The blog has been updated up through the encounter with Mammy Graul (which was awesome when I ran it earlier tonight). Enjoy!
Also, the Burnt Offerings conversion is up to 128 downloads. What the heck? I figured maybe a couple dozen people were following this. I find it hard to believe that well over a hundred people are even remotely interested in this project.
Also, the Burnt Offerings conversion is up to 128 downloads. What the heck? I figured maybe a couple dozen people were following this. I find it hard to believe that well over a hundred people are even remotely interested in this project.
I'm not suprised... given WotC's lackluster effort with 4E adventures so far, at least, in comparison to the quality of Paizo's work, it is only to be expected that there is strong interest in a 4E conversion of this nature.
Of course, this is ignoring the fact that your work on this conversion is of high quality... :D
Good Stuff. I hope you keep this blog up, as I might run rise of the runelords after Second Darkness. I looked forward to seeing Barl, Mokmorian and of course Kazrog.
The blog has been updated up through the encounter with Mammy Graul (which was awesome when I ran it earlier tonight). Enjoy!
Also, the Burnt Offerings conversion is up to 128 downloads. What the heck? I figured maybe a couple dozen people were following this. I find it hard to believe that well over a hundred people are even remotely interested in this project.
Good Stuff. I hope you keep this blog up, as I might run rise of the runelords after Second Darkness. I looked forward to seeing Barl, Mokmorian and of course Kazrog.
I'll do my best. As long as I am able to continue running my current IRL campaign, I will continue the conversion project.
Thanks for the excellent conversion work. We're about to start RotR from the beginning, and you've spared me a lot of time and effort.
Glad to hear it, and thank you!
The Graul farmhouse has been completely converted. Next week will finish up the barn and then we'll be on to Fort Rannick.
Working on a replacement for the tendriculous was especially fun. I like the concept of creating a monster with abilities that work in concert to pose a challenge to an entire party. When I first read the 4th Edition write-ups for creatures like Tiamat, I immediately thought of how cool it would be both to run that monster and to fight it. I originally designed Muck as an elite monster, but it didn't provide much in the way of an obstacle for the party to overcome when I ran my game. I spent a couple days mulling over how to modify it, and you can see the end result in the encounter write-up. Let me know what you think!
The Burnt Offerings compiled conversion has been updated to version 0.2. I fixed all the errors I could find and added the missing quest cards. All background feats are now character backgrounds a la PHB2.
The Graul farm is complete, including the barn. You can also find stat blocks for the remaining Black Arrows on the blog. Onward to Fort Rannick!
Updated! The secret tunnels of Fort Rannick, the fort's courtyard, and the first floor of the keep itself are all converted. Also, Arcane Power was released last week. I promised that once it came out I would include rules for lyrakien familiars, and so I have. You can find it in the bestiary post for The Skinsaw Murders.
Scott, thanks again for posting this. This will be absolutely invaluable to me when I get to it.
Scott, thanks again for posting this. This will be absolutely invaluable to me when I get to it.
No problem! Let me know how it works out, when you eventually do.
Scott:
I've said it before, but your conversion is made of pure win. Great job.
Scott:
I've said it before, but your conversion is made of pure win. Great job.
Thanks! I'm feeling pretty good about it now that I'm nearing the halfway mark.
The Burnt Offerings conversion document has been updated again. All the skill challenges have been retooled to the stat block format presented in the SRD, and the layout of the columns has been shifted to make the document easier to read. v0.3 of the compiled conversion can be found here.
I've added the final encounter of Fort Rannick (save the crypt, but my party probably won't encounter it until the side trek, so it stays out for now). Down Comes the Rain should come up this week, and then it's off to Skull's Crossing.
I'd like to share a bit of my own group's experience with the Jaagrath encounter. They knew that their quarry was somewhere upstairs, but had convinced themselves that it was at the top of the keep's tower. As a result, they thought they should look for a set of stairs going up. They decided to try something I'd never considered before - the preemptive Arcane Lock. I allowed them to quietly conduct the 10 minute ritual on the first door they chose, which happened to be Jaagrath's chapel room. As soon as the ritual was completed, they flung the door open. Jaagrath eagerly drew his weapons and rose to charge them, only to have the door closed in his face by the Paladin, magically locked at a Thievery or Strength DC of 40, thanks to a monstrously good Arcana check. There's no way he could bust that down. Screaming for Dorella and Gragavan, he began to struggle with the door in vain.
