# Conversion: Keep on the Borderlands



## Xath (Mar 6, 2008)

As a tribute to Gary Gygax, this weekend my group is getting together and I'm running "Keep on the Borderlands."  As an added twist (and since so many of the KotB monsters are already statted out), I've decided to convert it to 4e.  

Anyone else done something similar?  Have any tips for conversions at this stage (from what we know of 4th edition)?


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## ltbaxter (Mar 6, 2008)

No insights on that, but just wanted to wish you luck! That very thought came to mind - what a great way to pay tribute. I remember playing the original adventure, but got rid of it decades ago (in a fit of madness)  If you or someone is able to convert this, I hope this can be made available.

[And on a _completely_ unrelated note... great job on the interview with the devs and on the YouTube video!   
It was really nice to see some questions I posed on your thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=220093) actually get addressed -- thanks! ]


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## breschau (Mar 6, 2008)

Xath said:
			
		

> As a tribute to Gary Gygax, this weekend my group is getting together and I'm running "Keep on the Borderlands."  As an added twist (and since so many of the KotB monsters are already statted out), I've decided to convert it to 4e.
> 
> Anyone else done something similar?  Have any tips for conversions at this stage (from what we know of 4th edition)?




Any notes or tips you feel like sharing would be appreciated. I was hoping to do the same at our next session.


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## lasergreger (Mar 6, 2008)

Lovely initiative. If I were one of your players, i'd sure love that session. Good luck.

/L


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## Mistwell (Mar 6, 2008)

Wow. No help from me, but great idea.

If you happen to write it up, I am sure lots of folks here (myself included) would love to read it and run it for their own groups.

If you get it started, you will probably get many eyes on it for editing purposes!


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## Aus_Snow (Mar 6, 2008)

Awesome.  Will there be an actual play thread, or story hour?

Anyway, good luck with that. I don't have any advice for the conversion, but it shouldn't be too hard anyway, I suspect.


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## jeffh (Mar 6, 2008)

breschau said:
			
		

> Any notes or tips you feel like sharing would be appreciated. I was hoping to do the same at our next session.



I don't usually do "me too" posts but I want to second, or probably third or more by now, this, just to help you gauge the level of interest out there.

4E should be comparatively easy to convert to on the fly, it occurs to me, which should help things go a bit more smoothly.


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## Nytmare (Mar 6, 2008)

Earlier this week I spent some time converting Monte Cook's "The Orc and the Pie" to fourth edition.

There were several design challenges bringing this time honored classic up to date, but I think that, by far, the hardest thing to do was figuring out how to translate the scale from feet to squares.

I will have to check my notes, but I think that in the end I decided to have squares roughly equal five feet.

Hope this helps!


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## Mathew_Freeman (Mar 6, 2008)

Aus_Snow said:
			
		

> Awesome.  Will there be an actual play thread, or story hour?
> 
> Anyway, good luck with that. I don't have any advice for the conversion, but it shouldn't be too hard anyway, I suspect.




I'd second the note for a story hour.


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## Jdvn1 (Mar 6, 2008)

The conversion notes would be really useful for me!


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## LowSpine (Mar 6, 2008)

I'm currently making a decent battle map for the Red Box Basic set's Your First Group Adventure from the DM's book. Don't know how much Gygax was involved in that (it's the Mentzer set.) I'm doing it ready to create a 4E version of the adventure. I'm just doing the frst level for now bt I might include the second level so I can add Bargle to it.

I plan do convert the learner adventure with Bargle and Aleena and the adventure following that as well.

These are simple adventures but they ae the ones that really made me understand and love D&D so I love the idea of updating them.

(Besides Bargle must die!)


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## PeelSeel2 (Mar 6, 2008)

I was talking with one of the players and I said we should do Keep on the Borderlands. That is by far my FAVORITE module of all time. I have thought about it alot in the context of 4th Edition. The Keep is the last point of light before the darkness; The hearty souls of the Keep watch for caravans coming from across the borderlands, and see other caravans off on their journey through the borderlands. Unseen in this picture has come a vile cleric of Orcus, who has hired small motley groups of disparate humanoid mercenaries for his ends.....


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## Klaus (Mar 6, 2008)

Please post conversions!


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## nerfherder (Mar 6, 2008)

I just bought B2 from Paizo on Tuesday in tribute to Gary (it was my introduction to D&D), and I thought it would be fun to convert it and run it for my group.  However, we've just started a 3.0 game, and I don't want to interrupt the momentum, so I've put the idea on hold.  So, I'd love to see the conversion notes you do produce   

As I scanned through the module, I did wonder how you would convert the NPCs - including the 



Spoiler



chaos priest


.

