D&D 3E/3.5 blending 4.0 & 3.5e - big mistake

[jsepeta]

When bringing my daughter's 3.5 campaign on their latest adventure, I upgraded a few NPC's I was running to 4.0 edition characters. After 3 long nights of drawn out battles against Rat-men, Orcs with a Sabretooth Tiger, and a pack of nasty wolves under the command of 3 Snow Goons (cool evil snowmen minis from Reaper), the party finally reached the main event -- a showdown with the evil eladrin wizardess Destra. She was killed in 3 rounds because the 4.0 powers were so much more badass than the skills and hack and slash monotony of 3.5. Now I'm trying to figure out how much XP and treasure to assign and sadly, it looks like the silly wolves were a better test of the party's resolve -- although the party did use their core skills to figure out many secrets during their visit to Destra's icy fortress. BTW they retrieved a powerful artifact ("the icy heart" -- basically a magic rock), and this may bring some nasty surprises to them if they hold onto it for too long, heh heh heh...

Any suggestions for re-aligning the disproportionate power of 4.0 characters vs. those from 3.5? I'm still awaiting the PHBII so I can convert my daughter's Bard and Sorceress to 4.0e rules. They're just now leveling up to 4, so the trial version of the character creator doesn't do us any good. WotC, please don't eliminate character classes just for the sake of making a bunch of new books!

 

[PrecociousApprentice]

If you want to convert to 4e then it is relatively easy. Check out this article from WotC. It is a simplistic way to covert characters.

Look at this tread for some more advanced advice. It will give you an idea of how to get under the hood and make things fit better than the WotC article.

I am coming to the conclusion that I don't need any other books to get all the classes I want. There are some very simple fixes. Fixes that WotC didn't publish because that would mean the end of their cash cow. Don't know if this kind of stuff is for you, but it sounds like it might be because you are already homebrewing a 3.5/4e hybrid.

Good luck with all this.

 

[CapnZapp]

WotC, please don't eliminate character classes just for the sake of making a bunch of new books!

What makes you think the classes of [edition - 1] are somehow holy?

One thing that was absolutely clear from the beginning: each new edition of D&D will offer a different mix of races and classes in the core books.

The sorcerer or gnome isn't more or less sacred than the tiefling or warlord...

 

[77IM]

It's not about holiness, it's about the sheer number of people who were using those classes and races and were left out in the cold during the 4e launch. Many people see this as a scheme to sell PHBII by withholding many people's favorite classes and races.


I agree with the OP that blending 3E and 4E just won't work. The math is too different; one of the main benefits of 4E is how balanced it is, and you lose that if you step too far outside the guidelines.

My suggestion is that you either stick with 3.5 for the time being, or else switch fully to 4E and "fake the funk" regarding character conversion, as described by PrecociousApprentice.

-- 77IM

 

[dammitbiscuit]

Why is everyone always left out in the cold? I like to think of it as a whole exciting new ecosystem to explore. Some of them might be warm and muggy! Does unfamiliar territory always have to be cold?