4E SCAP

[Blakey]

No doubt some brave souls are converting SCAP to 4E. Perhaps we could have a joint effort on this? Please post here if you have converted any of it and are interested in a community project on the subject.

To give you my position, I'm rubbish at this sort of thing. I'm currently running Chapter 3 (Flood Season) using v3.5E and would love to convert my campaign to 4E as it looks great.

Post here your ideas, ramblings, work done so far, anything you think might enlighten the conversation...

Cheers
Blakey

[Oceanstrider]

Hi Blakey
I will start my 4e SCAP in september. I'm still waiting to get my 4e copy here in Italy, so my ideas are come from the two Wizard presents 4e booklets and the Wizards webpage.
Seems like we have to change a lot, not a simple conversion but a whole reassessment of the path.
I'm designing 4e:
- Deities: Raven Queen may replace Wee Jas, Bahamut may replaces St. Cuthbert, Pelor remains, unsure about Kord.
- Races: tieflings replaces half-orcs, unsure about gnome new role, dragonborn may have a more saurial-like flavor.
- Alignments: CW remain CE, quite a lot of NPC become unaligned.
And this is quite easy, then I'm reassessing:
- all the encounters using the monster "roles" (soldier, artillery, etc.).
- the whole cosmology (Carcery, Adimarchus, etc.).
- the level of the path - seems nice if PCs may finish the AP with epic/paragon paths
Seems like we have still a lot of work...

Oceanstrider

[Blakey]

This is my current take:

As said earlier I'm in Chapter 3 at the moment. I'm not even sure if I want to move over to 4E yet. I'm wondering if its better to start a new 4E campaign at 1st level rather than converting an ongoing campaign. And I also think converting to 4E is a LOT of work - mostly as a lot of the baddies in SCAP are NPCS and I wonder if many of them will easily convert.

Also I'm thinking that before converting to 4E it would be best if you knew the system well and I've done nothing more than make 1 4E character so far! Just so you know where I'm coming from.

Anyway this thread can hopefully be a place people can share their 4E conversion ideas/thoughts, even if I end up not being involved....

Cheers
Blakey

[EATERoftheDEAD]

Personally, I'm sticking with 3.5 for Shackled City. When I run Age of Worms I'll be converting it so I'd like to see how folks approach this one to give me some ideas.

[Shimrath]

I too would like to undertake this conversion, and also believe that familiarity with 4E is key to the project. After running 4E for about a year, maybe i will get serious about a conversion.

In the meantime, i look forward to seeing what folks around here come up with.

[Dedekind]

This sounds great, though I am just about done with SCAP and won't be converting. I was thinking about Foundations in Flame as a skill challenge. However, considering the considerable discussion about the actual probability of success on skill challenges...

Regardless, the town meeting before the eruption would be a skill challenge and I could see Perception, Streetwise, Diplomacy and Intimidate as skills. Other skills could be possible, I suppose, but I think you would need to put a hook in there for them. Perhaps, history for knowing some law?

The other events in the adventure may also make good skill challenges but I would think you would want them to be reasonably easy to accomplish. For example, the burning building with the child at the top allows for multiple different approaches.

[koboldstyle]

I've already started 4e Shackled City. Cauldron seemed to fit well in the points of light setting, and my players have been wanting a city-based campaign for a while.

We're about a third through Life's Bazaar (players have explored maybe 50% of Jzadirune). You can read some synopsis on this thread at Circvs Maximvs (you may need an account to access these days).

Believe it or not, I was hoping to convert it mostly on the fly or with minimum prep work, and to do that has involved deviating a fair bit from the adventure with regards to monster encounters and whatnot, i.e. flipping through the 4eMM and looking for similar monster types and encounter levels and just "swapping out", considering Paizo's love for custom and obscure monsters and wacky templating (skulks, ragomuffyns and half-dwarf-half-trolls, for example). It's been a little bit difficult considering that some of that is what makes the adventure so cool :D, in essence, I've been making the adventure more boring (sorry, Adventure Path authors), but the excitement of the new edition seems to be compensating.

Converting traps seemed daunting at first (all those gear-doors) but ended up being pretty easy.

My recommendation (at least if you're a lazy DM like me) is to break the adventure down into manageable 4e encounters - splitting the dungeon into sections, say - and think of it that way. For example:

Encounter 1 - Back Alley fight with thugs rescuing the priest.
Encounter 2 - Skill challenges at the Orphanage and at Ghelve's.
Encounter 3 - Fight at Ghelve's shop (I swapped the skulk with a pair of Dark Creepers from the MM).
Encounter 4 - Entrance to Jzadirune (I put together an encounter with a "vanished" gnome and a bunch of dire rats and rat minions).
Encounter 5 and so on - Gnomish factory in Jzadirune (gotta swap that Grell with something, 4e's grells are too nasty), Gnome throne room, Alchemist's Labratory, or gnomish halls, etc.

[Fantomas]

I have been running Shackled City as 4e for a few weeks now. Converting does take a bit of work, but I like it. It helps me become more familiar with the 4e rules. My players are grinding through Jzadirune still. Luckily, Dark Creepers are in the MM. And for the skulks, I just use the "gnome skulk" stats in the 4e MM.

There have been a few hiccups. I had the one skulk in Ghelve's Locks turning and staying invisible until he attacked, no matter what. It actually made the encounter more exciting though, heh heh. The players have been very forgiving when stuff like that comes up. Especially when I foolishly put a FEYGROVE (level 12) choker in the gnome illusion play room. We were heading for a TPK on that one.

Oh yeah... I made the spiders in the fountain room deathjump spiders. The heroes had to run. The battle wasn't even close! Now that they've hit second level, they may go back and give it another shot.

The one thing I've noticed with 4e is that the encounters are very even. When you throw an encounter that is even slightly more than 1/10th the XP they need for next level, you're looking at a potential TPK.

I like the module, but I break it up a bit with some encounters at the Slippery Eel (their bar of choice). The grind can be a little boring, especially with all the empty rooms in Jzadirune.

I can't wait to run the Demonskar Ball as presented in a thread on this site. All of the material here is extremely helpful.

[Keith Richmond]

Fantomas wrote:

The one thing I've noticed with 4e is that the encounters are very even. When you throw an encounter that is even slightly more than 1/10th the XP they need for next level, you're looking at a potential TPK.

You may have a lot better luck once folks are used to playing and working as a team. 50% more becomes very dealable, and even as much as 100% under certain circumstances.

Fights that are under 110% of XP don't even expend daily abilities with my group.

Anyhow, I've stretched the levels of things a bit out for the 4E SCAP game I'm running - they're 11th wrapping up Flood Season now. A lot of monsters are quite a lot higher level in 4e than 3e... kuo toa, glabrezu, mariliths, etc.

