D&D 3E/3.5 Converting Old 3E to New 3E standard problems

[Leopold]

ok not to chide anyone on what they did as I know allot of people did allot of hard work on the conversions from 1E to 3E. The only compliant I had was this:

DO NOT ADJUST THE EL TO MATCH THE MODULE LEVEL!!!! I REPEAT DO NOT ADJUST THE ELS AT ALL!


See I just picked up C2 from the old conversion library. The guy who did it adjusted the EL because the tournament PC's were 7th so he made them 7th.

WRONG! It is NOT our job to balance the module, our job is to put the data in to the correct format and then spit out the end result. We as converters are not meant to say "Oh this should be this instead of this." WRONG BOYO! Just convert the material and then make a note if applicable on how to adjust it to suit othe party levels similar to dungeon.

DO NOT ALTER THE ELS!!!


ok i feel better now. It will take some work to redo the conversions because people adjusted them for some ungodly reason..oh well that is their perogative and I am glad they converted it over to make the reconverters lives easier.

not a flame but more of a rant..thanks for listening..

 

[Grazzt]

WRONG! It is NOT our job to balance the module, our job is to put the data in to the correct format and then spit out the end result. We as converters are not meant to say "Oh this should be this instead of this."

Under the old "rules" there were no standards. Now there are. WotC's conversion policy covers all of this. That is probably why the stuff was altered and changed the way it was. Under the new policy, you cannot makes suggestions or changes because "it should be this way."

Like you said, ya just gotta convert it from 1e/2e to 3e and spit out the end result.

 

[Leopold]

Re: Re: Converting Old 3E to New 3E standard problems

Under the old "rules" there were no standards. Now there are. WotC's conversion policy covers all of this. That is probably why the stuff was altered and changed the way it was. Under the new policy, you cannot makes suggestions or changes because "it should be this way."

Like you said, ya just gotta convert it from 1e/2e to 3e and spit out the end result.

yeah i know before it was everyone had a freefor all..but thank god for standards now...

 

[Celebrim]

Thank god for standards?

You got to be kidding me.

Most of the 1st edition modules I own are essentially UNPLAYABLE converted without some attempt at rebalancing. Yeah, I'm going to send the party of 6th's up against CR 12 opponents.

Yeah, that would be a quality conversion, and really help some new DM play the game.

I mean if the only thing I'm offering as a conversion is the stat blocks I'm not saving anyone any trouble at all. Those are freely available online; just cut and paste. And I for one am not going to appear a fool by suggesting either implicitly or explicitly in a document with my name on it that a T-Rex or a mature adult green dragon is a reasonable challenge for 4 5th or 6th level characters.

The more I think about this the more it reduces converting a module to a personal exercise. There is no sense at all in offering them to anyone else in the community. It is one thing to suggest that a converter do his best to replace encounters with their nearest D20 equivalent (which is I thought the point), and it is entirely reasonable to suggest that the converter not reprint flavor text of any sort or any of the 'story' of a module (which I wouldn't have done anyway), but its ridiculous to suggest that it makes for a good conversion to just cut and paste over the old monsters making no judgement calls as to whether the dynamic between a party of X level and a particular monster has changed radically since 1st edition, whether the rate of level advancement has altered since 1st edition, and the relative abundance of treasure has altered under 3rd edition standards.

And besides, the real problem with the first wave of conversions is that many of the converters seemed to think that the goal of the conversion was to make hard to get material available to people who didn't have the module, which was a clear violation of copyright and simply well not nice. But that material is available now online in the form of ESD's so the point of converting material is more clearly now than ever NOT NOT NOT NOT making material available. After all, anyone that buys the ESD and has access to the SRD HAS the material. A list of stat block is utterly useless. The only possible reason for making a conversion publicly available is to provide your experience and expertice in making the module playable for a group of X level D20 characters, and if you can't do that, there is no point in doing it.

 

[Leopold]

I mean if the only thing I'm offering as a conversion is the stat blocks I'm not saving anyone any trouble at all. Those are freely available online; just cut and paste. And I for one am not going to appear a fool by suggesting either implicitly or explicitly in a document with my name on it that a T-Rex or a mature adult green dragon is a reasonable challenge for 4 5th or 6th level characters.

that's not your place. Your job is to migrate the old data to the new data, play balance is not the role of converting a module over. You can make notes but you wreck the whole point in conversion. Who cares if it's unbalanced, make a note on where you can change things and scale things like in dungeon. Else you ruin the conversion.