I think I'll print it out, along with all the known 4e monsters and start scribbling notes.


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## lbporter (Mar 6, 2008)

As to conversion help, looking at the map of the Caves of Chaos, I notice lots of small rooms. I would bunch the creatures from multiple rooms into one encounter. That way you could have waves of gioblin minions attack the party while they are fighting some skirmishers and other stuff. 

I have been planning my new 4th edition campaign for a few months now, and I chose the Keep on the Borderlands as the backbone. I deconstructed the caves of chaos and spread them around the area. 

Kudos for doing this in Gary's memory, please let us know how it goes. 

Luke


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## HarbingerX (Mar 6, 2008)

Nytmare said:
			
		

> Earlier this week I spent some time converting Monte Cook's "The Orc and the Pie" to fourth edition.
> 
> There were several design challenges bringing this time honored classic up to date, but I think that, by far, the hardest thing to do was figuring out how to translate the scale from feet to squares.
> 
> ...




I think your conversion is off - a square is roughly equal to a five foot diameter _circle_. You just need to trim the old 5 foot grids into circles and put Ethereal Gates around each circle circumference so that characters can move diagonally from circle to circle using a point of 'square' movement. Oops - the ethereal plane is gone... hmm I guess they are permanent teleports instead.


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## frankthedm (Mar 6, 2008)

Google turned up the old map for the caves. 





I'd recommend more use of elevation in the caves, with areas stacked on top of one another. IIRC Wotc has said their 4E version of the caves will have a definite chaos influence with some impossible geography going on.

Adding more areas and  making the slopes steeper like the _The Caves of Chaos _ painting by Michael Komarck sounds like a good idea to me.


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## Xath (Mar 6, 2008)

Anyone know what the rules are for me posting my conversion here?  Does WotC hold the rights to KotB?  I don't want to step on any toes by posting, especially if they're releasing their own version.


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## Jdvn1 (Mar 7, 2008)

My guess--and it's only a guess--is that you can post conversion crunch, but not post any (fluff) text from the module.

Like, you could say, "In <this section>, I <did this>" but you can't post the description of the keep, for example.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Mar 7, 2008)

I've done 3.0 and 3.5 conversions of KotB.  I'd think 4E would actually be somewhat easier (assuming you have all of the relevant monster stats -- I think we only have Hobgoblins and Kobolds thus far, and one or two other monsters) because you wouldn't have to re-scale the encounter sizes.  The number of monsters in the original modules should be about right for 4E.

I'll attach one of my conversions (it isn't completely true to the module as it contains adpatations for my campaign, but it may serve as a good starting point).

Edit: The campaign this was used in was set in Mistledale in the Forgotten Realms, so the Keep became the "Keep at Peldan's Helm", and the Caves of Chaos became the "Caves of Moander" ... but you get the idea.


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## Celebrim (Mar 7, 2008)

Officially, you can only post crunch, no fluff.  Seems fair to me.  

Except that officially its even tighter than that.  Not only can you only post crunch, but you can only post crunch that is a direct conversion with no notes, ammendments, extensions, editorial commentary, reblancing or anything else.

Personally, I think the legal status of fan created material is still an open question.  The rules of the game obviously intends for you to create your own material.  It would be ridiculous to suggest that you as a DM could not create an adventure set in Waterdeep, and run that adventure among your friends.  Yet, at the same time WotC claims that you can create that for your personal use but not distribute it.   Supposing I wrote a fan based 'Return to the Caves of Chaos', somewhat loosely based on the original B2.  How many friends can I share it with before it constitutes misuse?  What if it is a NN's adventure?  It's a far from settled question what fair use of gaming materials constitutes.  Until WotC finds itself wanting to sue a DM for distributing his work for free, I doubt anyone knows exactly what a judge would rule.


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## AFGNCAAP (Mar 7, 2008)

It's a very cool idea.  I was running Keep on the Borderlands as a starter adventure for a 3.5 D&D group of mine, but the group dissolved before they got halfway through the module.  I'd like to use it for 4th ed., though.  I'd be very interested in seeing a 4e conversion of it.


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## LowSpine (Mar 7, 2008)

I have scanned Dungeon Tiles in order to create my battle map. I have used them as the basis but I have heavily edited them. I was just wandering if anyone knows any copyright law on edited images. 

