4E Backwards Conversions


3.5/d20/OGL


There has been lots of discussion about converting 3E era material to 4E, but I'm wondering how easy it is to convert the other way. Has anyone tried this?

I've been looking at the core 4E path of Keep on the Shadowfell to Prince of Undeath and for the most part I'm digging what I'm reading but I am not a fan of 4E mechanics. From the looks of it converting backwards shouldn't be too difficult but I'm wondering if there are any potential pitfalls that others have noticed in doing this.

2 obvious issues are the level range and experience awards. I would not be attempting a 1-30 level progression in 3.5 as 30 is the new 20, so to speak. So once I drop the level range to 20 levels the number of encounters per level is not equal, requiring more encounter to span all the levels, 300 level appropriate encounters in 4E opposed to approximately 260 in 3.5. So I will be dropping XP awards and just handing out levels at even intervals.

As well, if anyone is familiar with pitfalls or total dead spots in the story I wouldn't mind some heads up in that regard.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Honestly, I doubt if the storyline and writing of KoS qualifies it for conversion of any sort ... Actually, I'm not sure if any 4e adventure gets anywhere within a mile of Paizo's adventure writing skillz.


Yeah, my question is - is there anything WORTH converting from 4E to Pathfinder?

WotC adventures for 4E have generally not been well received - even by passionate 4E fans.


The overall story looks basic, but entertaining with it's long struggle against Orcus and lots of iconic and entertaining monsters and situations. The only adventure I have read fully in Keep on the Shadowfell and I quite enjoyed it. The other adventures I have skimmed to get an idea for the overall storyline, and perhaps I am missing some glaring problems, but they don't look that bad at all.

I'm not a huge fan of 4E but I'm not a hater either. I pillage ideas from any source that presents itself and these adventures looked interesting. Not as interesting as the 3E path that kicked off that line, but still containing some merit.

So, aside from hating on 4E, has anyone given any thought or effort to converting backwards?


I do a lot of converting the other way (older edition material into 4E) and don't usually find much of an issue. I think you could reverse the process pretty easily.

Maybe the biggest issue is that 4E often has large encounters with many things becoming part of the encounter as things go down and these would take some practice to balance for a 3.5 group. Lots of danger that such an encounter is either to easy after the conversion or to hard. I don't think there are any general rules on this sort of thing and you'll have to run a few to get the hang of it.

There might be issues with higher level material as 4E characters are a lot weaker then 3.x characters and really don't have access to spells that allow the whole group to teleport into and out of encounters or slide around them by crossing into the Plane of Shadow etc. It'd be very easy for a 3.x group to 'side step' an adventure made under 4E presumptions where there is simply no need for the adventure to address 'what if the players turn incorporeal and just go through the walls?'

There is also the problem with encounter design in 4E so focused on the floor. In 4E a higher level character can get off the floor for maybe a round. Possibly one of them has some trick build that allows for flight for a single encounter but for most of the group almost all the time they are stuck on the ground. Hence the ground is usually part of the encounter design. The bridge sways, or you have to jump between pillars or climb down chains or maybe its full of traps pits and fast moving boulders all while fighting one or more nasty critters.

In 3.x the players will very quickly figure out that being on the ground sucks and its so much easier to kill the nasty critters if you don't have to worry about jumping fast flowing rivers or swinging from place to place like Tarzan - you can circumvent pretty much all of these hazards by simply flying everywhere. By the time a group is around 7th its not that tough for all of them to get their hands on some kind of flight.

Of course it pretty much eliminates a lot of the encounter design if the encounter presumes that the battle takes place on slippery planks set over shark infested waters if the players all just fly and ignore this sort of thing.


I was serious with my question - is there anything worth converting from 4E?

If I was running a 3.5/Pathfinder game and I wanted to battle Orcus and related minions, I'd recommend Rappan Athuk Reloaded (Necromancer Games) or perhaps the Slumbering Tsar series from Frog God Games.

Dark Archive

DaveMage wrote:

I was serious with my question - is there anything worth converting from 4E?

There are some decent RPGA mods but you'll need to sign up as a RPGA DM to obtain them.


DaveMage wrote:

I was serious with my question - is there anything worth converting from 4E?

If I was running a 3.5/Pathfinder game and I wanted to battle Orcus and related minions, I'd recommend Rappan Athuk Reloaded (Necromancer Games) or perhaps the Slumbering Tsar series from Frog God Games.

