D&D 4E Original Freeport trilogy in 4E

[Oldtimer]

This is a request for ideas.

I had been placing clues leading the party to Freeport for some time when the news of 4E hit. Not wanting to switch systems in the middle of a long adventure, I placed some side treks to delay them on their travel down to Freeport. Now then time has come to start that adventure. Their characters have all been converted to 4E... but the adventure has not.

So, any ideas for how to make the trilogy fit into 4E? The party is 10th level, so I was planning to elevate the opposition quite harshly even in 3.x, but how can I take advantage of 4E in that trilogy? Any thoughts?

 

[doctorhook]

This is a request for ideas.

I had been placing clues leading the party to Freeport for some time when the news of 4E hit. Not wanting to switch systems in the middle of a long adventure, I placed some side treks to delay them on their travel down to Freeport. Now then time has come to start that adventure. Their characters have all been converted to 4E... but the adventure has not.

So, any ideas for how to make the trilogy fit into 4E? The party is 10th level, so I was planning to elevate the opposition quite harshly even in 3.x, but how can I take advantage of 4E in that trilogy? Any thoughts?

...I honestly don't know anything about Freeport, but consider this a friendly *bump*.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I also know 'nuffink' about Freeport but I found this if it is any help?
http://www.greenronin.com/freeport/2008/06/using_the_pirates_guide_with_4.php

 

[Gorrstagg]

This is a request for ideas.

I had been placing clues leading the party to Freeport for some time when the news of 4E hit. Not wanting to switch systems in the middle of a long adventure, I placed some side treks to delay them on their travel down to Freeport. Now then time has come to start that adventure. Their characters have all been converted to 4E... but the adventure has not.

So, any ideas for how to make the trilogy fit into 4E? The party is 10th level, so I was planning to elevate the opposition quite harshly even in 3.x, but how can I take advantage of 4E in that trilogy? Any thoughts?

I haven't had the pleasure to look over the Freeport works. But, since your already planning for the group to run at level 10 in there, perfect opportunity to just start working on opponents and encounters.

And then putting that all together as you need it. Take each piece of the puzzle that your actually going to use, and rough stat it out. Of course using the base stuff from the Monster Manual and whatever else you can get your hands on that inspires you... (I totally recommend all the Dragon and Dungeon Mag stuff to boot to increase your opponent options.)

By rough outlining stuff, if you have specific adventures already prewritten, and it's just a case of converting them, heck you can simply go to a similar themed creature/monster npc and stat em up and away you go.

This is probably the easiest plug and play aspect of 4E. So you can just pick a group of interesting opponents, to match your needs, and then work on the why, and if you have the why already set up, then you can spend the extra time on the who/what to really pop that adventure encounter experience up a notch.

 

[KidSnide]

It's been a while since I read through Freeport carefully, but I think the monster manual supports Freeport-style enemies fairly well -- including in early-to-mid paragon. I think the most important things are to increase the number of monsters in encounters (often by combining multiple 3e encounters into a single 4e encounter) and to stick in more (and more interesting) terrain. If you do that, the fights can take advantage of the 4e system. The non-fighting parts of the adventure shouldn't need too much modification.

 

[Oldtimer]

Thanks for the links and the words of advice.

I've started with Death in Freeport and found that there aren't too many monsters to convert. Mostly humans and serpent people. The initial encounter (the press gang) works very well with just a leader and scores of minions.

The tricky thing is getting a good 4E feel about it. Several of the encounter areas really need refreshing.

And then maybe a skill challenge or two...

 

[pemerton]

In Death, good candidates for skill challenges would include finding and deciphering the diary, and also perhaps the dealings with the abbot (or is that in the second module? - I can't remember).

Consequences for failures in the diary challenge could be haunted dreams, being tracked by evil cultists, etc.

 

[Oldtimer]

Yeah, that's good. Thanks, pemerton!