Conversion Crawl Classes 13: D&D 4th Edition: Keep on the Shadowfell (1)

I don’t really mind if you are a major fan of 4th Edition. To me, this was the low point for the various editions of the game, and following the “Delve Format” from the late 3e era, it had some serious problems in adventure design. Specifically, adventures were designed so that encounters, or series of encounters, occurred in a specific order to facilitate leveling expectations. Initially, the designers indicated that they would address the problems with combat length from the previous edition, but reductions in resource management coupled with the idea that PCs should get to use their cool combat maneuvers in every fight led the designers to instead make combats even longer than those in 3e.

On the other hand, 4e introduced several good ideas to the game, even if they were not always utilized in the best possible ways. These include the idea that creatures have triggering conditions (bloodied) which can change their statistics in a fight, minions, and a formal system of skill challenges. These things had sometimes popped up in older adventures on an ad hoc basis, but it was a good thing that GMs were given reason to think about them. In addition, some 4e adventures broke with “D&Disms”, either giving new spins to their creatures or going back to their literary roots.

I am working here from the free pdf of Keep on the Shadowfell, available from DriveTruRPG. This is a 145-page document containing quickstart rules, characters, and battlemaps for miniatures in addition to the adventure itself. The adventure contains a lot of advice for the perspective GM, which pads out its length, but also offers a good example of how much more concise a DCC adventure can be in comparison to 4e.

For published examples of conversion from 4e, I direct you to Dragora’s Dungeon and Curse of the Kingspire. Out of all the editions of D&D that I have converted to DCC, I have found that conversion from 4e takes the most work. This is not just because the material needs to be seriously pared down, but because 4e’s skill challenges need to be accessed in terms of DCC. 4e is also fairly jargon-heavy, and even the names of monsters need consideration. I believe that this is (at least in part) due to WotC’s first attempt to move away from the OGL.

On the Road: Kobold Brigands

Keep on the Shadowfell opens with an encounter with 12 kobold brigands. This was clearly intended as both a warm-up encounter and a chance to learn the basics of the combat rules. Not including battlemats or GM advice, the encounter takes up two pages. Because of the nature of 4e combat, it can also take up considerable time, and I have heard of groups which never made it past this point. Given the size of the adventure, it should take multiple sessions to complete, but our goal will be to allow the players to do more than have a single combat in the first of those sessions.

In this instance, I am including images of the original statblocks from the adventure rather than trying to convey the same information via text. It should be obvious why 4e required minions when you look at the statblocks – in most versions of D&D, kobolds are mostly slain with a single hit. Hit point bloat in 4e, meant to allow the PCs to use their most interesting powers in any given combat, would mean that most opponents would be making attacks against the PCs each round if some of those opponents were not easy to eliminate. What we are going to do here is reduce all three types of kobolds to a single statblock.

In fact, because DCC has its own vision of what kobolds are, let’s eliminate that name altogether and call them “ratlings”, reskinning them into short rat-like humanoids. It is an easy change, and it helps to Make Monsters Mysterious.

Let’s consider how we might convert our kobolds/ratlings to DCC terms, consolidating all three statblocks:

Init: The kobold minions and slinger both have a +3, and the dragonshields have +5. Given the nature of the foes, I am happy to leave these with +3 across the board.

Atk: We are given the possibility of daggers, sling, spears, javelins, and short swords. We can include each of these in our statblock, and then delineate what each group of ratlings has, as you will see below. Let’s also give all ratlings a bite attack for 1d3 damage, with an additional chance for disease. Finally, the attack bonuses in 4e are a result of numbers boat, and even the newest judge should realize that they are far too high. Let’s say +0 with melee weapons, +2 with ranged weapons, and -2 when biting. Yes, their initiative bonus might indicate a +3 Agility modifier, but we don’t have to follow the rules when creating monsters.

AC: Listed ACs are 13, 15, and 18. Given their nature and initiative bonus, AC 13 might be appropriate, but I am going to reduce their average AC to 12, with the two shield-bearers have an additional +1 bonus.

HD: These are not listed, although hit points (24, 1, or 36) are. We don’t need hp to be this high in a warm-up encounter for a low-level DCC adventure. Moreover, because the PCs are likely to explore their lair later, we don’t want to set that precedent. Worse, if they have a large number of hit points, how does a goblin end up in charge? The easiest thing to do here is to reduce their hit points, and given them HD 1d4. Note that this eliminates the need for minions. We can choose to give the shield-bearers 2 HD if we wish.

