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5 years ago ::
Apr 16, 2008 - 3:58AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Feb 17, 2008
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Just getting back into D&D with my son. I purchased a few adventures (expedition to Undermountain, Anauroch, Cormyr, etc). How easy/difficult would it be to use 4e to play these adventures. I don't want to teach my son 3.5 and then change to 4.e in a few months.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 16, 2008 - 3:59PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Feb 20, 2008
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The basics seems fundamentally the same. So creating a low lvl character to adventure a few short adventures would be fine. However, the books are coming out in under 2 months now. So it wouldn't be worth making a character and really advancing them to any lvl beyond 2nd or 3rd.
As to the adventures. Besides any monsters that are custom to the adventure, most monsters in 3.5 (especially the commonly used ones) should be in 4.0 Monster Manual with 4.0 statistics. Those that don't, you can replace with 4.0 monsters that match the setting.
So my advice is to basically wait for 4.0 to come out. If you cant, just do some small low lvl stuff. And converting old material should be fairly simple.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 17, 2008 - 5:14AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Feb 17, 2008
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Thanks for the reply. Any other suggestions/opinions?
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5 years ago ::
Apr 17, 2008 - 6:41AM
#4
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Personally, I think it is going to be a bit of work. The problem is that the systems are quite a bit different. 3.5e encounters focused on a party versus one or two big baddies. But 4e looks like it is trying to have larger fights. So a 3.5e encounter might be 2 hobgoblins. But in 4e, there would be 8 hobgoblin minions, and 2 hobgoblin archers.
I think you'll need to have both monster manuals out in front of you to compare how the critters have been changed as well. You could find that the power levels of encounters will change if you simply move it from 3.5 to 4e.
At least, that is my guess. We will have to see how it pans out when the books are out.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 22, 2008 - 11:44AM
#5
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Personally, I think it is going to be a bit of work.
The maps & story are most of the work in my opinion, and that part doesn't need to be redone.
The new monster system should make repopulating a setting with 4e type baddies fairly easy from the sounds of it.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 24, 2008 - 3:57PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Oct 30, 2005
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It is hard to quantify for you how hard it will be, especially since we don't even know. However, we can guess. And the good news is, my forecast is that it would not be too difficult (though this will depend largely on just how big the given module is).
All of the maps and all of the backstory will remain unchanged. So you are in good shape here.
The hard part will be editing the monsters. Yes, many of the iconic monsters will be back, but they may be at different challenge levels, or have different versions. You will just have to use the 4e system for designing appropriate level challenges for each room that had monsters.
From what we've been told this shouldn't be "too" hard, but your mileage may very. That being said, I think its great you're going to teach your son D&D! I wish you both lots of fun. I'm sure if you put just a little bit of time into it, and get creative with substituting monsters, it shouldn't be too dificult.
After that it appears that the way magic items are being handled is being changed more than just a little. Of course this would give you an opportunity to tailor the items he finds to ones that he can use anyways. I suspect that populating dungeons with monsters and phat loot shouldn't be too difficult. They are trying to make this version easier on the DM, so ideally it will be fairly simple.
Good luck!
EDIT: As an aside, I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but Wizards is already planning to release a series of adventure modules, starting with H1: Keep on the Shadowfell. It will release May 20th. So, if you get it, you could use it, or even just read over it. That way you could maybe get an eye for how adventures are designed and how it may be different from 3e. I know you wanted to use the ones you already had, just a thought.
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