Author Archive
Continuing my “converting older D&D adventures into 4e ones” thread from previous months I’m going to start converting A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity by David Cook. It was a tournament module run as part of the AD&D Open Tournament at GenCon XIII, 1980¹. While I did not attend GenCon until many years later (while the convention was still held in Milwaukee, WI) the Open was always fun and brought a much more competetive spirit to the games.
First let’s take a look at the class and level guidance given by the module itself.
The adventure is designed for six to eight characters of moderate levels (4 to 7). A party wishing to attempt this adventure should contain several fighters, at least one or more clerics and magic-users, and at least one thief. Several members of the party should have magic weapons and every character should possess some minor magic item such as a potion or scroll
Note that the above reference really shows that roles were assumed to be covered and if you had a deficiency in the group success in surviving would be much harder. I only indicate this as I’ve heard some complaints regarding that 4e enforces a “balanced” party. The guidance given above details much the same thing.
I will be converting the pre-generated characters present in the adventure and posting them here for your enjoyment. You can download them and use them for what you want. I may even go so far as to convert the maps to encounter type maps that you can also use.
The Tournament Characters (as listed in the module)
- Elwita – 6th Lvl Female Dwarven Fighter
- “Ogre” – 5th Lvl Male Human Fighter (I can only assume Ogre in quotes is a nickname but no real name is given)
- Freda – 4th Lvl Female Human Ranger
- Karraway – 6th Lvl Male Human Cleric
- Blodgett – 5th Lvl Male Halfling Thief
- Dread Delgath – 5th Lvl Male Human Magic-User
- Phanstern – 5th Lvl Male Human Illusionist
- Eljayess – 3rd Lvl Cleric/3rd Lvl Fighter Male Half-Elf
- Kayen Telva – 4th Lvl Fighter/4th Lvl Magic-User Male Elf
Coming next – converting the characters
I know it’s the trailer movie but this is awesome and makes me want to run the DC RPG -
The primary conceit of pre-4e material is that the mechanics of the pre-4e game (resource management in particular, i.e. Fighters manage their HP, Wizards manage their spell lists, Thieves manage – nothing except rolling for skill checks, and Clerics manage their primary role as healer) don’t support a continuous mode of adventuring. It resembled a hurky-jerk mode of Fighter fights, Wizard casts spells (until out of magic and resorts to dagger/dart/staff mode), Thief sneaks and Cleric heals until their various resource pools deplete and you have to leave the dungeon.
4e modifes that style of play allowing each role to perform his/her abilities throughout the adventure without necessarily having to be constrained by the old resource issues. Now, 4e implicitly focuses on class resource management. Each class has a set of relatively equal resources (at wills, encounter and daily abilities) allowing him to shine on stage for his particular moment but ultimately work together as a team throughout the adventure.
The focus on teamwork has become paramount. Groups that lack specific roles will not perform as well as groups that satisfy the four major group functions. These functions have been designated as striker (Rogue) , defender (Fighter), leader (Cleric) and controller (Wizard). This is really no different than previous editions. I can’t remember how many times I started off a new 1st or 2nd edition AD&D game and said, “we’re going to need a cleric or we’re going to get creamed”. What this latest incarnation of the rules does is reinforce that unwritten rule by reducing efficiency. Is it a constraint on play? Yes. The constraint is addressed by not relegating a role to a single function though. The cleric, traditionally the medic who may wait for party members to fall and rush up and heal them can still perform that function but in addition can lay some sweet smack-down without reducing her ability to heal.
This shift in character play results in a shift in encounter creation. Pre-4e encounters used to focus on smaller encounters with 1-3 monsters. Note – that wasn’t always the case but it usually worked out that way. 4e focuses on larger encounters relying on a balanced party of four to six players each performing a role in the game. (Seriously read the Dungeon Master’s Guide on encounter creation – in my opinion the 4e DMG does a much better job than any previous edition).
The first key in converting is look at the level guidance of the adventure. Every TSR module used to say something like ”this adventure is designed for 4-6 player between levels 4 and 5 with a total of 30 party levels. By the end of the adventure the group should gain a level”. That guidance can then be used to map an appropriate 4e tier designation of heroic, paragon or epic – the three tiers of adventurers that map to levels 1-10, 11-20 and 21-30 respectively.
The DMG (pg 121) states “The experience point numbers in the game are built so that characters complete eight to ten encounters for every level they gain. In practice, thats six to eight encounters, one major quest, and one minor quest per character in the party”.
Continued next week…
Yes – I like to color. Here’s a quick job I was working on this morning. The original is from the Outland Arts Dungeon Portals 1 Set - a great publisher stock art product.
Original
and my practice attempt at coloring. I was using some tips from an ImagineFX issue. It turned out alright but practice makes perfect!
