That sounds great! Excellent job on the campaign, it sounds like you and your group are having a great time.
Allot of what your talking about in terms of monsters, reskinning and the lowering or raising of levels is excatly what I'd liked to try to do as well.
In my Underdark campaign http://theheroesofhollowearth.wikidot.com/ I have been doing the same thineg you have and printing out all my monsters on one page. Everything is neat and organized.
FYI, my 4e Eberron STAP campaign is now getting near the end of "Tides of Dread", with the PC's just getting the last bits of preparation completed before the invasion of Farshore. If anyone's interested in any details, I'm happy to share here (or anywhere else - I haven't really found a better place to share!)
How you been doing Hastur? My conversion work took a breif hiatus for a few months but Im back to work on my conversion. Id love to hear the low down on your own STAP campaign!
This is a big thread!Wait...that sounded a little dirty...
I just picked up my Bestiary about an hour ago and I have to say great job Paizo! If you guys know how to do one thing wicked good its AP's, but a very close second is how you guys do monsters!Thanks for all the hard work! I look forward to future installements in the series. In particular I hope to see a fully Golarionized version of the Tome of Horrors.
While not the same, I feel as if gugs sort of filled the role of fomorians. Granted there are diffrences, but I think the gugs are much cooler than fomorians anyday.
Seems pragmatic and sensible response re Greyhawk.
OK, here come some numbers which may or may not appal you with the sheer gaminess.
If you are looking for 2.5 levels and you use quests/higher level encounters/something else to reduce to 20 encounters it's still not that easy. Stewart Perkins’ excellent overview ended up with not enough “heroic” encounters, and he only had 14 encounters for the first section.
Some of the stuff in the other “conversion of STAP to 4E” thread is really helpful.
** spoiler omitted **...
Well as I see it I have about 20 actual encounters. This includes combat, skill challenges, and a puzzle. Then if you add in the 5 minor quests and the major quests of the adventure that makes 2 more XP rewards for a total of 22. This should bring the PC's over 3rd level by the end of the adventure which roughly hits the goal Im looking for. Ideally I would like to add in some more skill challenges somehow. Addtionally, Some of the encounter areas like parrot island and the theives guidhall could be padded out with a few more encounters. This would make it a solid 3.5 levels. From what I saw in the AP in 3.5 typically the low level adventures had more encounters and as the adventures reached higher levels the encounters became fewer.So I think things mat balance out in the end.
As far as the encounters go themselves, I feel that this is where allot of judgment calls need to be made to try and present a encounter as its expected in 4e, but at the same time balance that with what the original intention of the encounter was in 3.5.
Well then, I'm happy to share my initial thoughts as long as you are absolutely clear that they are only my thoughts, that I would be personally insulted if you didn't throw at least 90% aside as not being suitable for your campaign/players, and with an apology before I even start for being a bit left brained and obsessed with numbers...
Hokay, first off, the choice of campaign setting and the decision to convert Greyhawk to 4th ed AT THE SAME TIME as the adventure path. You are clearly a dedicated purist, and if you will actually have enough time to do this than massive respect to you. I don't think it's completely necessary (unless you want to do it for your campaign, obviously). I worked on the first four scenarios to 3.5 Iron Kingdoms with little difficulty and that's a quite different setting.
Sticking with Forgotten Realms is easy and (virtually) the generic option - most DMs are used to converting away from this. I do understand your anxieties about the big changes in FR, but given the new magic system/character classes/races etc, etc you would have to come up with some pretty big changes to Greyhawk to explain them. Now, what has been done with FR is (understandably) stressful to us fanboys, if you don't like it and would like to come up with some more personal changes to Greyhawk, that's AOK. Or you can just let Wizards take the heat for RUNING TEH FORGTTEN REALMS WAT WERE TEHY THINKING ILL NEVER PLAY D&D AGAIN!!!!?!, and use what they have already done:-)
Well the more I look at it, the more it seems to me that I dont need to worry to much about making actual big changes to Greyhawk.Because the STAP is not centered on Greyhawk lore as AoW is it means I can ignore allot of stuff. In terms of actual conversion work Im also thinking of taking the path of least resistance. Meaning Im mostly going to try and figure out the easyist way of looking at things that still fits the flavour of 4e.
