D&D 5E Convert ROTRL or wait for Out of the Abyss?
- Thread starter pontinyc
- Start date
epithet
Explorer
Echoing what was said above, if you're enjoying Runelords, stick with it. The early adventures have set the stage for the later ones, and while you can always run Abyss when you're done with Runelords, if you derail the train now it will be a lot more difficult to set up the rest of Runelords later, without having the first couple of chapters to build on.
epithet
Explorer
Your DM has to be willing to adjust. That's going to be as true for Abyss as it is for Runelords or Worms. Some parties wind up lacking in one area, others wind up having unforeseen synergy that makes certain encounters trivial. In either case, the DM has to be able to adjust by either tweaking the party (adding an NPC to cover some healing, for example, or adding an important 'escort' NPC that the party has to worry about keeping alive.)
Some groups may have the good fortune to be able to run a series of adventures as written, but my experience has been that even the best module needs to be tweaked to suit your party.
I would just add that if your players get bored with RotRL it is easy to cut the AP short. When I ran it years ago my group and I were burnt out on high level play in 3.5. So I ran the early adventures but dropped clues at the end of book 3 that lead the party straight to the big bad. That way I was able to cut books 4 & 5 and the first part of 6 and just converted the final dungeon to be appropriate for the 10th level party. It worked very well - while there was some good stuff that got cut, I felt like the early adventures were the best ones. Plus if you are converting to 5E anyway it is just as easy to re-stat the enemies at a lower level.
Inchoroi
Adventurer
I'm currently running Runelords for my 5e group, and the conversion does take a bit of work. For as quick and dirty as you can:
1. Throw out the money and magic items in the book. Random roll from the DMG, if you have it, every time the story would suggest there'd be some treasure (NOTE: "Story" means the actual thematic story, not when they suggest treasure should be found). You'll still find that the party will have a lot of money, so don't be afraid to add in stuff for them to spend it on, a la business investments, etc.
I also, since the world of Pathfinder is fairly magic-item heavy, allow the players to purchase select magic items at various shops around the big cities--once they leave Magnimar at the end of Chapter 2, though, the magic item options at the shops will be slim pickings, other than HP potions. I just roll on the DMG's random magic items from the Treasure section to determine shop inventory, using the average party level to determine what Challenge rating to use for the tables (pg 137 in the DMG).
2. Reduce skill check DCs by 5. That gets you into the ballpark, usually, up until level 10ish. After that, reduce it by 10.
3. Ignore XP for leveling. I find it better if you use milestones. If I had to do it over again, though, I'd probably put a bit more work into making XP leveling function, rather than use Milestones, since the "2nd Edition Feel" is something that the party enjoys, and didn't like about 4e at all.
4. Use the DMG to modify monsters as needed; I haven't tried the converter mentioned above yet (but I definitely will be, once the party have caught up with what I've already finished).
EDIT: Another reason I decided to use Milestones was so I could allow the party to get all the way to level 20 just before they enter the final dungeon or thereabouts, because we've never reached max level in a game before.
1. Throw out the money and magic items in the book. Random roll from the DMG, if you have it, every time the story would suggest there'd be some treasure (NOTE: "Story" means the actual thematic story, not when they suggest treasure should be found). You'll still find that the party will have a lot of money, so don't be afraid to add in stuff for them to spend it on, a la business investments, etc.
I also, since the world of Pathfinder is fairly magic-item heavy, allow the players to purchase select magic items at various shops around the big cities--once they leave Magnimar at the end of Chapter 2, though, the magic item options at the shops will be slim pickings, other than HP potions. I just roll on the DMG's random magic items from the Treasure section to determine shop inventory, using the average party level to determine what Challenge rating to use for the tables (pg 137 in the DMG).
2. Reduce skill check DCs by 5. That gets you into the ballpark, usually, up until level 10ish. After that, reduce it by 10.
3. Ignore XP for leveling. I find it better if you use milestones. If I had to do it over again, though, I'd probably put a bit more work into making XP leveling function, rather than use Milestones, since the "2nd Edition Feel" is something that the party enjoys, and didn't like about 4e at all.
4. Use the DMG to modify monsters as needed; I haven't tried the converter mentioned above yet (but I definitely will be, once the party have caught up with what I've already finished).
EDIT: Another reason I decided to use Milestones was so I could allow the party to get all the way to level 20 just before they enter the final dungeon or thereabouts, because we've never reached max level in a game before.
I believe ROTRL or Out of the Abyss will be equal work, because nothing will replace a DMs experience in 5E since you can not rely heavily on the CR system to pull you through. So the more you play the better you will be, as long as you still have the itch to DM (being the most important) then play on.
Corpsetaker
First Post
Depends what you want out of a module. Out of the Abyss and RoTRL are two different types of modules.
pontinyc
Explorer
Fair point, Corpsetaker. Based on what we know, what type of module do you think Out of the Abyss will be? I don't know enough about how the two differ.
In terms of what I'm looking for, in this case my main thought is that going with Out of the Abyss will just be much easier as I won't have to convert.
In terms of what I'm looking for, in this case my main thought is that going with Out of the Abyss will just be much easier as I won't have to convert.
It's my belief that it's Paizo's APs that suffer from this problem. I never had this problem with Wizards' APs - they never required the same level of brutal optimisation to play well. I happily ran all of the HPE series without any of the problems caused by Kingmaker or Council of Thieves, likewise Tyranny of Dragons ran very well once we got through the problematic early bits (caused by late changes in the playtest rules that weren't noted in time for the first adventure).
Cheers!
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