The more I think about this the more it reduces converting a module to a personal exercise. There is no sense at all in offering them to anyone else in the community. It is one thing to suggest that a converter do his best to replace encounters with their nearest D20 equivalent (which is I thought the point), and it is entirely reasonable to suggest that the converter not reprint flavor text of any sort or any of the 'story' of a module (which I wouldn't have done anyway), but its ridiculous to suggest that it makes for a good conversion to just cut and paste over the old monsters making no judgement calls as to whether the dynamic between a party of X level and a particular monster has changed radically since 1st edition, whether the rate of level advancement has altered since 1st edition, and the relative abundance of treasure has altered under 3rd edition standards.

that is the ENTIRE point of converting the module over. You provide statblock, spell information, new items, etc. for the module, play balance is not your job but theh DM's job. You can make a note of it but if you attempt to playbalance it you are altering the module as it was written which is NOT our job. Make notes, don't revamp the module.

 

[Celebrim]

I wasn't really expecting an answer, but neither was I expecting a non-answer.

"Your job is to migrate the old data to the new data."

Even that is a judgement call on my part*, but that's not really the point. The point is that an entry that says 4 Orcs, is not something that NEEDS converting. A person who purchased the ESD just opens the MM and goes, "Ok, 4 Orcs." I'm suggesting that 'migrating the old data to the new data' is in itself a trivial and pointless excercise.

"Who cares if it's unbalanced?"

Would it be too much to suggest anyone using my conversion?

"Else you ruin the conversion."

HA! That's a misapplication of the English language if I ever saw one. It is one thing to suggest that I exceed my authority (as you are suggesting) when rebalancing the module, but it is entirely another thing to suggest that unbalanced conversion is not 'ruined' and a balanced one is 'ruined'.

"that is the ENTIRE point of converting the module over."

To what does 'that' refer exactly? I thought that the point of the quoted text was that there was no point of converting the module over according to the new 'guidelines'.

All I'm saying is that if it is not the place of a converter to do such minor things as adjust the HD downward of a monster that is clearly now vastly more powerful in third edition relative to the party strength, or adjust the number of monsters to make the challenge more reasonable, then they are essentially saying that it is not my place to make conversions - because such a 'conversion' results when used with together with the module in something that is an unplayable mess. I'm suggesting that the new 'guidelines' restrict me to only making conversions that are ruined (to use your phrase) and useless.

"play balance is not your job but theh DM's job."

And excuse me for thinking that if the DM who downloads my conversion really thought that play balance was solely thier job, that they wouldn't have bothered to down load the conversion - they would have done it themselves. Excuse me for thinking that maybe people download conversions because it reduces the work that they have to do, and if you HAVE actually written any conversions you would know that the work of cut and pasting data is trivial compared to the work of play balance and getting the mechanics to work in D20 somewhat like they would have worked in 1st edition.

What I'm suggesting is that it would have been nice if they had just said, 'Make sure your conversions are such that they cannot be used to play the module without owning the module.', which I don't think anyone would suggest is unfair.

And really, they have applied a double standard. It is suggesting that they have no problem with me publishing material online which uses copyrighted elements of published _settings_ (like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk) and even builds upon them and alters them and which is designed to be used in conjunction with that material. If they thought otherwise, they'd have to close down every Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk fan site out there. BUT, they are simultaneously suggesting that a fan publication which avoids copyrighted material more or less all together and only uses OGL content and perhaps a numbered key, and which is also designed to be used with another type of published product (a module) is somehow evasive and wrong.

*Applied rigorously, the idea that I'm not allowed to make judgement calls implies that I should not alter hit points to something that is more reasonable for the new stats of a given monster, or that I should not assign domains to a converted cleric, or assign additional spells to that same cleric. And before you make the arguement that what they are suggesting is that I can add new material but I can't alter existing material, I might note to you that applying new material involves rewriting a product in a way that is at least as disrepectful to the original copyright holder as altering the material, because it implies making the judgement that material should have been included in the first place.

 

[mypetrock]

Conversions

While I may be slightly offended by the tone of Leopold's remarks, I cannot argue with their substance. The job of the converter is to convert the module from 1/2E to 3E. Essentially that boils down to stat blocks, trap ratings, and EL calculations. In large part the process of conversion is largely a mechanical exercise.

That said, I have added notes to my conversions (usually upfront) on places where the encounter is slightly unbalanced as compared to the ELs of the rest of the module. I have added encounters that could be used in place of the published encounter (but not replacing the encounter as written).

Once I have completed my conversion I adapt my conversion for the campaign in question. For example, I took G1, gave all of the giants the feat Large and In Charge from S&F, adjusted some of the ELs, increased the presence of the drow in the module, and set it in a region in my world. After running the module, I have determined that the giants are relatively strong in HPs, but lack any sort of healing and arcane protections making sorcerors and wizards almost untouchable.

If someone had completely adapted the module to fit into their particular campaign world, I would still have had to adapt the material to fit my campaign, but it would start farther from the previously published material. In the end you have to realize that you are providing a service to a DM who may be in a different place than you are but wants to use the module as a springboard for his own campaign. Don't make it harder by imposing your campaign on the material.

mypetrock

 

[Celebrim]

"If someone had completely adapted the module to fit into their particular campaign world, I would still have had to adapt the material to fit my campaign, but it would start farther from the previously published material. In the end you have to realize that you are providing a service to a DM who may be in a different place than you are but wants to use the module as a springboard for his own campaign. Don't make it harder by imposing your campaign on the material."