[Oceanstrider]

GNOME IDEAS NEEDED:

The gnome clans that founded Cauldron with Surabar may simply be a split subrace that avoid the Feywild (returning to the classical gnome background) but:

- anyone as some other idea about how adapt the 4e gnomes in SCAP?

- what about the monster entry gnome entry rules? Anyone has some chagne ready?

- what about gnome PCs?

Ciao
Mario

[koboldstyle]

Oceanstrider wrote:

GNOME IDEAS NEEDED:

The gnome clans that founded Cauldron with Surabar may simply be a split subrace that avoid the Feywild (returning to the classical gnome background) but:

- anyone as some other idea about how adapt the 4e gnomes in SCAP?

- what about the monster entry gnome entry rules? Anyone has some chagne ready?

- what about gnome PCs?

Ciao
Mario

The atmosphere of the abandoned gnome city of Jzadirune has actually really fit in with the 4th edition flavor changes. I've been playing up the locksmith Keygan Ghelve as sort of an orphan of a disappearing race - in this case the gnome race disappearing back to the Feywild mysteriously, which ties in nicely with the Vanishing.

When the players first discovered the staircase down to Jzadirune, I added an extra cavern and a "Great Door" with a riddle to sort of tie the place in with the Feywild.

I had this idea that the Dark Creepers were "Shadowfell" versions of the Feytouched gnomes, so instead of Creepers and Skulks as (somewhat) conflicting forces in the dungeon, this time it was Creepers and Gnomes (who had been tainted by the Vanishing and were thus the Gnome Skulks as presented in the 4eMM). I've been playing up the gnomish skulks as sort of tragic figures tormented by their loss and the Dark Creepers are very much the bad guys, working for a Shadar-Kai and for Kazmojen.

The first riddle I wrote up really tried to play up Jzadirune as this place caught between the Fey and the Shadow:

This fiery mountain
is a temple of birth
Two siblings has it
on either side of the earth.
One who is dark,
a son without sun,
and the other so wild,
her laughter hearts won.
O where did they go,
her children so soon?
If you seek to enter,
know the loss of Jzadirune...

However I decided that I was getting caught up in trying to shoehorn too much 4e fluff into the place so I ended up using this simpler riddle:

A great tree of stone
grows out of a mountain
where a river of fire
can explode like a fountain.
And as leaves of ash follow
and silence shows ruin,
where wilst thou be safe,
O children of Jzadirune?

And there are 8 sockets spelling the letters STORY FOE

The players figured out relatively easily that they could touch the sockets in the right order to spell out FEYROOTS which let them into Jzadirune and nicely hinted that the gnomes were leaving the world to live in the Feywild. I was pretty pleased with using a puzzle to work in some of the 4e flavor without being too heavy-handed.

I'd probably be okay with letting a PC play a gnome, and I think there'd be great roleplaying opportunities to explore some of the possibilities concerning the idea of the gnomes being a truly vanishing race the world over.

By the way, Keygan Ghelve doesn't have a kidnapped familiar, it's a kidnapped minion, a badger named Starbrow. I've even had him talking like Francis the gnome from the 4e video. :D

[Oceanstrider]

Really a wonderfull background story, well fit to the Path and the 4e gnome role. Thanks

Mario

[Oceanstrider]

So kiznit in your game Ghelve is the only "healty" gnome still living in Cauldron? All the other gnome NPCs (Skie, etc.) became humans and halfings?

How do you fix the half-orcs? Do you replace some of them with tielfings or not?

And do you add/replcace some dragonborn NPC?

Ciao

Mario

[koboldstyle]

Oceanstrider wrote:

So kiznit in your game Ghelve is the only "healty" gnome still living in Cauldron? All the other gnome NPCs (Skie, etc.) became humans and halfings?

No, there are other healthy gnomes in Cauldron as well, though they are few and far between. The PCs haven't encountered Skie yet so I haven't really decided what to do with her.

Oceanstrider wrote:

How do you fix the half-orcs? Do you replace some of them with tielfings or not?

Half-orcs are still just half-orcs and orcs. I've made it clear that Cauldron is a borderlands, multi-cultural city, where tieflings, dragonborn, dwarves, and even the occasional goblin or orc might be seen (though shunned)and rub shoulders throughout the city.

That great picture of Fallcrest in the 4eDMG I think really captured the spirit of Cauldron, so I showed it to my players:

Oceanstrider wrote:

And do you add/replace some dragonborn NPC?

Not as yet, no, but I imagine I will. I did sort of re-do the Stormblades, adding a 5th to match the number of PCs:

Annah Taskerhill - Human Wizard 4
Cora Lathenmire - Tiefling Ranger 4
Todd Vanderboren - Half-elf Warlock 4
Zachary Aslaxin II - Human Cleric of Kord 4
Black Dougal - Dwarven Fighter 4

Once I've built 4e NPC conversions of them, I'll post 'em if you like.

[Shimrath]

kiznit wrote:

I did sort of re-do the Stormblades, adding a 5th to match the number of PCs:

Annah Taskerhill - Human Wizard 4
Cora Lathenmire - Tiefling Ranger 4
Todd Vanderboren - Half-elf Warlock 4
Zachary Aslaxin II - Human Cleric of Kord 4
Black Dougal - Dwarven Fighter 4

Once I've built 4e NPC conversions of them, I'll post 'em if you like.

I'd like.

[Blakey]

I would guess that the thing which makes doing a 4E version of SCAP very time consuming is converting the myriad NPCs which are in the module. Is there a way you guys could work together on a joint project to do this so you are not all doing the same work? (And post all this for those of us who *might* go to 4E but don't have time to convert it themselves...?)

Blakey

[Oceanstrider]

Chapter 1 Monsters Ideas

(This is not a direct conversion from 3e format to 4e, because I also changed the whole adventure, including monsters, to my own sake)

- The city guards beating Rufus are Human Bandits with no armor, quarterstaff and dagger.
- Skulks are Gnome Skulks reduced to level 1 Lurkers and Chooker Chameleon Hide instead of Fade Away.
- Dark Creepers are reduced to level 3 Skirmishers.
- Dark Stalker is reduced to level 6 Lurker.
- Mimics are Ooze, Gelatinous Cube with Doppelganger Change Shape (only medium inanimate objects) and remember that as for today 4e errata damage is 2d6 +2.
- Small Spiders are level 2 Deathjump Spiders without Death from Above, without Prodigious Jump and instead Demonweb Spider +4 vs. Ref web.
- Dread Guard is a Homuncolus Iron Defender improved to 4 level.
- Raggamoffyn, Automations, Lemures, Kazmojen, Pyllrak and young Howler are still in progress.

