Converting an AP to TSR Era D&D?


Pathfinder Adventure Path General Discussion


What if any of the APs would make for a suitable conversion to a TSR era D&D game? I do not mind subbing in monsters etc and maybe upping the treasure as 1 gp=1xp in BECMI/1st ed and there are difference in the relative power levels the monsters from edition to edition.

I do not like playing Pathfinder over level 10 or so and prefer to do it with retroclones etc so I'm wondering what one uses the most classic monsters and would be the easiest to convert.

Failing that what have been some of the better APs as the last one I paid much attention to was Skull and Shackles and the last one we played was Kingmaker. Also thinking of a hard core party with 8,9, 11, 12,13,14 stat array.

Sovereign Court Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

The ubiquitous Rise of the Runelords would be an easy choice. You'd also be able to pretty easily work in things like Against the Giants if you wanted to.

Council of Thieves creatures also convert very easily over to 1st Ed. Additionally, the setting and the way the story goes are VERY much a 1st Edition feel for a game. Very film noir and investigation in orientation, taking place within a single city that was once a thriving metropolis but has fallen on (very) hard times.

Last, for an Arabian Nights feel, Legacy of Fire would also be an easy conversion. Again, I've looked at this one pretty hard for the same reasons, and slipping a series like the Desert of Desolation into it would be a cinch.

Edit: The main issue you have with converting these, by the way, is the ideal number of encounters before a PC goes up in level. In AD&D that number was 30-35 encounters (counting xp gained from treasure). In 3.5 the number was 10-12 (this will come into play when converting LoF or the original editions of RotRL). In PFRPG the number is around 15-18. You either have to level up by GM fiat or add in a lot of encounters for OD&D.


Runelords is superbly done. Reign of Winter has proven quite innovative... and I'll have to say I like the look of Wrath of the Wicked though with only the first part out, there's no guarantee it'll keep being kickass awesome the whole way through. It will, mind you, but no guarantee! ;)


I have read RotRL but it was a while ago and my mate had it who has moved.

Sovereign Court Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

You can get RotRL in the Anniversary Edition for PFRPG. $50, I believe, for the hardcover. $40~ for the PDF.


Drogon wrote:
Edit: The main issue you have with converting these, by the way, is the ideal number of encounters before a PC goes up in level. In AD&D that number was 30-35 encounters (counting xp gained from treasure). In 3.5 the number was 10-12 (this will come into play when converting LoF or the original editions of RotRL). In PFRPG the number is around 15-18. You either have to level up by GM fiat or add in a lot of encounters for OD&D.

I'm curious where you get the 30-35 encounters figure from? This is an issue that has always fascinated me.

My sense of the old XP tables in Basic D&D and AD&D was that they naturally stretched out the "sweet spot" by having a geometric/quadratic growth in the XP needed to level-up. And so it's hard to think in terms of one average, I would think.

Sovereign Court Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds

The Rot Grub wrote:
Drogon wrote:
Edit: The main issue you have with converting these, by the way, is the ideal number of encounters before a PC goes up in level. In AD&D that number was 30-35 encounters (counting xp gained from treasure). In 3.5 the number was 10-12 (this will come into play when converting LoF or the original editions of RotRL). In PFRPG the number is around 15-18. You either have to level up by GM fiat or add in a lot of encounters for OD&D.

I'm curious where you get the 30-35 encounters figure from? This is an issue that has always fascinated me.

My sense of the old XP tables in Basic D&D and AD&D was that they naturally stretched out the "sweet spot" by having a geometric/quadratic growth in the XP needed to level-up. And so it's hard to think in terms of one average, I would think.

It was five years ago that I found that, so I have to admit that I have no links or anything to cite. Considering the websites that I haunt I most likely found it in the "Conversions" or "Advice" area of this website, or on DragonsFoot.org.

What I do remember is that I was in the midst of running Rise of the Runelords with the Beta rules. I had decided to switch from my 2nd Edition game to that because I was having a really hard time figuring out why my players weren't keeping pace with the predicted level track on my first game (I was converting Goodman Game's Whiterock Castle to 2nd Edition on the fly and my players were mired in the midst of 2nd level while facing the fourth level of the dungeon - where you're supposed to be 4th level).

At any rate, after switching over to RotRL I was STILL having problems, as my players' levels were behind where the books said they should be, and I nearly TPK'd them in the final encounter of the 2nd book (which, admittedly, was not an uncommon occurrence in that particular spot).

So, I started nosing around to figure out what I was doing wrong with all these games (it had been a long time since I'd run anything regularly, since before 3rd Edition had come out, so this "conversion" thing was foreign to me). I came across that bit of advice, and suddenly everything made sense. I went back and did the math just to see, figured out those numbers were spot-on, and never had a level progression problem again.

Oddly, the eventual conclusion I came to was to level my players' PCs by fiat and stop handing out xp. That has made things much less stressful and I've been playing regularly ever since.


Drogon wrote:

The ubiquitous Rise of the Runelords would be an easy choice. You'd also be able to pretty easily work in things like Against the Giants if you wanted to.

Council of Thieves creatures also convert very easily over to 1st Ed. Additionally, the setting and the way the story goes are VERY much a 1st Edition feel for a game. Very film noir and investigation in orientation, taking place within a single city that was once a thriving metropolis but has fallen on (very) hard times.

Last, for an Arabian Nights feel, Legacy of Fire would also be an easy conversion. Again, I've looked at this one pretty hard for the same reasons, and slipping a series like the Desert of Desolation into it would be a cinch.

Edit: The main issue you have with converting these, by the way, is the ideal number of encounters before a PC goes up in level. In AD&D that number was 30-35 encounters (counting xp gained from treasure). In 3.5 the number was 10-12 (this will come into play when converting LoF or the original editions of RotRL). In PFRPG the number is around 15-18. You either have to level up by GM fiat or add in a lot of encounters for OD&D.

If you're playing 2nd ed just hand out massive xp rewards for storyline completion to level the PCs up or give them more treasure for older editions as 1 gp= 1xp. ToEE for example you can kill a 4HD Ghast and get a 10000gp necklacs (and 10 000xp)

Also if you are using AD&D monsters you will not actually need the higher levels anyway as level 10 is kind of like level 15 in 3.x anyway.

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