Now this I understand and agree with. And if this was the problem that people were trying to avoid, that would be fine. It would be good advice to not adapt a module to your particular game world and then offer that as a 'conversion'.

But I'm talking about much more basic things.

In a module that I just finished converting there is a purple worm. In 1st edition it was a tough encounter, but not well beyond the abilities of the party of adventurers expected to play the module. In 3rd edition the same purple worm has about 3 times as many hit points and a much higher effective 'THAC0' (if you will) than its 1st edition counterpart. I admit, and I hope you agree, that this this leaves me with a tough choice that doesn't depend on the particular details of my campaign world. Either I must decide how to handle the encounter in a way that the difficulty is on par with the original difficulty, or else leave the (now somewhat ludicrous) encounter in a 'someone else's problem field'. I feel that if I don't make that tough choice, I'm not really doing a service to the person that downloads the conversion, because I'm leaving all the real work to the person who did the download. Maybe he'd look at my conversion and say, 'That's not the way I would have handled it here.', but nonetheless, that is a whole lot further along the process than 'There is no way I can run the encounter the way it is now.'

Suppose I was converting X1. As a DM who ran X1, I have alot of specific ideas about the module which have nothing to do with the text and everything to do with the extra material I developed to play it in the way I wanted to. While offering that extra material is interesting in and of itself (and I'd would argue elsewhere that I should be allowed to do that as a separate matter), that is clearly not what a conversion is about. On that we both agree. But I don't agree that it is good conversion practice to say, 'Oh, that's a mature adult green dragon', and put a stat block in its place, because mature adult green dragons are a whole lot more potent in 3 ed. D&D than they were in Expert D&D, and are in the context of today, rather ridiculous to add as an opponent in a module designed to take you from 4th to 7th level. I'm not doing anyone a service by just leaving them a stat block for a mature adult green dragon and saying 'deal with it'.

And lets face it, if you are downloading a conversion you are primarily interested in one of two things: either how someone else handled the conversion, or in having someone else do the work for you.

 

[mypetrock]

mature adult green dragons are a whole lot more potent in 3 ed. D&D than they were in Expert D&D

I agree with you 100%. Mature green dragons are a whole lot more potent. But then again so are the players. Fighters get iterative attacks a lot sooner. Sorcerors get a lot of spells to deal with a threat. And while this may originally have been designed as

a module designed to take you from 4th to 7th level

that doesn't mean that in its converted form that it is supposed to do the same thing. Consider how far up the Expert level food chain you were in order to play this module.

That said a Mature adult green dragon has an EL of 15. It would probably be beyond the capabilities of even the most munched out party to take him on and survive. I'm not sure how many dragon age levels previous editions supported. Use your conversion notes to suggest that the enounter could be scaled down with a slightly younger wyrm. A DM using your notes can take note of the EL of a particular encounter and use it to scale up or down the encounter as he desires.

And lets face it, if you are downloading a conversion you are primarily interested in one of two things: either how someone else handled the conversion, or in having someone else do the work for you.

Having downloaded a conversion and played it with my group, I have to disagree with you. I feel that conversions are a way of opening up a set of source material (1E/2E) for play in a 3E arena. I don't mind doing the work, but if someone else has performed the service of conversion for me - taken care of most of the grunt work for me - that's better. Then I can focus on the area that I'm really concerned with - adapting the source material to work within my campaign world.

mypetrock

p.s. Check over at the 3E boards. One of the posters there (Andorax) has done some of the conversion work for the X-series for his campaign world.

 

[Celebrim]

"Mature green dragons are a whole lot more potent. But then again so are the players."

As you noted, the climb in power isn't always even. Besides, if the module simply scaled up evenly to a higher level, then it wouldn't be a problem.

The problem occurs when you have a module that generally converts evenly with the exception of a few oddballs that are too high (or more rarely too low, though too low is usually something you can ignore).

Anyhow, I realize that Leopold's reading of the conversion standards is correct, it just baffled the heck out of me how any of the fans could be happy about it. And for that matter, I don't see how anyone could consider it anything but a double standard regarding how you use material. And from a strict reading of the standards, I don't see how you could offer notes suggesting that an encounter should be toned down, or if you can offer a note suggesting that an encounter should be toned down, what is so bad about putting in a stat block for the toned down encounter.

Would it be ok to do the latter if I put it as a note beneath a straight conversion of the original?

Lastly, thanks for the tip, but I'm not really that interested in converting X1 right at the moment. I do however have a finished conversion of another module that simply won't be posted I'm afraid. I mentioned X1 only because I remembered the dragon, and it made for an obvious example.