Ciao
Mario

[nib]

Sorry to be negative,

but from what I've been reading so far about the attempted 4E conversion, it is coming along quite similar to what I expected. Take the ideas, storyline and possibly the villains, but write all new encounters with the new rules, which - to me - qualifies as rewriting SCAP from scratch.

I'm glad I didn't jump the wagon as it would certainly exceed my spare time, I can devout to the game as a DM.

I'm not saying this endeavor is not worth it, but it takes about as much effort as writing the whole thing new minus the basic storyline.

Good luck with it !

Cheers,
Nib

[Fantomas]

Converting NPCs is not that difficult. Most races have stats in the MM. Then just level them up or down as per the guidelines in the DMG, which is only a few steps. Also, you can slap on a class template, like the ranger for the Striders of Fharlagn.

You're right about encounters though. A lot of them need to be re-worked. 4e seems to be all about encounters with many enemies. I just ran the first half of Zenith Trajectory, where the first three encounters dealt with an Umber Hulk, a Red Dragon and a Hydra! The Hydra encounter got blown wide open when the wizard's sleep spell got through. Then they all surrounded it and coup de grace'd it while it slept. Auto crits, all. They chopped it to bits.

I'm not sure what to do about the sleep spell. But it seems to "break" solo monster encounters.

I haven't been happy with many of my conversions, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. A lot of times, I adjust their stats on the fly.

The Harpoon Spider from Flood Season worked well though. The room before it had some ettercaps. The encounter in the module had it set up so Skaven ran to the spider, invisible. But my players went through the spider caves before running in to Skaven. So what I did was, I had the harpoon spider attack as the heroes were still fighting the ettercaps. It went perfectly.

Harpoon Spider Elite level 4 worth 350 XP
HP 126 Blood 63
Resist 5 poison
INIT +8 +2 saving throws Speed 6 (probably should have climb 6 too)
1 Action Point
Bite +9 vs. AC 2d6+3 slowed, ongoing 5 poison (save ends)
Harpoon +7 vs. REF d6+3 knocks target prone, pulls target three squares
Impale on spines: +7 vs REF d10+4 target is impaled on the spider's back. Getting off takes a standard action
Spines: Anyone attacking the spider with a small weapon takes 5 damage from the spines.

Those plusses to hit might be a little high. I don't have my DMG around and I can't read my handwriting too well.

[Blakey]

We played our first session playing the official H1 adventure last night usiing 4E and it went great. That whole thing has re-instilled in me the interest in revisiting converting SCAP to 4E again. So I came back here and re-read this lot.

Three questions to the DMs who are tackling this conversion:

1. Do you do encounter conversions on the fly? Or pre-prepare them?
2. How do you convert levelled NPCs (I've not read the DMG/MM yet so dont know if there is a standard way to make NPCs without going to all the hassle of making them PC copies).
3. How are you dealing with treasure?

Cheers!
Blakey

[Fantomas]

Blakey wrote:

We played our first session playing the official H1 adventure last night usiing 4E and it went great. That whole thing has re-instilled in me the interest in revisiting converting SCAP to 4E again. So I came back here and re-read this lot.

Three questions to the DMs who are tackling this conversion:

1. Do you do encounter conversions on the fly? Or pre-prepare them?
2. How do you convert levelled NPCs (I've not read the DMG/MM yet so dont know if there is a standard way to make NPCs without going to all the hassle of making them PC copies).
3. How are you dealing with treasure?

Cheers!
Blakey

1. I would strongly recommend that you do not convert on the fly. A lot of the 3e encounters have, say, two skulks. That just doesn't cut it in 4e. I found that adding more skulks worked reasonably well. You have H1 which is a good reference.. as you can see in there, most encounters have piles of creatures. You'll need to plan out encounters before hand, keeping track of the XP value and everything.

2. Leveled NPCs... You can find most of them in the MM. Gnomes are in there. Human guards are in there. For the last laugh guys in the first encounter, I used the human bandits in the MM. Leveling them up and down is easy. It's in chapter 10 of the DMG. And put on class templates from the DMG if you want, though that's a touch more work.

3. Treasure was a headache for the first adventure. The 4e treasure system is very... strict, i guess is the word. In the first adventure, Jzadirune is overloaded with treasure. You'll need to go through and place parcels. I took some of the cool non-magic items, like candelabras and music boxes, and just gave them a gold value equal to a parcel. My players like that better than just plain boring gold.

There was one room where it was a real pain. There was a suit of gnomish plate mail full of gold, along with all sorts of valuable treasure. I had to get rid of almost all of it, leaving a rusted suit of plate filled with copper coins.

Converting to 4e is tricky, but not overly time consuming. It's a great way to learn the system.

[Nargila]

I am 3 sessions and 1.3 magazines deep into an Age of Worms campaign that I am converting to 4E as i go. It was mentioned that most encounters need to have more monsters added and this is absolutely true.

As a corollary to that though, pay attention to your maps. the 3.5 maps were designed with their encounters in mind and when adding 3-5 more monsters, things can get very cramped very quick. If you draw the maps or use dungeon tiles I highly recommend giving some extra space to each room so the PCs have somewhere to maneuver and use some tactics.

[Fantomas]

I have found a decent way to deal with the sleep spell. The whole group is aware that the spell is "broken". But I have a deal with them.. any time they use it, they can expect an opponent to use it against them in a future encounter.

So it works out OK. The Oni's sleep-like ability (hallucinatory breath I think it is called) very nearly led to a TPK. Everyone but one PC fell unconscious.

One interesting thing about 4e is just how deadly a cloud of darkness is. I made Dhorlot the black dragon (from Zenith Trajectory) right out of the MM - 4th level solo. The party was 6th level. They had to run from him.

They ended up fighting him in a cramped hallway (long story) and he dropped the cloud of darkness. They could blindly swing at him with a -5 to hit, and that's it. They didn't have line of sight due to the cloud.

The last couple weeks a few people couldn't make it. But when everyone can make it, they plan on going back to Bhal Hamatugn to kill Dhorlot, even though they've already brought back Zenith and finished the actual quest!

I've been running some side adventures for the players who could make it. We did one where they killed a Jester (I made Ziguarz the goblin alchemist from a recent Dragon Magazine article a Jester) and now the party thief is the 5th Jester, with his ally Jil the 4th.

And I ran one where the party wizard discovered he was a long lost descendant of Surabar Spellmason.

Shackled City is a fun campaign. The storyline could have been better - and there is the problem of the heroes never really interacting with the villains (all 2 billion of them), but as a DM you can do a lot with what they give you.

There is an actual chance that my party may go all the way to 30th level in the path. They are leveling according to the 4e book (a bit fast IMO, but whatever). They just hit 7th level, and we're only at the end of the 3rd adventure out of 11 (I'm using magazines, not the hardcover).

