Last week I talked about RPGs and Sunk Costs. This lead to a discussion of me converting my 4e collection into something else. As is my wont, I opted for the most difficult conversion I could do and still be D&D; converting 4e to BECMI.
Since this is a test run I want something simple and something that others can look over to see what they think. So for this trial, I am converting the free low-level adventure Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens. I am also using the D&D Rules Cyclopedia for ease of conversion here.
Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens is the 2nd adventure for a single player coming off of the D&D 4e Starter set. The one that looks like the BECMI Basic Set. Given this the character you are playing should be about 2nd level. Now when I run this for real I am going to likely use it with a party and scale up the encounters. But for now I want to see what a quick conversion looks like.
I am taking a lot of cues from the Classic Modules Today folks and just providing the monster conversions. I am not attempting to balance anything at this point.
Special Note: IF (and that is a big IF) I do these conversions I am going to all use the "Prince of Undeath" conversions for the HPE modules that were done by Myrhdraak a few years back. This conversion makes it more of an Adventure Path style campaign that we now see from Paizo and WotC. Plus it makes the Orcus plot more interesting.
Details are here:
Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens Conversion
Skill checks: Use the appropriate ability score. Perception is normally Wisdom, but use Intelligence where applicable.
Skill Challenges: Use as skill checks, but only provide XP if properly role-played.
Poison Dart and Poison Gas traps are Save vs. Poison or die.
Psychic Staircase trap is Save vs. Paralysis or take 5 hp of damage.
Sareth is a 1st level Elf with 7hp and 1 first level spell: Shield
Kobold Quickblade is a kobold chieftain (RC p. 187) with 9 hp (10 xp) [100 xp]
Kobold Tunnelers (4) are normal kobolds (RC p. 187) with 1 hp (5 xp each) [25 xp each]
Decrepit Skeletons (2) are normal skeletons (RC p. 204) with 1 hp (5 xp each) [25 xp each]
Grasping Zombie is a normal zombie (RC p. 213) with 13 hp (20 xp) [100 xp]
Skeletal Blackguard is a skeleton with 2HD (RC p. 204, 214-215) with 18 hp (25 xp) [250 xp]
Tomb Rats (5) are giant rats (RC p. 201) with 1 hp each (5 xp) [25 xp]
XP values in parentheses () are for BECMI D&D. For comparison the D&D4 XP values are in brackets [].
In 4e a player would get a total of 725 XP from combat. In BECMI/RC this becomes 110 xp.
So progression will be slower for RC.
I could follow this up with The Dungeon of the Ghost Tower the next adventure.
Also, I can tell already that the combats for the BECMI version is going to be a hell of a lot faster. This might not be such an insane idea after all.
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