I have no problem discussing stuff here. Honestly I look forward to any kind of discussion that leads to a better conversion. In part I was hoping that the blog was going to help organize my thoughts about the conversion work,and allow others to share their thoughts and possibly providing me with an alternative solution or diffrent way of looking at how to go about doing the actual conversion work, and lastly help keep me motivated to see this huge project through.
Hey Scott,
I really love your site! Its beautiful and well organized. Additionally your conversion pdfs are of the same high quality. I was wondering if you could give me some pointers or direct me towards the appropriate sites that would enable me to format my own site and/or documents once I get to that point. For instance how can I get my own unique bullets like the arrows on you site or the nifty flower ones used on Craig’s blog Under a Wanderin' Star? I’m not really a tech savvy person but recently I’ve been trying to learn about how to efficiently and properly use the tools at my disposal for blogging and wiki’s. I’ve also never used and don’t really understand how the document-sharing site you use works but would like to know more. Anyway I don’t want to take up too much of your time but if you feel up to it you and you would like to you can email me at zombiecowboy@hotmail.com.
You have some good ideas there. Your thoughts parallel a lot of mine in terms of issues about converting Greyhawk to 4e. I plan on addressing this issue in an upcoming blog post so I don’t want to go into to much detail now but here’s my thoughts as it stands now:
Concerning the STAP as you’ve stated isn’t strongly tied to Greyhawk, and more material is now available, which makes the conversions minimal for myself and actually encouraged me to go the distance and do the work and thus also allowed me to use more of the handouts and pictures (mostly the maps) from the magazines. As I see it there are three areas of concern that need to be addressed: Races, Deities, and the Planes. I was also thinking it would be cool to allow PC’s to have Dragonmarks or Spellscars (I’m not sure how different these two are from each other so it may be just one or the other).
I’ve been considering that the Spellplague was not an isolated incident and that it also affected Greyhawk through not to the extent that the FR was. Even if it was its not something that I would spend much time detailing. I was also considering advancing time 50 – 100 years but I’m not even sure if that’s needed.
Anyway stay tuned to my blog and I will discuss this topic more, as this is a many faceted topic.
Theres not much content there yet, but I hope to fix that soon. I look forward to any comments or critisims anyone may have about my posts or conversions.
Cool, Good luck. I hope you eventually get a chance to make a compiled documents similar to the ones Scott makes when he finishes a section. Those really show off the conversions and make running the adventure for anyone that wants to a snap. Not that there is anything wrong with a Blog, its a great way to do the adventure in chunks but a good looking final product is a good looking final product after all.
I hadnt considered that, but it stands to reason that a compiled document would be helpful to everyone who decides that they want to use the material for their own game.
So far, whenever I consider converting a 3.5e adventure to 4e, I usually multiply the 3.5e encounter level by 1.5 to get the equivalent 4e encounter level. I noticed this actually puts a number of creatures in the 4e monster manual pretty close to where they need to be for the conversion.
So an EL 12 becomes an EL 18 for 4e, etc.
Watch out for the differing formulas between the editions though. In 3.5e, a single CR 5 is an EL 5 encounter. In 4e, an EL 5 encounter is FIVE level 5 creatures (or 4 if you only have 4 PCs).
Good luck in your endeavor!
Since 4e has a slightly faster leveling curve, you might get the 2.5 level gain per adventure that you need.
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind as I go along. This is my first real blog /conversion so well see how things progress.
Theres not much content there yet, but I hope to fix that soon. I look forward to any comments or critisims anyone may have about my posts or conversions.