[Oceanstrider]

Please can someone who had already converted the Vanishing disease to 4e help me with some ideas? I'm unhappy about my attemps.
I'm also working to make a decent Pyllrak Shyraat, the durzagon, without success.
Ciao
Mario

[koboldstyle]

Oceanstrider wrote:

Please can someone who had already converted the Vanishing disease to 4e help me with some ideas? I'm unhappy about my attemps.

I'm also working to make a decent Pyllrak Shyraat, the durzagon, without success.
Ciao
Mario

I ended up dropping the Vanishing Disease in my campaign.

For Pyllrak I just used the stats for the Duergar Theurge from Thunderspire Labyrinth - since 4e Duergar have durzagon elements (beard quills, etc) I thought it worked just fine.

Here's my version of Kazmojen.

[Blakey]

I'm playing Chapter Three at the moment (HC so that is Flood Season) and running it as 3.5E. However I have decided to play the rest out as 4E. The other DM in our group is going to run H1: Shadow thingy whats-it Keep once I have finished Flood Season and the Demonscar Ball. And then I'm going to do Chapter 4 (Zenith) as 4E and from there on go forth edition.

So, Fantomas, you seem to have just done a 4E version of Chapter 4. Any suggestions? I've today created a 4E version of the Umberhulk and the Cyrohydra using the suggestions in the DMG for making new monsters and using the Umberhulks and Hydras of the book as templates, baselines and idea springboards. I'll post what I've come up with when I'm done.

What did you do with the rest of the inhabitants of Baal-Hamatugn?

And if you're interested in sharing some work I'm happy to colaborate on later chapters as well.

Be warned that I'm taking the "level up at appropriate times" approach to XP in this campaign and will continue that with 4E so I guess my levels might differ from yours and so we might not be able to share too much in future.

Cheers
Blakey

[Blakey]

After a brief skim through the MM I am thinking of replacing the kuo-toans with lizard folk. The lizard folk are of a suitable level (4-6)to build some fun encounters and as they live in jungles and flooded caverns this should work in terms of the setting.

I'm in two minds whether to make the fortress a lizard folk fortress or whether to use lizardfolk stats but call the creatures kuo-toans. I'm actually thinking of the former (using lizardfolk). I guess they work fine "coupled" with the black dragon too. I just need to find some filler monsters for pets and the like.

Oh and what to do about the mummy and wraith? They seem very incongruous for a lizard folk fortress (possibly okay for kuo-toans who are just plain weird). So I guess they simply need replacing.

I think I'm going to think about what areas to combine into sensible "encounters". For example I think areas 1, 2, 3, 4 and 15 all make a great wide ranging encounter.

Am starting to put together a document to cover my conversion of Chapter Four and when its done I'll post for people's comments. Oh, you can also see my builds of the Umberhulk and Cyrohydra on the wizards forums under the Monster boards. Please go and take a look and critique them...

Cheers
Blakey

[Fantomas]

What I ended up doing with the umber hulk was to make him 4 levels higher then the party, and to position the hulk closer to the building with the baby in it. My party does a lot of movement-hampering attacks, so I decided if I wanted to do the "baby drop" (and I did, it was great) I'd have to guarantee that the hulk could do that.

The hulk's confusion utterly dominated my group. It sent them all scrambling. I was not concerned about a TPK, because I knew the magical threats agency could drop on in any old time to make a save.

The Cryohydra will be tricky. I ended up re-scaling a normal hydra and adding an acid breath from another hydra creature (don't have my books handy). A warning: Sleep will wreak havoc on solo monsters. My party dropped the hydra with sleep and hacked it to bits with a bunch of coup de gras.

I would highly highly recommend taking the time to scale the kuo toas. You'll have to take their powers and figure out the appropriate plusses, as scaling them down from their MM levels doesn't work out right at all. I ended up with kuo toas who had a decent plus to hit, but did low damage. It worked out perfectly. Especially with their sticky shields that snatch weapons away on a miss.

The temple inside Bhal Hamatugn can be done in many different ways. 4E designers seem to love to throw 2-3 encounters right in a row with no rest, and you could do that in this room. I decided against using the erinyes (re-flavoring it to fit my campaign) and had the statue feeding the whips' lightning bolts, giving them more than normal damage. You might want to create a skill challenge that allows the heroes to de-power the statue.

I would also suggest that you use whatever opportunity to have the heroes get attacked when they're boating across the lake. My players had to leave bhal hamatugn and come back, and they were utterly petrified of the black dragon attacking them while they were on the boat. I ended up having a bunch of kuo toas lurking in the lake, and they tipped the party's boat and we had an underwater combat. Underwater combat in 4e is LETHAL. But... fun!

I messed up the mummy and wraith encounter. What I did was use a mummy and a flameskull. I allowed my thief to sneak down the hall, get off a sneak attack, and then run away, leading the monsters around the corner where the PCs were waiting to open fire. The thief shouldn't have been able to sneak as close as he did, because the mummy had a direct line of sight to him. Mummy Rot did strike though, and man that is no joke.

If you're interested, I can post my kuo toas. They're one of the few conversions I've been totally happy with.

[Blakey]

Yes I'm deffo interested in your kuo-toan posts please.

So, are you saying you just took the 12th level elite umberhulk in the book and dropped it 2 levels, assuming your party were 6th level (i.e. -2 defenses, -2 attacks, -1 damage) and left it at that? In my calculations that makes it AC28 which is rock hard against 6th level characters, isn't it? I've not got any 6th level characters to compare it against but a rough calculation came out as a fighter being +11 to hit at 6th level, meaning he'd need a 17 on the dice to hit it. And he'd be the best shot at doing so.

Did you get a chance to look at my conversions of the hulk and hydra?

If you want to post/share any other conversions you do for later chapters I'm more than willing to help build them with you. I'm working on my chapter four conversion document and will post it when done.

Also, I see you left the wraith and mummy in there. Can you post what you did with those encounters? I'm thinking of making the wraith a group of them to be a challenge - only 1 5th level wraith isn't a great hardship under 4E is it?

Thanks for the help.
Blakey

[Fantomas]

Yeah. the hulk had an AC 28. That is high, but remember that most classes have attacks against other defenses. And the party rogue has an insane plus to hit AC anyway. Add in the fact that I had the hulk attacking a building and simply confusion staring them away. Also add in a flanking bonus (+2) and magic weapons (+1), warlords and clerics giving others extra plusses to hit, and their powers knocking it prone, etc.

I just wanted to insure that the heroes didn't annihilate the hulk until he at least got his three rounds of action in. I'd bet you could easily get away with lowering it further. I didn't realise how well the confusion power worked.

I wasn't able to look at your conversions.. the site gave me an error message or something.

