Temple of Elemental Evil pnp conversion to 4e

I'm currently working on converting the old module to 4e d&d because that is what my group plays and none of them have played the old module (except one) or the crpg. I'm not looking for a debate on the merits or short coming of 4e, the edition of the game is irrelavant to the story and the aid i am seeking here.

I figured this was the place to ask for some advice especially since alot of you guys played the orignal as well.

My plan is too run two seperate groups in the campaign simultaniously. One "good" group and one "evil" group. The good group will be starting in Hommlet and the evil group will start in Nulb. The idea is to run the good group through the story basically as it was intended, but the evil group will be potential recruits for the temple. My plan is to keep the groups seperate long enough for the bad group to get recruited by the temple faction of their choice while the good group explores the upper temple levels. Eventually i want a conflict between the two groups to happen where one or the other is destroyed.

So i don't really need much advice for the good group since the stage is already set for them, so i guess what i need is to flesh Nulb out a little more for the evil group and some bad guy quest ideas. I figured they show up in town looking for work with out to much concern for the type of work, and start out with Rentch giving them orders to hit some caravans. So they do some bandit type work, start working for Lareth shortly after and be out doing their banditry when lareth gets dealt with. Then from there they get recruited to one of the temples and so forth.

I am planing on using some of the quests from the CRPG, especiaclly the Nulb quests, even though they weren't in the module to help flesh out Nulb and the temple. I guess what i need mostly are some ideas on some other quests that might be apropriate to the setting that will keep the evil group occupied and out of the way of the good group. I want to keep the story set in this area and not to much travel abroad.

Also i might borrow some of the material that this group has created for the crpg as some of it will fit nicely into my plans.

I don't know how familiar the folks on these boards are with 4e but there is a game element called background that gives some minor bonus to characters based on their chosen background. I am planing on doing something similar to give each character a reason to be in the game. I am calling this motive, i am planning on having a couple different ones for the players to choose and keep secret from each other as their might be spies in either camp. I need motives for each group that are apropriate to the story and some kind of game benifit for each as well. Any ideas on this would be welcome as well, even if you are not familar with 4e edition any good motive ideas are welcome, i can come up with my own in game benfits if need be. I will post those i have already thought of in another post below.

Lastly i was wondering if there is a way to access the portraits of the npcs for the crpg. I use masterplan for dming and would like the visual aids for npcs that are being spoken too. For those that aren't familiar with masterplan, it is a dming software that allows you to run 4e campaigns and encounters from a pc and project a player view with a projector.

 

Good group:
-Spy for temple: Make contact with the Hommlet spys and aid them if possible on their mission
-Secret agent of the church: Find out what happened to the cannoness Y'day and aid her mission if possible.
-Treasure seeker: Find treasure and wealth
-Glory Seeker: Make a name for yourself.
-Prince Thrommel retainer: Find the prince or what happened to him
-Veterns child: Child of a vetern of the temple war, could be from either side.
-Vetern of the temple war: Again could be from either side, looking to finish what was started.
-Eladrin/Elven court agent: Investigate the strange goings on in the area
-Merchant house agent: Look into the missing caravans
-Sage: Looking for lost knowledge

Evil group:
-Veterns child: Child of a vetern of the temple war, could be from either side.
-Vetern of the temple war: Again could be from either side, looking to finish what was started.
-Secret agent of the church: Find out what happened to the cannoness Y'day and aid her mission if possible.
-Treasure seeker: Find treasure and wealth
-Glory Seeker: Make a name for yourself.
-Assassin in training: Smigmal has planted you in the group to prove your worth before you become a full fledged member.
-cultist: looking for a powerful being to call master

I will add more as i think of them or those i like from suggestions from you guys.

 

No one is answering. I gave it three days.

I think most, if not all, and I hate to say it, but myself included, are not embracing 4e at all.

Of course I got the first Player's Handbook, and looked at the DMG. It just plays more like an MMO or minatures and grid or even Card game than DnD to me.

