Flipping Module Conversion on its Head

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I've made numerous attempts to convert AD&D and 3E adventures to 4E without satisfaction. So I began to think about flipping the focus of the conversion.

This thread is not meant to discuss how to convert adventure material to 4E. I've read alot of good advice (and given some) in this regard and want this thread to focus on a new angle.

What if conversion (mostly) left the adventure material as-is? Leave hit points, attack bonuses, etc alone as much as possible. Choose some key spells to convert and use base math presumptions to turn them into attacks or utilities.

What I'd focus on changing then is character stats. My first instinct is to change hit points from being calculated based on your Constitution Score to use instead your Constitution Modifier. Maybe halve all damage dealt by PCs.

Any other thoughts to this approach?

 

[D'karr]

I've made numerous attempts to convert AD&D and 3E adventures to 4E without satisfaction. So I began to think about flipping the focus of the conversion.

This thread is not meant to discuss how to convert adventure material to 4E. I've read alot of good advice (and given some) in this regard and want this thread to focus on a new angle.

What if conversion (mostly) left the adventure material as-is? Leave hit points, attack bonuses, etc alone as much as possible. Choose some key spells to convert and use base math presumptions to turn them into attacks or utilities.

What I'd focus on changing then is character stats. My first instinct is to change hit points from being calculated based on your Constitution Score to use instead your Constitution Modifier. Maybe halve all damage dealt by PCs.

Any other thoughts to this approach?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding is your suggestion to modify the PCs to better fit the mechanical constraints/assumptions of the system that you are converting to? I would think that would be a whole lot more work than thematically converting the adventure. I prefer thematic conversions rather than mechanical ones.

I've had great success in converting AD&D (Ravenloft, Giants, & Slavers), Basic (Isle of Dread & Lost City), and 3.x (Speaker in Dreams, Forge of Fury) adventures to 4e, mostly by not concentrating on the mechanics. The story for the module pretty much stays the same, but I tweak the encounters to better fit the 4e model. I use a lot of minions, I will not use higher level soldiers, I use a lot of terrain powers, etc. I also liberally use monster math to add exciting powers that would seem appropriate to the encounter, without having to write everything down. I'm to the point that I can pretty much "convert" on the fly, with just a bit of effort.

As an example, my group is currently playing through the Slavelords modules (A1-A4). In A2 when they encountered the Stockade Commander I pretty much converted him on the fly by simply looking at what he "seemed" to be able to do in AD&D, and then creating a power on the fly to "mimic" that. He was a greatsword warrior, so I gave him a power called slash and slam - He'd hit you with the sword, then attack fort with a pummel hit. He had fire resistance, because he fought from the top of the fire at the center of the kitchen. He'd also fling grease - a recharge 4 blast attack. And he'd hit hard - he took out 2 characters during the combat before being defeated. With those few things I was able to provide an interesting fight, and it took less than 5 minutes to come up with that conversion.

So I agree that using the core math and creating powers is much easier, but I disagree that converting the PCs might be a good way to do it.

 

[S'mon]

Sounds like a terrible idea to me.
Been working on converting Curse of the Crimson Throne 3e > 4e. The key seems to be to ignore the 3e (or 1e) stat blocks, treat it as a generic systemless scenario, and stat the encounter using the 4e DMG encounter-building guidelines. The 3e etc stats might provide some ideas for monster/NPC attack powers, but they can also be ignored. It takes far less time to build a 4e character from scratch than to mechanically convert a 3e one, and if you start with something close from the DDI monster tool it takes only a couple minutes; or a few seconds if you just copy/paste from the Compendium.

 

[S'mon]

With those few things I was able to provide an interesting fight, and it took less than 5 minutes to come up with that conversion.

I think it's possible to use the Sly Flourish cheat sheet for most NPCs and GM straight from that, no work needed at all - http://slyflourish.com/master_dm_sheet.pdf - they'll only be 80% as good as ones you take the time to stat out properly, but if you save the stat work for major encounters, BBEGs and recurring foes, it ought to work fine. 4e does really good at telling you what to default to: a standard monster of the PCs' level, one per PC. Use the default stats and give them a high-damage encounter power and you're done. Bring a couple pages from Monster Vault (eg the Humans) if you need more inspiration.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding is your suggestion to modify the PCs to better fit the mechanical constraints/assumptions of the system that you are converting to? I would think that would be a whole lot more work than thematically converting the adventure.

I think of quick patches to bring the characters within a range that makes the encounters as written in other rulesets to continue to be a challenge. Not trying to fully fit the mechanics of other systems.

