General Discussion

[grodog]

Agreed. Anthony Huso has done this to good effect in some of his adventures, too.

Allan.

 

[robertsconley]

Coming at it from the complete opposite end, I've considered putting in an Appendix with a brief summary of how the playtesters experienced the sandbox. I think it would help a DM see how things could go down, especially in a larger sandbox where all the interconnections are buried in the main text. I know I value the hints scattered in T1 about Gygax's campaign.

In Scrouge of Demon Wolf, I felt my observations flowed better when I wrote them up as strategically placed Rob's Notes relevant to the portion of the adventure being described.

The Slain Tinker

Halfway between Kensla and Denison’s Crossing the party will encounter an overturned cart. There is a body next to the cart with several stab wounds in the front and three parallel bloody gashes on his back. The gashes appear to have been made by a large claw. An observant party member will see that the stab wounds in the front appear to be made by a weapon. The site of the attack is about 2 miles from Dension’s Crossing and 3 miles from Kensla in the midst of a forest.

The body is of Anvald, a local tinker. He makes a circuit covering the villages of the Barony of Westtower. He peddles pots, pans, and trinkets. He visits Kensla once every month or two. There is nothing left of his stock, only a few trinkets (worth 10d) lie scattered on the ground.

There is no sign of the animal that was pulling the cart. A tracking check at +5[+25%] will determine it was a mule. A tracking check will uncover several large clawed footprints leading north. They disappear about 200 yards into the woods. A tracking check at –5[-25%] will uncover normal man size tracks that circle around the site of the attack. These tracks can be followed a quarter of a mile to an escarpment where the bandit cave can be spotted.

Rob’s Note: Half of the groups failed to find the bandit tracks. They either blew their roll or just plain didn’t check. Most parties noticed the difference between the stab wounds in the front and the claws in the back. This led some to conclude that werewolves were involved. Remember the bandit encounters are optional and not critical to the resolution of the adventure. One party repaired the cart to return the body of the tinker to the village.

 

[Beoric]

In Scrouge of Demon Wolf, I felt my observations flowed better when I wrote them up as strategically placed Rob's Notes relevant to the portion of the adventure being described.

I like that. Make short comments an easily ignorable sidebar. But I also like the "Secret History" in ToEE, which is basically a play summary from Gary's campaign involving the Temple.

 

[Beoric]

Interesting post on the Moral Economy of the Shire.

 

[Avi]

Interesting post on the Moral Economy of the Shire.

Thank you for sending me down that Hobbit hole ;-)
Good world building article

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Coming at it from the complete opposite end, I've considered putting in an Appendix with a brief summary of how the playtesters experienced the sandbox. I think it would help a DM see how things could go down, especially in a larger sandbox where all the interconnections are buried in the main text. I know I value the hints scattered in T1 about Gygax's campaign.

Always a fun idea, so long as it's not something intrusive like putting the bodies of your past parties onto the official map for publication, or something crazy like that...

I joke Melan, I joke. That was actually pretty cool in CX.

 

[grodog]

LOL, Huso did the same thing in Geir Loe Cyn-crul

Allan.

 

[Beoric]

I've always suspected this was the case with the carnage at that first intersection in B1.

 

[Beoric]

5e question for @DangerousPuhson. The DMG at p. 82 has an encounter difficulty which goes to 20th level, with a 12,700 XP "deadly" encounter being the highest XP on there. But there are quite a few monters more difficult than that, for instance a Marilith is worth15,000 XP, and a Balor is worth 22,000. Is there an extension of the chart for higher level characters/higher CR monsters? Or how is this supposed to be handled?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

5e question for @DangerousPuhson. The DMG at p. 82 has an encounter difficulty which goes to 20th level, with a 12,700 XP "deadly" encounter being the highest XP on there. But there are quite a few monters more difficult than that, for instance a Marilith is worth15,000 XP, and a Balor is worth 22,000. Is there an extension of the chart for higher level characters/higher CR monsters? Or how is this supposed to be handled?

Honestly I ignore most of the 5e DMG, including its guidelines about Challenge Ratings, Adventuring Days, and Encounter Balance. The CR system is 90% of most people's complaints about 5e, and I hate to say it, but they aren't wrong - WotC fucked it from the start. Nonetheless...

That 12,700 is not a ceiling. The idea is that "deadly" is a threshold; a number to be crossed. 12,700XP is "deadly". 15,000XP is also "deadly", as is 22,000XP. There is no ceiling as to what you can throw at the players - encounter labels like "deadly" are only meant to indicate the general difficulty of that match-up (i.e. "according to our MonsterXP-to-CharacterLevel formula, if you use this monster against these characters at this level, it will probably result in the death of at least one of them"). "Deadly" just means "highly inadvisable, don't expect much more fight out of your PCs today".

