Why 30-level adventure paths?

[Rechan]

What I have done plenty of is increasing the size of a number of encounters. There are a good deal more monsters in my conversions than there are in the original adventures.

THe reason for this is encounter assumptions are different for each system.

In 3e: 1 Monster = 4 PCs*.
In 4e: 1 Monster = 1 PC.

*It's a hint more complicated than that, but adding monsters of equal CR to an encounter increases the encounter level. A single troll is a CR 5, so it's a normal challenge for a 5th level group, a level +1 for a 4th level group, etc. Add another troll and it jumps up to a 7th level encounter.

 

[Dannager]

THe reason for this is encounter assumptions are different for each system.

In 3e: 1 Monster = 4 PCs*.
In 4e: 1 Monster = 1 PC.

*It's a hint more complicated than that, but adding monsters of equal CR to an encounter increases the encounter level. A single troll is a CR 5, so it's a normal challenge for a 5th level group, a level +1 for a 4th level group, etc. Add another troll and it jumps up to a 7th level encounter.

That's absolutely correct. In practice, it's not quite so dramatic as the math might suggest, as adventure designers in 3rd Edition tended to mostly ignore the 1 monster = 4 PCs rule for a lot of their encounters, and monsters in 4th Edition can be condensed into Elite and Solo monsters when necessary. I'd say I probably add 33% more monsters, just as a wild guess.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

A level 30 character in 4th Edition has probably experienced about the same "level" of adventure as has a level 20 character in D&D 3.5. This is further supported by the increase in level of monsters in 4th Edition to spread traditional challenges out across all three tiers. Indeed, if I were sticking to a 1-17 spread, inserting stone giants as presented in the Monster Manual 2 in my conversion of Fortress of the Stone Giants would be problematic - as monsters of roughly 15th level, the party wouldn't really be ready to face them in numbers until the sixth adventure in the path, rather than the fourth.

Ah, I see where you're coming from, although I'm one of those people who believe that 4E simply folded the epic rules into core, instead of increasing the granularity of levels. I do think that WotC upgraded some monsters in power, but actually I don't think stone giants fell into this category. For example, Fortress of the Stone Giants was written for 4 level-10 3E PCs. 3E stone giants are CR 8, so a theoretically level-appropriate encounter is two stone giants. In 4E, a stone giant is level 14, 1000 XP. Four level-10 4E PCs have an encounter budget of 2000 XP, just enough for two stone giants, so the power level seems about right. In practice, I might rewrite the stone giant as a level 10 elite, to give it more variety in its attacks and allow the PCs to hit more often.

In practice, I haven't had to add too many encounters. I can think of a handful in Burnt Offerings and maybe one or two in The Skinsaw Murders, as well as suggesting a couple encounters while traveling in The Hook Mountain Massacre. What I have done plenty of is increasing the size of a number of encounters. There are a good deal more monsters in my conversions than there are in the original adventures.

That's great to hear! I will definitely have to take another look at your conversion effort. I think I just bounced off your conversion of the first dungeon in Burnt Offerings, which you expanded from one encounter to four, as well as encouraging the DM to push the players towards the followup dungeon that Paizo wrote as optional. It sounds like this may have been more the exception than the rule.

Let me just say that although I disagreed with some of the parameters of your conversion effort, I think you're doing excellent work!

 

[Wormwood]

One of the things I like the most about 30-level Paths is that they allow our group to rotate DMs while maintaining campaign continuity.

So far in Scales of War, we've had three DMs---with a fourth stepping up on the next installment.

And as an aside, two of them have before never DMed anything, ever. Woot!

 

[Pseudopsyche]

What I believe would be the most effective Adventure Path would actually be 3 linked ones with 1 for each tier. I don't think looking at conversions are fair because they are, after all, conversions. But for an original to 4e Adventure Path, I think having 3 distinct sections to it that each have a definite beginning/middle/end, but also tie into a larger storyline would work best.

I like this idea quite a lot. The trilogy is already a standard form in the fantasy genre, and I think it could work well in the context of adventure paths, too!

In general, I agree with what I took to be your main point, that campaigns of this duration require more structure than either just a single story arc or a just string of weakly connected arcs.