D&D 3E/3.5 converting 3e combats to 4e - are they serious?

[Herobizkit]

I'm in the process of converting a 3e adventure to 4e, and my first crack revealed some interesting thoughts.

The party is going to be 3 PCs of level 3. According to the XP budget guidelines, my EL budget looks like this:

1 - 300
2 - 275
3 - 450
4 - 525
5 - 600
6 - 750
7 - 900

The first thing that really confused me was this:

1 Ankheg is a Level 3 Elite Lurker with a gross amount of hit points. According to the Builder, though, it's only worth 300 XP... which means that the encounter by itself is a Level 1 encounter.

For a smaller level 3 party, is this "correct", or should I be adding minions?

In order to get this fight to Level 3, I'd have to add six Ankheg Broodlings (minions @ 25 xp each) bringing the fight to a "Standard" challenge.

Further along...

I have two Hands of Torog watching guard, which is joined (in two rounds) by a Gnoll Mockery Priest. Together, they make 475 xp... slightly above "Standard". This makes slightly more sense (one monster per PC).

Theoretically, if the last fight is the toughest, should I be aiming for higher XP values, and therefore harder fights? Should I be focused on higher level, but fewer monsters, or minions a-plenty?

 

[On Puget Sound]

yes, in 4e fights tend not to be against single creatures. Even "solos" should rarely be used solo.

If you are new to GMing 4E, I recommend more and lower level monsters, rather than fewer and higher. Once monsters and players have used all their encounter powers (i.e. by around round 3), the fight can get boring if you're not careful; lower level monsters mean they won't be around for as long after everyone on both sides gets to do their coolest stuff. It's also easier to modify on the fly by adding or subtracting more monsters, than by adjusting the stats of a single creature that turned out to be over or under powered.

3PC parties will be a lot swingier and more fragile than full groups. In a group of 5, monsters are often forced to spread their damage around, and if they succeed in focusing and taking one down, the party's damage output is reduced by 20%. In a 3 person group, it's easier to concentrate on one victim and take him/her out, cutting the PC's damage output by 33%. So at first, err on the side of caution. Once you know what the party can take, you can ramp it up gradually.

 

[Rechan]

Bare in mind that the monster formula (HP/def/etc) was adjusted around MM3. The HP for an Elite should be: 58 (HP is calculated by twice a standard monster.) Also the Ankheg is a poor elite.

Personally, if you want to make a good encounter, I'd just turn them into standard, non elites (halve the hit points, so 29 hp, get rid of the action point/bonus to saves). Use 2 ankhegs and a bunch of minions (since you're controller heavy).

Also, above xp budget by 25 isn't going to be terrible. In my opinion, parties can take more than what the numbers say (sort of like in 3e how ELs weren't a science). However, you have a striker and 2 controllers, so I'd be cautious.

Theoretically, if the last fight is the toughest, should I be aiming for higher XP values, and therefore harder fights? Should I be focused on higher level, but fewer monsters, or minions a-plenty?

It depends. Fewer monsters means your guys are going to womp on them - depending on the powers they have, this can mean serious lock-down (daze/immobilize/etc). Depending on the monster type, it would be rendered useless.

Every monster of level+1 could work. However, I think 2 3rd level monsters + 1 5th level monster works nice. That brings it up to a 4th level encounter.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm in the process of converting a 3e adventure to 4e, and my first crack revealed some interesting thoughts.

The party is going to be 3 PCs of level 3. According to the XP budget guidelines, my EL budget looks like this:

1 - 300
2 - 275
3 - 450
4 - 525
5 - 600
6 - 750
7 - 900

The first thing that really confused me was this:

1 Ankheg is a Level 3 Elite Lurker with a gross amount of hit points. According to the Builder, though, it's only worth 300 XP... which means that the encounter by itself is a Level 1 encounter.

As stated below, you should use multiple creatures. One 3rd-level monster per 3rd-level PC is reasonable.

I have two Hands of Torog watching guard, which is joined (in two rounds) by a Gnoll Mockery Priest. Together, they make 475 xp... slightly above "Standard". This makes slightly more sense (one monster per PC).

Theoretically, if the last fight is the toughest, should I be aiming for higher XP values, and therefore harder fights? Should I be focused on higher level, but fewer monsters, or minions a-plenty?

Yes, "boss" fights should use a few more monsters. You can always replace a regular monster with 4 minions of the same level. Note that a boss can be an elite, to keep it from being ganked in the first round.

 

[Rechan]

I'm going to break down running for small groups.

Rule #1 is that it's all about the role, then class, arrangement. Look at what your PCs can do well, look at where they are weak, and play to their strengths while flirting with their weaknesses. Your current group:

Bladesinger
Dragon Sorcerer
Psion.

(Did you not add a companion to provide heals?)

Strengths: Ranged attacks vs. multiple opponents. Your bladesinger needs to to hit in melee, but then he can hit another target in ranged. Your sorcerer likely has either several close blast/burst powers, or ranged powers. Your Psion is going to be primarily ranged and able to hit multiple targets.

Weaknesses: Squishy. Not very mobile. Unable to physically pin targets down/be 'sticky' (unless they are dropping status effects via encounter/dailies). No healing.

