Converting DnD 4e to Pathfinder

Chaoszero · Jul 4, 2009

I started a 4e game and I really like the story. My players, on the otherhand aren't so fond of 4e (they gave it a year, bless them). So I will continue the plot, but in Pathfinder, but I have a dragonborn and a deva in the party. How should I represent these races in Pathfinder. I dont want to make the deva into an Aasimar, as they have an ecl.

Classes arent an issue so much as races. Dragonborn, Deva, Eladrin and Tiefling.

HELP!

Eridanis · Jul 4, 2009

I would just convert them over as-is. I just glanced at the 3E dragonborn, and they get several abilities with no level adjustment; certainly more than the aasimar. Hand-wave away the LA if he's a good player, make him pay an XP debt if not. Eladrin to grey elf, tiefling to tiefling, and you're on your way!

Voadam · Jul 4, 2009

The new PF race stats are equivalent to the by the book aasimar LA +1 stats IMO, +2 on two stats (plus daylight, darkvision, and weak lightning resitance) fits in with the pf +0 LA races. For extra goodness go with the Player's Guide to Faerun option, +0 LA but they are humanoid subtype plane touched instead of full native outsiders. This means they would be affected by humanoid only affecting spells like hold person, charm person, etc.

For dragon born there are a dozen dragon man races in 3e. I haven't seen the WotC ones (races of dragon?) but there is the dracha in Arcana Evolved, or you could use PF half-orc stats for the dragonborn one and be mostly there I think.

Liquidsabre · Jul 4, 2009

IIRC Pathfinder will be dumping LAs in the system. With the PHB races slightly bumped in power the Tiefling and Aasimar can probably be used more or less as is from 3.5e sources (Races of Destiny). Though I imagine the Bestiary will have these planetouched out in Sept with adjusted stats to bring them more uniformly in line with the PHB races. Same should go for the dragonborn most likely, Races of the Dragon might be a good place to look.

Hunter In Darkness · Jul 4, 2009

Maybe just use lizardmen. Just dont use the race HD

Doctor Futurity · Nov 11, 2009

It's funny, I was doing a google search on dragonborn conversions to Pathfinder and it took me here. My problem is exactly the same as yours; my group's been playing 4E since it came out last year, and after I introduced everyone to Pathfinder there's been a rapid, insistent begging for me to convert all campaigns over to Pathfinder once more. The general consensus seems to be that while 4E is fun to play, it lacks the kind of mechanical and character depth that everyone wants out of a system, and Pathfinder with all its bells & whistles of improvement has really snagged everyone.

Anyway, I didn't know there was a dragonborn in 3.5....what book did it show up in? I had stopped buying a lot of 3.5 books a few years back, as I rarely used anything more than the core books.

Dragonbait · Nov 11, 2009

Dragonborn were in Races of the Dragon.
They were a template that overwrote most of a races other abilities. The person would perform a ritual, enter a cryshalis, then emerge as a chosen of Bahamut complete with platinum colored scales and a dragon head. They chose either resistances or wings and gained some other abilities, if I remember correctly.

i think the dragonborn in that edition had the racial modifiers of their original race PLUS +2 Con, -2 Dex.

The 4E dragonborn would be easy enough to convert. Just throwing something out there and adding some 3E spice and elements from the dragonborn template:
+2 Str, +2 Cha, -2 Dex
Medium Humanoid (dragonblooded) or maybe a Medium Dragon (dragonblooded) or whathaveyou
+2 Knowledge (Arcana)
+2 Knowledge (History)
Darkvision 60 ft.
+2 to resist paralyzation and sleep effects (compared to the dragon's immunity to such things)
+1 racial bonus to attack Dragons

Not sure about the breath weapon. If you keep it could it work in Pathfinder if you treat it like burning hands?

Achan hiArusa · Nov 19, 2009

Dig, dig, dig...here it is:

achan_hiarusa: New d20 Races

At least the dragonborn.

malkav666 · Nov 23, 2009

There is a Suarian race printed in Tome of Secrets (3pp source for PFRPG) in addition to it being a pretty cool on its own merits. The Saurian race pretty much is a dragonborn with the serial numbers filed off (minus the breath weapon).

Tieflings and Asimar are presented int he PFRPG Bestiary. There is no more LA adjustment in PFRPG. But if you find the races too powerful as presented you could always add in an exp debt or take the features that you feel are over the top and make the player pay for them with feats on a case by case basis. You could even add in the breath weapon as a feat (or series of them for improved versions).

There is also a wealth of 3.x options for racial variants and working in LA races. My own opinion on it in the case of Tieflings and Asimar is take away the resistances and the +2 CHA for sorcerer spells (for the tiefling) and make them an option for the character to take via feats. That will bring them back in line. The baseline for stat adjustments seems to be a net +2 bonus as well. So some Bestiary races may need their racial stat adjustments brought in line if you need absolute balance.

Another option is to leave races that are LA+1 alone and just give the players who are playing LA+0 races more points to generate stats with a point buy system (I think this originated in E6 which is available for free, but it seems like it would be a good fit for your conversion).

Hope that helps.

love,

malkav