Now, the module itself is clearly a wizard testing the PCs, and the adventure would have to be substantially rewritten in order to change this. This seems, to me, to be a lot more effort than it is worth, and would remove the charm of the adventure as it is written. A better way would be to introduce some greater purpose to the challenge.
The one encounter in the module that I find truly wrong is the final (possible) encounter:
If a party should succeed in obtaining two or even three of the magical weapons and is finally leaving for good, they may be stopped at 2 by the return of the force wall. A voice will speak to them out of the air: “Not thinking of leaving, are you? You've been so very entertaining, I just couldn't think of letting you go, especially with those little collector's items of mine. And since you've eliminated all of their guardians, why, you'll simply have to stay . . . to take their places. I'll have to ask you to leave all of your ridiculous weapons behind and let Nix and Nox escort you to the Indoctrination Center. I'll be most disappointed if you cause me any trouble and Nix and Nox have to eliminate you. Don't worry - you'll like it here.”
The thing I really dislike about this is:
Of course, this whole episode can be omitted if the party has already taken too much damage. Conversely, if your players have had too easy a time of it, this can be made tougher by the addition of one or two more efreet (Box and Cox).
Effectively, this penalized players who do well, and lets those who do poorly off the hook. Let’s alter this to make the whole thing gel better with modern aesthetics and the DCC vibe. First off, we replace the wizard Keraptis with Yonaxis from The Tower of Faces (or vice versa, if you think Keraptis is the more flavorful name, as I do – you could also keep both wizards, with Yonaxis pretending to be Keraptis for this challenge…and perhaps a lich Keraptis who takes offense to this later). We can then change the final dialogue to:
“Not thinking of leaving, are you? You've been so very entertaining, I just couldn't think of letting you go, especially with those little collector's items of mine. And since you've eliminated all of their guardians, you have passed my little job interview. I'll have to ask you to let Nix and Nox escort you to my tower. I'll be most disappointed if you cause me any trouble and Nix and Nox have to eliminate you. Don't worry – you are in no danger, and might even be able to keep those ridiculous weapons if you perform as well assisting me as you did against these challenges.”
Initial
Considerations
As with any of these conversions, the first thing to do is reduce all treasure to about 10% of its total value, and then remove any unnecessary magical items (either removing them entirely or turning them into exceptionally well-crafted but non-magical goods). Those items we do retain we want to align with the DCC aesthetic, making them more mysterious and flavorful.
For example, there is a ring of flying with 4 charges in Area 4 – a particularly useful item given some of the challenges in this module. To make it work in DCC, let’s give it a description (“this iron ring is shaped to resemble a bat, roosting on the finger of its wearer with outspread wings. Its face is toward the fingernail, with two sharp fangs that cause some mild discomfort when the ring is put on or removed.”) and a bit more color than “4 charges” – The ring grants a fly speed of 30’, but when used the bat fangs pierce the wearer’s flesh and draw blood to power the flight. On the first round, this causes 1d4 Stamina damage. On the second round it causes 2d4, on the third round 3d4, and so on until either the wearer stops flying or reaches 0 Stamina and crashes to the earth. Now we don’t need to worry about charges; there is a high cost to using the ring itself.
Reworking Encounters
We also should look at the challenges presented in the module and see how they can be expressed in DCC terms. For instance, consider Area 7:
The door opens onto a stone platform in a large natural cave. The ceiling averages 50 feet above the level of the platform, while the floor of the cave, 50 feet below, is a deep pool of boiling mud. Points A and B mark the locations of geysers. Geyser A spouts once every five minutes. Geyser B spoutsonce every three minutes. Opposite the entrance platform is another stone platform, approximately 90 feet away. Between them a series of wooden disks is suspended from the ceiling by massive steel chains. The disks are about four feet in diameter, and three feet apart. Each disk is attached to its chain by a giant staple fixed in its center. The disks swing freely and will tilt when weight is placed upon them. The disks and chains, as well as the walls of the cavern, are covered with a wet, slippery algal scum that lives on the water and nutrients spewed up from the geysers. This coating gives off a feeble phosphorescent glow.
