D&D 4E Any notable 4E adventures worth converting to 5E?

[tsuyoshikentsu]

No, he's right. Because of 4E's absolute marriage to the encounters per day l/milestone system, a lot of the combat in its adventures really was unexciting filler.

My favorite example is an LFR adventure that begins with a worker dropping a crate of fire beetles, all of which you then have to fight. The adventure then proceeds with the worker getting scolded, which is the actual plot-relevant part, and fire beetles are never mentioned again. The whole thing works just as well if she breaks a crate of geodes or something.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

No, he's right. Because of 4E's absolute marriage to the encounters per day l/milestone system, a lot of the combat in its adventures really was unexciting filler.

That an encounter was unexciting filler in 4e is not what was being talked about - Cap was saying, or at least appeared to be saying, that encounters would become unexciting filler if translated directly (i.e. an interesting encounter with 4 trolls in 4e = unexciting filler encounter with 4 trolls in 5e).

If an encounter serves no narrative purpose, and is just there "for the numbers" with nothing interesting about it, then that encounter should absolutely be altered so that it has some purpose - regardless of which edition you are running.

What Cap is saying seemed clear to me as being that if you convert a 4e adventure to 5e that you either ramp up all the encounters to 5e encounters at or above the xp budget of a "deadly" encounter, or just drop any encounters that aren't at least "deadly" by 5e standards because they are, by default, trivial and curbstompable unexciting filler.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I probably wouldn't use the entire adventures of 4e, because was all about combat. But definetely could adapt encounters to 5e, there are lot of great encounters.

While I have only run through a single 4e prewritten adventure (I don't know the name, but it's one where a town has suddenly had all of the color of the area disappear), all I can say is that my experience of 4e proves this statement manifestly false. Hell, in my current 4e game, we've had multiple sessions go by without a single combat, and we've only been running weekly games since January (though it is, to the best of my knowledge, completely custom-built by the DM). In fact, if we end up not having a combat this week--which is seeming relatively likely--then this will be the second time we've gone two sessions in a row with zero combats.

As for the actual topic, rather than drive-by edition warring: I've heard good things about The Slaying Stone and Cairn of the Winter King. There are a few others that might be worth looking into, but I'm afraid I can't remember what they were called. Might go back and check out some of the "Recommend me some prewritten 4e adventures!" threads to see what I can find.

 

[jacktannery]

I've played or read through all the 4E modules made by WotC. As a rule, they are terrible (and I say this as a 4E fan) but there are quite a few excellent 4E modules and APs written by other companies (of which the best is probably Zeitgeist by EN World if your into steampunk).

The best 4E modules by WotC were Madness at Gardmore Abbey and Reavers of Harkenwold. In contrast to Xaratan's experience, when my group ran through these modules we did a lot of non-combat roleplaying, as well as combat - might be just different styles of play; in any case there is nothing in the modules that suggest an all-combat adventure. Personally, I wouldn't convert a 4E module for a 5E game; it's a lot of work and not a natural fit. A 2E module (and there are LOTS of great ones) would be much simpler and more natural to convert.

 

[JeffB]

I "13th Aged" 4e (essentials) for my kids group before 13th Age came out, specifically to get rid of the grid, cos they hate the grid and Love the "D&D Supers" feel ( I do too!) I ran several of the pre-published adventures. They all worked well with just a little tweaking.

We had an absolute blast with Cairn of the Winter King. It may be the most memorable module we played with several editions/variants over the 5 years we had a steady game.

Edit-I also riffed off the multi part module in the DM Kit, and some of the Goodman Games stuff was good too....e.g. Isle of the Sea Drake
Edit 2- yes I did remove some of the filler combats. I dont see why it would be hard to use a 4e module as framework, and convert to 5e monster stats.

 

[zaratan]

While I have only run through a single 4e prewritten adventure (I don't know the name, but it's one where a town has suddenly had all of the color of the area disappear), all I can say is that my experience of 4e proves this statement manifestly false. Hell, in my current 4e game, we've had multiple sessions go by without a single combat, and we've only been running weekly games since January (though it is, to the best of my knowledge, completely custom-built by the DM). In fact, if we end up not having a combat this week--which is seeming relatively likely--then this will be the second time we've gone two sessions in a row with zero combats.

As for the actual topic, rather than drive-by edition warring: I've heard good things about The Slaying Stone and Cairn of the Winter King. There are a few others that might be worth looking into, but I'm afraid I can't remember what they were called. Might go back and check out some of the "Recommend me some prewritten 4e adventures!" threads to see what I can find.

I only prayed 3 modules in 4e, I believe was the first 3: Keep on the Shadowfell, Thunderspire Labyrinth and Pyramid of Shadows. Comparing with all I read drom 2e and 5e (never played 3e or 1st), mas all about combat. But man, the last 2 had some great combats. The Well Of Demons in Thunderspire Labyrinth, I didn't saw in 5e something so good about traps in combat. But there is about 3 or 4 non combat/traps moments in the entire advanture.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I only prayed 3 modules in 4e, I believe was the first 3: Keep on the Shadowfell, Thunderspire Labyrinth and Pyramid of Shadows. Comparing with all I read drom 2e and 5e (never played 3e or 1st), mas all about combat. But man, the last 2 had some great combats. The Well Of Demons in Thunderspire Labyrinth, I didn't saw in 5e something so good about traps in combat. But there is about 3 or 4 non combat/traps moments in the entire advanture.

While that's fair, don't forget that Keep on the Shadowfell and Pyramid of Shadows are widely considered two of the worst modules ever made for 4e. I have heard ardent 4e fans refer to the latter as Pyramid of S**t completely unironically. I don't remember offhand, but as I recall Thunderspire wasn't especially beloved either.

 

[zaratan]

While that's fair, don't forget that Keep on the Shadowfell and Pyramid of Shadows are widely considered two of the worst modules ever made for 4e. I have heard ardent 4e fans refer to the latter as Pyramid of S**t completely unironically. I don't remember offhand, but as I recall Thunderspire wasn't especially beloved either.

Looks like I draw the short straw, lol.

Maybe some day my group can give 4e a second chance.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Looks like I draw the short straw, lol.

Maybe some day my group can give 4e a second chance.

Hmm, it seems I was sort of half-wrong about Thunderspire: it's considered a big step up from KotS and PoS, but the average review score is only 5 to 6 out of 10.

Should your group ever traipse back in the 4e direction, looking for adventures, check out this thread, "Good adventure that shows 4E's strengths?" Seems like just the right discussion for finding things you might have missed from 4e if your group takes another look.

 

[ZzarkLinux]

Keep on the Shadowfell was written before the 4e core books were made, right? That's why KotS has conflicting rules with the 4e handbook. I may be mis-remembering, but I think that the "in-flux" rules was one of the reasons KotS mechanics were poor.

Keep on the Shadowfell wasn't easy either. The "kobolds waterfall" and "Irontooth" battles were notorious TPKs across the internet boards (meomwt's link on the first page shows the encounter). Keep on the Shadowfell was a TPK-fest.

The people discussing "Do Not Convert 4e Monsters & Combat" are accurate too. As much as I like 4e, the monsters started becoming Big-Bags-of-Hitpoints at a certain point. Monster damage was pathetic, but their hitpoints balooned too fast. This led to long boring combats where the PCs were not in danger of dying, but the combat would go on past 10 rounds ... This bug didn't get fixed until the Monster Manual 3, which was too late for many people.

Anyway, I'd rank the first 3 modules as Thunderspire Labyrinth > Pyramid of Shadow > Keep on the Shadowfell.