Planning to convert? (not just upgrade)

[Pygon]

I like picking up the well made 3.5e adventures that are published. Unfortunately, there is no way I could run them all before 4e comes out, and if 4e is streamlining gameplay the way it promises, I'd prefer to run these campaigns with the new ruleset.

WotC, however, claims that there will not be an easy way to convert. In fact, they said outright, "finish your 3.5 campaigns." Still, I wouldn't mind attempting to take the better adventure material and making it 4e compliant.

The simpler PC class builds should convert just fine. But I doubt all the obscure prestige classes and feats with all the classed monsters will convert so well, unfortunately.

What do you think? Are you planning on attempting conversions anyway?

 

[Warbringer]

It depends...

I'm not sure I've seen anything from playtest that would take more than a day to convert in total so far.

But, I'm sure there is something in playtest that turns everything on its head; my guess is the way classes get maneuvers and spend them.

If the latter doesn't happen, I'll just cpnvert

 

[thundershot]

For the past 20 years, we've been using the same campaign. We went from 0E to 2E to 3E.... now we're going to wind down and start fresh with 4E. We've had so much continuity build up over the years, it gets hard to manage. We're going to take the MARVEL COMICS approach and have 4E be the "Ultimate" universe version of our campaign. There'll be a few new versions of some of the characters, and I'll build a new world with some easter eggs here and there.

I'd be much happier to have Giff and Rakasta early on, but I doubt it'll happen.


Chris

 

[Wormwood]

The game I DM will not be converted. We'll be starting fresh.

The other game (where I'm a player) has over 40 pages of House Rules. If we don't scrap it and start a new 4e game I'm leaving the group.

 

[hong]

IME, you don't see a lot of obscure PrCs and feats when it comes to modules. Publishers generally try to market to the biggest possible audience, so they don't want to use stuff that only a handful of people might know about or have access to.

Now you may have a _character_ who uses an obscure bit of 3E rules crunch, but I'd think in many cases the underlying concept can easily be reexpressed in terms of 4E crunch. There are some classes that are probably too tied to a specific concept to be easily changed over (binders for example) but unless these actually show up in your campaign, they don't matter.

 

[DaveMage]

What do you think? Are you planning on attempting conversions anyway?

No, I'm sticking with 3.5.

I *will* steal things from 4e that improve play which I can make house rules in my 3.5 game, but coversion is a major pain - in any edition.

I did some conversion work just to go from 3.0 to 3.5 and it's not worth the effort. (Unless someone else does it. )

 

[Gumby]

I just started running Shackled City this weekend. Pity me.

When 4E comes out, I'll try to incorporate the more fun changes to character creation and give everyone a respec with the 4E rules that I incorporate, but that's it.

I'm mostly cautious about how relative DCs (skill and save DCs, and to-hit vs. AC) are going to change. Previous mumblings by the dev crew have implied that relative power curves will be flattened. If things like spell and weapon damage change around too, there may be very little I change in my campaign when 4E comes out. That'd be a shame, but that also gives me time to read 4E and figure out what I like about it and what I don't, before I start trying to adapt everything.

There's no way in hell I'm re-writing every single Cagewright, dracolich, and schizoid celestial from the ground up. Given that I'm running a module, my mileage obviously varies from those who are doing it home-brew.

 

[Blackwind]

I'm currently playing in a 3.5 homebrew campaign. Our characters are 4th level. The DM and I are both (mostly) liking what we've heard about 4E, and we're hoping to get in on the playtesting. If that happens, we may just convert/rebuild our characters for 4E, since we don't want to end the campaign prematurely (epic plot in progress). Honestly, I don't think remaking our characters is going to be that big a deal. Same character, different rules.

If we don't end up playtesting, we might actually finish the campaign before all the new core rulebooks are out.

I can see where converting published material would be a huge pain; homebrewers are at an advantage, here, especially ones without reams of material already developed.

Actually, I'm really looking forward to seeing what my CN Human Wizard can do in 4E -- I'm getting tired of having nothing to do in combat besides hide behind corpses and lob alchemist's fire.

 

[drothgery]

I really don't know what my group will be playing late next spring/early next summer, or how excited everyone will be about 4e by the time it's actually here. But we didn't switch to 3.5 midgame (and actually played one campaign as 3.0 + XPH), so I'd bet what we do -- assuming we switch at all, which I'll probably be in favor of, but I rarely GM -- is finish the current campaign and then switch.

Of course, if we've got a game going with an involved plot that we want to keep going, relatively easy to convert characters, and everyone absolutely loves what they see of 4e, then we'll probably convert.

 

[Asmor]

Nope... Not really happy with how my campaign turned out for a wide variety of reasons (both house rules and fluff)... 4th edition provides a nice incentive to wrap it up, so I'm aiming for a late April ending.