the alexandrian the keep on the borderlands

I lost count of the characters I have had die in this module with the basic rules. I think almost every old school gamer has stories of working up multiple characters during an adventure because staying alive was hard in those days. While Basic DnD gave some thought to encounter balance, it wasn't quite the consideration it is today. This is part of the experience I want my conversion to reflect.Īnother thing I will have to juggle is making sure that the encounter balance is fair and even. Back in the day it took a while to gain levels and it always felt really good when you got to add a level. This might actually mean a bit of slow progression for players and that is something I am okay with. Since I want to capture both the feel and spirit of this module, I have to make sure that the encounters keep the characters on a pace similar to the original work.īecause this entire module was designed for character levels 1-3 to gain several levels during their explorations of the Caves of the Unknown and the environs around the keep I have to make sure that the same happens for 5e characters. Not only that but experience rewards are a little different. In Basic DnD all the classes advanced at a different rate of experience.

While the 5e rules represent this spirit a bit, the fact is the rules are a lot more complex now than they were back then specially in regards to race and class.Įxperience points is probably going to be another bugaboo. Basic DnD was a super simplistic set of rules that were designed to be easy to play 'right out of the box' so to speak. This means things like Elf being both a race and a class, Armor Class differences, Combat differences and a lot more. While I don't expect to many things to require that much work there are a few things I have already noticed.Īs I already mentioned, Keep on the Borderlands was written for the Basic DnD rule set. This means I have to really look at the difference between the Basic DnD rules Keep on the Borderlands was written for and the current 5e rules. If I go in blindly and just decide to replace all monsters and encounters with little thought I am likely tor ruin the balance of the 5e game. While I plan to make my way through almost every module printed for first ed and maybe dabble with updating the many 2nd ed settings, this is a good place to start.īefore I even really get started on the 'crunch' of converting this module, I have to consider a few factors. There is just something about this module that gives me a happy gaming buzz whenever I look at it and I know many other gamers feel the same way. I have decided to start with Keep on the Borderlands because out of every module I have ever played in or run this i the one that I always think of first when I think of old school gaming. While I have another blog over at that is about a campaign I am building, I wanted to have a space for doing some old school module conversion to the 5e rule set.

It's been a while since I used this blog so figured I would dust it off and start using it again.

The alexandrian the keep on the borderlands