After doing a search for conversion notes for Savage Tides and coming to the conclusion that there was very little to go on, I decided to start a 4e conversion blog for STAP.
Theres not much content there yet, but I hope to fix that soon. I look forward to any comments or critisims anyone may have about my posts or conversions.
Its weird I tried searching myself and couldnt find anything. I know that this was discussed before so maybe it has been erased for some reason.
In this thread there is some discussion about adapting the three Pathfinder AP's to Greyhawk
Peruhain of Brithondy wrote:
"You could set the Runelords up as a cabal of Suel mages, perhaps closely involved in the Twin Cataclysms. That would work out quite nicely, with the Sea of Dust (former Suel Empire) right on the other side of the Crystalmists."
This idea could be used even if the action takes place in another area. For instance what if you changed the Runelords around a little and made them members of the Maure family. Now you could add connections to Maure Castle. In addition think about what it would mean if you changed the the Sihedron rune to the 8 pointed star symbol of the Seekers organization.
If I was to run RotRL in Greyhawk I would totally place it in Sterich. Im pretty sure if you do a search you can dig up an old post from here that discusses this a little more.
As for Rise of the Runelords I totally would set it in Sterich. Magnimar would be Istivin, and I would totally run the Dungeon adventure Istivin trilogy arc as part of it.
And "Headless" as well!
For Sure! Theres alot of possibilities with that one.
I think that if your going to go that route then I would swap out the orcs for yuan-ti. Or even say tribes of lizard folk, though I think snake dudes would be more fun.
I liked this proposal from the begining and I like it even more now!
I guess thats the real catch with trying to fit Pathfinder stuff in the WoG. It can be done, it just depends on how messy you want to get with the conversion work.
I guess if I was going to run CotCT in the WoG I would take the path of least resistance. Thus I would try and set it in an area with the least amount of detail and then just fill in all that white space if you will with the AP.
Inevitably tho you will have to make some changes in order to complete the AP. I find that the Pathfinder APs are more tied to the campaign setting than the previous Dungeon APs were.
As for Rise of the Runelords I totally would set it in Sterich. Magnimar would be Istivin, and I would totally run the Dungeon adventure Istivin trilogy arc as part of it.
For Second Darkness Im not as sure what I would do but I could totally see the Dim Forest in Geoff making a good replacment for Celwynvian and the forest its in. Riddleport could be located near or in the Hold of the Sea Princes.
I think part of me really has a soft spot for the Sheldomar valley area.
A really cool way of using the Octychs in the campaign could be if say Kyuss manageges to win and the Age of Worms actually comes to pass. Either as a continuation of the AP or as a new campaign altogether the PC's need to hunt down all the Octychs in order to finally defeat Kyuss for good.
The campaign would involve finding the Octychs, traveling to strange places and deadly dungeons. They would be constantly at odds with various factions competing for the Octychs themselves for lots of diffrent reasons some good and some bad.
Dude I think you have the bases covered pretty well.
I love the idea of a branch of Hextorians called the Order of the Nail. It totally fits and really gives some detail that makes worshipers of Hextor seem cool and not so plain.
I think the Red Mantis could be a heretical splinter group of the SB. This way you could allow players to be SB characters whose mission in addition to regaining SB control of the city is to crush this up start order.
I think in order to keep things as simple as possible I would leave Vudra and the Rakshasa's the way they are. Like you mentioned having Vudra be across the Solnor Ocean and off the map if you will.
The only really tricky situation I see is the Shoanti and the Cinderlands portion of the adventure. I don’t really know enough about this area and in particular the barbarian tribes that call it home. At worst I suggest you just use the Shoanti as is and say they’ve always been there but the rest of the world hasn’t really heard of them before, or something to that effect.
While I really like the idea of setting this in the great kingdom what about this idea.
What if you substituted Hardby for Korvosa. The Bright Desert for the Cinderlands. And either the Mistmarsh or Gnatmarsh for the Mushfens? I’m not super familiar with GH lore so maybe that won’t work.
