D&D 3E/3.5 Thinking about converting some 3.5 modules to 4e - any pointers?

[Barastrondo]

I've looked at using old maps with 4e, and one potentially useful hint that comes to mind is that a "room" in 4e could be a number of rooms from the old map. Don't set the entire fight in a single 20x20 armory: let it encompass the armory, the adjoining guard post, and some of the corridors around it. Thus the players can prioritize choke points and move between rooms. This is particularly useful if you decide to stack the encounters with heavy minion use.

I don't know if you're planning to mess with the Monster Builder much. If you have access to it, it's great; you can downrank a 5th-level orc to a 2nd-level orc with a few repeated clicks. It makes it much easier to put the monsters you want in the level range you want.

 

[Squire James]

I've converted a whole Pathfinder adventure path (Second Darkness) to 4e, so I have some things of interest.

You will need to decide what level the adventure is REALLY for. Sometimes it's better to keep the orcs away until the players get level 5 or so - just so you won't have to rework the orcs TOO much.

Sometimes, you can't really do that. For instance, Second Darkness is all about Drow - you get to fight one at level 3 or so. Therefore, I made an alteration to the Rules of the World a bit. Specifically, Drow weaken a LOT when exposed to anything that "touched the sun" in the last 24 hours, as in "-10 levels" weaken. The later adventures had no sunlight issues, so those same Drow they were facing as level 3 to 9 adversaries early on became pretty powerful level 13 to 19 enemies later! This also had the side benefit of explaining why the Drow never got terribly close to conquering the surface world!

In the adventure path I converted, there were a lot of fights against solo opponents. Fighting solos all the time is muy boring! So I put in a lot more flunkies (not minions aka Free XP - standard monsters worked fine). Grouping together several 3e encounters into single 4e encounters with several rooms on the map worked well in many cases too!

Most of the fluff can be maintained, though some of the skill check material might be worked into skill challenges. The DC's will need some tweaking.

 

[Kelvor Ravenstar]

Also, you while grouping rooms from 3E together is useful for making 4E encounters, you will want to consider the size of the rooms in which the fight is occurring. I find that some 3E and earlier maps use choke points of 10' x 20' rooms, and smaller living quarters of 20' x 20' rooms. Unless the adventure is supposed to feel claustrophobic they can feel too tight for 4e's more movement central combat flow.
For 4e combats this can lead to cramped conditions where your controllers like the wizard won't be able to use their area of effect spells without hitting half the party. Encounters that get bogged down in corridors I find are ones that either lead to "the grind" or end up separating the squishier characters from the defenders because the monsters moved through the adjoining rooms to flank them.
So look for suggestions on rules of thumb for how much space monsters need for interesting fights. I can't guarantee I have the exact right size, but I'd suggest that a lot of rooms need to be at least doubled in size, and fights with big solos like Dragons can need at least four times the area if the adventure didn't already account for it. While increasing area of large rooms, add more pieces of interesting terrain or hazards, which will also help alleviate the sometimes grindy-ness of combat.

 

[Someone]

Another thing to have in mind is that mid to high level modules had to address, counter or include the effects of copious amounts of divination and counter divination and easy transport. Bad guys, if we hav to believe the Story Hour forum, had an habit of living Mind Blanked inside Private Sanctums located inside Magnificent mansions created inside underground, lead lined rooms accesible only by teleportation. Paranoid ones took special measures.

 

[pemerton]

I've looked at using old maps with 4e, and one potentially useful hint that comes to mind is that a "room" in 4e could be a number of rooms from the old map. Don't set the entire fight in a single 20x20 armory: let it encompass the armory, the adjoining guard post, and some of the corridors around it. Thus the players can prioritize choke points and move between rooms.

I'd add to this - I've found this is a good idea even with WotC's 4e module maps!

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Sometimes, you can't really do that. For instance, Second Darkness is all about Drow - you get to fight one at level 3 or so. Therefore, I made an alteration to the Rules of the World a bit. Specifically, Drow weaken a LOT when exposed to anything that "touched the sun" in the last 24 hours, as in "-10 levels" weaken. The later adventures had no sunlight issues, so those same Drow they were facing as level 3 to 9 adversaries early on became pretty powerful level 13 to 19 enemies later! This also had the side benefit of explaining why the Drow never got terribly close to conquering the surface world!

While I haven't done any conversions, my campaign does have some reoccuring baddies, which I have first made solos, then later elites and finally standard monsters, to make the PCs be able to handle them over a variety of levels and yet still reflect their gaining power as against the NPC. So, such a technique may work better when something like the suggested "sunlight excuse" doesn't seem realistic and/or viable.

Of course, if the adventure already seems to have an over abundance of solos, that may not work for you...

However, from my expereince, the system's math being fairly tolerant of monsters up to 5 levels higher than the party (or even more for monsters with relatively low defences), that gives you a fair range of possible opponents. I know that my PCs handled an elite soldier 5 levels higher than them with no problem, despite the encounter also containing 5 level+1 standard monsters.