I heard that if you edit an image enough it becomes your own work but I have also heard that that is a common myth.

Does anyone have any direct link to any material giving information on this element of copyright law.

I have no major interest in trying to sell the battlemap, but it would be nice to share it when it is done. (It is meant to be a direct conversion of an old map so it would infringe that aspect of copyright anyway I think.)


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## elijah snow (Mar 17, 2008)

Thanks for posting these. Are they actually 3.5 or 3.0 conversions? I'm trying to collect 3.5 conversions of classic modules.



			
				Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> I've done 3.0 and 3.5 conversions of KotB.  I'd thikn 4E would actually be somewhat easier (assuming you have all of the relevant monster stas -- I think we only have Hobgoblins and Kobogls thus far, and one or two other monsters) because you wouldn't have to re-scale the encounter sizes.  The number of monsters in the original modules shoul dbe about right for 4E.
> 
> I'll attach one of my conversion (it isn't completely true to the module as it contains adpatations for my campaign, but it may serve as a good starting point).
> 
> Edit: The campaign this was used in was set in Mistledale in the Forgotten Realms, so the Keep became the "Keep at Peldan's Helm", and the Caves of Chaos beacem the "Caves of Moander" ... but you'll get the idea.


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## Immolate (Mar 17, 2008)

Isn't H1, Keep on the Shadowfell something of a 4E update of Keep on the Borderlands? Please be gentle as I am just now really digging into 4E.


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## Kwalish Kid (Mar 17, 2008)

Immolate said:
			
		

> Isn't H1, Keep on the Shadowfell something of a 4E update of Keep on the Borderlands? Please be gentle as I am just now really digging into 4E.



I don't think there's been anything officially said, but I'm making this guess, too.


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## IanB (Mar 17, 2008)

The biggest problem with KotB that I've come across in some 'for practice' converting experiments I've done is that the room sizes are often too small for real use of all the movement/pushing/pulling/etc effects that 4e seems to have. I think the map may need some revision to really get enough 4e goodness into the fighting, at least for some of the caves - the old standard 10' hallway is used pretty heavily.


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## stripes (Mar 17, 2008)

IanB said:
			
		

> The biggest problem with KotB that I've come across in some 'for practice' converting experiments I've done is that the room sizes are often too small [...]




For sure!   I ran B2 a few weeks ago (with the blue box rules) and the rooms were TINY compared to typical 3.5 rooms.   I suspect 4e will tend to have rooms at least as big as 3.5 used.

It would still be interesting to see how it works in 4e -- maybe the more fluid movement and encounter rules will actually end up having clusters of rooms play more like single encounters (of corse then there are going to be way to many opponents almost everywhere, not just "we managed to deal with the guards, but when we got to the common room we were goners!")


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Mar 17, 2008)

elijah snow said:
			
		

> Thanks for posting these. Are they actually 3.5 or 3.0 conversions? I'm trying to collect 3.5 conversions of classic modules.




3.0 actually, but at the low levels invovled, if you run it as is I can almost guarantee your players won't notice.    There's really not much difference between 3.0 and 3.5 until you get to higher levels (druids, bards, and rangers aside).


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## Eye of the Beholder (Mar 18, 2008)

IanB said:
			
		

> The biggest problem with KotB that I've come across in some 'for practice' converting experiments I've done is that the room sizes are often too small for real use of all the movement/pushing/pulling/etc effects that 4e seems to have. I think the map may need some revision to really get enough 4e goodness into the fighting, at least for some of the caves - the old standard 10' hallway is used pretty heavily.




Quoting the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, regarding the use of miniatures in the game:

"Figure bases are necessarily broad in order to assure that the figure will stand... Because of this, it is usually necessary to use a ground scale twice that of the actual scale... squares of about one actual inch per side are suggested. Each ground scale inch can then be used to equal 3 1/2 linear feet, so a 10' wide scale corridor is three actual inches in width and shown as 3 separate squares. This allows depiction of the typical array of three figures abreast, and also enables easy handling of such figures when they are moved."​
In short, the corridors were drawn ten feet wide, but with the assumption that ten feet was enough for three people fighting side by side (three squares), not two. Since 4th ed divorces squares from actual distance measurements anyway, I'd say you're perfectly justified in following the Great Gary's advice and upping your maneuver room by half.

