Wizards of the Coast Wee Jas = Azuth or Kelemvor o Xanathar’s Guide to Everything o Volo’s Guide to Monsters MAGIC IN 5TH EDITION o Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes Kobold Press Every edition of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS has “sticky” issues that o Creature Codex make it difficult to convert. In the case of this conversion o Tome of Beasts from the 3rd Edition (v.3.5) Shackled City Adventure Path to a Frog God Games 5th Edition version, one major hurdle concerns magic. More o Tome of Horrors specifically, 5th Edition’s dearth of permanent magical Necromancer Games effects and the restructuring of the power level for initiate o Fifth Edition Foes casters has caused plenty of conversion and logic issues (see Nerzugal Role-Playing 5th Edition Storyline Conversion: Take No Prisoners!). o Nerzugal’s Extended Bestiary As stated in the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS IP Guide, rules “aren’t Nord Games meant to be broken! Don’t do it. You weaken the IP by o Ultimate Bestiary: Revenge of the Horde breaking through its boundaries.” Thus, we “converters” are Community Content on DMsGuild.com stuck between a rock (5th Edition ruleset) and a hard place o Monster Manual Expanded by Dragonix (situations written into the original adventure path as a Sample Monster Manual Expanded II by Dragonix file o significant part of the storyline, which are difficult or 2 o Critter Compendium by Isabel Beis impossible to explain away in 5th Edition). As a result, I try my best to explain, using 5th Edition mechanics and rules, why specific effects exist. If no such mechanic can be found, the effect is either removed from the Shackled City Adventure Path entirely or is restructured completely to fit 5th Edition’s The magnitudes are in three levels and are up to the DM to ruleset. decide precisely what they mean, but I use the following rule of thumb. Imperceptable (e.g., whispers, onion smell) = 10’ radius CREATING Minor (e.g., talking, torch, fesces smell) = 30’ radius CHALLENGING Moderate (e.g., armor clanking, rancid odor) = 60’ radius Major (e.g., yelling, daylight spell) > 60’ radius ENCOUNTERS In my 3rd Edition (v.3.5) campaign, the adventure path was challenging for my five players. For reference, there was a cleric, bard, fighter, thief, and ranger. All of the characters started at first level. My 5th Edition campaign also has five players. The PCs consist of a fighter, thief, ranger, wizard, and monk. It did not take long for me to realize how overpowered this group is compared to the group from my previous campaign (mind you, three of the players in this new campaign are brand new to DUNGEONS & DRAGONS). I highly recommend using the creatures and numbers of creatures presented in this conversion as a loose guide. The action economy 5th Edition focuses on destroys many of the main encounters in this adventure path because the original design involved “big boss battles” against a single, high-level opponent. In 5th Edition, this style of encounter is underwhelming for the PCs. I have tried to gauge what would be appropriate for a party of four characters. Still, you need to be able to adjust these numbers if your group is larger or smaller. I often found myself nearly doubling the number of opponents in an encounter. The original adventure path relied heavily on draining resources to scale encounters; however, the built-in short- and long-rest mechanics of 5th Edition make such scaling difficult. You might need to increase the tempo of action to disallow short rests or (a common tactic of mine) interrupt short and long rests with wandering monsters. As a DM, you need to flex your creative energies with this adventure path. I promise that this campaign is worth the years you spent running it, but the effort involved in keeping track of things and keeping encounters challenging for the players will be immense. COMMUNITY-DRIVEN CHANGES I am using a lot of the community-driven changes to the storyline for this adventure path. I did this the first time I ran this campaign, and it made the flow much better. It not only makes the connections more sensical, but it also foreshadows the bigger storyline so the main “bad guys” don’t end up feeling like strangers when finally encountered. SENSES Some maps are very dense in this campaign, and sounds, smells, light effects, and energy emanations will travel. As such, I try to preface each area with a “sense magnitude” level for the following six senses. Touch – this includes heat, cold, etc. Sight HearingSample file Smell 3 Taste Vibe – this is used mainly as the “creepy” effect. SKILL CONVERSIONS DC CONVERSIONS I have tried to convert all the 3rd Edition (v.3.5) skills to their The following is a list of DC conversions between 3rd Edition 5th Edition equivalents, but just in case I missed any, here is (v.3.5) and 5th Edition. I chose to go with the conversion my conversion list. formula Also, note that there were several times where the ability 0.75 . 5 5. did not match the skill being used. For example, during the Remember to round down to the nearest whole number. Demonskar Ball, there are several dance competitions. I 3rd Edition (v.3.5) DC 5th Edition DC chose to use Dex (Performance) rather than Cha 5 and below same (Performance) in those instances. This is just a reminder 9 – 10 8 that you (the DM) have the flexibility and final say in how the 12 10 rules are applied. 13 – 14 11 rd th 3 Edition (v.3.5) 5 Edition Skill/Ability 15 12 Skill 17 – 18 14 Appraise Int 19 15 Balance Dex (Acrobatics) 20 16 Bluff Cha (Persuasion)