Meanwhile, the other ogres have come out to check on the racket, and stumble upon the PCs. While the fight proceeded in the hallway, Jaagrath decided to simply destroy the door - Arcane Lock does nothing to prevent hacking the door to smithereens. Comically, he rolled natural 1s on two of his first three attacks on the door. A couple rounds later, though, the door was in pretty terrible shape. Another solid swing and the party would have yet another ogre on their hands (and they'd only managed to bloody one of the ogres they were already going toe-to-toe with). They had one more trick up their sleeve, though. The party Artificer was positioned right outside the door, poised for action. When it was clear the door couldn't take another hit, he unloaded his secret weapon: the Artificer encounter rote (the equivalent of a Wizard's cantrip) Repair Object. With a minor action, the door was restored to nearly full strength. This upset Jaagrath a great deal.
By the time he managed to break through the door and actually participate in the fight, Gragavan was already dead and one of the ogre savages (they fought two because they had 6 PCs in the fight) had already been cowed into surrendering. Now, I did give them a hint that the Artificer might be able to help them through this situation in a very unique way, but I was surprised with how well it worked as a delaying tactic. It took the better part of the evening to finish the combat encounter, but it was totally worth it.
Version 0.4 of the Burnt Offerings conversion is now up for download. I completely missed the Meditation Chamber skill challenge when I went through and re-worked them all last time, so the primary change in this update was to bring that skill challenge up to the rest.
My goal for this weekend is to have The Skinsaw Murders compiled and available for download. Fingers crossed.
Well, I missed the goal by a day or so, but no biggie.
The Skinsaw Murders compiled conversion PDF is now available for download!
I'll be posting the most recent conversion material for The Hook Mountain Massacre as soon as I can. Hopefully that will be tomorrow, but I'm not making any promises. On the bright side, everything up until just before Wet Papa Grazuul is ready to go.
Just to chime in, Scott thank you for your fantastic conversion! It´s a great basis for my 4th edition RotRL campaign.
Just to chime in, Scott thank you for your fantastic conversion! It´s a great basis for my 4th edition RotRL campaign.
Glad to hear it!
The first parts of Down Comes the Rain have been published to the blog. I wasn't able to hold game this week due to Memorial Day, so this week is catch up for me. We'll continue as usual next week.
I'm considering taking advantage of your work and running this campaign after I finish my 4E version of Second Darkness. I have a question. What level do you see the party at when you finish the last adventure?
Ignore my last post, I just read the beginning of your Burnt Offerings PDF. I'm glad to see that you want to try to push the path in epic levels. I plan on ending my current campaign when the I finish the last adventure in the path, and I think that a couple of players will be disappointed that they aren't going to see epic level play in that campaign. It makes it more likely that I'll run Rise of the Runelords if it looks as though it can take them into Epic levels.
Cheers to that. The PDFs look great by the way. Very professional. I sure hope you are able to get through the whole thing. Keep plugging away.
Ignore my last post, I just read the beginning of your Burnt Offerings PDF. I'm glad to see that you want to try to push the path in epic levels. I plan on ending my current campaign when the I finish the last adventure in the path, and I think that a couple of players will be disappointed that they aren't going to see epic level play in that campaign. It makes it more likely that I'll run Rise of the Runelords if it looks as though it can take them into Epic levels.
Cheers to that. The PDFs look great by the way. Very professional. I sure hope you are able to get through the whole thing. Keep plugging away.
Will do!
And yeah, getting well into the epic tier is one of my goals with this conversion. The players should have the chance to get some significant play out of their epic feats and destinies. And I suppose if the players want to keep going past the end of the adventure path there are probably some extra plot hooks lying around that you can use to push them all the way to 30.
A few updates to the blog today.
First, Down Comes the Rain is fully converted, up through the end of Skull's Crossing and the encounter with Avaxial.
Second, I've updated the Burnt Offerings conversion again to include a revised skill challenge stat block I missed, and to alter Malfeshnekor to be more congruent with how Barghests appear in the Monster Manual 2 that just came out.
