D&D 4E Pathfinder Rules and 4e Monsters?

[Sylrae]

The mechanics are similar enough that I'm thinking you should be able to use them pretty easily, but I was wondering if anyone had quick guidelines or notes about their own experience.

Thoughts:
-10 To Saves to get the roll Bonus.
-How do you determine CR?
-Mooks?
I's say assume the monster rolled the lowest possible for hp, so 1 per hd + conmod*hd.

More thoughts on that?

I've been considering picking up 4e Monster Manuals for use in my PFRPG Games, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

Points against:
Obviously there are many more 3.5e Monster Manuals which are more closely compatible, and many of these monsters were just remade in 4e.

But I imagine there are many in 4e that weren't in 3.5.

 

[Voadam]

5 4e creatures of party level are designed as an appropriate challenge for a party of 5 adventurers of that level.

1 Pathfinder creature of party level CR is an appropriate challenge for a party of 4 adventurers. Alternately EL of party level is an appropriate challenge for a party of 4.

I leave the math to you as I don't feel like working through a 4e monster level to 3e CR calculation.

Note that 1st level 4e kobolds have more than 20 hp each.

Note that high level monsters have no iterative attacks, even if they are a 20+ level dragonborn warrior with a sword.

Minions with 1 hp are a fine concept that can work in Pathfinder no problem.

You will have to come up with CMB stats.

 

[Voadam]

Points against:
Obviously there are many more 3.5e Monster Manuals which are more closely compatible, and many of these monsters were just remade in 4e.

But I imagine there are many in 4e that weren't in 3.5.

An order of magnitude more monster books for 3e.

 

[Sylrae]

An order of magnitude more monster books for 3e.

Exactly. Why not make use of it if possible?

5 4e creatures of party level are designed as an appropriate challenge for a party of 5 adventurers of that level.

1 Pathfinder creature of party level CR is an appropriate challenge for a party of 4 adventurers. Alternately EL of party level is an appropriate challenge for a party of 4.

I leave the math to you as I don't feel like working through a 4e monster level to 3e CR calculation.

But you can't easily compare those numbers, can you?
Does 1 Pathfinder character of a given level have comparable numbers to 1 4e character of a given level?
Hit Points?
Armor Class?
Saves?
Damage Output?

Note that 1st level 4e kobolds have more than 20 hp each.[/quiote]Hmm. Worth Noting.

Note that high level monsters have no iterative attacks, even if they are a 20+ level dragonborn warrior with a sword.

So 4e monsters with class levels don't convert nicely then. Okay. What about plain monsters?

Minions with 1 hp are a fine concept that can work in Pathfinder no problem.

I know, I just think 1hp is a bit much. I imagine for minions I'd just give them the minimum amount of hitpoints instead of rolling or taking the average.

You will have to come up with CMB stats.

BAB+Str; BAB+Str+Dex+10. Easy enough. I have to do that for 3.5e monstgers too.

Has anyone done this in their games before? or will I be the first when I decide to give that a shot?

 

[gamerprinter]

Conversion from 3e monsters to Pathfinder is only small work. Converting 4e monsters to Pathfinder is an insane amount of work - not even worth it, IMO. If I have to work on a monster, I'd rather create a new monster from scratch than to convert 4e to Pathfinder. But perhaps you like the work...

GP

 

[Sylrae]

Why is it so much work?

I was thinking it would only be a matter of:

CMB/CMD
Saves from Static back to Active
and Recalculate CR.

I was thinking maybe one just needed a table of 4e CR to PFRPG CR conversion.

I mean 4e monsters have per-encounter powers, but it's not so hard to say that 1/encounter = 5/day or even just leave them with per-encounter powers. If they only live for 4 rounds, nobody will notice.

 

[IronWolf]

Points against:
Obviously there are many more 3.5e Monster Manuals which are more closely compatible, and many of these monsters were just remade in 4e.

But I imagine there are many in 4e that weren't in 3.5.

With the pure number of monster books for 3.5 from either WotC or 3rd party publishers I can't see the need to tackle 4e creatures when you can pretty much convert the 3.5 critters on the fly if need be.

 

[pawsplay]

I'd recommend taking the 4e monster, pegging a CR, and using the build rules from the Bestiary appendix to re-create it. That would be simpler than trying to build a numeric equivalency (which is probably doable, but no more useful than the Bestiary benchmarks, so why bother?).

 

[Sylrae]

I figured with a CR Converting table I could pick up any 4e MM and just run it on the fly. calculate CMB, and make them roll for saves at -10 (since it isnt a static defense in PFRPG). As opposed to having to rebuild a monster.

Would it not be that simple?

 

[Gorbacz]

Honestly it's more trouble than worth. You're better off finding a 3.5 version of the monster or using one of the gazillion 3.5 monster books, some of them superior to 4e MMs in every respect (Advanced Bestiary, Tome of Horrors I-III, Book of Fiends).