When the geysers erupt, they reach nearly to the roof of the cavern, and creatures holding onto the disks or chains may be washed off to fall into the mud below (an almost instant death). Characters with 18 strength, or better, have a 65% chance of holding onto the disk that is adjacent to an erupting geyser. For each strength point less than 18 there is a 10% lesser chance of hanging onto the disks (i.e., 16 strength equals 45% chance.) However, for each disk the character is located farther from the geyser, there is a cumulative chance 5% greater of holding on, i.e., one farther away (from the adjacent disk) equals +5%, two away equals +10%, etc. Damage varies as the distance from the geyser. Adjacent disk: 5-50 points; one away: 4-40, and so on: 3-30, 2-20, 1-10, 1-6, and 1-4 for anyone in the cavern. Characters who make their saving throw as vs. breath weapon will take only one half damage.
The elements we have to deal with here are (a) how often the geyser erupt, (b) moving from disc to disc, (c) chance of being swept off a disc or chain by the geysers, (d) damage, and (e) other means of crossing this room. Looking at them separately, we can determine that:
(a) In AD&D 1e, a round was 1 minute. Therefore, for our DCC challenge, the geysers erupt once every 5 rounds (geyser A) and once every 3 rounds (geyser B). We could randomize this element, in true DCC fashion, but part of the point of the challenge (as I read it) is to time your movements to minimize the effects of each geyser.
(b) Leaping from disc to disc is challenging because they swing. I would make this a DC 10 Strength check (armor check penalty applies) with a DC 15 Reflex save to catch oneself on a failure, and a DC 10 Strength check (again, armor check penalty applies) to pull oneself onto the disc if the Reflex save succeeds.
(c) Okay. An 18 Strength in DCC gives a +3 bonus, so a character with 18 Strength will succeed in a DC 10 Strength check 65% of the time. This gives us a great baseline, with a +1 bonus to the check for each disc away from the geyser. It is probably worthwhile to mark which disc(s) on the map count as adjacent for this purpose. It is extremely nice that this works well with the 5/10/15/20 DC system of DCC. I would not make armor check penalty apply.
(e) The first time I encountered White Plume Mountain was as a player, and the DM at the time refused to consider my creative solutions to this encounter because they weren’t part of the text. Could I climb around the wall? Probably not the wisest or best course, but at least be ready to consider the possibility. This might also be a good place to use that ring of flying, if you found it.
Converting Monsters
to DCC
I have already converted the entirety of the Fiend Folio on this blog, so you are swimming in examples of conversions from 1st edition AD&D. Here I will look at the conversion of a single monster step-by-step. I am choosing the giant crab in Area 17, in part from nostalgia, and in part because it shows a difference with the giant crab we converted from Zenopus’ Tower. Nostalgia because this was the most memorable encounter when I played the module. My magic-user had a cube of force, so we intentionally ruptured the “waterskin” walls, boiled the crab alive, and stayed safely in the cube. A ring of feather falling prevented our deaths when we, in the cube, rocketed out of the top of the volcano. It’s been over 40 years, and it still makes me chuckle.
In 1980, when White Plume Mountain was published, statblocks had made their appearance, but sometimes creatures were still being described in a more conversational tone. In this case, we are starting from:
After thirty feet the corridor widens out into a low. Dome-shaped area. Here lives the guardian of the treasure, just about the biggest giant crab (AC: 0, HD: 15, HP: 60; #AT: 2; D: 3-18) anyone's ever seen. On one of its "forearms" it wears a rune-covered copper band that protects it from all psionic-related spells (such as charm, fear, confusion, paralysis, magic jar, etc.) It also protects against all psionics. Unfortunately, it is worthless as a treasure. as the magic is keyed specifically to this particular monster.
Init: Nothing describes this giant crab as being particularly fast, and I am reminded of the stop-motion crabs created by the late great Ray Harryhausen for The Mysterious Island. The crab therein is relatively slow, so I would say -4 for initiative. This is also appropriate for the encounter, because while the crab won’t puncture the bubble membrane around it, the PCs may.