My players are enjoying the Scales of War adventure path. All-in-all though, Paizo adventure paths are significantly better in my opinion so I wouldnt see the point unless you were particularly looking at material keyed to a specific setting (I quite like the 4th edition Eberron module, for example - that would be worth adapting, imo).


The main turn-off point for me when it comes to the 4E adventures is the delve system.. I really, really, don't want to have to flip back and forth multiple pages between the brief room descriptions and the encounter descriptions during gameplay. So, if I would want to run one of the published adventures, I'd have to photocopy dozens of pages just so I could refer to both simultaneously.

If WotC would come to their senses and start doing 4E adventures with the same flow as they used to do 3.5 adventures, and Paizo do now with Pathfinder adventures, then I'd jump right in :)

Dark Archive

I don't know about the adventures for conversion, but I wouldn't mind converting some of the classes; the "Invoker" for instance makes me think of a paladin/oracle (in PF terms), which would be a bit of a clunky multiclass.


Thank you Jeremy for the observations. When I ran 4E we didn't get past 3rd level since we all pretty much hated the mechanics and felt 3.5 was just more fun to play so I was unaware of the discrepancies at higher levels. That was the kind of advice I was looking for. I think I'll just pull the liberals of the material and just do the encounters myself. Oh look, this one is kobolds, okay, let's make a kobold encounter. That kind of thing so the ELs don't get too out of whack.

To the other questions, I like some of the fluff that comes with the adventures, especially the whole idea of the Shadowfell, and feel that a game heavily involving such ideas (portals to a death realm, cultists and a dark god of the undead, etc.) would really jive with my players. Now, I know what you're thinking, 'if you like those ideas just run Age of Worms,' well, I will be running my Shackled City group through that epic soon enough. I'm all about receiving suggestions for adventures or series that are awesome, though.

I'm not saying there are not better adventures out there, I'm just digging the fluff of these and was considering doing some preliminary notes to see if it holds up. I do this quite often and sometimes it comes together, sometimes it does not. For example, my Shadowrun Fourth Edition conversion of Second Darkness got pretty far before I realized it wasn't going to work.


Thammuz wrote:
I don't know about the adventures for conversion, but I wouldn't mind converting some of the classes; the "Invoker" for instance makes me think of a paladin/oracle (in PF terms), which would be a bit of a clunky multiclass.

I found a nifty class construction guide for 3.5 online a couple years back that you might be able to make this happen with. I can't recall where I got it now, though.


Are wrote:
The main turn-off point for me when it comes to the 4E adventures is the delve system.. I really, really, don't want to have to flip back and forth multiple pages between the brief room descriptions and the encounter descriptions during gameplay.

The Expedition adventures form the last days of 3.5 used this system and it was a total pain in the ass. I had to put way more info in my notes to make reference easier while I was running the game. 4E design seems to take it a step further and remove info from the core text so you can only find it in the delve sheets. With the 2 Expedition adventures I ran (Demonweb Pits aka 'Planescape for 3E' and Ravenloft) it was worth the work because the stories were pretty damn cool.


Apparently, I just can't post enough on this thread right now.

As an interesting aside, I was considering one of two options for conversion. First was the afore mentioned 4E series, and the other was the old Greyhawk pseudo-path of Temple of Elemental Evil, Scourge of the Slave Lords, and Queen of the Spiders. The latter I have been toying with for some time but haven't had the guts to actually go for it yet.


If you're willing to put in the work and make it REALLY fun don't bother scaling down from 1-30 to 1-20. Just grab the good old Epic Level Handbook and have at it.

Shadow Lodge

Paizo is shipping me the Tomb of Horrors 4E (it takes a while, since I live in the UK). I eventually plan to take the information in 1E ToH, 2E Return to the ToH, and 4E ToH, plus maybe a few other vaguely related modules and some of my own ideas, and create the ultimate PFRPG Tomb of Horrors Adventure Path. Well, that's the eventual plan...who knows if I'll actually even get a decent start before Pathfinder 2.0 comes out.


Kthulhu wrote:
Paizo is shipping me the Tomb of Horrors 4E (it takes a while, since I live in the UK). I eventually plan to take the information in 1E ToH, 2E Return to the ToH, and 4E ToH, plus maybe a few other vaguely related modules and some of my own ideas, and create the ultimate PFRPG Tomb of Horrors Adventure Path. Well, that's the eventual plan...who knows if I'll actually even get a decent start before Pathfinder 2.0 comes out.