Another area to consider could be setting it near Keoland, the Principality of Ulek, or an independent city on the Wild Coast. I mention this just because every time I read about the Hold of Belkzen I totally think of the Pomarj.
I guess the question that need to ask your self is how tied to GH do you want this to be? For instance Shackled City was only minimally connected to Greyhawk and was pretty much able to be transplanted in any setting. As opposed to AoW which was much more tied to GH though still adaptable with a little modification on the DMs part.
One of the appealing things about setting this in the great kingdom would be that you have allot of room to do your own thing and not really mess with canon to much. This is also one of the strengths of a GH campaign is that its quite flexible as a whole for coming up with new material and plugging it in.
Another thing you might want to consider is if you later wanted to run Rise of the Runelords or Second Darkness. Both of these APs are also set in Varisia, while they aren’t connected you might want to have the events that occurred in CotCT be felt or talked about later when and if you decided to run those.
That’s all I got right now. If I think of more ill let you know.
Since its already been written for some time now at least the conversion work to Pathfinder will be minimal. Or at least not as crazy as it would be if it was released as 4e.
On a brighter note Im sure the wait will have been worth it.
This is one of the many many campaigns that I would love to do. But alas still has not, nor will it in the near future get off the ground.
My goal for the Whispering Carin would be to have a good incentive to get the players to get together. I would also want to find a way to encourage them to investigate,explore and interact with Diamond Lake a bit more.
Its wierd. The town is a major set piece to the campaign and theres alot going on, but the adventures tend to gloss over this. I chalk this up to lack of space in the magazine, and that the DM is resposible to a degree on how much or little to use Diamond Lake.
So after thinking about it a little, and spending some time looking on google maps of the world, I’ve decided that Mogadishu the capital of Somalia might make a good location for Korvosa.
I decided to forget trying to find a city that resembles the city of Korvosa, specifically the Old Korvosa area and work around that section of the campaign a little. I still wanted to retain the port status of the city.
I like the state of conflict that the city represents and it seems like it would be a place ripe for a mega corporation to take over for its own ends displacing many of the native population. That and the number of warlord’s inherent to the area means that they could become the defacto Shoanti replacements.
I also like that the harshness of the area would make a great place for a replacement of the Cinderlands.
I was also thinking that Kazavon would also fit very well as written in the AP as a now forgotten warlord that was taken out in a coup some time ago. Possibly even sometime during the last time magic had empowered the earth.
While I’m not to worried about messing with the cannon of the world, does anyone know if there are any SR source books past or present that discuss this area of the world?
If I do go back and run 3.5, those two campaign arcs will take months, if not longer to run.
I still pick up the sourcebooks though as they make great reading.
For what its worth I think the APs also make good reading. However, I can totally understand how you feel. During the Edition Wars, I had considered stopping my subscription after Second Darkness was finished if Paizo went 4e. As far as Im concerned Paizo is worth every penny I have spent so far, and unless they start to put out crap (which isnt going to happen any time soon Im sure)I can see sticking with them for many years in the future.
Honestly non-fantasy games tend to stump me as a writer, and while I love SR in its various editions I have always ended back at D&D due to my love of fantasy and my mindset.
I totally agree with you on this. I think that D&D has a few things going for it that has allowed it to be the top RPG for the last 30 years.
First I think that are suspension of disbelief is able to be stretched a little further in a fantasy setting than say in a modern or futuristic setting just because we tend to know less about that time period. So we allow for over simplifications, and that we let magic account for other discrepancies.
Also, D&D is level based so you always have an incentive to keep playing even if the current adventure or possibly if even the whole campaign is weak. It’s the personal goal of the individual players to get the cool power ups for their characters while at the same time working to complete the adventures milestones.
I could be wrong on this point but I also think that D&D offers a much wider style of adventures than other rpgs. For instance you could play a very simple bash the door down, kill the monsters, and take his stuff, type game. Or you could play more of a political intrigue or tell a story type game.
