Conversion for PF1?

[Patman]

My group has been obstinate about not switching to PF2. This sounds like one of my 2 dream APs. What is the difficulty of converting to PF1 and does anyone do conversion notes?

[keftiu]

Patman wrote:

My group has been obstinate about not switching to PF2. This sounds like one of my 2 dream APs. What is the difficulty of converting to PF1 and does anyone do conversion notes?

You'd likely be making almost all of the statblocks from scratch. There's no conversion notes for this AP yet, given that it's been out all of one day so far.

[Kasoh]

There's an art to conversion, the same way there's an art to any game design.

Step one is reading the adventure. Get a feel for what its asking of players. Look at the advancement expectations and do the math to convert PF2 xp to PF1 xp. Now you know if you need more or less encounters, if any need to altered or beefed up.

Then you need to handle creatures. There's a surplus of PF1 NPC statblocks. Just grab useful ones. For how long they're going to be alive, any level 3 cleric is as good as any other. If the important named NPC the PCs fight seems really important, maybe build it. Or just grab a higher CR block and call it a day.

Add a Cleric/Rogue. Because its a Paizo AP.

For creatures, there's six bestiaries worth of stuff. If you don't want to convert a monster then just find a statblock with a similar special ability or find something with the right CR and make up the special ability and use the description from the PF2 material.

Adjust the treasure. PF1's treasure scale is very different.

Reconfigure any Skill discrepancies or DCs. This you can usually do on the fly anyway, but writing it ahead of time is okay too.

Reputation or Victory Point systems usually work the same across systems, so that's not an issue.

In my experience, converting (from PF1 to 5e) takes 1.5 times as long as normal prep. I can't imagine PF2 to PF1 would take much more than that, especially if you aren't going to build NPCs.

[GM Lamplighter]

I've done a lot of system conversions, and going from anything to PF1 is the hardest, because of the number of choices. It's pretty much redesign from scratch. Kasoh has some good suggestions on how to do it on the quick - I've run PF2 games in PF1 on the fly, just by grabbing a set of stats of the appropriate CR and using that as a baseline.

Guns work VERY different in PF1. I do not think the adventure will be balanced if just transliterated into PF1. PF1 gunslingers will just destroy everything, so I'm not even sure this one is very convertible at all.

[Kasoh]

I'd have to look at the maps, but the touch range on pistols could create interesting encounters when both parties have guns but neither one will be the first to move into touch range. Then its just regular range vs range combat depending on who wants to spend grit first. It also depends on how many gunslingers or gun enabled PCs you have. Given the setting in Alkenstar, maybe more than most.

A game with a lot of range combatants would be benefitted by a close reading of the cover rules and enforcing them a bit more strictly. I know I always forget about soft cover bonuses.