Which edition change changed the game the most?

[Hussar]

The biggest problem I had initially with the 4E conversion (as far as design went) was filling up/out the XP budget - ended up with a lot of extra creatures in each encounter and had to do some head-scratching to fill in the holes. Also, the Ravenloft module originally had a lot of "scripted" events that were best converted into skill challenges. That took a fair bit of extra work (perhaps because I am unused to building skill challenges, at least in 4E terms).

With WLD, do you have to build specific encounters with an XP budget, or just fill an area with X number of Y creatures and are just converting basically stats? Are there any skill challenges you are prebuilding or just working them out on the fly when the PCs don't rush into combat? This is a case of I'm curious to know how your approaching WLD - I think our differences were that I was converting a story-based (story-first?) adventure whereas I would term what your working with as a location-based adventure (story just sort of evolves).

Yeah, I think that might have a huge thing to do with it.

I'm pre-building a few skill challenges - one that immedietely comes to mind is a sort of stock skill challenge for exploration. While I loves me some theifly sneakery, it gets a bit stale after a while and having the rest of the group sit on their hands for half an hour while the rogue does his thing became annoying.

So, a skill challenge exploration with various events randomly generated is in the offing. I'm still not done with it, so, when I am, I'll put it up on the 4e boards.

As far as xp budgets, it hasn't really been a problem. There are a few rooms that had to be scaled back (Region A, forex, has a room with like 50 stirges in it) but, because of the minions, I can keep the numbers and the challenges surprisingly similar.

I have been making some changes as we go. For one, I've added a lot of verticality to the Dungeon by reworking a number of the maps. Also, since a couple of my players actually did this beast once already, I have to change around some of the bigger bad guys. No more wererat in region A trying to open a portal. Now it'll be something a bit different.

Once nice thing is the fact that I have 30 levels to play with instead of 20. If you played XP by the book, if the party started clearing out regions, they'd rocket up levels. This way, I can actually use most of each region without screwing up the balance on the next one.

I'm still pretty early into things, but, it's going pretty well.

 

[pemerton]

Hussar, Monster Vault has a nice Stirge Swarm that you can probably use as a verisimilitude-preserving substitute for some of those 50 stirges. (Maybe the Stirge Swarm is in the MM as well - I can't remember.)

When converting an old Basic module to 4e I also found that minions were my friend for keeping numbers the same while balancing the XP budget.

I didn't find that conversion to be all the hard, so I'm not that surprised that you're finding the conversion from 3E is going OK.

 

[Umbran]

This is has been explained multiple times already in this thread. Just read it.

Effectively, "The only reason you don't understand/agree is that you haven't read," and that's a touch rude. How about you leave room for the possibility that prior explanations were not sufficient? Thanks.

Not aimed at you. Why are you butting in?

Please don't forget that this is a public messageboard. If you post, anyone's allowed to comment. If you want a private conversation, or to otherwise control who responds, take it to e-mail, PM, or your personal blog. Thanks.

 

[Beginning of the End]

At Umbran's request...

When I was young, I:

- Used AD&D1 supplements with BECMI and AD&D2.
- Freely intermixed BECMI and AD&D2 material without even thinking about it.

The editions of the game from '79 to '99, while certainly possessing some key distinctions, were inter-compatible to the point of "I don't need to even convert this stuff". So other than Basic's conflation of race and class and the change in XP methodology, it doesn't surprise me that no one is citing a significant rules-shift in this time period.

Now, for the DM's perspective, let me copy-paste from an e-mail exchange I had with my Dm who has:

- Used OD&D, AD&D, and BECMI modules with 3E.
- Used the same 3E modules in both 3E and OD&D.
- Used the same 4E modules in both 4E and OD&D.

(quote)

Unlike the BECMI/AD&D material, all of these obviously required mechanical conversion. But in each case I lazily followed the conversion process of least resistance: If the encounter says it gets 8 goblins, then I open up the local equivalent of the Monster Manual and use the stats for 8 goblins.

Here's what I experienced:

- The OD&D, AD&D, and BECMI modules all played fine in 3E.
- The 3E modules played pretty much identically in both 3E and OD&D.*
- The 4E module played radically differently in 4E and OD&D.

(end quote)

Speaking as a player, you can see a similar continuity in playing the core classes. From OD&D to 3E there was a gradual accumulation of new options for characters, but surprisingly little difference in how they played at a basic level: Fighters in OD&D play like fighters in AD&D, BECMI, and 3E; magic-users in OD&D play like wizards in AD&D, BECMI, and 3E; and so forth. But fighters and wizards in 4E don't play anything like their predecessors.

4E is the breakpoint at which the gameplay shifts on a fundamental level on both sides of the DM's screen. (Which is unsurprising, since the designers said they were doing that deliberately.)

On a non-mechanical level, you also have a basic continuity of implied cosmology from OD&D to 3E (with the same gradual accrual of additional bling). Here one finds a significant shift from AD&D1 to AD&D2, but 3E largely shifted back towards AD&D1 in this regard. But those shifts once again pale in comparison to the significant break we find in 4E from what came before.

 

[Raven Crowking]

For the record, the 2e Complete Series reprinted the 1e versions of classes, so you could use them in your 2e game if you preferred. Likewise, there would be very little difficulty in porting demons and devils from the 1e MM to 2e.....Indeed, everyone I knew did this.


RC