Using 4e monsters in 3.5 games

[blargney the second]

I ran a fight last night for my 9th level party against a bunch of troglodytes. It was an improvised fight so I grabbed my bag of trog minis, pulled out their stat cards, and realized that one of the cards had 4e stats. I shrugged and decided to just use it as-is in the mix with the 3.5 trogs. It was fun! Those bonecrusher guys are tough hombres.

Down to brass tacks - I had to do a minor amount of fiddling to get their stats to work right for a 3e game.

Saves/defenses were easy: just subtract 10 and add a d20.

Their stench looked like this on the card:
Stench Minor; burst 1; +10 vs Fort; Slowed AND –2 atk/Def rest of encounter. Troglodytes immune.

So I split it into two parts - the usual 30' sickening stench aura from 3.5 and a more concentrated attack that required effort on their part:
Powerful Stench; Fort DC 20 or be slowed as the spell, make Fort save at end of each turn to shake it off. (swift action, 5' radius, 1/encounter)


Has anybody else run 4e monsters in 3.5 yet? If so, what have you used and how did you hammer it into the system?
-blarg

 

[Mercule]

I thought about using them for my 15th level group, but it didn't take long for me to decide that foes of that level with fewer hps and no DR just aren't going to be compatible.

 

[blargney the second]

Yeah, comparing level to CR they seem to have less hps and less unusual defenses than their 3e counterparts, but better attacks and defenses in the Fort, Ref, and Will department. I think it more or less equals out, although the net effect is a bit glass cannony.

I'd forgotten that I ran a Swiftscale Yuan-ti and a Yuan-ti Malison in a group of other snake dudes against a couple of gestalt PCs a while back. They were pretty impressive contenders while they lasted.