Here's the kuo toas. Feel free to tweak away:

Kuo Toa Guard level 5 minion XP 50
INIT +6 HP 1 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 20 FORT 17 REF 18 WILL 17
(base)Spear: + 11 vs. AC 5 damage
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Light Armor, Light Shield, Spear
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

---

Kuo Toa Marauder level 5 Skirmisher XP 200
INIT +6
HP 63 BLOODIED: 31 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 19 FORT 17 REF 18 WILL 16
(base) Skewering Spear: + 10 vs. AC (+12 when bloodied) d6+4 damage, ongoing 5 (save ends)
(immediate reaction) Sticky shield: *when missed by a melee attack* +8 vs. REF, target's weapon is stuck on kuo toa's shield. (I ruled that reaching to grab it is a minor action and provokes an opportunity attack)
(minor, when bloodied) Quick Step: Shift one square
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Light Armor, Slime-covered Shield, Spear
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

--

Kuo Toa Harpooner level 5 Soldier XP 200
INIT +7
HP 65 BLOODIED: 32 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 21 FORT 18 REF 18 WILL 15
(base) Harpoon: + 11 vs. AC d6+4 damage, target grabbed + takes ongoing 5. While grabbing an opponent, harpooner cannot use the harpoon on other targets.
(base ranged) Reeling Harpoon: Ranged 5/10 +11 vs. ACd6+4, Secondary Attack +9 vs. FORT d6+4 damage and pull target 3 squares
(immediate reaction) Sticky shield: *when missed by a melee attack* +8 vs. REF, target's weapon is stuck on kuo toa's shield.
(minor, when bloodied) Quick Step: Shift one square
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Light Armor, Slime-covered Shield, 4 harpoons
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

---

Kuo Toa Monitor level 5 Skirmisher XP 200
INIT +7
HP 60 BLOODIED: 30 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 19 FORT 17 REF 18 WILL 16
(base) Slam: +10 vs. AC 2d10 +4 damage
(base ranged) Crossbow: Ranged 15/30 +10 vs. AC d8 +5
(at will)Leap Kick: Shift two squares and make a slam attack
(Encounter, melee) Lightning Fist: +8 vs. REF 3d8 +4 lightning damage and the target is stunned (save ends)
(minor, when bloodied) Quick Step: Shift one square
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Light Armor, Crossbow, 20 bolts
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

--

Kuo Toa Whip level 5 Controller XP 200
INIT +7
HP 68 BLOODIED: 34 SPD 6 SWIM 6 Darkvision
AC 19 FORT 17 REF 17 WILL 17
(base) Pincer Staff: Reach 2 +10 vs. AC d6+4 and target is grabbed by the staff. the Kuo Toa can sustain this grab as a minor action and automatically deal d8 damage to the target. Victim can escape using the normal 4e escape rules.
(base ranged) Crossbow: Ranged 15/30 +10 vs. AC d8 +5
(at will) Lightning Strike: Ranged 10 +9 vs. REFd6+4, target blinded until the end of Whip's next turn
(Encounter) Slime Vortex: Area Burst 4 within 20 targets enemies +9 vs. FORT, d6+4 damagetarget takes -2 to hit(save ends) and slides 3 squares and falls prone(!)
Miss: 1/2 damage, target slides 1 square
(minor, when bloodied) Quick Step: Shift one square
Slick Maneuver: A Kuo Toa adjacent to the target shifts to another square adjacent to the enemy
Pincer Staff
Alignment: Evil Language: Deep Speech Perception +4

---

My players immediately wanted to use the sticky shields and harpoons to do the same things the Kuo Toas did. I ruled that they'd have to train and spend feats to use them. But that might be a fun option to consider for your group. I'm still not sure if I made the right call there. I was just afraid things would get out of hand - the shields basically introduce disarming an opponent to 4e.

As for the Mummy, I just used the mummy and flameskull out of the 4e MM. It wasn't very effective.

As far as the wraith in the pit trap room, I didn't bother with it. One wraith is not going to do much, even if a PC does fall in the pit. You could easily use a bunch of wraiths, but I found that we had gotten our money's worth out of this dungeon as it was, and the wraith just felt like it would slow things down.

[Blakey]

Fantomas wrote:

Yeah. the hulk had an AC 28. That is high, but remember that most classes have attacks against other defenses. And the party rogue has an insane plus to hit AC anyway. Add in the fact that I had the hulk attacking a building and simply confusion staring them away. Also add in a flanking bonus (+2) and magic weapons (+1), warlords and clerics giving others extra plusses to hit, and their powers knocking it prone, etc.

I just wanted to insure that the heroes didn't annihilate the hulk until he at least got his three rounds of action in. I'd bet you could easily get away with lowering it further. I didn't realise how well the confusion power worked.

Okay, I'm liking this approach. Of course its loads simpler than maaking your own Umber Hulk but seeing as I've done it now...

Fantomas wrote:

I wasn't able to look at your conversions.. the site gave me an error message or something.

Here you go:

Young Umberhulk
Level 6 Solo Soldier
Large natural magical beast
XP 1250
Initiative +2
Senses Perception +9; darkvision; tremorsense 5
HP 280; Bloodied 140
AC 24; Fort 20, Reflex 18, Will 20
Saving Throws +5
Speed 5, burrow 2 (tunnelling)
Action Points 2
Basic Attack:
Claw (standard; at-will).
Reach 2; +13 v AC; 1d10 +4 damage.
Powers:
Grabbing Double Attack (standard; at-will)
The young umber hulk makes two claw attacks. If both claw attacks hit the same target, the target is grabed (until escape). A grabbed target takes ongoing 10 damage from the umber hulk's mandibles until it escapes. The umber hulk cannot make any other attacks whilst grabbing a creature.
Rising Burst (standard; at-will)
Close burst 2; the umber hulk sprays rocks and dirt into the air
when it rises out of the ground; +13 v AC; 1d6+7 damage.
Claw Frenzy (standard; usable only when bloodied; recharge: 6)
Close burst 2; +13 AC; 2d8+4 damage.
Confusing Gaze (minor 1/round; at-will) Gaze, Psychic
Close blast 5; targets enemies; +9 v Will; target slides 4 squares and is dazed (save ends).
Alignment Unaligned
Languages -
Str 20 (+8); Dex 14 (+5); Wis 12 (+4)
Con 16 (+6); Int 5 (0); Chr 9 (+2)

-----------------------------

This one is still a work in progress...

