Converting the Age of Worms

[Southern Oracle]

My tabletop gaming group is fully entrenched in 4E with another as the DM, and my online 3.5E Planescape game is hit-or-miss these days with everyone's schedules, so I've decided to convert Paizo's Age of Worms adventure path to 4E. I was running it before 4E came out, and I'd like to run it again, but with the 4E rules set. The problem is, 4E is not as intuitive to me as 3E/3.5E was (I have writing credits for the last edition), so I'd appreciate if the community took a look at my conversions and gave me some feedback.

I started out by statting the major NPCs available in Paizo's Age of Worms Overload, but I won't bore everyone with those statblocks (unless people want to see some of them!). Yes, I know it's largely unnecessary to have stats for noncombatants in 4E, but being able to see the stats helps me visualize behavior. Plus, the characters will interact with those individuals through multiple adventures and levels, and who knows when an argument or bar fight might break out?

I then started with the first adventure, "The Whispering Cairn," but quickly realized I really couldn't judge what level things needed to be. In 3.5E, the adventure path took the characters from 1st to 20th level; 4E, however, tops out at 30th level, and Kyuss is already statted as level 31 solo controller. The characters face him in the final adventure, "Dawn of a New Age," so I jumped to that adventure to work backwards.

From here on out, posts will most likely be SPOILERS for the Age of Worms, as I'd like to discuss tactics and encounter designs as well as just analyzing stats. If you're playing it or want to play it, read on at your own risk.

 

[Southern Oracle]

The first encounter in "The Whispering Cairn" is with a pack of wolves. It's not particularly inspired, but I simply placed 4 gray wolves (level 2 skirmisher) for a level 1 encounter (500 XP).

The next encounter is a complicated one, as there's no way to judge just what the characters will do first, or in what order. The sarcophagus in the center of the room is trapped, but it's also the trigger for another trap, and once THAT trap is triggered, monsters emerge. I'm ambivalent about the traps, so we'll take a look at those first.

 

[Southern Oracle]

The final parts of the encounter are the monsters that emerge when the false elevator trap triggers. Rather than create an acid beetle swarm, I simply lowered a centipede swarm in DDI's Monster Builder to a level 2 brute, then turned my attentions to converting the mad slasher to 4E.

So what do people think of these traps and monster?

 

[Southern Oracle]

That's about as far as I got with "The Whispering Cairn" before I turned my attentions to "Dawn of a New Age." I found some great conversions of the avolakia here by the Jester to use as a base for the avolakia ghostpriests. Since I know there are avolakias in several of the adventures, here's what I came up with (thanks again to the Jester for doing the hard part!).

 

[the Jester]

Avolakia are one of my favorite freaky-deaky monsters.

I'll watch this thread with interest- I like the initial stuff, with the traps etc. I haven't read The Whispering Cairn in a couple of years at this point, but I really like Age of Worms!

 

[Goonalan]

I will also be watching this thread with interest, both of the Dungeon Adventure Paths were IMHO excellent, certainly better than the present pap that Wizards are producing- and I'm a big fan of WOTC/4e.

Keep up the good work.

 

[Southern Oracle]

I searched but couldn't find a conversion of the crimson death, so I reskinned an existing monster to create one.

 

[keterys]

I'd suggest against combining weaken and insubstantial if you can avoid it. Also, it's reasonable to do ongoing 10 in paragon tier.

 

[Southern Oracle]

Thanks Keterys! This is why I posted to the forums...to catch things like that.

I had wanted the weakened state to reflect blood loss, as the 3E crimson death did Constitution damage. Is it unreasonable to up the ongoing damage to 15, or should I just raise it to 10?

 

[keterys]

You can do ongoing 15, certainly. You could also do vulnerability to damage or slowed, as a couple alternatives. It's just that weaken and insubstantial turn into slightly less than 1/4 damage, and that gets painful