D&D 5E GAMA Trade Show and Game Developer Conference start Monday - announcement Tomorrow?

[fjw70]

One thing I typically do when converting 1e modules to 4e is double the sive of the rooms. It has worked well for me. I am also not completely tied to the number of monsters presented in the module.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I've never tried 1e to 4e conversions. I would have thought it easier simply because of the numbers. 20 orcs would be 16 minions and 4 regular orcs. That sort of thing.

I converted Return to The Keep on the Borderlands (2E) to 4E for a campaign I ran a few years ago. I did mostly all custom monster stats in the MB and it worked fairly well.

 

[Hussar]

IMO, the biggest issue with 1e to 4e conversion is not the monster numbers, but the design of the rooms. For example, in B2 there is a room with 13 goblins. However, the room is roughly 20' x 50', without much in the way of features. Throw in a party of 4 or 5 PCs, and that's pretty cramped. It's fine for a pitched battle AD&D style, where generally you're going to form battle lines and resolve combat quickly through attrition over a few rounds. For 4e's granular, movement-based combat, I think things get pretty staid pretty fast.

Yeah, I could see that. The whole "interesting room features" wasn't much of a thing in a lot of those old modules.

 

[Plaguescarred]

IMO, the biggest issue with 1e to 4e conversion is not the monster numbers, but the design of the rooms. For example, in B2 there is a room with 13 goblins. However, the room is roughly 20' x 50', without much in the way of features. Throw in a party of 4 or 5 PCs, and that's pretty cramped. It's fine for a pitched battle AD&D style, where generally you're going to form battle lines and resolve combat quickly through attrition over a few rounds. For 4e's granular, movement-based combat, I think things get pretty staid pretty fast.

Yeah whenever i did a 1E conversion and was prepping it on the virtual table, i was seeing the same problem when placing monsters in room way to small to accomodate their numbers + party. I always had to either reduce number of enemies or enlarge room size.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah whenever i did a 1E conversion and was prepping it on the virtual table, i was seeing the same problem when placing monsters in room way to small to accomodate their numbers + party. I always had to either reduce number of enemies or enlarge room size.

Heh, funny how the rules were being ignored back then too. Think about it for a second - all those weapons had a space requirement. IIRC, a longsword needed 3 feet of space - not too much different from a 5 foot square that we use now. So, we pretty much were ignoring most of those rules back in the day because it was TOM play, by and large.

I mean, you generally had a much, much larger AD&D party than you see now. 6-8 PC's, plus henchmen and pets, it wasn't too much of a stretch to have 15 combatants on the PC side and 20 on the other.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Heh, funny how the rules were being ignored back then too. Think about it for a second - all those weapons had a space requirement. IIRC, a longsword needed 3 feet of space - not too much different from a 5 foot square that we use now. So, we pretty much were ignoring most of those rules back in the day because it was TOM play, by and large.

I mean, you generally had a much, much larger AD&D party than you see now. 6-8 PC's, plus henchmen and pets, it wasn't too much of a stretch to have 15 combatants on the PC side and 20 on the other.

That 3 feet of space meant that 3 fighters could fight in a line in a standard 10x10 area. Also, there could be a row of spearmen behind them for a total of 6 fighters in what is now 4 squares.

More people can fight in a smaller area if they are properly equipped to do so. The introduction of the 5' personal bubble had a huge impact on room sizes.

 

[Halivar]

I mean, you generally had a much, much larger AD&D party than you see now. 6-8 PC's, plus henchmen and pets, it wasn't too much of a stretch to have 15 combatants on the PC side and 20 on the other.

All in a 5' square broom closet marked 135 with the read aloud description "There is nothing of note here."

 

[Agamon]

All in a 5' square broom closet marked 135 with the read aloud description "There is nothing of note here."

Sounds like a mystery adventure to me.

"Who took all the brooms??"

Dunn, dunn...dunnnnnn!

 

[Mistwell]

Sounds like a mystery adventure to me.

"Who took all the brooms??"

Dunn, dunn...dunnnnnn!

Obviously there is a plague of witches.

Sounds like it could be awesome.

 

[Remathilis]

I've never tried 1e to 4e conversions. I would have thought it easier simply because of the numbers. 20 orcs would be 16 minions and 4 regular orcs. That sort of thing.

Back in the day, I had tried to convert some old TSR-era stuff to 3e and 4e. Here was my results.

3e usually didn't work as written, but I found it a lot easier to recreate. The general abilities of a 5th level party weren't too much different; they had access to flight, +1 weapons, and 3rd level magics. You might tinker a bit with the balancing ELs and treasure values (or you might not) but I tended to find for the most part, it worked the same until around 9th level.

4e, the biggest concern was what level did you set it at. For example, a 5th level 4e party had a different power level than a 3e or 2e one; in some areas they had abilities you couldn't get til later (short-range teleport) but in others they were far behind (flight). You had to really scale monsters (for example, drow in a 5th level module) to convert them, and treasure usually went out the window.

And that doesn't even begin to touch grid-combat and room layout.

I guess for me, 3e still felt loosely connected to 2e/1e, enough that it appeared close enough to allow conversion-by-rebuilding. 4e always felt like "redesign in the spirit of", which at that point felt like why bother; I'll create my own module plots.

YMMV and all that.