Universal Module

[Dax Doomslayer]

Hi Folks,
I was wondering if this would be true. If I wanted to convert the 1E Temple of Elemental Evil to 5th Edition, I could buy it from the store, open it with the Universal Module and I should have all the story elements and images/maps? However, I would need to create the encounters and treasure parcels? Is that correct? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

[LordEntrails]

Correct, assuming you use the Universal Module Extension.

[damned]

The Encounters themselves will be there - you would edit those and replace the monsters but keep the encounters.

[Dax Doomslayer]

The Encounters themselves will be there - you would edit those and replace the monsters but keep the encounters.

Thanks Damned. I thought that wouldn't have come across. That is actually even better. So it would be updating the encounters (don't need to create a new encounters just place new monsters). What about the treasure parcels? Will they come over too (not that you could really use them)...

[Trenloe]

So, everything "comes over", it's a case of if the data is valid or can be used without issue.

NPCs have lots of pieces of data that are different between RPG systems, so you need to change those. The original NPC records are available, but will probably throw errors when opened. The same is true for items - they are there, but some of the data fields not not be there or may cause errors to occur. It's really up to you to experiment and see what RPG system specific data you can use, what you need to edit and what you need to recreate.

[Granamere]

I do not own the Classic D&D books but I think if you did and loaded them you might not get the errors. I just last week started using the Keep on the Boarderlands in 5e.

A couple of things I have found.

When I opened the original encounters I had for example lizardman the ability scores were all 10's. None of the attack weapons were there also not any of the creatures ability's were there either. Also the AC was in 1st edition. So I then opened the 5th ed version. Made a copy of the 5th ed version so I could open the copied version and copy the Weapon attacks etc out of it. You have to copy it to do that otherwise you can not highlight the text. Also HP and XP will be different.

I could have also deleted the 1st ed lizardman and replaced it with the 5th ed lizardfolk. If you do that you will need to go back and place the tokens on the map. IMO this is way faster to do.

Next big problem is combat balancing. Some of the encounters in the keep of the borderlands are way out of balance. You will need to know your parties CR and then check the CR of the encounter. I found this which helps me with that.
https://dhmstark.co.uk/rpgs/encounter-calculator-5th/


I hope this helps. We play again tonight and we should find the caves. Last week was mainly character creation and learning the keep ,exploring the area around the keep and the first 2 sets of encounters with the lizardmen.

[malvok]

I like the idea of taking an old classic module and converting it to Pathfinder 2e, for example. Would I be able to load a module, edit it as necessary, and then export everything into a custom module? Is exporting blocked for stuff from commercial modules? I know I wouldn't be able to distribute the custom module but keeping it separate in its own file sounds good.

[Trenloe]

You can only export data that is 100% within a campaign. So you'd have to make copies of the module data and then export that. And, of course, you can't export images.

[Dax Doomslayer]

Trenloe - one thing on the point above. If I was to create a development campaign, update the encounters and such using the Universal Module extension and the module is then updated for bug fixes etc and hits the record I updated, how would that work? Would my change get overridden? Also, say I drag a story link to a new story entry and that original link that I dragged has a content change, how would that be affected? Sorry for the dumb questions but I've never been clear on this. Thanks

[Trenloe]

If you update any module record, that module record is only changed within the campaign. The book icon against the record (showing that it's a module record) will change to a book and quill icon to show that it's an edited module record - in this campaign only.

If the module is updated, your edited record would only be changed if you revert changes on either the module or the record itself.

As you can't export data changes to module records, there's really little point using a development campaign to make changes to module records as the changes would only be visible in that campaign.

If you have a link to a record, and that linked record changes, then the link always opens the data in the current version of that record. A link is not a copy of all the data, it is shortcut to a data record. But be aware what records are actually links and what are copied records - for example, an NPC in an encounter is a link, but an item in a treasure parcel is a copy made at the point of adding the item to the parcel.