Enjoy!
Summer's just started, and we're skipping our game this week. To keep myself on top of things, I've put together some advice on playing the new D&D Insider exclusive revenant race in the Pathfinder universe (with a few pointers on how you might integrate a revenant PC into your Rise of the Runelords 4th Edition campaign). You can find it here.
Hey Scott, really enjoying your continued work. I'm about to finish my Age of Worms campaign and so I've been pouring over the AP and your work in order to get ready to run it. I was going over your Skinsaw Conversion PDF and noticed two really minor errors but thought you might want to know about them.
In Area B29 the Haunt should be titled "Origins of Lichdom"
In the Skill challenge "Chasing the Clocktower" in the section "Special: Marking the Raven", the sentence "If the PCs thought to mark the raven in order to make it more difficult from a distance..." should read "If the PCs thought to mark the raven in order to make it more visible from a distance.."
Also, your post about playing Revenants in Pathfinder reminded me about something I thought about when Fourth Edition first came out that I don't think I've seen anyone on these forums really post much about. Dragonborn, while being one of the core races in 4E, don't have a place or background in Pathfinder. All I've really seen posted essentially says "Warriors from somewhere else on Golarion." So here's my take, spoilered for information regarding the BBEG.
In a moment of terrible insight, he realized that if he could combine the two he could create a race that had some of the strengths of the dragons but could be easily ruled like the humans. Using his powerful transmutation magic he was able to fuse members of both together creating a new race: the Dragonborn. They served their master well, proving stronger then his human troops.
But after the fall of Thassilon and the loss of their master, the Dragonborn scattered. Some joined those humans who would eventually become the Shoanti tribes, some allied themselves with the dragons, and some traveled as far away from Thassilon as they could, making their way to other countries.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought of this (or something similar) as a background for the Dragonborn, just never noticed it posted before.
Hey Scott, really enjoying your continued work. I'm about to finish my Age of Worms campaign and so I've been pouring over the AP and your work in order to get ready to run it. I was going over your Skinsaw Conversion PDF and noticed two really minor errors but thought you might want to know about them.
In Area B29 the Haunt should be titled "Origins of Lichdom"
In the Skill challenge "Chasing the Clocktower" in the section "Special: Marking the Raven", the sentence "If the PCs thought to mark the raven in order to make it more difficult from a distance..." should read "If the PCs thought to mark the raven in order to make it more visible from a distance.."
Also, your post about playing Revenants in Pathfinder reminded me about something I thought about when Fourth Edition first came out that I don't think I've seen anyone on these forums really post much about. Dragonborn, while being one of the core races in 4E, don't have a place or background in Pathfinder. All I've really seen posted essentially says "Warriors from somewhere else on Golarion." So here's my take, spoilered for information regarding the BBEG.
** spoiler omitted **...
Excellent! Thank you for pointing out those errors. They'll be fixed when I publish the 0.2 version of the PDF.
I also really like the Dragonborn idea, and I very much agree that it's a race in need of a place within Golarion. I'll make it my next target for a Playing X in Pathfinder post, and if you don't mind I'd love to use your idea as one of the suggestions for their background (and I'll attribute it to you, of course).
Excellent! Thank you for pointing out those errors. They'll be fixed when I publish the 0.2 version of the PDF.
I also really like the Dragonborn idea, and I very much agree that it's a race in need of a place within Golarion. I'll make it my next target for a Playing X in Pathfinder post, and if you don't mind I'd love to use your idea as one of the suggestions for their background (and I'll attribute it to you, of course).
I'd be honored if you used my idea.
I've added Part Four: The Haunted Heart to the blog. Myriana, the swamp environs, and a couple of encounters designed to take place within Whitewillow are included.
I've also updated the Burnt Offerings compiled conversion document. It was missing the bunyip encounter, which is now in there, and some of the Divinity feats needed a little reworking.
All that's left for The Hook Mountain Massacre is...Hook Mountain. Finishing this adventure up will mark the official halfway point in this conversion process. Enjoy!
I'd be honored if you used my idea.Excellent! Thank you for pointing out those errors. They'll be fixed when I publish the 0.2 version of the PDF.