Wizards.com released a free version of Tomb of Horrors for 3.5 that you might still be able to find on the site for free. It was a 9th level module if I'm remembering correctly. Of course, it was a straight conversion of the original so you're not gaining much for new material. From the looks of it the 4E version is also just a conversion of the original.

Shadow Lodge

EATERoftheDEAD wrote:
From the looks of it the 4E version is also just a conversion of the original.

The 4E version is a full hardcover, it's more than just a 4E conversion of the Tomb of Horror.

I have the 3.5 ToH, but I'm looking more to the original, since it's not as watered down. And my conversion will bring Save or Die back to d20.


Kthulhu wrote:
The 4E version is a full hardcover, it's more than just a 4E conversion of the Tomb of Horror.

Hm, I didn't know this. So they are doing something akin to Revenge of the Giants? That would be cool as Giants was a pretty neat adventure.


Well, upon more careful consideration, I have decided to take some of the afore mentioned advice and just run Rise of the Runelords.


DaveMage wrote:

I was serious with my question - is there anything worth converting from 4E?

If I was running a 3.5/Pathfinder game and I wanted to battle Orcus and related minions, I'd recommend Rappan Athuk Reloaded (Necromancer Games) or perhaps the Slumbering Tsar series from Frog God Games.

Having just had an excellent session yesterday I thought about this question and at least some elements of Scales of War are really excellent.

Now I'm a player (so no spoilers please) and we are just shy of getting into Paragon so I've not played through the latter material - furthermore I don't know if our DM has altered things though I know he does little prep so he can't have altered that much.

The adventures themselves are hit and miss though there are a few more hits then misses IMO, what struck me after last nights session was some elements of the meta plot that really work for an AP.

Essentially whats sticking out is that back when we were 4th or 5th we get into an adventure where Orcs have attacked the main city in the area and we are following up on clues regarding who supplied and armed them. That's fun stuff right there but our investigation leads us to the Shadowfell and a whole other frikken plane. I'm thinking 'oh my god we are pretty low level to be plane walking!' It'll be a lot of sessions before I figure out the method to the APs madness.

Essentially this adventure (it may actually be two separate but linked ones) eventually contrives to get us into the middle of this uber powerful inter planer mercenary dudes army and part way through that our low level characters sneak into one of this guys (his name is Sorshen) uber powerful magical bad guy creating factories and we rig the whole thing to blow sky high and then sneak on down a secret passage. We get to some other building of Sorshen's meanwhile in the background our demolition work is counting down - tick tock, tick tock.

We kill some guard types in this other building and come upon a teleporter which we happen to have a key for to get us home and even consider making our escape right there but choose to do a little more exploring. All of a sudden there are bad guy guards pouring in from every direction and we are totally outclassed. So the uber bad Sorshen shows up and delivers his patented 'I'm an Evil Overlord speech' in which he pretty much says 'I'm pissed that you killed some of my guards but I'm the kind of Evil Overlord that knows potential when he sees it - join the dark side and serve me. So we are freaking out cause fighting him is total suicide - but we realize that we have the key to the teleporter in this room - if we just run past him we need to live for just a single round and we can teleport back to the prime plane and make a run for it. We have horses nearby and his guards don't we could probably get away if we could just live for 1 round against this uber bad.

All of a sudden the module contrives to give us our chance - the demolitions we have set blow sky high and the buildings shake and Sorshen and the guards are like "What the hell is going on? Are we under attack?" That's our chance! we make a break for the teleporter - even distracted Sorshen kicks our ass, we are totally sure that without the surprise of the demolitions we'd not even lasted a single round but we had surprise and we just barely manage to flee the uber bad and live to tell the tale.

-----

Four adventures later and we've mostly forgotten about Sorshen...We'd heard some one was looking for us and when we went to find out what the deal was some one had kidnapped her! We track her down kill the kidnappers and free her. "Why are you looking for us and why'd these weirdo's kidnap you?" She replies with "some sword you found in the very first adventure back in the little town has started talking and it wants to speak with you so I came to the big city to find you - and these horrible people kidnapped and tortured me but all they did was ask about you guys and I did not know anything and they would not believe me...sob." "Uh - yeah well were sorry about that - they are all kind of dead though - weird that some one would kidnap you to get to us though."