Other than that I'll just follow stripes's lead and say combine lots of rooms into one encounter. Don't have the orcs (or whatever) sit back and wait for the PCs to clear out one group at a time, have them rush toward the sound of battle, fall back for reinforcements, and in general make fights bigger than they first appear.


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## Orcus (Apr 8, 2008)

Eye of the Beholder said:
			
		

> Quoting the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, regarding the use of miniatures in the game:
> 
> "Figure bases are necessarily broad in order to assure that the figure will stand... Because of this, it is usually necessary to use a ground scale twice that of the actual scale... squares of about one actual inch per side are suggested. Each ground scale inch can then be used to equal 3 1/2 linear feet, so a 10' wide scale corridor is three actual inches in width and shown as 3 separate squares. This allows depiction of the typical array of three figures abreast, and also enables easy handling of such figures when they are moved."​
> In short, the corridors were drawn ten feet wide, but with the assumption that ten feet was enough for three people fighting side by side (three squares), not two. Since 4th ed divorces squares from actual distance measurements anyway, I'd say you're perfectly justified in following the Great Gary's advice and upping your maneuver room by half.
> ...




Wow. I never knew that, and I have been playing D&D for 30 years. I have done 2 squares per 10 foot corridor since time immemorial. I've been doing it wrong all these years...

Strange I would find that in this thread, since I am converting KotB to 4E for use as a playtest for my group soon. And I was worried about 2 square wide corridors and thinking about what I was going to do. Then I found this thread. Then I found this post. I think I am just going to use the "Gygaxian" 3 squares per 10 foot square on the map rule and call it good.

I still cant believe all these years I have been doing it "wrong."


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## Oldtimer (Apr 8, 2008)

Orcus said:
			
		

> Wow. I never knew that, and I have been playing D&D for 30 years. I have done 2 squares per 10 foot corridor since time immemorial. I've been doing it wrong all these years...
> 
> Strange I would find that in this thread, since I am converting KotB to 4E for use as a playtest for my group soon. And I was worried about 2 square wide corridors and thinking about what I was going to do. Then I found this thread. Then I found this post. I think I am just going to use the "Gygaxian" 3 squares per 10 foot square on the map rule and call it good.
> 
> I still cant believe all these years I have been doing it "wrong."



I didn't know that either and I've been playing D&D for over 33 years. Of course, by the time the DMG came out (1979) we were deep into houserules and didn't read it very well.

The funny thing is, since we use meter instead of feet, our standard corridors where 3 meter wide and divided naturally into 3 (1-meter) squares.

So I did it the "right way".


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## Haffrung Helleyes (Apr 8, 2008)

We always played 1E where 3 people could fight abreast in a 10' corridor.  Early computer games were the same...Wizardry, for example, let 3 people in the front rank, in a typical corridor.

I wonder how 3E and 4E would change if you just said that 1 square = 1 meter in 4E, and converted each 5' increment in 3E into a meter?  You'd be able to fit 3 people fighting in an approximately 10' wide corridor then.

It would make it harder on the 4 person party, because it would be harder to form a defensive line, I guess.

Ken


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## Orcus (May 4, 2008)

Did anyone ever do a 4E update of this classic?


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## Serendipity (May 5, 2008)

Cool.  I was thinking about doing something similar, largely because as written, the Keep on the Borderlands has always had a very Points of Light-esque feel to it.


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## PeelSeel2 (May 5, 2008)

I am pretty sure I am going to run this in 4e.  I am going to run all the monster with the numbers stated in the module.  Conversion to 4e stats are going to be simple.  I am going to make a new type in between minion and (soldier, skirmisher, & artillery) called something.  The basic idea is that they have 5 HP per level (HD), and do 1(w) + relevant stat mod damage, and have an attack bonus, AC, RS, FS, WS, and Init of the minion of appropriate level.  These 'somethings' will not really have any special powers.

Other creatures like the ogre will be elite, the Owlbear and Minotaur will be solo's, and others will change too.  I am going to wait till I get 4e to start on it because I want to use it start a campaign.


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## ObsidianCrane (May 5, 2008)

The scale on the caves map is 1 square = 10' so in just looking at that, you have 4 5' squares per square on that map - that adds heaps of space for maneuvering.


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## ashockney (May 5, 2008)

Orcus said:
			
		

> Did anyone ever do a 4E update of this classic?




June 7, and I'll be all set.  I've got all the rooms written up.  Just need to fill in the blanks!


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## frankthedm (May 5, 2008)

so, how are the feywild and shadow fell mirrors of the Caves?


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