Looking for some feedback

[Larsenex]

Greetings.

I found my mega dungeon. Most of these need some conversion. My players attend this thread so I will keep the name of this location secret.

These modules often use old school rules. In fact I found a good resource over at drivethruRPG > Old school Essentials is the base line rules for this location. I wanted to integrate some of these older rules.

Pathfinder 2e > 1 round = 6 seconds, 10 = 1 turn (ten minutes) 6 turns = 1 hour.

This is close to the same for the Old essentials. In Pathfinder we have 'exploration' mode which I have always had a tough time wrapping my head around but this dungeon gives exact time used for exploring via distance traveled or room searched.

Some things are harder to convert. Leveling up will be in my opinion far faster in P2. In this dungeon like old school you get experience from coin based treasure > 1gp = 1 xp point. With so many rooms to this place I can see the party leveling up to 3 or 4 after only a fraction of the dungeon explored. This place houses HUGE amounts of mobs and mandates a random wandering monster check (1 on a d6) nearly every turn (10 min).
Alas we have no wandering monster tables in P2. I am probably going to make a lot, several from 1-2 than 2-3 and so on and even incorporate some with some outliers (you can as a 3rd lvl party inadvertently run into a lvl 6 or 7 random mob).

I am looking for conversion suggestions to keep P2 rules in play but also add in some of the elements which make true dungeon crawls dangerous and exciting.

Thanks again.

[Hykim]

One of the biggest things to remember about XP in PF2E is that it scales based on level. It's 1000 XP per level no matter if your character is going from 1 to 2 or going from level 19 to 20. That means that 1XP means a lot more for a level 19 character than for a level 1 character. So that means if 1gp = 1XP for a level 1 character, then 1gp should be much less than 1XP for a level 19 character. So keep that in mind for advancement. That could allow you to limit how fast your characters level to whatever seems appropriate for your campaign. Personally I don't use XP in my campaigns and just have characters level up when it is narratively appropriate, but that's just me.

[ShadeRaven]

I am going to agree with Hykim. For leveling, I'd ignore using xp entirely. Essentially, have landmark points where you want characters to level at. In an open, sandbox type adventure (IE: Caves of Chaos), this becomes more difficult, but then again, characters getting in over their head was part of the risk-reward aspect of those style adventures. I have confidence you can make a less specific leveling system work for you - just go with what seems appropriate/right. If players balk at this, just remind them that the game is more fun when they are appropriately leveled for what they encounter and to trust that you'll do so as needed. Your narration should be enough to give them clues as to where those areas that are appropriate will be found.

Now as someone who has dealt with a lot of creatures, I think it's there you can think outside the box, especially if you aren't going to constrain yourself with following a leveling system. For example, say you wanted to give them a good ol' fashion Kobold Caves encounter which, originally, might include 9 of the suckers which, even at creature -1, would be daunting for a first level party (not to mention that an 180xp pool would be rated rather murderous). A typical Kobold Warrior (the weakest Bestiary entry at level -1) normally comes with AC 16, 8 HPs, melee +3 (damage d6+1), ranged +5 (damage d4). Here you could replace with your own creation, a Kobold Commoner that would essentially be a Level -2 creature with, say, AC 14, 4 HPs, melee +1 (damage d4), ranged +3 (damage d3) or thereabouts. Creatures that, in mass, still offer some risk, but will individually be easier to dispatch - still giving you that old school feel without as much need for # of creature reduction to keep these encounters from being too deadly.

Let's face it though, those old dungeon crawls could be pretty seriously brutal back the in day - so even weaker creatures will still offer some tough challenges.

Beyond that, pay close attention to wealth and magic dispersal. When I have converted, I also had to keep in check the coin values because those old ones won't scale with the PF2 silver piece base. I love giving out magic items, and I think this you can really make work, but give it the more creative options available to PF2. More consumable items, like talisman charges on a sword rather than a +1 version. Etc. I don't think that breaks the balance too much because you'll be giving out more magic items in most cases as you convert older modules, it's just a matter of making them more personal, more interesting, but sometimes less impactful in the long run.

At least, that's my advice as someone who's enjoyed converting numerous modules from the old catalogue of A, B, C, D type series to more recent D&D/Fantasy RPG games.

Good luck! It's a bit of work, but can be very rewarding on a personal level when you want to relive or experience some of the "classics".