I think in D&D as opposed to say a game like Shadowrun or Call of Cthulhu encounters are designed differently. In D&D you need various encounters to level up. So in D&D you’re looking at something like 13.5 encounters on average to gain a level. In SR or CoC you only need a fraction of that to move the adventure along and provide the proper clues and what not and to keep things entertaining.
One of the other things that I think D&D does really well that other systems tend not to is provide adventures for their systems. D&D has a s!!~e load of adventures and campaigns to choose from. By playing and reading enough of these you can become educated and inspired on how to create your own adventures and campaigns. Particularly published adventures showcase how to use the rules and other conventions of that particular system. This allows you as the GM to come up with your own scenarios filled with cool twists and turns.
Of course this is just my own opinion. And like the majority of gamers I know that after a stint at any other non-D&D game I will so be ready to play D&D again after that. It’s a classic game regardless of edition.
I like that idea. I hadnt really considered setting Korvosa outside of North America. Definatly something to consider none the less.
Just to be clear I wanted to use the 4th edtion of the Shadowrun system, not a D&D 4e. Ive had suggestions that I try to use d20 modern rules but I would like to try and learn a new non d20 system. Also I feel that you lose somthing in the translation when you play any kind of game with a diffrent set of rules. Not a bad thing per se , just diffrent.
As for the conversion work, Im sure it will be tough at some points but Im kind of thinking that since SR dosent have levels I wont have to deal with scaling the encounters as much. Also treasure and xp will be much less of an issue. I also dont plan on converting every encounter. Just what I really need to tell the story, provide some action and keep things interesting and moving forward.
The basic idea is that the campaign framework is there its more just a matter of chaning the flavour to suit the world and to a lesser extent the rules system.
I dont know the sytem to well yet so I could be wrong on this.
Thanks for the encouragement guys. I wasnt sure of what kind of reaction I would get.
I was definatly thinking Shoanti=native americans. I wanted to retain the Red Mantis as they just sound really cool and seem like they fit the setting. I like the idea of them being Yakuza.
As for the city itself, I wanted to try and retain as much of Korvosa as written in order to retain as much of the campaign and encounters as possible without having to overhaul the campaign more than I already have to.
So that means that Korvosa should be a coastal city (I was thinking west coast)preferably somthing that has an area that can stand in for Old Korvosa. It also needs to be relativly close to a desert area in order to stand in for the Cinderlands.
Im not really familiar with the fine details of the SR world but I was thinking perhaps somthing in the area of southern California, near San Diego.I not sure about the geography but somewhere in the area of Arizona standing in for the Cinderlands.
I have been playing with the idea of using the CotCT AP as the frame work for a Shadowrun campaign. Obviously not everything as presented in the modules would work in a Shadowrun game, but I’m thinking with a little bit of massaging this could work out pretty well.
I basically envision it like this. Keep in mind this is a pretty rough outline.
Spoiler:
Korvosa (which needs a real world analog) is controlled lock, stock, and barrel, by a small mega corporation (yet to be named). Essentially the city is treated as if it was a city-state controlled by a monarchy, though maybe not as blatantly. The mega-corporation’s CEO is Eodred Arabasti II (many names may need to be changed) is much as he’s described in the AP. Enter Ileosa Arvanxi, again very much as described in the AP. Ileosa encounters the Fangs of Kazavon and begins her transformation.
When CEO Arabasti II dies the precarious balance of unrest in the city slips and rest on the edge of anarchy. Enter the runners who are united after a mysterious tarot card reader employs them to take out an old nemesis.
Eventually after dealing with this nemesis they meet the new CEO Ileosa who recruits them to aid the corporations beleaguered security force. The security force is a sub company called Citadel Security Force (or something like that). The rest of Edge of Anarchy would play out more or less like the AP with the runners going on missions for the CSF.