What does this imply for preferred enemies? Low hit points, low damage. What works for that? Controllers, Soldiers, Minions, possibly artillery.

Your bread and butter encounters would likely be controllers at ranged. Perched in high positions, staked out 10-20 squares apart, or running around behind cover, so you can get a "Wild West Shootout" feel for it. However, since your bladesinger needs to stab people, and your sorcerer might, then you should think about up-close-and-personal controllers (ones with close blasts/bursts or melee powers). Add minions, or a soldier.

Soldiers require some finesse. They have low damage output and moderate HP, but their defenses are usually rather high. Your guys likely won't be hitting AC, but still. So this can either become grindy, or it can be fairly well. Soldiers have the nice benefit of getting up in your PCs' faces and pinning them down without killing them, which is scary but not lethal for your crew.

Artillery offers some interesting options. Often artillery are very weak, and operate at ranged (both good), but they pack a mean damage punch (potentially bad). I say putting two artillery monsters and some minions would make a good fight, but avoid putting a soldier in there that could tie players down and keep them from beating the crap out of the artilelry.

Lurkers are a mixed bag. They are physically weak, but pack a serious punch. Their best use is to hang out until a good point and shiv someone int he back, doing buckets of damage. This is bad for your crew. Without a healer, I'd avoid them. The ankheg isn't bad in this regard, the real sucker is that ongoing 5 acid damage.

Skirmishers may be tempting. However they can move around a lot and potentially do a lot of damage, which you might not want to happen. (Although they may need combat advantage to do it and that might get hard to dish out). They have high Ref saves and I bet your guys target Ref a lot. Use sparingly.

Avoid Brutes. They have lots of hit points, and do a lot of damage.

What you might do is consider creating a faux-minion. Instead of going down at one hit, they go down at two. Consider them twice the XP of minions but still pose the same general threat.

On using lower or higher level monsters - The thing to keep in mind is 1) their defenses (Can the PCs hit them?), 2) the monster's attack bonus (can the monster hit the PCs?) and 3) the damage output (is it too much to kill outright, is it not doing enough damage to begin with?).

Rule #2: Healing. Like it was pointed out before, with smaller groups, they can die fast. Because people can focus fire, and as soon as one pc goes down, the others are in serious trouble. Give your guys some healing potions so they're not absolutely out of luck. Giving them a companion would be the best way to go.

 

[Rechan]

Also when converting 3e mods to 4e, give more space for various maps. I doubt your Pcs have any mobility powers but still, it's nice to not be bottled up with things.

 

[Herobizkit]

Aside:

The group won't settle on character choices. Here's what is going to be most likely:

Eladrin Bladesinger (possible Avenger)
Vryloka Blackguard (possible Bard-Skald)
Human Psion (changes his mind every day)

[MENTION=54846]Rechan[/MENTION], thanks for the breakdown. This should help me out a lot. It's been too long since I last sat in the DM chair.

As it turns out, the adventure I plan on running has 14 "rooms", only half of which have actual fights. A few have some natural and non-natural traps, and a handful are there for flavour and possible rest areas.

As for a Companion... it's looking like I may have to tack on a Leader. Nothing makes me sadder than having the typical "tag-along" healer, but there you go.

 

[MortalPlague]

In my Thieves' Guild game, our party frequently was without a healer (I told the players not to worry about classes). So I put together a "Guild Heal": each character could use it once per day to heal a surge + d6 as a minor action. That solved most of my healing problems. When each PC has a minor action heal, a second wind, and potentially some potions, they're in pretty decent shape healing-wise.

 

[S'mon]

You are right. The ankheg (level 3 elite) is a fair match for 2 level 3 PCs. To make it a fair/challenging fight, yes you can add another 150 XP worth of monsters, such as broodlings.

Just starting out, with only 3 PCs, and not a very min-maxed PC array, I would suggest keeping your ELs on the low side, though. An EL-2 fight should be challenging enough for them, I suspect.

Edit: My suggestion would be to add 3 min-1 ankheg broodlings, making it a 375 XP, EL-2 fight.

 

[erleni]

Hello,

I've been DM'ing since the beginning of 4th edition for 3-PCs groups as I have three players. This would be my advice:

1) In general one 3-rd level monster per PC is still a 3rd level encounter. You can simply scale on this basis, so if you need a 4th level encounter just take the equivalent of three 4-th level monsters and you should be fine.

2) Caveat one: be careful with solo monsters. They will be more deadly as their HP will be higher and their action points will count more. Multi-action solos like a behir should be watched even more carefully. I almost TPK'ed my party in the first round with a behir.

3) Caveat two: action denial has an higher impact in smaller parties (both on the PCs and monsters side). A succubus with two lackeys can really spell doom for a 3-PCs party. Unless the PCs have several ways to shake off conditions you should be more careful than usual in selecting monsters that daze, stun or dominate.

After a few sessions you should start feeling whether you're doing good or not and then you'll just need to adjust a bit here and a bit there. At the same time your players will start to see the weaknesses of a small party (reduced overlap of functions and higher vulnerability to imposed conditions) and will do some changes accordingly, usually by multiclassing.

The great advantage is that combats run faster and you can do more in one session. Have fun!!