D&D 4E 3G: Converting Adventures to 4E, Part 1

I’ve played D&D since 1982, and I’ve been through every edition. When I started DMing, I started collecting – and I still have all the books, modules, and Dragon and Dungeon issues I used over the years. I have favorite adventures I reuse, favorite settings I revisit, and favorite themes I recycle from campaign to campaign. Sometimes Wizards of the Coast has converted something from one game edition to another, such as with the Return to… series of adventures for 3E/3.5E, but most of the time I have to do the work myself if I want to use older material in my current game. When 4E debuted, I was running 3.5E’s The Champion’s Belt from Dungeon magazine’s Age of Worms adventure path. I set that aside to play for a while, but eventually the yearning grew too great to resist – I started converting the adventure path to 4E.

I’m sure each DM has his or her own method for converting game material, but I’m going to outline my method for 4E conversion using my current adventure, The Spire of Long Shadows, as an example. There was some preliminary work that had to be done, of course, since the original adventure path was designed to take characters through levels 1-20, and 4E is designed for characters levels 1-30. Also, my players already had characters in which they were invested, so those had to be converted to 4E along with the adventures. After sitting down and doing some math, we settled on the new level for their 4E characters, spent several sessions with the D&D Character Creator, and then I turned my attention to the adventures themselves.

The Spire of Long Shadows was originally designed for four 13^th-level 3.5E characters. My conversion covered levels 16-18 for 4E, with further adjustments for having a larger than standard group (6-7 players on average). The first thing I did was list all the encounters in the adventure. Obviously, they were not enough to cover three levels. I then turned to the Dungeon Master’s Guide, page 104, for a breakdown of how many encounters per level I needed. Based on my judgment and the 3.5E encounter level of each of the listed scenarios, I assigned them 4E encounter levels.

• Danger on the Road (level 17 tactical challenge)
• Audience with Manzorian (level 18 skill challenge)
• King Kyuss (level 15 skill challenge)
• Ziggurat of Kyuss (level 17 tactical challenge)
• The Sundering (level 16 skill challenge)
• Chamber of Ascension (level 20 tactical challenge)
• Halls of Corruption (level 17 tactical challenge)
• The Gift (level 16 skill challenge)
• Halls of Knowledge (level 17 tactical challenge)
• Kyuss the Student (level 17 skill challenge)
• The Writhing Chamber (level 18 tactical challenge)
• Temple of the Fountain (level 19 skill/tactical challenge)
• Apotheosis (level 18 skill challenge)
• Chamber of Contemplation (level 18 tactical challenge)
• Sea of Worms (level 19 tactical challenge)
• Knights of the Worm (level 19 tactical challenge)
• The Harbinger (level 17 tactical challenge)
• The Age of Worms (level 19 tactical challenge)

The first part of the adventure requires the heroes to journey to Magepoint for an audience with the Archmage Manzorian. Since the heroes left a wake of enemies in their past all wanting them dead, I decided to stage an assassination attempt at the Inn of the All-Seeing Eye in Magepoint while the heroes waited for their meeting.

• Assassination Attempt (level 18 tactical encounter)

The next part of the adventure calls for a journey to the southern ruins of Kuluth-Mar, where Kyuss attained godhood. At 16^th level, there are too many different means for the heroes to reach their destination for me to bother planning encounters on the way, so I focused on Kuluth-Mar instead. There’s a small section of the adventure describing the different areas of the ruins and the kinds of creatures that could be encountered there, so I turned each of those into an encounter.

• Guardian Gargoyle (level 18 tactical challenge)
• Yuan-Ti Hunting Party (level 17 tactical challenge)
• Beholder Press Gang (level 16 tactical challenge)
• Hydra Dinner Bell (level 16 tactical challenge)

I then decided on the three major quests, one for each level.

