Newer classes in older adventures?

[caudor]

My players really like the new Essential classes; however, I have a handful of old 4e adventures that I would still like to run (P1-3, Revenge of the Giants, and some older 4e Dungeon adventures).

Can I simply play the adventures as written without encountering any major problems/headaches? Or will I need to do some serious tweaking just to make it work?

I don't mind some minor adjustments, but I rather just move to the new adventures if there are too many gotchas to worry about.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

 

[Destil]

The two sets of classes are pretty well balanced against each other. The bigger change in power over time has really been eratta to core material. That, too, shouldn't be an issue as the modules weren't designed with Half-Elf twin-striking daggermaster avengers in mind, anyway (i.e. the eratta mostly prevented abuse that would have broken things, anyway).

The essentials classes are a little more 'even' in power, there's less room to screw and your basic options will be a bit better, but there's less room to pull out the perfect daily for a situation and dominate an encounter, too.

Double check to make sure there's no real assumptions about ritual casting and you should be fine.

 

[ourchair]

My players really like the new Essential classes; however, I have a handful of old 4e adventures that I would still like to run (P1-3, Revenge of the Giants, and some older 4e Dungeon adventures).

Can I simply play the adventures as written without encountering any major problems/headaches? Or will I need to do some serious tweaking just to make it work?

I don't mind some minor adjustments, but I rather just move to the new adventures if there are too many gotchas to worry about.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts

The only kind of tweaking you'll need to make will be in response to your players, the challenge level they are experiencing or the kind of party makeup they have.

But in terms of whether or not Essentials classes will require you to make changes to the adventures: No. You don't need any tweaking to account for Essentials.

 

[fba827]

unrelated specifically to essentials, just keep in mind that older modules used older skill DCs (so that might affect some skill challenges).

Also, older modules used old monster damages. This does not make a big difference in heroic teir. but when you get to paragon tier, you might want to do an ad hoc adjustment of doubleing the damage modifier (i.e. if it's 2d6+4 as a paragon tier monster in an old adventure instead make it 2d6+8 <- double of the +4 portion)

but with regards to classes, etc. it really doesn't make a difference as it's all modular, and therefore interchangable, more or less...

 

[Truename]

As the others have said, Essentials is 100% compatible; that said, the Monster Vault and MM3 monsters are much better designed than previous monsters, leading to faster, grittier combat. You might want to substitute them for the monsters in the adventure.

(To be clear: The old monsters work just fine, but the newer monsters are more fun.)

 

[caudor]

Thanks for the direct and helpful replies

I appreciate your help.