Atk: The crab attacks with two gargantuan claws doing 3d6 damage each. At 15 Hit Dice, it would have struck often using the AD&D attack matrixes, so we will just give it a +8 to its attack rolls. This might be low, but I think that it is fair.
AC: AD&D uses descending AC, whereas DCC uses ascending. The easiest conversion is 20 subtract the given AC, which grants an AC of 20. Done.
HD: Our giant crab has 15 Hit Dice, and in AD&D terms these would be eight-sided dice unless specifically listed otherwise. 15d8 is fine.
Hp: We can keep the 60 hp of the original creature. This will not always be the case for conversions; some systems (including WotC-era D&D) suffer serious hit point creep.
MV: In the encounter as written, the monster is largely stationary, and the author doesn’t appear to have considered a movement speed. Let’s say it can move 40’, and swim 30’. We are adding the swim speed because our gargantuan crab deserves to be encountered in other locations as well as in White Plume Mountain.
Act: The giant crab gets two attacks in AD&D, so in DCC it has 2d20 for Action Dice. Note that, if you wanted to make this monster even more horrendous, you could give it 2d24 and an extended crit range of 20-24, but that is probably overkill.
SP: We will note that the creature is immune to mind-affecting spells and abilities because of its rune-covered copper band. We will also note that the band is AC 22, requires 20 hp in a single attack to destroy, or may be destroyed with a successful attack on the crab and a Deed Die result of 5+.
SV: The shell is likely to help with Fort saves, but our crab is none too agile. In this case, Fort +10, and Ref -4. The crab attacks intelligently, so I am inclined to give it Will +4.
AL: Normally, a crab would be N, but this one has some level of intelligence. We don’t get to know what alignment the author would have given it, but we can examine the AD&D alignment system, at least briefly. AD&D uses a nine-point alignment system with a Good-Evil axis as well as a Lawful-Chaotic axis. Good vs. Evil seems to be the most important axis, with the Lawful-Chaotic axis describing their approach to good, evil, or neutral morality. You can assume that a Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral creature should be converted to Lawful in DCC, and that a Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Evil creature translates to Chaotic. True Neutral converts to Neutral. Thereafter, things get murky.
When in doubt, go with your gut. A Chaotic Good character like Robin Hood might be considered Lawful in DCC, and a Lawful Evil devil might be Chaotic because it opposes an ordered universe. The terms “Law” and “Chaos” do not necessarily mean the same thing in DCC that they do in AD&D. In fact, I am going to make our crab Lawful because it is described as having some intelligence (at least in the way it attacks), and it sits in its bubble all day playing guard duty for Keraptis.
Crit: Following the table on page 385 of the core rulebook, we get a result of M/1d20.
Put altogether, our DCC gigantic crab statblock looks like this:
Gigantic Crab: Init -4; Atk gargantuan claw +8 melee (3d6); AC 20; HD 15d8; hp 60; MV 40’ or swim 30’; Act 2d20; SP Immune to mind-affecting spells and abilities while rune-covered copper band remains intact (Mighty Deed 5+ to destroy, or AC 22, 20 hp in a single attack); SV Fort +10, Ref -4, Will +4; AL L; Crit M/1d20.
Those Awesome Weapons
Wave, Whelm, and Blackrazor are iconic, and deserve a conversion post of their own. So let’s see what we can do.
And now a word from our sponsor. I have mentioned my Patreon from time to time. A “tipping” membership is only $1. As of this writing, the last White Plume Mountain post has had 172 views, with the other posts in the Conversion Crawl Classes series having received as few as 212 or as many as 1,170 views. The blog as a whole has topped 1 million views. Clearly, this stuff is of some use to somebody. If you are that somebody, please consider tipping. It would mean a lot to me. At the same time, these are hard times, so if you are going through hard times, ignore this.
Regardless, the three iconic weapons will be given a closer look in the next post. I was going to append them to this post, but they are complex enough that they deserve better!
Next: White Plume
Mountain (3): Wave, Whelm, and Blackrazor!
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