I've had great success in converting AD&D (Ravenloft, Giants, & Slavers), Basic (Isle of Dread & Lost City), and 3.x (Speaker in Dreams, Forge of Fury) adventures to 4e, mostly by not concentrating on the mechanics. The story for the module pretty much stays the same, but I tweak the encounters to better fit the 4e model.

I've converted A1-3, Rise of the Runelords, and parts 1-4 of Council of Thieves to 4E. I'd call the conversions successful, doing pretty much what you are doing, but not to my personal satisfaction. I even had an ongoing thread about my experience converting RotR here.

As an example

Great example. And your on-the-fly talents are definitely something I need to improve upon if I continue to convert adventures.

So I agree that using the core math and creating powers is much easier, but I disagree that converting the PCs might be a good way to do it.

I'm at the point of putting thought into such an approach. I can't say whether I consider it a good idea or not.

Been working on converting Curse of the Crimson Throne 3e > 4e. The key seems to be to ignore the 3e (or 1e) stat blocks, treat it as a generic systemless scenario, and stat the encounter using the 4e DMG encounter-building guidelines.

Yup. Been there, done that, see above.

Or a few seconds if you just copy/paste from the Compendium.

I must need to work on my copy/paste skills too. I've done the prep work and spent more time than I have and still end up dissastisfied with the results.

Sly Flourish cheat sheet

I was considering using this more than I do now with my current crazy idea.

 

[S'mon]

Anyway...

What if conversion (mostly) left the adventure material as-is? Leave hit points, attack bonuses, etc alone as much as possible. Choose some key spells to convert and use base math presumptions to turn them into attacks or utilities.

I never nerfed 4e PCs to make them fit pre-4e adventures, but early on I did try using pre-4e monster stats 'straight' in my 4e game (check out my posts from 2009!).

It worked appallingly badly.

 

[D'karr]

I've converted A1-3, Rise of the Runelords, and parts 1-4 of Council of Thieves to 4E. I'd call the conversions successful, doing pretty much what you are doing, but not to my personal satisfaction.

I must need to work on my copy/paste skills too. I've done the prep work and spent more time than I have and still end up dissastisfied with the results.

If you don't mind elaborating, what did you not find satisfying when you made the conversions? I was reading through the first page of the thread you have for RotR and didn't see anything in there that easily pointed to it.

 

[billd91]

I've converted A1-3, Rise of the Runelords, and parts 1-4 of Council of Thieves to 4E. I'd call the conversions successful, doing pretty much what you are doing, but not to my personal satisfaction. I even had an ongoing thread about my experience converting RotR here.

I have a question about your Rise of the Runelords conversion. I've been reading the anniversary edition (a pretty lavish and lovely product by the way - plug - plug) and I was struck by the Monster in the Closet encounter. In the original, it's a lone goblin held at bay by Petal the dog until he's finally so hungry he overcomes his fear. The encounter isn't particularly tough for a party of PCs but does serve to show just how wicked goblins are if the PCs came away from the Swallowtail Festival with an impression that goblins are just comic relief. I notice that both you and Scott Betts (on the Paizo board - Danniger here) elected to convert the encounter into a fight against multiple goblins in order to present a challenge. That led me to a couple of questions:

1) Did your players question why there were a couple of goblins hiding in a kid's closet? And why they didn't just kill the kid, dog, maybe even family, earlier?

2) Is there something about 4e that encouraged you to make it a combat challenge rather than an easier beatdown or passing encounter? Are non-challenging encounters not worth the time to play out with combat in 4e? Does the edition put you in a mindset focused around presenting a more mechanically engaging situation? Do you feel that 4e encourages doing so more than presenting a non-mechanical situational enigma?

3) Had you encountered Danniger's conversion before and were influenced by it?

When 4e was coming out and Paizo had to decide what they wanted to do, part of the justification for sticking with the d20 edition of rules was because they didn't feel the 4e rules, as they knew them thus far, enabled them to build the stories/adventures they wanted to build. And treating this particularly as a notable challenge strikes me as zigging compared to Paizo's zagging. I'm not sure it serves as evidence for Paizo's statement, but I did want to hear, as a converting 4e DM, your perspective on these questions and how 4e make you think about encounter/adventure construction compared to earlier editions.

