D&D 2E Looking for a 2e adventure to run for 5e

[casterblaster]

I am looking for a really good adventure from the 2e Forgotten Realms back catalog to run in my 5e game.
It doesn't matter if its dungeon crawl, one off, or series. I would like to stay around the sword coast but that's not a must. Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[Sitara]

Night Below boxed set.

 

[Redthistle]

Transplanting non-FR settings

1) Ravenloft (original boxed-set).
2) Temple of Elemental Evil.

No, these are not set in the Forgotten Realms, but that's never stopped me from plunking adventures from other settings into the vast wilderness areas of Faerun.

Ravenloft was designed to emulate the feel of medieval eastern Europe. Placing the adventure in the mountains to the north-east of Rasheman, which has some of the same ambience as the culture of the Ravenloft adventure, and proximate to the Hordelands farther east, worked for my players. As the DM, you can chose to make it an actual part of Faerun or simply a portal access to the world of Ravenloft. I chose to make it an actual location. Its boundary was, for most folks, a point-of-no-return. As I didn't want the PCs to be trapped there for the rest of their mortal lives, I developed a challenging-to-achieve way out.

Translating the Temple of Elemental Evil to Faerun took a bit more work. A lot of that adventure was particular to locations in the World of Greyhawk. Instead, I decided to plop it down in the jungles of Chult. The heat and humidity there seem to me to be an appealing climate for Zuggtmoy (or Tsuggtmoy), the Demon Queen of Fungi.

Among other things, this meant the PCs had to contend with several cultures they had little-to-no previous knowledge of and they were introduced to the dinosaurs that still live in the interior of Chult.

Consider Chult for your next vacation. Come for the sun, stay for the mold and the common bugs as big as stirges - or stay for the Raptor's Lunch: you might get to be the special of the day!

 

[Nebulous]

Return to the Tomb of Horrors by Bruce Cordell. Best damn adventure and boxed set i have EVER seen.

Edit: it is seamlessly built around Gary Gygax's original dungeon crawl, and includes it with the original module cover art and text. But this might be too high level for you. it's definitely not a starting adventure.

 

[casterblaster]

I was looking for something to run when we are done with the starter set adventure Phandelver. I know the time lines are different but I will have them role up new characters. I have the old grey box for FR I think circa 94? I never got to run any of the older adventures and just wanted to give one or two a spin. Im not new to dming or DnD but the players are new. They are familiar with the sword coast area so that's why I was looking for something in that area. The shadow dale adventure caught my eye but cant find a review anywhere. I believe its a three part adventure? Anyone have any experience with this one?

 

[trentonjoe]

There was a book put out in the style of Book of Lairs but only had undead. I think they were set in the FR. It might be 1E. I ran a number of them over the years and enjoyed them.

 

[the Jester]

If you have access to it, the Gates of Firestorm Peak is amazing.

Beware- it's both terrifying and horrifically unsettling in places, and it pulls no punches. It's the source for one of my favorite monsters ever- the dharculus.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Hello; long-time FR DM here.

I tend to have found the setting better for adventure HOOKS than modules per se. (I use the old grey box as well; if you're thinking the REALLY old one it's from 1987, not 1994.)

The Avatar trilogy (which is I think the one you're thinking of; the modules are Shadowdale/Tantras/Waterdeep) is not worth it; it is railroad to end all railroads. Your PCs will spend 80% of their time as observers rather than actually doing anything.

If you're going with an adventure that's specifically Realms-ish, I would recommend one of the following:

-Halls of the High King (starts on the Sword Coast and moves out to the Moonshae Isles so pretty good for your purposes; made for 6th level PCs but assumes a large group so really balanced closer to 8th level)
-Ruins of Undermountain (more of a setting than an adventure per se but easily usable for multiple adventures)
-Mere of Dead Men/Vampires of Waterdeep series (if you have access to back issues of Dungeon magazine)

As others have posted, you can easily use modules that are not FR-specific and drop them into the setting. I've run Ravenloft, Egg of the Phoenix, Temple of Elemental Evil, Against the Slave Lords, and the Giants/Drow series (G1-3, D1-3), and a ton of old Dungeon adventures in the Realms with no problem. I would use the opportunity to delve into both 1e and 2e classics here; 5e is amazingly backwards compatible so you have numerous options.

If you really want to take the most advantage from the setting, though, I would comb the backs of the sourcebooks and turn the adventure hooks there into your own adventures. FR1 Waterdeep, FR5 The Savage Frontier, and of course the Undermountain boxed set have a ton of lightly-scripted adventure ideas that (in my experience) take less than 30 minutes to sketch out into full-on adventures. Run something like Halls of the High King and then just go from there; that adventure puts the PCs in conflict with some excellent recurring foes so you can build an entire campaign from it.

 

[trentonjoe]

Lords of Darkness is what I was thinking of.

I also REALLY liked running the Mere of Dead Men series of Dungeon that ruleslawyer reccomended.

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

-Mere of Dead Men/

You want this. It runs from Dungeon Magazine 69 to 73, is real close to Phandalin, fits level wise and is totally awesome.