D&D 3E/3.5 No Cube of Force?! (also a quick question about Pathfinder/3.5 -> 4E conversion)

[Mercurius]

I recently got Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic Treasures Revisited and was mightily impressed by the book as a whole. I have an artificer in my 10/11th level party and thought that a legacy-style Cube of Force would be a great "forever" item for him, but was dismayed when I realized--afaict--that there is no Cube of Force in 4E. WTFIUWT?

It should be relatively easy to convert to 4E, but I was just wondering if I'm missing something and the Cube of Force exists somewhere out there outside of the confines of a quick offline-version Character Builder search.

The secondary question, which I didn't want to start a new thread on, is if anyone has general guidelines for Pathfinder/3.5 -> 4E conversion. For example, as a general rule, how do levels convert? I realize it is probably not a static equation but more of a curve, but what would the equivalent levels be, from 1-20 for Pathfinder/3.5 to 1-30 for 4E? (And does Pathfinder use the Epic rules of 3.5 so that characters can effectively go to 35th level? Or am I not remember that number correctly?)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Just my opinion, but levels convert directly. It's easier that way.

There's no direct conversion, though. Going from 2e to 3e, you just tried to use the same levels, with some special rules for multi-classing. (Alternatively, use XP, since XP/level values were different for different classes in 2e.)

I have no idea if Pathfinder uses any sort of epic rules. They were pretty poorly written in 3.x though so I would suggest just avoiding them.

This means there's very few epic level adventures to convert. (IIRC, there was a big uproar about how poorly the 3.0 epic level setting was written.)

 

[Shemeska]

I recently got Pathfinder Chronicles: Classic Treasures Revisited and was mightily impressed by the book as a whole.

I didn't write the Cube section, but it was a fun book to work on (Sphere of Annihilation and Well of Worlds). Glad you enjoyed it!

(And does Pathfinder use the Epic rules of 3.5 so that characters can effectively go to 35th level? Or am I not remember that number correctly?)

The Paizo guys have said that the 3.x Epic rules needed work. Lots of work. And when Paizo does epic levels for PCs they'll be redoing the Epic rules from the ground up.

 

[MrMyth]

The secondary question, which I didn't want to start a new thread on, is if anyone has general guidelines for Pathfinder/3.5 -> 4E conversion. For example, as a general rule, how do levels convert? I realize it is probably not a static equation but more of a curve, but what would the equivalent levels be, from 1-20 for Pathfinder/3.5 to 1-30 for 4E? (And does Pathfinder use the Epic rules of 3.5 so that characters can effectively go to 35th level? Or am I not remember that number correctly?)

It's a tricky question, and there is no one formula that will be entirely consistent. Partly because 4E made a number of choices about what enemies you should fight where, and so level is often defined by what is appropriate, as opposed to what special abilities or how many HD a monster needs to have.

In some cases, stuff from the top of the 'standard progression' (level 20) like Balors has instead moved to near the top of the 4E epic tier. But at the same time, you also have Gods and other truly epic foes at around those levels - who would have been also level 30 in 3.5, if not even higher.

As a general rule, you can probably try to convert along the apropriate ratio, but I'd instead try and figure out where in the tiers you feel a monster is most appropriate. Extraplanar enemies are probably in the Paragon or Epic tiers. Humanoid foes might typically be Heroic enemies (though individual ones could, of course, be any level.) If there are existing 4E monsters of the type you are converting, check what levels they tend to be, and use that as a starting point.

 

[LostSoul]

The secondary question, which I didn't want to start a new thread on, is if anyone has general guidelines for Pathfinder/3.5 -> 4E conversion. For example, as a general rule, how do levels convert?

This is how I would do it:

Pathfinder levels translate to 4E levels on a 2:1 ratio up to level 5, after which the ratio becomes 1:1. eg. At level 4 in Pathfinder you're level 8 in 4E; at level 12 you're level 17 in 4E.

 

[The Little Raven]

Here's a quick 4e conversion of the cube of force, using the Wall of Force wizard spell as a guide. Remember, 4e doesn't use charges, so I made it a daily power. I also didn't bother with anything but the power that would be used from the cube of force.

Power (Daily): You conjure a solid, transparent wall of magical energy around you that lasts until the end of the encounter. The wall fills each square adjacent to you, and can be up to 6 squares high. You cannot conjure the wall if any square adjacent to you is occupied by another creature or obstacle. The wall is blocking terrain and blocks line of effect. No creature, including a phasing creature, can enter a square of the wall. As a move action, you can move yourself and the wall up to your speed. You cannot move the wall into a square occupied by another creature or object.
Attacks against you are redirected to the wall, and attacks against the wall automatically hit. The wall has 200 hit points, and attacking any square deals damage to the entire wall. If it is reduced to 0 hit points, the wall shatters, dealing 3d10 force damage to each creature adjacent to it.

You could make multiple versions at different levels that have more hit pints, deal more damage on shattering, can encompass a larger area, and the like.

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks Little Raven, good stuff. I'm starting to run a 4E conversion of White Plume Mountain for 10-11th level characters and wanted to include some nice magic items as no one will really care to use Wave and the dwarf fighter just got a nice Dwarven Thrower so I'm thinking of changing Whelm to something else. So I was thinking of including a legacy Cube of Force that has a different power for each side, each of which can be "unlocked" in some way - either through a ritual of some kind or maybe just when its owner passes a level. So the Cube would start with a Wall of Force for the character that uses it (probably the 10th level Artificer) and then adds a new daily power at 11-15th level. A pretty powerful minor artifact, really.