Of course I could be way out in left field by myself, and it simply may be that after years and years of working(and working and working) on interpreting and incorporating the 3.5 RAW (Rules As Written) into this game, the prospect of converting it to 4e is beyond dauniting. It is impossible to contemplate.

But, if you are going to start working on it, wy to freakin go man!

I'd try it.

 

well as i said the version of the game is irrelevant to the guidenance i am seeking here. I understand the hang ups alot of people have with 4e and i see no reason to argue the merits of it or older editions. Hell i started back in AD&D (god i hated the math ascociated with THAC0) and made the reluctant move to 3e and 3.5 again later (both of which i enjoyed), and i don't know why but i and my group enjoy 4e (although my wife is still on the fence).

So despite the edition of the game i plan on running i still believe the story is the most import part and i feel there is a nice full compelling story for the forces of good but to run my second "counter" group with the bad guys i need more fluff/filler.

So i ask again for people to look past the game mechanics and give me some ideas based purely on story. I asked here because i have been a hard-core lurker for years and devoted fan of work that CO8 has done to make a nearly unplayable game (another Atari "jewel" if you will) into a great game i have beat many times and i respect the wealth of knowledge that the group has in regards to this module and the experience that many also have had playing it in pnp (which i never had the pleasure of).

If no one wants to offer any help, oh well. I am working on making this happen regardless and i will even post some of the story elements here if anyone is interested, hell i'll even post my masterplan* file when i'm done if anyone wants to run the campaign in 4e at some point themselves.

Regardless of the help or lack there of here i will continue to be a die hard lurker enjoying the great work that CO8 has done on this game and i hope they keep it up.

Thanks for at least reading this

 

I simply don't understand. Isn't background up to the PC's player? or are you handing your group pre-generated PCs?

NPC portraits- you can extract the "mug shots", but there will be no larger portrait for the inventory screen.

I'm not having to "look past" any 4e issues, I'm just not sure what you are asking. Okay?

 

in 4e their is a game element called background, this element helps give you some guidence in regards to where your character came from. I am adding an additional element called motive, kind of the samething, that will be more closely related to the story/campaign. the players can still feel free to come up with their background as they see fit but i just want to give a little guideance for their more recent background and a reason for why they are in either hommlett or nulb to begin with.

 

my plan here is for strictly pnp play, i don't know if i was clear on that. I have no programming skill what so ever and this has nothing to do with the crpg except that i plan on stealing some quests and npcs from the pc game that werent in the module.

i had a feeling that if there were any portraits i could access for the npcs that they might be to small for my purposes but oh well, couldn't hurt to ask.

 

darkfeld01, I'm in a similar situation to you.

I'm currently writing a 4ED module to publish for PnP play (I expect to make no money - its more a labor of love). Like many here I cut my teeth on the Gygax modules of old and enjoy that style of play, learning the 4E rules and adapting a game and expectations to 4e can be a challenge.

One of the things that helped me was taking a look at the 4E conversion that WotC did for Temple of Homlett (my friend had a copy, but you can find them on eBay). It really helped me how to write the "story" sections in 4E parlance and then how to convert the combat encounters to the new 4E guidelines. Writing for publishing is very different than writing for your DM'ing for your friend - if you're not indending the module to publish I think the biggest challenge you'll really have is the monster conversions. Still, if yoiu're going to go down that path, it would be worth trying to find that Homlett conversion module.

Good look with your project.

 

thanks for the advice. i have the access to the monsters for the hommlett 4e conversion through my DDI account, so that isn't to bad. Maybe i will pick up the module and check it out in full.

 

This won't help you at all, but that sounds like an awesome idea!

 

It sounded like you wanted to keep the bad group away from the good group, but there are many quests you could share, or that could even balance off of each other.

