Anyone have experience converting earlier edition Adventures?

[Bagpuss]

Any have any tips?

I'm thinking of converting Savage Tide to 4th Ed, from The Lightless Depths onwards.

That adventure was for level 11 characters, I thinking of trying to balance it around a level 15 party. One thing I've noticed is a lot of 3rd Ed encounters seem to be verse one creature, which just don't really covert directly to 4th Ed. One creature tends to make for a boring fight (mind you it did in 3rd Ed as well).
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[Crothian]

There seem to be two basic ways to convert older modules. The first takes everything in the module and just does a straight conversions. So, encounter numbers and monsters stay the same. This can cause the module to become harder or easier as I'm sure you've noticed monsters don't always stay the same power level from game to game. This though is the easiest way to convert.

The other way is to look at the level the module is and look at the game you are converting into. You would then keep the plot and theme of the module but use different monsters and different groupings to fit the level requirements of the module and the combat expectations of the new edition. It is a tougher way to do things but I find that it works better in the long run.

I don't have the Savage tide adventures so I can't give any specific advice for converting those.

 

[TerraDave]

By 11th level level, a whole horde of 4E monsters can be easier to use, and choose, then one 3E creature. So you might just want to swap some or most out, or augment them. (minions, lots of minions). It might not be that hard in practice.

I don't know this module, but there is also the 4E idea of combining smaller areas into bigger ones, that is another way to get more monsters into the fight. (of course, I was doing this in 3E, but thats another story).

 

[kenmarable]

Also, did you see this thread at Paizo discussing converting all of STAP to 4e? Stewart Perkins has some good posts at least breaking the adventures down into skill challenges, quests, and combat encounters. The combat encounters even have some quick comments on combining some together, adding minions to others, etc.

Not highly detailed, but it's a start in at least structuring the adventures for 4e. I haven't read all of the posts, but there might be some ideas in there as well for specific conversion tips.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

If I were to do this, I'd read through the adventures thematically, and then "reverse engineer" them, starting with a combo of the theme and the BBEGs.

SPOILER below:
Like, you know demogorgon is the BBEG, so you'd be shooting for that level at the end.

So use the stats for that BBEG, and then adjust the levels of the minions and the direct servitors in that adventure to be appropriate for a level of that adventure (as appropriate within the DMG).

Then you can go back to the prior adventures, using the "finale" as your endpoint and determine the other guidelines.

 

[Dannager]

In answer to the thread title, yes.

You can find my work on the Rise of the Runelords adventure path at Tales from the Rusty Dragon.

 

[ferratus]

I've been converting some adventures over, and oddly enough I'm finding 2e adventures to be easier to convert to 4e than 3e. There are more group combats in adventures for 2e for example.

 

[Nebulous]

Yes, i recently had a lot of experience converting an old Dungeon adventure called Tallow's Deep from 1e/2e to a 4e adventure. It took about 10 sessions, so it was a much larger ordeal than the original, but i did flesh it out some on purpose.

Most combat encounters with the goblins i used a mix of minions, archers and brutes. The final encounter with the goblin king featured just about every enemy role at once, and it took roughly 4 hours to complete. But it was PCs fighting around 50 enemies, but it was quite fun. Deadly enough that no one ever got bored, as bad tactics would have ended in death and a domino effect.