Pathfinder APs in 5E

[gyor]

I could see doing Kingmaker in the Border Kingdoms of FR, as I think the Border Kingdoms we're the inspiration for the Stolen Lands.

 

[S'mon]

The npcs tend to have tons of backstory, it's more that they are often horribly deployed. As if actual use in play is an afterthought.

 

[Jester David]

The earlier ones wouldn't be too hard, as they'd rely more on traditional monsters. The later ones make more and more use of subsystems and Pathfinder content, which makes them trickier to run and requires updating more content.

For an experienced DM, you could probably run most of them on the fly. You'd need to prep some key NPCs and figure out ways of tweaking certain monsters. But, for the most part, 5e is flexible enough that you could almost adjust combat encounters on the fly.

Also, if you check on reddit or do some googling, a few already have conversions done.

Honestly, the HARDEST part by far is going to be treasure. Because Pathfinder gives out gold like it's going out of style.
It's probably easiest to just roll randomly and give out a couple hoards each AP volume. I'd also remove all magic items from everyone except bosses or mentioned in the plot.

Some prep would be required. But likely still less than writing your own adventures. The hardest part of adventure designing is getting the plot, making NPCs, and planning the story.

 

[Jester David]

One trick on encounter building I picked up from Mike "Sly Floursh" Shea is that a monsters of a CR equal to 1/3rd to the level of a PC is a good one-on-one challenge.
So a party of 4 PCs can have a decent, challenging fight with four CR 1/3 monsters. And at level 3, four CR 1 monsters will be a good fight. And at level 12, four CR 3 monsters will be okay. And at level 20, four CR 5 monsters should be an alright fight.
Give or take. Depends on how badass the party is.

Thinking back to Rise of the Runelords, that starts with a few fights with goblins. 4 goblins is a good, easy battle. Simple to make one a "bard" by giving it a bardic inspiration trait and maybe the vicious mockery cantrip. And liven it up with torches and vials of oil.
Then have a "boss fight" with a goblin boss on a worg, maybe with a goblin or two as support.

Simple.

 

[S'mon]

Honestly, the HARDEST part by far is going to be treasure. Because Pathfinder gives out gold like it's going out of style.

I found this not a problem running Runelords/Shattered Star mashup; maybe because I
used the first 4 of each AP to take PCs from 1 to 18. The main issue I saw was way too
many Rings of Protection. Some things like magic armour were actually rather rare.

 

[S'mon]

And at level 20, four CR 5 monsters should be an alright fight.

Heh. No.

For a weak party, maybe 4 CR 10. For a strong party, try 4 CR 20.

 

[Fergurg]

My tactic, if you really like the AP, is to keep the basics and not worry too much about how accurate the crunchy translations are; that said, I also tend to make changes that seem subtle at first.

 

[billd91]

I’m running Age of Worms in 5e. It’s going well.

 

[Zardnaar]

One trick on encounter building I picked up from Mike "Sly Floursh" Shea is that a monsters of a CR equal to 1/3rd to the level of a PC is a good one-on-one challenge.
So a party of 4 PCs can have a decent, challenging fight with four CR 1/3 monsters. And at level 3, four CR 1 monsters will be a good fight. And at level 12, four CR 3 monsters will be okay. And at level 20, four CR 5 monsters should be an alright fight.
Give or take. Depends on how badass the party is.

Thinking back to Rise of the Runelords, that starts with a few fights with goblins. 4 goblins is a good, easy battle. Simple to make one a "bard" by giving it a bardic inspiration trait and maybe the vicious mockery cantrip. And liven it up with torches and vials of oil.
Then have a "boss fight" with a goblin boss on a worg, maybe with a goblin or two as support.

Simple.

I think you are smoking the wacky backy there my friend.

We used to take on multiple deadly X5 fights in a day (using the xp multiplier) or CR +6 or +7 above party level and I think our record is 11 encounters. 6 fights of deadlyX2 also works depending on the composition of the party.

Its roughly CR +1/-1 level for mano a mano challenges (deadly), a level 3 or 4 fighter can maybe take a veteran or a cleric can use a hold person spell and win that way depend on things like optimisation levels, rolled stats, 3pp stuff etc. Vampire RAW are a deadly fight for a level 7 party and they are CR 13 (and not that hard either). I had a level 5 halfling dual wiled basically solo some CR 5 stuff today via an action surge and 3 attacks every round.

A previous comment about Pathfinder handing out money I think its similar to 5E. HoTQ queen has a big dragon horde at level 7 and a few of the other adventures also hand out a bit as well. Might not be quite as much as PF but its not far off and money mostly doesn't mater in 5E anyway you could give them 500k gp by level 10.

 

[Jester David]

I think you are smoking the wacky backy there my friend.

We used to take on multiple deadly X5 fights in a day (using the xp multiplier) or CR +6 or +7 above party level and I think our record is 11 encounters. 6 fights of deadlyX2 also works depending on the composition of the party.

Its roughly CR +1/-1 level for mano a mano challenges (deadly), a level 3 or 4 fighter can maybe take a veteran or a cleric can use a hold person spell and win that way depend on things like optimisation levels, rolled stats, 3pp stuff etc. Vampire RAW are a deadly fight for a level 7 party and they are CR 13 (and not that hard either). I had a level 5 halfling dual wiled basically solo some CR 5 stuff today via an action surge and 3 attacks every round.

It's as a baseline and the xp gained works out to being close to the encounter math in the book.

It does depends on how many encounters are being fought that adventuring day, and how optimised the party is. Which can definitely have an impact. But you don't make a rule assuming the characters are super optimised and played by experts.

A previous comment about Pathfinder handing out money I think its similar to 5E. HoTQ queen has a big dragon horde at level 7 and a few of the other adventures also hand out a bit as well. Might not be quite as much as PF but its not far off and money mostly doesn't mater in 5E anyway you could give them 500k gp by level 10.

Kinda...
There's no shortage of 5e wealth-by-level charts.
http://dmdavid.com/tag/what-is-the-...in-a-fifth-edition-dungeons-dragons-campaign/
and
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/8hz339/5e_wealth_by_level_hoard_tables/
and
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?402507-Deconstructing-5e-Typical-Wealth-by-Level

Most show 5e as being pretty close to WBL as Pathfinder. But that's at the later levels.
At 2nd level, 5e WBL is around 100 gp. In Pathfinder, it's 1,000 gp.
At level 5, 5e WBL should be around 650 gp. In Pathfinder, it's 10,000 gp.
At 10th level, 5e WBL should be 18-20,000. In Pathfinder, it's 62,000 gp.
At 15th level, 5e WBL... varies more greatly. One number puts it at is 10,000 gp while others have it at 75,000 and 97,000. The effects of highly variable hordes. Regardless, at 15th level, Pathfinder WBL is 24,000 gp.

So, when looking at handing out treeausre from Pathfinder modules, I'd hand out a 1/0th the money from APs up to level 10. Half from levels 11-16. And regular treasure from 17+ (for the three APs that get that high).