Cryo Hydra
Level 6 Solo Brute
Large natural beast (reptile)
XP: 1250
Initiative +5
Senses Perception +9; all-round vision
HP 344; Bloodied 172
AC 20; Fort 20, Reflex 18, Will 20
Saving Throws +5
Speed 5, swim 10
Action Points 2
Basic Attacks:
Bite (standard; at-will).
Reach 2; +7 v AC; 1d6+4 damage.
Cold Breath (standard; at-will) Cold
Ranged 10; +5 v Reflex; 1d6+4 damage.
Powers:-
Hydra Fury (standard; at-will)
The cryo hydra makes four basic attacks (combination of bites and cold breath attacks).
Many Headed
Each time the hydra becomes dazed or stunned it looses one attack on its next turn instead. Multiple such effects stack.
Threatening Reach
The hydra can make opportunity attacks against all enemies within its reach (2 squares).
Alignment Unaligned
Languages -
Str 16 (+6) Dex 14 (+5) Wis 12 (+4)
Con 16 (+6) Int 2 (-1) Chr 7 (+1)

[Blakey]

Like your Kuo-toans a lot. Consider them snagged. A couple of questions though:

1. You monitor does 2d10+4 damage on his basica attack. That seems a lot. Its the same as the 16th level version. I'm thinking it should scale down to 1d0+4 - was it a typo?

2. Your whip has a crossbow attack unlike the one in the MM. Is that a typo left over from a cut and paste or is it intentional.

3. Your whip has the Quick Step ability of the Marauder. Again the MM version does not. Is this intentional or not?

Cheers
Blakey

[Blakey]

And two more questions about Chapter Four which spring to mind:

1. What did you do with the Monk Kuo-toa who ferries the party across the water? Did you just make him one of the standard ones (I'd go for harpooner and have him use his harpoon as a sort of pole to punt the party across).

2. What did you do with Zenith himself? Did you make some sort of NPC dwarven fighter?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks for all the answers!!

[Fantomas]

I just finished up Test of the Smoking Eye in only 2 sessions (thought they went much longer than usual). It is a GREAT adventure for 4e. Tons of terrain that affects combat.

A couple notes for anyone else who will be running this in 4e:

1. Tremor zones work well if you have the zones roll an attack vs. REF on anyone in them, and if they hit, the target is knocked prone.

2. The driders perched upside-down on the ceiling in the cathedral makes for a really cool fight. Some of the players climbed the outside wall and we ended up with half the party fighting inside the cathedral and the other half up on the roof.

3. Again, my players annihilate solo monsters. They all have powers that daze, knock prone, and even knock unconscious. The bebilith was a cool encounter, but it could have been a cakewalk if the dice didn't go sour on them.

4. The plain of cysts.. they figured it out, but couldn't resist any of the distractions. Which was fine. I used venom-eye basilisks... I don't think they're ready for the stone-eyes yet.

5. The black dragon... Dhorlot is something of a legend to my group. So when they saw Vorkaire flying toward them, they seemed to want this dragon to be related or similar somehow. Didn't matter... It swooped down and the rogue used knockout to drop the dragon and the party kicked its' butt.

6. They had no problem with the level 9 rakshasa and his fire giant guards.. I had the lich (converted to a simple level 9 wight) use swarms of undead minions, which was freaking awesome. They had to wade through about 40 minions to get up the stairs to the test room. It was great.

Test of the smoking eye was a great adventure. But maybe in part because I abhor random encounters, the party is only 10th level going in to the next chapter. Up until now, their level progression matched the 3rd edition adventures.

Not a big problem. It was a fun adventure. And now they're going back to Cauldron, it's going to be awesome.

[Blakey]

Sweet info there Fanto, thanks.

Tonight my group start Chapter Four which will be the first foray into SCAP 4E. Will let you know how it goes!

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

nib wrote:

Sorry to be negative,

but from what I've been reading so far about the attempted 4E conversion, it is coming along quite similar to what I expected. Take the ideas, storyline and possibly the villains, but write all new encounters with the new rules, which - to me - qualifies as rewriting SCAP from scratch.

I'm glad I didn't jump the wagon as it would certainly exceed my spare time, I can devout to the game as a DM.

I'm not saying this endeavor is not worth it, but it takes about as much effort as writing the whole thing new minus the basic storyline.

Good luck with it !

Cheers,
Nib

You don't have to redo the maps, a lot of things port very quickly and easily. Descriptions of rooms and furnishings rarely have to be changed. Much of the basic plot line is in place and does not need much of an overhaul. Really the big changes are going to be the monster stats, which in 4E takes a fairly small amount of time to set up, and the Skill Challenges - which take a fair bit more work.

Sure there are parts were a little more of a rework is in order but a lot of whats on this thread are basically ideas inspired by doing the conversion that don't necessarily have to be added. The poem is an example of this - not needed but the DM was inspired by doing the conversion.

Thats one of the reasons doing conversions are popular. Its a way to take a good story and throw in some aspects to modify things to ones own taste and since your already in the midst of an overhaul this can be added very seamlessly and worked in throughout the adventure.

In the end I suspect its at most 20% as much work as writing your own AP from scratch.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

Blakey wrote:

After a brief skim through the MM I am thinking of replacing the kuo-toans with lizard folk. The lizard folk are of a suitable level (4-6)to build some fun encounters and as they live in jungles and flooded caverns this should work in terms of the setting.

I'm in two minds whether to make the fortress a lizard folk fortress or whether to use lizardfolk stats but call the creatures kuo-toans. I'm actually thinking of the former (using lizardfolk). I guess they work fine "coupled" with the black dragon too. I just need to find some filler monsters for pets and the like.

Grim Cleaver used the guidelines in the DMG reversed the Kuo-Toa in the MM to get them down to a much lower level and apparently was very happy with the results.

[Fantomas]

I don't know if anyone else out there is still converting this to 4e, but my group is rocketing through this adventure path and we are nearing the big finale. 27 sessions down, probably 6 more and we're done (I'm going to heavily alter and shorten 13 cages and shatterhorn).

We just finished foundation of flame, where Cauldron needs to be evacuated. The PCs are now 13th level. Some observations:

- 4E Skill DCs are either too easy or too hard. I had intended to run these encounters with the assumption that the heroes would work together, and important skill checks would be made by the PC with the biggest bonus. That would mean they'd have a myriad of bonuses for the roll: Trained (+5), Stat bonus (+4), Half their level (+6), and assists (+2 to +6 or beyond). That's about a +18 on average. The errata'd DCs, however, make this a cakewalk. "Hard" at lvl 12 is a DC of 21! That means the PCs would need a roll of 3 to pass!

So I went with non-errata'd DCs. And of course you know what happened. The PCs didn't work together... they bum-rushed the guy with the dangling baby. The baby died, the father died, and the daughter was crushed when the building collapsed.

My players grumbled after that session. We had some email talk about it. I decided that in the next session to use the errata DCs.

You know what happened next session! Nobody failed anything. But they sure enjoyed it more, so hey whatever. Skill DCs are tricky, that's for sure.