 

[S'mon]

I played Burnt Offerings recently; I remember digging up the floorboards, convinced there must be more goblins in hiding! I guess it worked as a sort of quasi-horror movie type setup - I was certain there must be a significant threat, relative to 1st level PCs, given that a man* was dead in his own home; perhaps a goblin infestation. It took a lot of convincing that there was just one over-fed goblin, and it never made that much sense to me that it could kill a man but leave a child unharmed. Multiple goblins hiding in the floor cavity would have fit with what I expected to happen.

*Paizo goblins default to very low damage, usually 1d4 assuming no STR penalty, while a 1st level commoner typically has ca 3-6 hp, since nobody has less than d6 hit dice, may have CON bonus or +3 for Toughness, and you need to be taken to -1 to be dying. The chances of a lone goblin inflicting a one-round kill on a commoner are therefore quite low, and that fits with how the world-fiction is generally presented too, though for some reason goblins seem to be excellent at cut-scene dog murdering.

Personally, if I were converting this to 4e, I'd keep it as a lone goblin, make him a 1st level standard monster - probably a lurker, but I'd take what was handiest from MV or MM. It would not attempt to challenge the party with death but would not have the credibility issue either. BTW playing it I don't recall anything about a dog holding the goblin at bay. AIR the mother came to us and said the child was scared
of a monster in the closet and we agreed to check it out, when we got there the father's legs were sticking out of the closet and there was a very well fed goblin who must have been eating for a good while. Somehow the mother didn't mention her husband having been killed... :\

 

[D'karr]

When 4e was coming out and Paizo had to decide what they wanted to do, part of the justification for sticking with the d20 edition of rules was because they didn't feel the 4e rules, as they knew them thus far, enabled them to build the stories/adventures they wanted to build.

This is an interesting commentary, and I remember hearing the same thing. I've done quite a bit of converting from earlier editions to 4e. What I have found is that the adventures "play" much better in the 4e ruleset, than in the original. Keep in mind that my conversions very rarely change the "behind the scenes story." So it it interesting that Paizo "couldn't" tell/build the stories/adventures they wanted when I, and others, are obviously using those stories with little change.

IMO, Paizo recognized the same thing that Green Ronin recognized when WotC changed from 3e to 3.5. If you hitch your wagon to the WotC horse you are inevitably tied to go where WotC decides to go, and WotC will do what is good for WotC - regardless of how many wagons are tied to their horse. Green Ronin created their own games and Paizo decided to do the same. A small publisher has a greater margin for success/failure and is much more flexible than a behemoth like WotC.

I did want to hear, as a converting 4e DM, your perspective on these questions and how 4e make you think about encounter/adventure construction compared to earlier editions.

From my experience 4e gives me well defined tools that provide more flexibility and better precision parameters to build/convert adventures and encounters. In 1e the base assumption was that monster levels/HD were used to determine challenge level. A monster of X HD was usually encountered in Level X of the dungeon. But there were little to no guidelines of what was "easy, challenging, hard, overpowering" to a group of adventurers, or how mixed encounters would play out. So a lot of the adventure/encounter design I did with 1e was ad-hoc and done by "gut-feel." Sometimes it worked out and many times I had to adjust on the fly.

When 3e came around it had solid quidelines for encounter design, and it had clearly defined assumptions of how the game mechanics were to be used to create combat challenges. A CR X monster was supposed to be a challenge (20% resource depletion) for a party of 4 level X characters. In that respect it was a better explained design. However the CR system left so much to be desired. It was time intensive to use, having to lookup stuff in tables, and it was horribly inaccurate. Some of the CRs were incredibly deceptive. The other problem was that monster advancement was a very time consuming process.

In this case the design system was more "precise" but it was not accurate - specially at mid to high level. Very few times did my encounters work right out of the box, and we still did not have any guidelines for rewarding non-combat encounters- except for one small paragraph in the DMG that basically boiled down to "make it up." But the "transparency" of the system was a step in the right direction.

4e kept the transparency of the design and greatly expanded it to make it easy and useful to the DM. The design assumptions were well communicated to the DM, and we got guidelines for creating, but more importantly rewarding non-combat encounters. Monster advancement was precise but very easy, harkening back to pre-3e design. We also got a much more solid framework for ad-hoc adjudication. In addition, the encounter design worked with the parts that it needed.

Don't get me wrong, not everything worked right out of the box, and not everything was explained very well. But there were more things that did work as designed than not. And thankfully those things that were not working properly, in a mechanical sense, were corrected through the errata process. Most of what I would consider "warts" at this point are not necessarily mechanical problems (except possibly Epic), but "errors" in presentation, expansion, and explanation.

I've gone long with the explanation of differences I've sees with the "tools", so I'll answer with more specifics of encounter/adventure design in a separate post.