I also really like the Dragonborn idea, and I very much agree that it's a race in need of a place within Golarion. I'll make it my next target for a Playing X in Pathfinder post, and if you don't mind I'd love to use your idea as one of the suggestions for their background (and I'll attribute it to you, of course).
I wanted to let you know that I just posted my Playing Dragonborn in Pathfinder article, and your suggestion is featured in it. Thanks again!
I've added Part Four: The Haunted Heart to the blog. Myriana, the swamp environs, and a couple of encounters designed to take place within Whitewillow are included.
I've also updated the Burnt Offerings compiled conversion document. It was missing the bunyip encounter, which is now in there, and some of the Divinity feats needed a little reworking.
All that's left for The Hook Mountain Massacre is...Hook Mountain. Finishing this adventure up will mark the official halfway point in this conversion process. Enjoy!
Hey Scott...any chance I can ask you a few questions offline?
Send me an email if so.
larryunderscorelatourneauathotmaildotcom
I wanted to let you know that I just posted my Playing Dragonborn in Pathfinder article, and your suggestion is featured in it. Thanks again!
Thank you for using my suggestion. Also, I really liked your other takes on Dragonborn.
Another update. The first half of the Kreeg clanhold has been posted, along with a skill challenge for the mountain ascent. I've also posted an updated list of 4th Edition divine domains for the most prominent Golarion deities, now that Divine Power is out.
I've added Part Four: The Haunted Heart to the blog. Myriana, the swamp environs, and a couple of encounters designed to take place within Whitewillow are included.
I've also updated the Burnt Offerings compiled conversion document. It was missing the bunyip encounter, which is now in there, and some of the Divinity feats needed a little reworking.
All that's left for The Hook Mountain Massacre is...Hook Mountain. Finishing this adventure up will mark the official halfway point in this conversion process. Enjoy!
Hey Scott...any chance I can ask you a few questions offline?
Send me an email if so.
** spoiler omitted **
Sent! Did you get the e-mail?
I wanted to let you know that I just posted my Playing Dragonborn in Pathfinder article, and your suggestion is featured in it. Thanks again!Thank you for using my suggestion. Also, I really liked your other takes on Dragonborn.
Thanks! Your suggestion was the impetus behind putting the short article together in the first place.
All but one encounter from The Hook Mountain Massacre is up. Next week will mark the end of the actual adventure, though I will include a short side-trek afterward involving Fort Rannick, the Keeping the Keep article, and some of the monsters from the Bestiary. Fortress of the Stone Giants is only a couple weeks off.
Also, today's previews over at the official D&D website mentioned that the DMG 2 will include rules for "companion characters", which sounds very similar to the role envisioned for Shalelu in The Hook Mountain Massacre. Expect a few revisions next month when I get my hands on those rules.
I like what you've done with the stat block for Barl. I think it has just the right balance of powers, and the damage levels don't seem too powerful or too weak.
I like what you've done with the stat block for Barl. I think it has just the right balance of powers, and the damage levels don't seem too powerful or too weak.
Barl is an amalgam of a down-leveled Stone Giant Runecarver and a couple necromancer-type creatures of roughly the same level. I gave him the Sihedron empowerment ability to round him out.
I'm glad you like him, though. I was reading through this page last night and saw your post from earlier mentioning that you were anxious to see how Barl turned out, and I was wondering what you'd think of my take.
Scott, let me add my kudos and thanks. I was going to do the Scales of War with my group and started thinking of doing a more RP in depth mod (I was thinking of converting the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh) but now am going to do RotRL in 4e, thanks to you!
Great to hear! Please let me know how it turns out for you!
I've updated the website and both compiled conversions to reflect WotC's new fan site policy. This project now operates under fan policies from both WotC and Paizo, which I've been looking forward to for some time now. It's nice to be able to have the Dungeons & Dragons logo up there alongside the Pathfinder one.
A quick update before I head to bed.
The Hook Mountain Massacre is finished, though not yet updated on the blog. The finale went marvelously and I'm very excited to release the finished conversion, which will go up sometime this week.