That what were I’m at so far. Before I go to far I was hoping to get some of your opinions on what you thought about the idea of trying to pull this off, and what I could use as a real world city for Korvosa? Also, if anyone who was more familiar with the Shadowrun universe could provide some help to make this fit better into the Shadowrun world if needed.
I like to think that a call of cthulhu camapign has two diffrent styles of play. Both of these depend on the type of game you wish to play or enjoy playing.
The first style would be the classic humans are insignificant to the cosmos.Human minds just cant grasp the true nature of the universe and if we even catch a small glimps of this it will break us. The mythos cannot be defeated nor cares that is is trying to be defeated by us.To mythos deities human investigators are like misqitos attempting to kill them by draining their blood.An impossible task. This campaign focuses on investigation, because its structure rewards those that think problems through instead of using brute force.
The second style is the pulpy two fisted action story.In this campagian model its all about action. Investigation is still important, but takes a back seat to high speed chases and shoot outs with insane cultists.In this model the mythos can be beaten, its not a hopless cause and man will rise against and prevail against the evil in the world.
Perhaps, a third style that finds its self in a middle ground might be the optimal model. Personally I find the mythos to be fascinating. But I prefer my CoC games to be a little more on the pulp side of things.
With all this talk about abberations I just want to know when were going to finally see an AP featuring the true masterminds of the universe...The Mi-go man! when are the frickin Mi-go gonna get their due in Pathfinder!
I like the idea of the fort being opened up to the enemy from an inside traitor (or someone being black mailed into it) for the raiders. The raiders are in turn controlled by the true masters of the multiverse the mind flayers! The comander was then tortured for secret information using powerful mind raping magic wich left him bereft of his sanity.
Well, a ship has a starboard side and a port side after all.
I am thinking of letting the PCs find the remains of a black pearl in Fort Greenrock...
I could see the making of a cool side quest if a pearl was either stolen and brought here or was set off by accident while its crew was stopping for repairs, resuply or whatever. The crew and fort inhabitants are turned into savage creatures that go off into the jungle, they come upon a tribe of lizard folk who they wreak havoc on. The lizard folk then sent raiders to finish off the fort inhabitants. Not sure exactly what i would do with that, but its a starting point.
Thanks for all this additional information, Peruhain. It seems as if this site is one doomed to destruction. If my PCs weren't on their way to the Isle of Dread, perhaps they could find out what curse has fallen over the area.
I wonder if it was a reverse Easter Egg? Something they'd planned on doing something with later, but never got to because the magazines were canceled.
Recently I had been thinking that with a little modification Tammeraut's Fate by Greg Vaughan, Dungeon #106 might work really well as a side adventure at this location.If one day I every get a chance to finally runs this AP thats probably what I'd do.
I like the idea of adding side quests or addtional adventures to the Ap's, particularly if they involve the PC's or is somthing initiated because of their own actions.
However,the way XP works in the game it can cause all sorts of headaches. So my question is this; when you add addtional adventures/side quests into the AP how do you as a DM deal with this? I almost feel that in cases like this its almost better to just ditch the xp all together and just tell the players when to level up.
I get the drow mentality about survival of the fittest, But what if a higher entity like a demon lord or deity had a vested interest with the assassinated drow. Or what if the drow in question was apart of some kind of hertical organization (for sake of example) the Elder Elemental Eye, or both for that matter. That in my opinion could make for an interesting plot seed.
Sasserine is on the Jeklea Bay south coast. It used to be part of the Hold of the Sea Princes until "recently".
I would assume that Sasserine being a port city probably sees a variety of currencies from around the Oerth. However since it was recently apart of the Hold of the Sea Princes that the majority of coinage would be from there. This is assuming your using the World of Greyhawk as you campaign setting. So according to the Living Greyhawk Gazetter that would be:
I think that if James got screwed over by a writer again he might just go Jigsaw style (from the Saw movies)on their ass. Kidnap them, put them in a freaky warehouse full of bizare death traps, and then sit back and enjoy the show...
Savage_ScreenMonkey,