- Solo monsters don't work! I have no idea what to do with Adimarchus. My party will slaughter him. The latest example: Hookface. 15th level solo! I busted out the colossal red dragon miniature and plopped it on the map. Players freak out... and launch their slow/daze/stun abilities in succession so that the legendary dragon does little more then stand there with little birds floating around his head.

My players are pretty clever. The rogue uses walking wounded, which causes the victim to fall prone any time he moves more than half his movement. Then other people use slow effects on him. Slowed means Hookface can move two squares. But if he moves more than one, he falls prone!

Every solo fight is like this. They just don't work.

In comparison, the "warm-up fight" nearly lead to a TPK. When the demodands began plummeting from the sky, I had three riding the frostforged wyrms from the draconomicon (which is an incredible book and is very, very useful for shackled city campaigns). That's six level 11 creatures against my 13th level party (and all the demodands did was stand behind the dragons and use a minor action to provoke a standard action out of the wyrms).

The breath weapons go off in round one, and almost everyone is slowed and bloodied! I forgot to use two of their bloodied attacks (which do 4d10+6 in a close burst 2!!), and if I had remembered, PCs were going to die...

- For the elemental fight, I used firelashers and placed some water barrels on the map. One PC ran over and used thunderwave ON A BARREL, sending it flying at a firelasher... it was such an awesome idea that I decided that he killed it.

- If Nidrama is friends with your PCs, consider having her fly up into the clouds to investigate the forming planar rift, get hit or something, and then fall into a burning building on a crumbling street. Then make a skill challenge where an acrobatic PC has to dash across the rooftops of the burning buildings, grab Nidrama, then race back as the buildings collapse.

It was well-received.. though again, the errata DCs were almost unmissable.

- And a personal observation. The 4E official adventures are BORING. IMO you are much better off running shackled city and wedging in encounter concepts from the official 4e modules. In my other group, I am running them through the official adventures (Shadowfell, Thunderspire, etc) and it's nothing but giant dungeon crawls. It got so boring I started making whole side adventures that involved more than placing miniatures on a map and rolling it out for an hour per room.

I am going to be taking that group off the 4e "track" after Pyramid of Shadows and running them through an "old school path" - Planescape's The Great Modron March.

That will free up the future 4e modules.. I can "raid" them for maps and encounters to use as I see fit.

With Shackled City for sale on this site for 30 bucks, I would highly recommend getting it and running it in 4E as opposed to Keep on the Shadowfell (or Scales of War, which is also boring so far).

[Blakey]

Hey Fanto,

I'm still running SCAP 4E, although with our group intermixing H1 and SCAP we are not making huge progress at the moment.

Last Wednesday the party entered Bhal-Hamurgugn (or whatever its called). Three of the players turned up so I ruled only 3 characters were there. Not a great idea as the party got smashed in the first encounter. I ruled they were captured, stuck in prison with all their gear. Why? Kuo-toans are known for being a bit strange and they never bothered to remove the PCs gear. Of course the PC rogue had them out in a jiffy and it was on with the show.

The party beat up the guardian mummy (8th level) I placed in the torture chamber and then went into the main temple room where it was show down time.

3 x 7th level PCs beat up a 5th level whip, 4x 5th level harpoooners and 5 x 5th level minion/guards. They also dealt with the chain devil that was summoned after 10 rounds. It was very close but the guys are great players.

From here on in I'm adding a dwarven fighter NPC as some muscle for when there are players missing.

Fanto,

Can you post (or email me) your conversion notes? Or tell me how you went about doing the conversion?

Cheers!
Blakey

[Fantomas]

Hey glad to hear you're still rolling along!

How are you incorporating Shadowfell? You should definitely pick up Thunderspire... I haven't gotten to the well of demons (the third of the four dungeons in Thunderspire) but it looks awesome. And the fourth dungeon is guarded by an aspect of a god, which is a really cool encounter. You could change the god to a shade of adimarchus, perhaps.

What conversion notes are you looking for?

Did your players fight Dhorlot yet?

Adding an NPC is a great idea. Are you scaling encounters as per the DMG? If possible, you should find out who can make it and who can't days before you play. That way you can set up encounters appropriate to how many players. I think it's chapter 7 in the DMG, there's a chart. Just look up the XP total, and assign that XP worth of monsters per encounter, raising a few that are supposed to be more difficult.

An NPC sidekick is always a good idea. My party has had a number of actual minions as sidekicks. They began with a kobold named Tremble, who ended up as a member of the striders of fharlagn and is no longer a minion at all. They also had Meepo (from 3e's sunless citadel) with them, but he got frozen in the soul pillars adventure. Now they have bertrum, one of kravichak's derros.

NPC sidekicks are great for healing and balancing out a night when the players rolls go bad. You might want to make your dwarf a cleric or warlord, for healing purposes.

[Blakey]

Sorry, I got you confused there. What I meant was that we have two DMs, one of whom is running H1 at the moment and when he can't make it I'm filling in the weeks with SCAP which I'm running under 4E now.

Dhorlot hasn't been encountered yet but I do have a wizard eladrin in the party who has the Wrymblooded trait from the back of the SCAP hardback and who has begun to realise that Dhorlot is his father. They spoke to Gotrodd for a while before fighting him and so know a black dragon called Dhorlot is waiting for them and they think its going to be Camero's father. Should be cracking!

I've added an NPC dwarven fighter to the mix to give them some more muscle. Should work fine I think.

As for notes, I mean have you kept notes as to what monsters you have stuck in for which encounters? You're way way way ahead of me now so it would be very handy. If you have anything at all I'd love to read it...

Cheers
Blakey

[Fantomas]

Blakey, I'll have to dig around and see what i have... unfortunately i write most of this stuff on paper, just starting to cut and paste instead...

One thing I just want to mention. I read the final adventure of the campaign - Asylum. And it's pretty underwhelming. It feels like it's not fleshed out enough. There's a whole city/town that could really use a lot more detail... and Skullrot itself has only a couple encounters inside.One of the encounters is absolutely ridiculous (an opera-singing demodand?? I can't see that playing as anything but ill-timed comedy in what should be a very dramatic, climactic adventure).

Not too thrilled with the lichfiend named "Dark Miracle" either. I can't tell if my players will laugh him off the map or not.

And I hate the idea of my PCs setting up to open Adimarchus' cage and then all unloading shots on the guy just as the door opens. They're going to fire off all their dailies and get the walking wounded/slow combo off right in the beginning, and Adimarchus will be hobbling around one square at a time for the rest of the encounter.

The switching from angel to demon form, however, should be good. If they unload all their big effects on the angel, and then he auto-shifts to a fresh demon-form, that might be cool.