In a nutshell - you don't need to extend the chart because "deadly" is the highest encounter difficulty there is.

 

[Beoric]

The reason I ask because I sometimes convert 5e material to 4e. So I want to know the relative power of a monster in relation to the PCs. I generally to that assuming that what a system says about itself is true. So for conversions from 1e I use monster XP, for 3e I use CR.

For 5e I've been calculating the encounter XP, and assuming that the minimum threshhold for "deadly" corresponds roughly to the level of PC. So for instance if a single creature is worth XP 10,900, I convert that as a solo monster of 19th level; whereas if 4-5 monsters are worth 10,900, I convert them as 19th level standard monsters (it's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the gist). The results have been unexpectedly consistent. But I have no way of doing that for any creature with a CR larger than 15.

So an extended chart would have been helpful, even if it doesn't really work that way in practice. I have tried just following the pattern of XP increases on the chart, and that has worked... ok, but something official would be better.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Personally, I get the best conversion results by assigning comparative AC, HP, and damage output to a similar existing creature at that level. All the rest is flavor and tactics. I find that with a few obvious exceptions, the real heart of converting monster stats are just tweaking those three values to something level-appropriate. At least, that's how it goes in my admittedly limited experience with conversions...

 

[Beoric]

Yeah, those are wildly different values in 4e than in any other edition. And it doesn't tell me how tough the encounter is relative to a party of any given level.

Like, I re-use these monsters, so I like to be able to just drop them whenever whatever module I am using refers to them, or if I am DMing on the fly, without customizing them for the particular party level. For instance, I know that a 0e or Basic orc is a 4e level 3 standard monster or a level 11 minion; whereas a 1e or 3e orc is a 4e level 4 standard monster or a level 12 minion; every time, for all purposes.

And when I am using a module, I want to make the experience as close to the original as possible. So I need to know the relative difficulty of every challenge. But it looks like I'm just going to have to wing it when it comes to higher CR 5e monsters.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I think if you try to use the already unbalanced 5e encounter design mechanics to try and design/balance 4e encounters, you're gonna have a bad time. Might be easier to find an existing 4e monster (or two) of an appropriate challenge to the party to use as a stat range template, and reskin it with the relevant abilities (provided they aren't gamebreaking enough to bump up the challenge beyond reason).

Also, I'm not sure why you are doing so, but you probably shouldn't balance against the "deadly" level in encounter design as your baseline. A "deadly" encounter is already considered decidedly unbalanced for 5e; the kind of encounter your party can bear once before they need to recover entirely. Plus it has no ceiling, as you've identified earlier. A Marilith and a Balor will be wildly different challenges, but both are "deadly" encounters. And given that the 5e to 4e conversion mechanics are held together by hopes and prayers as they are, maybe not a great approach to rely on any of it beyond an informal, experimental way.

If you want to start somewhere doing direct XP conversions, look at the creatures through the lens of CR (a specific number that equates directly to player character level), not the arbitrary labels of 5e encounter balance that basically equate to "this is easy" and "this is hard".

 

[Beoric]

4e monsters are often written as way weaker than their counterparts in any other game. So swapping in an existing monster usually doesn't work. I can re-write the monster, but I still need to know how tough the encounter is supposed to be in order to make that estimate.

I'm not necessarily throwing deadly encounters at the players. I have found that in newer editions, "deadly" encounters usually mean there is a (for the edition) unacceptably high risk of killing PCs. I assume that risk to be around 50%, maybe a little better. So I use that to assess how tough a monster is (eg, this 5e orc is equivalent to a 4e level 3 elite monster, and effectively equal to a 4e level 3 PC). Then I build a monster of equivalent toughness using 4e rules, and just use it like I would use any other monster.

So for instance, a 0e or Basic orc is like a 4e level 3 standard monster, a 1e or 3e orc is like a 4e level 4 standard monster, and a 5e orc is like a 4e level 7 standard monster. So if I am running a Basic module like B2, I know I can use a level 3 orc whenever one appears in that module, or any other Basic module, and it will give a similar experience to players to the experience they would have if I was running it in Basic. And if I have the common monsters already built, and tokens programmed for them, I can run pretty much any module on the fly.

 

[The1True]

So for instance, a 0e or Basic orc is like a 4e level 3 standard monster, a 1e or 3e orc is like a 4e level 4 standard monster, and a 5e orc is like a 4e level 7 standard monster.

This sounds bazonic. I feel like an orc is your standard, platonic lvl 1 monster in all editions. Like it's the bog standard that all other monsters are calibrated against.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

It honestly sounds like your converting project is a huge effort for minimal payoff - why not just build all your monsters in 4e from the get-go and nix the conversions? It's not like people are going to compare the two side-by-side.