-----

next adventure and we are back in the original small town in the museum talking with a magic sword when all of a sudden people start tossing fire bombs into the museum trying to kill us. We get out kill these ass hats and go get the mayor 'cause we want some answers. "Who are these goons and why are they trying to kill us?" We demand of the mayor who responds with "no idea, they are not from our small town - they are obviously trying to target you...oh no! what happened to our precious museum...its burnt down!"

US: "Err, yeah sorry about that, we are going to take Binky the Talking Sword over here and leave town on an important quest now" Mayor: "Oh please do and don't feel you have to hurry back or anything as we don't have that many civic building left and we'd like to keep them."

-----

We are taking a long rest out in the wilderness between forays into the dungeon. Most of the party is asleep and the guys on watch don't manage that impressive perception checks. Into the camp area walks a friggen elf with his falcon and dog animal companions, he tosses a pepper bomb at the mage who wakes up blinded, throws a net over our fighter, imobalizing him and unleashes two crossbow bolts into my cleric. WTF! We even know this dude as we once got some info off him in the big city.

The other two random out of the blue attacks where not 100% clear what the deal was but pepper bombs and nets along with an army of dogs and falcons means this bad ass elf dude is a bounty hunter. So the plan is we are going to go ape s%!~ on him but no killing Bobba Fett the Elf here 'cause we want answers! Its a frikken awesome fight because Bobba Fett the Elf all alone with his dogs and falcons is a pretty good match for our 5 players - We win eventually and he surrenders - now to find out whats going on!

So we start questioning him and it turns out that there is a $10,000 gp bounty on our heads! I always new Relgar the Cleric would be a valuable member of society but I never figured it'd involve a decimal place! So who'd put a bounty on our heads and why? Ahh Sorshen put the bounty on our heads, but isn't 10 grand a piece excessive? Umm property damage you say? Uh yeah we did blow up his inter-dimensional magical minion monster maker...Uh what'd that sort of thing cost, 5-10 million gp maybe? I guess he has a legitimate beef with us.

Still a$!+***s bounty hunters have now attacked us repeatedly, tortured some one who was looking for us and even made it so we are now persona non grata at the town where we were once hero's. We've talked with Sorshen and heard his 'I'm an evil overlord' speech. He knows who we are and we know who he is and we both want to see the other dead. Sure there is a plot to save the world in the background but really this is personal.

-----

I think its hard to overstate just how potent this sort of thing is in terms of an AP. I don't know how the plot line will eventually develop with Sorshen but one of the weak points with many APs is difficulty with getting the players emotionally involved with bringing down the big bad guys. The players may be on the heroic quest to save the world but often they have no idea whats going on for an extended period of time and the big bad guy has no idea who they are. Here all the big reveals for the AP are mostly still intact but our characters are emotionally driven to figure out what the BBEGs plans are and thwart them because its become a personal war between us and Sorshen and he's presumably in just as much agreement that we need to die as we are certain that the same needs to happen to him - once we get to the point where we think we'd last more then two rounds against him of course. Until then we'll keep nipping at his heels and we'll just have to learn to live with Bobba Fett types wrecking our beauty sleep.

It says something that the Paladin's invested some of his gold into magic that says 'my armour blinks onto my body as a minor action'. It seems relevant considering how often we need to roll out of our sleeping bags and come up fighting.


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
Here all the big reveals for the AP are mostly still intact but our characters are emotionally driven to figure out what the BBEGs plans are and thwart them because its become a personal war between us and Sorshen and he's presumably in just as much agreement that we need to die as we are certain that the same needs to happen to him - once we get to the point where we think we'd last more then two rounds against him of course. Until then we'll keep nipping at his heels and we'll just have to learn to live with Bobba Fett types wrecking our beauty sleep.

The campaign you're in sounds like a lot of fun, and the element you speak of here is definitely a big selling point. I've been putting off reading Scales of War, but now I will have to :)

Liberty's Edge

Not that it's exactly on topic but...

4e --> 2e is a breeze. I would think 4e --> 1e would also be easy. 4e --> 3e is something I would hate to do due to the large amount of mechanics based work you would need to do. 3e is a nightmare of mechanics unless your party is willing to accept that as DM you are "winging" the odd rules and not everything will adhere to the mechanics of 3e.

2 cents.

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