Switching Editions Mid-Stream

Samuel Cole · Feb 16, 2016

As you probably know, WotC is barely supporting it's 4e DDI tools these days, with no updates to the tools and a rejection of any new customers. We've already switched to playing without the charop guides (which we used largely for whittling down the 1200 feats available during level up), and I'm concerned that the character builder, compendium, etc, are not long for this world, either.

Playing 4e without the character builder and compendium doesn't sound easy, and I'm considering switching to 5e after Adventure 9, using the Obscurati ritual as an excuse to restructure the entire world. ("The planets have realigned and now your magic works differently.") Of course, that would cause us to miss out on all the nifty 4e mechanics that the Zeitgeist team has invented for its monsters (I think 4e monsters are WAY more interesting in than 5e monsters), and would require me to re-create every single encounter, using the Pathfinder versions as starting places.

What do you think? Doable? Worth it? Terrible idea?

RangerWickett · Feb 16, 2016

I originally wanted to abandon 4e at the start of adventure 10 and start doing PF and 5e, but people were against the idea. Plus I didn't have enough system mastery of 5e to do it right.

What's the first monster in adventure 10? The Labor Hivemind. It would get legendary actions (or perhaps initiative-preset attacks) and legendary resistances, have the Gidim-style vulnerable to 'thinking at them,' and a couple attack options:

* Hammer and sickle forces a save to avoid being knocked prone, and does bleed damage like a bearded devil.

* Tentacle seize for damage and grab.

* Psychic bolt is a ranged attack that makes you a conduit, and you get a Cha save each round to end it.

* Mental overdrive isn't that complicated.

The trick is figuring out how much damage and healing is appropriate and balanced. The party would be, what, 16th level in 5e? I've never played at that level and have no idea what to expect.

The salamanders in the MM can still be a mild threat even at high level. Kuyler would need to be custom, and maybe his viziers would just be salmanders who can cast a few spells. The efreet is pretty normal.

I mean, the conversion might take an hour per session, but that's not too terrible.

hirou · Feb 16, 2016

Samuel Cole said:
As you probably know, WotC is barely supporting it's 4e DDI tools these days, with no updates to the tools and a rejection of any new customers. We've already switched to playing without the charop guides (which we used largely for whittling down the 1200 feats available during level up), and I'm concerned that the character builder, compendium, etc, are not long for this world, either.

Playing 4e without the character builder and compendium doesn't sound easy, and I'm considering switching to 5e after Adventure 9, using the Obscurati ritual as an excuse to restructure the entire world. ("The planets have realigned and now your magic works differently.") Of course, that would cause us to miss out on all the nifty 4e mechanics that the Zeitgeist team has invented for its monsters (I think 4e monsters are WAY more interesting in than 5e monsters), and would require me to re-create every single encounter, using the Pathfinder versions as starting places.

What do you think? Doable? Worth it? Terrible idea?

I still think that 5e is kinda underdeveloped at this point. And wizards are still quadratic... On the other hand, there's a third party mod for legacy offline Character Builder for 4ed, which in many cases is better than official product, and which adds all the official content (and there's even half-done Zeitgeist mod for it on these forums). Despite WotC all but abandoning old editions, I still don't want to leave the link in the open, I'll send you a PM. There's also offline Adventure Tools with Monster Builder, but it's kinda lacking. It's really a pity that PC supplements never reached their true potential, that's the one thing I can't forgive WotC for...

Ralif Redhammer · Feb 16, 2016

I think it's totally doable, though one would have to work with players to map out what happens with options that aren't available in 5e. Like the scads of races and classes. The classes would be pretty easy to map out, but the races...do you convert the old races or just have them pick something close-ish in theme?

I remember back in the day, we switched mid-campaign when 2e came out with barely a blink. But the differences between those two editions weren't so great.

Switching Editions Mid-Stream

Samuel Cole

First Post

RangerWickett

Legend

hirou

Explorer

Ralif Redhammer

Legend

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