I have never played the PNP version, but here are a few just based off of the video game:
If the good guys let the gnolls in the moat house go, the bad group could be given the go ahead by Lareth or a related bad guy to hunt them down as traitors.

Mona could hire the bad group to kill Mickey to get her orb back.

The temple is made up of many different types of creatures. These had to be recruited from somewhere. Missions to recruit through intimidation, diplomacy, or non lethal damage could all be good for the bad guys.

The bad group could also be given specific tasks that aren't currently directly related to the campaign. Maybe they need to assisinate Terjon or the annoying cleric who asks for gold when you walk in. Hommlet has a strong druidic presence, so perhaps they are given tasks to specifically upset the balance and screw with Jaroo.

If I were you I would also work in something regarding the jeweler in Hommlett if for no other reason then just the fact that I am always frustrated I can never get that guy to talk to me about his past!

As for backgrounds and benefits, I think most of the benefits could relate to +2 to various skill checks. I play 4e myself and always thought it would be cool to expand on the Ankul benefits and have others that give different resistances. Here are a few more ideas for those things:

Magic Adept: +2 to aracana.
Verbobonc deserter: evil side, could relate to a dispute with his old commanding officer, disagreement with local politics, etc.
Raised by wolves: bonus to nature check. Good side. Probably some type of jaroo connection.
Pirate: This one just seems to obvious with Tolub and all....
Working lady: evil side I would assume. One of the ladies finally wants out of the business for good!
Craftsman: bonus to diplomacy or nature? Someone local to Hommlett? Millers apprentice, etc?

Sorry for the late reply, but I hope these help.

 

I am going to be running the first group (the bad guys) through the first session very soon, followed by the good guys two weeks later.

Taldaas you are thinking like me on this, i am having the bad group start by being sent by Rentch to work for Lareth. Their first mission is to hit a caravan that will have Zert as an in side man, Zert then heads to Hommlett where he will later meet the good guys. Mission 2 for Lareth is to recruit a local tribe of Gnolls that has been working independantly in the area, if they refuse to join then they are to be wiped out, if they do join then they will be there when the good guys sweep the moathouse. Mission 3 is to kill some rangers scouting the area to close for comfort in Lareths opinion. When the bad group returns to the Moathouse via the secret entrance they will find Zert, Toruko, Kobort dead (having been killed by the good guys after killing Lareth, because i really want to steal the big three encounter) and then Lareth dead as well.

So the first few missions should be able to stretch out till the good guys finish the moat house. Then they are pretty much forced to go back to Rentch and report on the moathouse happenings. From there i figured they can do some Nulb quests and eventually get sent by Rentch to the temple proper where the elemenatal factions will vie for them to join.

I am thinking that i will have to send the bad guys out of the way for awhile and they might be going to Verbo to do some dirty deeds to wreak havoc there and draw attention away from the goings on in the Hommlett region. We'll see how things play out.

I originally wanted a huge blow out brawl, probably at the Hedrak fight with Iuz and Cuthbert (especially since i have characrters from either group worshipping these gods), but i am thinking about pushing the bad guys to get the golden orb and run with it to bring it to Iuz' domain in the mortal realm with the good guys in hot pursuit. We'll see how the chips fall down the line.

 

Speaking of ToEE and conversions to 4th Edition, there's an interesting article by one of the more popular D&D bloggers about how he's running his own 4ED version of ToEE

Read it here

 

So ran the first session with my "bad guys" group.

Party consists of the folllowing:
-Human Rogue, Motive is child of a veteran of the temple war: His father disapeared when he was a kid to fight in the war, his uncle who was raising him dumped him in an orpahange shortly there after where he eventually ended up joining a thieves guild. He has now run away from the guild at age 17 and has come to the hommlett area to find out what happened to his father who never returned.

-Tiefling Paladin of Vecna, (pallys don't have to be lawful good in 4e), he is a secret agent of the temple of Vecna, he is masquarding as a paladin of Ioun the god of knowledge and magical study. He is trying to infiltrate the temple and see how he can exploit it for Vecnas purposes.