I decided to expand the "Keeping the Keep" section to a complete conversion rather than a couple encounters tied to a single event. Most of the events that might take place during the course of the PCs' management of the fort between adventures requires little to nothing in the way of conversion, but a few events do. I'll be providing notes on how to handle those, so the PCs can enjoy the winter there before they are called back to Sandpoint if you want to incorporate that into your game.
I'm going to be changing the format of how I present published conversions slightly, as well. The conversion document and the quest cards will now be in separate PDF files, zipped together.
And here it is. The blog has been updated with the rest of the adventure, plus the Keeping the Keep article and the remainder of the bestiary.
I've also uploaded a compiled conversion PDF along with quest cards in zip archive format, which you can find here.
Cheers!
And here it is. The blog has been updated with the rest of the adventure, plus the Keeping the Keep article and the remainder of the bestiary.
Looking good, Scott! I've been running my own ad hoc Rise of the Runelords in 4th edition and just completed Hook Mountain Massacre. It's a shame I didn't start a couple months later. You would have saved me loads of time.
The biggest challenge I've had recently is a party of eight or nine players. They stacked so many buffs and debuffs that it was almost impossible to challenge them.
So now I'm thinking about splitting the party into two groups and sending one to the Fortress of the Stone Giants while the others tackle Sins of the Saviors. I stopped by this thread to see if anyone had ideas on converting the Scribbler. He's a piece of work in 3rd edition and I'd like him to make a big impression.
And here it is. The blog has been updated with the rest of the adventure, plus the Keeping the Keep article and the remainder of the bestiary.
Looking good, Scott! I've been running my own ad hoc Rise of the Runelords in 4th edition and just completed Hook Mountain Massacre. It's a shame I didn't start a couple months later. You would have saved me loads of time.
The biggest challenge I've had recently is a party of eight or nine players. They stacked so many buffs and debuffs that it was almost impossible to challenge them.
So now I'm thinking about splitting the party into two groups and sending one to the Fortress of the Stone Giants while the others tackle Sins of the Saviors. I stopped by this thread to see if anyone had ideas on converting the Scribbler. He's a piece of work in 3rd edition and I'd like him to make a big impression.
I'm tackling the adventure path one module at a time, so currently all my efforts are focused on Fortress of the Stone Giants. But I would love to hear about your own conversions. Are there any areas in which your approach significantly differed from mine? Any tips or advice to share on particular areas of the campaign?
I've started in on updating the blog with Fortress of the Stone Giants material. The raid on Sandpoint encounters are posted, and I'll be following those up this week with encounters for the journey to Jorgenfist and some of the first fortress encounters. The latter will be disjointed, and I apologize for that. Jorgenfist has many different points of approach, and the conversion notes will initially follow the path my group took. Eventually everything will be filled in.
I also picked up the DMG2 this past week. It's awesome. I've already started making some changes and including themes based on the book. The raid on Sandpoint, for instance, can now be run as one long string of encounters without short rests being necessary thanks to the long fight PC objectives rules presented in the DMG2.
Enjoy!
Another big update today - the rest of Part 1, all of Part 2 and the beginnings of Parts 3 and 4 have been added to the blog (along with a number of new bestiary entries).
I discovered while doing some monster research that 4e includes redcap analogues called spriggan. They're heroic tier, though, so I added a couple new paragon-tier examples of the breed.
I also created a new ogre stat block for use in the cattle rustlers encounter, because the supply of fresh ogre stat blocks was pretty thin after getting through The Hook Mountain Massacre. Lo and behold, the Compendium update last week included monsters from Revenge of the Giants, and among them was the Ogre Warrior!
This update also marks the first time I've used terrain powers (from the DMG2). It was perfect timing, too - the boulder avalanche is practically straight out of the DMG2 examples (the very first example of a terrain power listed in the DMG2 is a boulder you can shove down a slope!).
Enjoy!
Thanks a lot Scott, your work is really appreciated as everything regarding this first milestone for our favourite world...
Thanks a lot Scott, your work is really appreciated as everything regarding this first milestone for our favourite world...
You're welcome!
I have exciting news coming up this next week. Keep an eye on the boards - but not this board. ;)
I've posted new versions of the first two adventures' conversion PDFs, as well as a new document that will collect player elements from the various converted sources.
You can find them all linked on the blog.