 

[Beoric]

This sounds bazonic. I feel like an orc is your standard, platonic lvl 1 monster in all editions. Like it's the bog standard that all other monsters are calibrated against.

Encounter building in 4e is much more granular, and more precisely calibrated, than any other edition. Also, monsters are built using different rules than PCs.

So the basic conversion is a level 1 fighter in edition 0e, 1e, B+, 2e, 3e or 5e is the equivalent of a level 2 character in 4e, for reasons that aren't worth getting into. Level 1 is more or less an apprentice level, like UA cavaliers used to have.

The other thing is that a 4e level x PC is roughly equivalent to a 4e level x elite monster. And one level x elite monster is equivalent to two level x standard monsters.

So, assuming characters are not particularly optimized, here is the baseline equivalency: one non-4e level 1 PC = one 4e level 2 PC = one 4e level 2 elite monster = two 4e level 2 standard monsters. Where "not particularly optimized" in 1e means your aren't using UA rules.

Like 3e and 5e, 4e encounter building guidelines skew toward not particularly dangerous fights. So a level 1 encounter for a party of 4 PCs could include four level 1 standard kobolds, which group has half the power of four level 1 PCs. Whereas a group of eight level 1 standard kobolds would have a roughly even chance of winning against a party of four level 1 PCs.

So a 4e level 3 standard orc is still less powerful than a 4e level 1 PC by a significant margin, maybe 3:4. But a level 3 elite monster would be much more powerful than a level 1 PC, say 6:4.

It works out like this:

4e level 8 minion monster (88 XP) = one 3e kobold, or one 3e CR 1/4 monster
4e level 1 standard monster (100 XP) = one 1e kobold, or ~1.1 3e kobolds
4e level 2 standard monster (125 XP) = one 1e or 5e bandit, or one 3e goblin warrior, or one 3e CR 1/3 monster
4e level 3 standard monster (150 XP) = one 1e goblin
4e level 4 standard monster (175 XP) = one 1e orc, one 5e goblin, or one 3e CR 1/2 monster
4e level 5 standard monster (200 XP) = one 1e hobgoblin, or one 4e level 1 elite monster, or one 4e level 1 PC
4e level 6 standard monster (250 XP) = one 1e or 3e gnoll, or one 3e CR 1 creature, or one 4e level 2 elite monster, or one 4e level 2 PC
4e level 7 standard monster (300 XP) = one 5e orc, hobgoblin or gnoll, or one 4e level 3 elite monster, or one 4e level 3 PC
4e level 8 standard monster (350 XP) = one 3e bugbear, or one 3e CR 2 monster, or one 4e level 4 elite monster, or one 4e level 4 PC

According to 4e encounter building guidelines, for a party of four level 2 PCs (equivalent to level 1 in any other edition), an easy encounter would have monsters worth roughly 88-100 XP per PC, say 4 1e or 3e kobolds for a 4 PC party. Which is pretty easy.

A standard encounter would have 125-150 XP of monsters per level 2 PC. So say 5-6 1e kobolds, or 4 1e bandits, for a party of 4 level 2 PCs.

A hard encounter would have 175-200 XP of monsters per level 2 PC. So 7-10 1e kobolds, or 6-8 1e bandits, or 6-8 3e goblins, or 5-6 1e goblins, or 4-5 1e orcs or hobgoblins, or 3-4 1e gnolls, for a party of 4 level 2 PCs. The higher end of that range is very dangerous for the party if they haven't been conserving resources.

 

[Beoric]

It honestly sounds like your converting project is a huge effort for minimal payoff - why not just build all your monsters in 4e from the get-go and nix the conversions? It's not like people are going to compare the two side-by-side.

I am building them in 4e, I just want to have them at the same power level as the equivalent in another edition.

For instance, your average hobgoblin in 4e is a level 3 standard monster, which is significantly weaker per PC than a 0e/Basic/1e hobgoblin. So if I am converting a 0e/Basic/1e module, say Keep on the Borderlands, and just swap one 4e hobgoblin for every Basic hobgoblin, the encounter is significantly less challenging than in the original.

An easy fix for this is to take the 4e level 3 hobgoblin and add 2 to its defenses, attack rolls, and damage rolls, and add 16 hp. That effectively turns it into a 4e level 5 standard monster, which makes it equivalent to a 1e hobgoblin.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

An easy fix for this is to take the 4e level 3 hobgoblin and add 2 to its defenses, attack rolls, and damage rolls, and add 16 hp.

I mean, that's basically what I was suggesting...

Personally, I get the best conversion results by assigning comparative AC, HP, and damage output to a similar existing creature at that level. All the rest is flavor and tactics.