[Rant]Claiming old stuff converts easily into 4E

[CapnZapp]

Forked from: [Monte Cook's Dungeon A Day] Anyone try it?

Sorry, but neither DAD or MD uses 4E rules and thus aren't too useful for me.

I have converted enough 3E encounters to 4E by now to have realized the games' mindsets are different and that 3E encounters become poor 4E encounters if you just port them over.

To make a great 4E encounter, you need to be mindful of monster roles, monster numbers, map sizes and more. All that you need to do yourself if your source material isn't 4E.

Saying things like what Megadungeon says, "almost all of the mechanical information and game statistics included here can be adapted to your favorite fantasy RPG without too much trouble", is only true for a value of "trouble" that is much too large for me to care.

Not dumping on Megadungeon specifically. All the publishers say this. Doesn't make it more true, though.

The reality is that 4E is much its own game, and converting from previous editions is not trivial or quickly done. Don't expect previous edition material to work seamlessly in 4E.

And to publishers: don't claim that your stuff does!

[/RANT]

 

[malraux]

The reality is that 4E is much its own game, and converting from previous editions is not trivial or quickly done. Don't expect previous edition material to work seamlessly in 4E.

IME, conversion isn't that bad. I wouldn't call it trivial, but I've found it to be a quick process. And sure, its not seemless, but I've never seen any material, even without conversion that was seemless. Now a lot of this is that you can just easily make somewhat interesting encounters in 4e quickly.

That said, yes, 4e maps need to be larger. Playing through EtCRavenloft, a few players have made jokes about Heward's Handy Castle, since it ends up larger on the inside than the outside.

 

[ferratus]

I'm finding that 3e doesn't convert over very well, but oddly enough the 2e stuff does.

 

[Crothian]

I just find monster of same of similiar type of the right level for the challenge, add some more if needed and make a little variety of creatures, and that's abouyt it. I'm not as conserned with the map or the terrain. If I really need more room I'll just make the orginal map have 10ft quares or maybe even 15ft ones. That way I'm not changing the way the map looks just the size to fit in more creatures.

Or what I'll do is use the same number as the 3e (or whatever edition) uses but just make sure I'm placing many of those encounters as one 4e encounter.

Overall, I find I'm spending about as much time now as then. But I always make changes to modules even if it is written for the exact game I'm playing.

 

[Hussar]

I'm finding that 3e doesn't convert over very well, but oddly enough the 2e stuff does.

Actually, I don't think that's odd at all. Both systems share a similar approach to encounter design (although it's FAR more explicit in 4e) in that monsters are not capable of doing massive damage in single rounds by and large. To make a challenging 2e encounter, you make up for the lack of individual firepower by adding in lots more baddies.

Which is pretty similar to the 4e approach. 3e, OTOH, has monsters of a given CR that are capable of doing very significant (if not outright lethal) damage in a single full attack. If you start dumping large numbers of creatures into the encounter, you have to keep sliding the CR scale down further and further until you get to the point where the baddies can no longer reasonably threaten the PC's.

It's all in the scaling.

I would imagine that 1e and B/E D&D conversions would map far closer to 1:1 than they did when converting to 3e.

 

[Festivus]

Converting 3.5 to 4E I have also found it works out better to redraw the maps larger, take note of roles and build encounters from the ground up. I usually just reflavor monsters to fit what I need for the story so that's not a difficult job.

1E stuff, which I am about to convert, is going to be just about the same job. The biggest difference is that 4E I am enjoying the conversion process, when trying to convert 1E stuff to 3.5 I never found it pleasant.

 

[malraux]

The biggest difference is that 4E I am enjoying the conversion process, when trying to convert 1E stuff to 3.5 I never found it pleasant.

I'll agree with that. 4e made working with the system enjoyable. So conversion does take effort, but its not painful effort.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I´ve found converting my Campaign and other stuff easy
- because things like roles/power sources/monster roles/levels signal you what you can expect from an encounter/treasure etc. very effectively.
- because DDI enables me to DRAG & DROP stuff. I wouldn´t want to convert anything without the compendium anymore. God, i remember when i wanted to do a 3.5 harpy encounter:
a) write down statblock
b) write down what powers/spells/feats actually do
c) write down how the harpies song works
d) write down what the status effect actually does.

I do that with DDI in 1/10th of a time. So, it´s easy to convert - not because of compatibility, but because DMing 4e is easy in general.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

The reality is that 4E is much its own game, and converting from previous editions is not trivial or quickly done. Don't expect previous edition material to work seamlessly in 4E.
[/RANT]

Capn.. I have to agree, but only in some regards.

I am currently running the War of the Burning Sky in 4e. Since RW and crew haven't been kind enough to add me to their playtest group, this means I am converting the 3.5 modules over as I go. It would be a fairly simple thing to swap stat-blocks and keep charging ahead..but let me give you an example problem.

Module #6, level 13th ish, Castle Korstul has an encounter where two Stone Golems and a bunch of skeletons ambush the party. 4E Stone Golums are level 17 Elite Soldiers. My 13th Level melee focused Druid can hit these beasts on a 18 or better...
The encounter build is still pretty good, but this is supposed to be the front door and expectation of harder things inside. So it needs to be tweaked.

Converting is harder when the encounter is in a 3.x attrition paradigm and you basically have to redesign the encounter from scratch.



OTOH...
Before we went to 4e I was spending an average of 3 hours preparing for a 4 hour session. Trying to get down the details of the monster abilities and tactics, tweaking as needed for my striker heavy group.
Now I spend maybe a single hour in prep, which includes building custom monsters as needed.

So, yes. Publishers should not be stating 'Really easy to convert to 4e', as that implies the ability to run on the fly with the compendium open.
But, 4e is a heck of alot easier to convert to than 3x.


Most 4e modules {delve specifically} could do with bigger maps. My Druid has a move of 8 in Beast Form, 10 when charging, and generally gets a free shift in there somewhere. The last 4 games have been spent in cramped quarters where movement didn't matter and the controllers very easily locked half the opposition out of the encounter.
There was a thread in the HR forum a while back that suggested the 'normal' size for an encounter should be along the lines of (#PCs * average PC Move) + (#NPCs * average NPC move) in squares.
That gives the mobility based builds a chance to be mobile and the NPCs a chance to overcome the controllers game-over moves.

 

[Agamon]

Exp. to Castle Ravenloft converted easily for me. Might be because it was put out so late in 3e's life, but I only spent a couple hours before the game prepping for it for each session. Wasn't much fun, really, but I wanted to see how the paragon tier ran, and I like it.