I tested out the basics when they fought Dyr'Ryd, who has two faces. So I gave him two initiatives and attacks. It worked absolutely beautifully. It wasn't over-powering at all, either. It felt like a well-balanced challenge.

But the Adimarchus fight does not feel very climactic. I'm going to try to trick out the terrain and everything.. it's the final fight of the whole campaign, crazy crap should be happening!

WHAT exactly happens, i'm not so sure yet.

[Treig]

Fantomas wrote:

Blakey, I'll have to dig around and see what i have... unfortunately i write most of this stuff on paper, just starting to cut and paste instead...

One thing I just want to mention. I read the final adventure of the campaign - Asylum. And it's pretty underwhelming. It feels like it's not fleshed out enough. There's a whole city/town that could really use a lot more detail... and Skullrot itself has only a couple encounters inside.One of the encounters is absolutely ridiculous (an opera-singing demodand?? I can't see that playing as anything but ill-timed comedy in what should be a very dramatic, climactic adventure).

Not too thrilled with the lichfiend named "Dark Miracle" either. I can't tell if my players will laugh him off the map or not.

And I hate the idea of my PCs setting up to open Adimarchus' cage and then all unloading shots on the guy just as the door opens. They're going to fire off all their dailies and get the walking wounded/slow combo off right in the beginning, and Adimarchus will be hobbling around one square at a time for the rest of the encounter.

The switching from angel to demon form, however, should be good. If they unload all their big effects on the angel, and then he auto-shifts to a fresh demon-form, that might be cool.

I tested out the basics when they fought Dyr'Ryd, who has two faces. So I gave him two initiatives and attacks. It worked absolutely beautifully. It wasn't over-powering at all, either. It felt like a well-balanced challenge.

But the Adimarchus fight does not feel very climactic. I'm going to try to trick out the terrain and everything.. it's the final fight of the whole campaign, crazy crap should be happening!

WHAT exactly happens, i'm not so sure yet.

Fantomas,

Any chance you can post your conversions of the Cagewrights online? I am coming very close to playing Thirteen Cages and have yet to figure out how to convert these very powerful members yet.

[Blakey]

Treig,

Any conversions you have done would be gladly received. I've posted my conversions for Chapters Four and Five on this board so far. I'm still playing Chapter Four - the characters are knee deep in Kuo-toans as we speak. But soon I'll be working on a Chapter Six conversion, so any help you can give with stuff you have done would be great.

Cheers
Blakey

[Fantomas]

What I did for a lot of the cagewrights was to just take stats from the 4e books and "re skin" them. I also changed the final few adventures quite a bit...

For Shebeleth, I used the final encounter of Pyramid of Shadows. The bad guy has all these minion "clones" of himself, and he can shift between them. It was AWESOME.

For Ssythar, I just used a 17th level yuant-ti and some other yuan-ti for what turned out to be an epic battle in Shatterhorn. The yuan-ti dominate power wreaked utter havoc with the party.

For Dyr'Ryd, i made him an elite version of some demon, and gave him two initiative counts. It was great.

For the final battle with Adimarchus, I have it set up so that the interior of the soulcage that adimarchus is in is actually a sort of demi-plane inside. The PCs will go through a number of dream scenarios in this prison-plane where Adimarchus tries to tempt them to join him.

Once they pass through them, they will fight Adimarchus once and for all. I bought a Solar miniature, and am using a map from a 3e fields of ruin product (Hellspike Prison). The map is called The Temple of the Prismatic Flame. It should be epic.

So that's mostly what i did - just re-skinned existing creatures. And you can add in a power or two based on the original monster's stats if you feel it's necessary.

My players are planning on trying to adventure in the abyss once this is over. It's going to be great.

[Blakey]

Anyone tried to convert/replace Kaurophon (Chapter Six) yet? I've just been looking into convertin this chapter and have been scouring the DDi Compendium and can't find any suitable replacements on there. I'm after something vaguely humanoid and demonic with spells but there doesn't seem to be anything suitable.

What did you guys use?

[Blakey]

Fantomas, a quick question for you:

Oft times in your posts about your 4E conversion you claim that "Solo's don't work". And you cite your group using their powers to stop creatures from being able to move more than 1 square without falling over. However, its just occurred to me that all solos get +5 on their saving throws, meaning that any given effect on a Solo will be shaken off each round on a roll of 5+ on a d20. In other words each savable effect has only a 20% chance of actually peristing from round to round.

My experience is that Solos quickly shake off any spells like Slow and similar. Yes they are effective for a round or two but that's usually all unless the Solo is very unlucky.

Are your players using massively debilitating effects which are not savable against, or have you forgotten the +5 save for solos, or are you still saying given all that, that solos don't work?

Just curious as they seem to be working fine in my campaign - which has been running much less time than yours I grant you.

Cheers
Blakey

[Fantomas]

The bane of solos is this rogue power:

Walking Wounded Rogue Attack 5
You topple your enemy with a crippling blow and force him to
stumble around the battlefield.
Daily ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action Melee or Ranged weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a crossbow, a light blade,
or a sling.
Target: One creature
Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude
Hit: 2[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, and the target is
knocked prone. Until the end of the encounter, if the
target moves more than half its speed in a single action, it
falls prone at the end of its movement.
Miss: Half damage, and the target is not knocked prone.

Once that's applied, the PCs just roll off their slow effects (every round if the solo makes its' save).. Their speed is effectively a 1.

My players also roll off their daze and stuns in a carefully co-ordinated ballet of violence... The +5 save bonus usually works, but then there's another power ready to be unleashed right after it.

Maybe I'm being over-dramatic when I say they "don't work". The fight with the beholder went fine. It just seemed for a while there that solos posed no threat at all.

[Blakey]

Hmm, my party's 8th level rogue hasn't got that power. I won't be alerting him to it!!

Have you finished the campaign yet Fanto?

I ran the Tax Riot last night using lots of ideas you had come up with in terms of the conversion and it went off like a dream. So thanks for your help!

[Fantomas]

Blakey wrote:

Hmm, my party's 8th level rogue hasn't got that power. I won't be alerting him to it!!

Have you finished the campaign yet Fanto?

I ran the Tax Riot last night using lots of ideas you had come up with in terms of the conversion and it went off like a dream. So thanks for your help!

I wrote a huge response to this many days ago but this site ate it. I'm glad the riot went well, that section is one of the best parts of the campaign IMO.

We finished the campaign. Unfortunately I made Adimarchus too weak, so the final fight was nothing special. I'd recommend basing stats off of a monster in one of the newer supplements... like the Aspect of Tiamat from the Draconomicon. It would work well with the four snakes coming out of Demonic-Adimarchus' back.

Now the heroes are adventuring in The Abyss. They wan to go all the way to 30th level.

Good Luck!