-Changeling Bard, Former river pirate based out of Nulb. His capatain was over thrown in a mutiny led by Grud Squinteye the first mate and captain Tolub who wanted to expand his fleet of ships. He left for awhile to explore greener pastures but after getting into some trouble he had to take up refuge from the law in Nulb again. He has since seen the prominence that Tolub has risen to and plan to kill him at some point.

-Wilden Shaman (wilden are like natures version of white blood cells, they are fey creatures that nature spits out to combat terrible tragedies in nature). She was born from nature after the battle of emeridy meadows, she has been harrasing caravans bound for hommlett because those defilers have been cutting down trees, keeping animals in pens and building a huge structre that is an afront to nature. She is attempting to join the temple to unleash the raw forces of nature on the human blight on the land.

-Deva Invoker (Deva are the new Aasimar, they are kind of like cylons in that when one dies they are reborn at a sacred rebirth sight, invoker is like the divine version of a wizard calling down holy fire and blasting undead), He is an Invoker of Iuz sent to infiltrate the temple from the ground up and report back on whether things are being managed properly. He is to gain admitance to the greater temple and decide if Hedrak can be allowed to keep leading or replace him otherwise. He was reborn 10 years ago and at the time of his rebirth Iuz himself was there to recruit him and train him as an Invoker. Unbeknownst to the player/chracter he was fought in the tmple war on the side of good as an invoker of st. cuthbert, after his death Iuz grabbed him to use him against st. cuthberts followers and his own old allies including Otis, Black Jay, Terjon, Jaroo and others that fought in the temple war.

 

I had one party member not able to make it, so they went on with only four, missing the deva invoker.

The session started with the party meeting with Rentch to find work. He hires them and send them out to the moathouse secret entrance to find their new boss. Lareth feels them out and decides to test their capabilities by sending them to ambush a caravan headed for Hommlett. They hit the caravan with the aid of the inside man Zert and get their hands on a wagon and some supplies for the men stationed at the moathouse. Zert takes his leave and head to Hommlett to spy some and try to join the next caravan to join.

Lareth quickly sends them on another mission to deliver a large spider he has been raising that is ready to lay eggs. He wants the spider brought to the Deklo grove that Jaroo has sanctified and decreed as the area that Hommletts people are allowed to cut trees from. Lareth plans to let the spider free there so that it will force Jaroo to find a new spot to cull trees from or relocate the spiders, this should slow down production of the keep that "those misbegotten hasbeen adventures" are building. The party fails the skill challange to get the spider in the wagon to the grove and end up crashing the wagon. The spider attacks them but instead of fighting back they lead the spider on foot the rest of the way to the grove and to a rabit hovel to feast, they sneak away leaving the spider where they were directed to.

Lareth is pleased because Lloth is entertained by their work. He sends them off again to recruit a tribe of gnolls that have been harrassing both caravans and the bandits that Lareth employs. If they can not be recruited they are to be killed. The party ends up following the wrond canine tracks and ends up in a dire wolf den, they kill the wolves and get back on track. They find the gnoll lair and parlay with the chief, they convince him that the moathouse dungeons are a safer and better lair and that the new master will take care of them. They all join happily, which Lareth is thrilled about upon news that the entire tribe was recruited instead of some or all killed.

He is impressed with their work thus far, having shown themselves capable of fighting, diplomacy and ingenuity and above else willingness to follow orders. He tells them to rest up becasue he has a dangerous misson for them next.

Lareth plans to send them into the gnarley woods to kills a group of rangers from the elven court that has been investigating the area, he wants them removed permanently. He is going to send another new recruit with them, the deva invoker, and then the party will be complete. From there i plan to have one ranger escape leading the group off on a wild goose chase and keep them away from the moathouse while the goods guys clean it out. by the time they get back everyone will be dead there.

so any comments/suggestions thus far?