• Discover Who’s Behind the Assassination Attempt (level 16 major quest)
• Piece Together Kyuss’ Past (level 17 major quest)
• Cleanse Kuluth-Mar (level 18 major quest)

Finally, I added some extra scenarios to flesh out the action and make up for any skipped or missed encounters. I don’t want my players to feel railroaded, so I don’t want to force them to complete every single encounter just to gain the requisite experience points. On the off chance their meeting goes badly or the heroes lose their minds and storm Manzorian’s castle, I took the information from the adventure and crafted two encounters for the castle’s defense.

• Stirge Sentinels (level 18 tactical challenge)
• Zealous Guards (level 18 tactical challenge)

I also created two “random” encounters for use when the heroes leave the ziggurat in Kuluth-Mar for whatever reason.

• Mummy Lord Moving (level 18 tactical challenge)
• Rival Expedition (level 18 tactical challenge)

The next step I took was finding as many direct correlations between the 3.5E and 4E monsters as possible. In many cases, it was easy – the “Danger on the Road” encounter called for barbed devils and bone devils, so I simply consulted the D&D Compendium and swapped out the creatures. In other cases, a monster didn’t exist – there are no demodands in 4E, and I didn’t want to spend the time crafting one from scratch, so I simply replaced it with a gargoyle. Then the real work began.

Going encounter by encounter, I began crafting each tactical challenge. As a 17^th-level encounter, “Danger on the Road” was worth between 8,000 and 9,600 XP for 5-6 characters. I wanted a mix of roles for the monsters, and fortunately the 4E designers had already done the hard work for me. Regular barbed devils were skirmishers, barbed devil enforcers were soldiers, and bone devils were controllers. The original encounter called for four bone devils, but I felt that was too many controllers, so I cut down on the number and added a cambion hellfire magus in the artillery role.

I then turned my attention to the setting. The name of the encounter, “Danger on the Road,” told me the challenge was outside. I looked through my existing maps but couldn’t find anything suitable, so I turned my attention to the internet. After finding the perfect map with a road cutting through a forest setting with a ruined tower in the lower right corner, I set about recreating it on my tabletop. This was a one-shot encounter, meaning the characters were not expected to revisit it for any reason, so I didn’t want to spend time creating scenery and props. I drew the tower on my battlemap, sketched out the road, and then placed my Dungeon Cling bushes from Dark Platypus Studio, supplemented by some miniature pine trees from the Christmas clearance bin at Kmart.

After I had a visual from which to work, I started detailing the Features of the Area. For this encounter, they were simple.

• Illumination: The lighting is natural and depends on the time of day.
• Tower: The tower has only its ground floor remaining and is open to the elements.
• Trees: The trees are blocking terrain.

I then set some guidelines for the beginning of the encounter and wrote Tactics for the monsters.

When the heroes enter the area, read:
The air suddenly grows deathly quiet, and a pall falls over your surroundings. Something is not right, but you can’t put your finger on it.

Have the players place their figures on the map.

If a hero has a passive Perception of 21 or higher, he or she is not surprised; read:
Lurking in the woods is a large figure trying to hide behind the trees.

If a hero has a passive Perception of 31 or higher, also read:
There is another large figure spying on your group from behind the ruined tower with a skull-like face.

Tactics
Lacking ranged attacks, the bone devils remain hidden until the heroes are within their respective auras or until they’re spotted. They then unleash fiendish focus and use double attack whenever possible. The barbed devils teleport to close combat and use double attack as well, resorting to hurl flame for targets that remain out of reach. The cambion hellfire magus flies up and perches on the top of the stairs, firing hellfire ray at individual targets and dropping soulscorch on targets that clump together. Their goal is to gain the piece of the Rod of Seven Parts, so whenever a target is downed, one of the devils takes the time to search the body.

Next Time on 3G: Creating creatures, converting skill challenges, distributing treasure, and adding the finishing touches…

 

[Telamont]

i dont know if i am too late, but age of worms is my favorite adventure, i ran it 5 times and want to run now in 4e. you have maybe the notes?