Hp: Based on our new Hit Dice, we can say that the average ratling has 3 hp, and the shield bearers have 5 hp. Or we could roll for them.

MV: I translate “Speed 6” to 20’, based on the size of the creatures. As with all of these conversions, I have no interest in looking through the original rules to see if I am “right”. My only interest is to make this work for DCC.

Act: 1d20 is the standard for Action Dice, and I see no reason to deviate here.

SP: There are a few things to note here. First off, if ratling bites can cause disease, we need to determine the effects. Because I want to limit the time it takes to do the conversion, I am just going to say “DC 13 Fort save every hour or 1d3 Stamina damage until a save is successful”. Similar to the “shifty” ability, we can say that they can disengage from melee without provoking a free attack. We will also give them a +1 bonus to melee attacks per ally attacking the same target, and make a note that the slingers have special ammunition.

SV: Let’s say Fort +1, Ref +2, and Will -2. That seems fair, and in keeping with the creatures we are presenting.

AL: Kobolds may be Evil in 4e terms, but that doesn’t help us at all. Reskinning the creatures to ratlings makes Chaotic an easy choice.

Crit: Following the table on page 385 of the core rulebook, we get a result of III/1d6, and III/1d8 for the shield-bearers.

Put altogether, our DCC ratling statblock looks like this:

Ratlings (12): Init +3; Atk by weapon +0 melee (by weapon) or by weapon +2 ranged (by weapon) or bite -2 melee (1d3 plus disease); AC 12 (13); HD 1d4 (2d4); hp 3, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 7, 7; MV 20’; Act 1d20; SP Disease (Fort DC 13 or 1d3 Stamina each hour until save is made, can disengage from melee without provoking attack, +1 to melee attack rolls per ally swarming the same target, special sling ammunition; SV Fort +1, Ref +3, Will -2; AL C; Crit III/1d6 (III/1d8).

5 ratlings are armed with sling (1d4) and dagger (1d4). Each has three rounds of special ammunition (roll 1d3 when used: 1-2 firepot [DC 12 Reflex or set on fire for 1d6 per round until DC10 Reflex succeeds] or 3 gluepot [DC 14 Reflex or Move 0’ for 3d6 rounds].

5 ratlings have three javelins each (1d6) and spears (1d8).

2 ratlings have 2 HD, 7 hp, and are AC 13 due to shields. They are armed with short swords (1d6).

Hopefully, not only will this take up less space, but is should be easier and faster to run. It would be possible to even further consolidate the statblock by removing the shields, making them all 1 HD, and giving them all the same weapons. I rather prefer this version, however.

Battleground Features

The text of the adventure gives us some features, among them:

Boulders: Scattered boulders sit along the side of the road. They provide concealment and possible cover for creatures hiding behind them. They also serve as obstacles to movement; a creature can’t move directly into a square that contains boulders. The boulders are 5 feet high. Climbing onto the boulders requires a DC 15 Athletics check and costs 4 squares of movement. A character atop the boulders can move onto other boulder squares; treat them as difficult terrain.

Foliage: Thick foliage grows near the road in several places. These areas are lightly obscured and provide normal cover for those attacking from or into the area. Areas covered by foliage also count as difficult terrain.

Rock Outcropping: The sheer rock outcroppings bordered by a heavy black line are 50 feet tall and require a DC 20 Athletics check and a total of 200 squares of movement to climb.

Gravestones: These stones provide cover to anyone standing in their spaces.

In DCC terms:

Boulders (5’ high) and gravestones offer cover, granting +2 to AC. Foliage offers concealment (+4 AC vs. ranged attacks). The boulders can be climbed with a DC 5 Strength or Climb Sheer Surfaces check, and the 50’ tall rock outcropping can be climbed with a DC 15 Climb Sheer Surfaces check each round, at a speed of 10’ per round. Faster climbing is possible, increasing speed by 5’ per round for every -1d shift to the check.

I would also reduce the 34 sp to 34 cp.

Note that this could be a tough fight for a small group of 1st level DCC characters, and that is entirely okay. The judge could choose to reduce the number of opponents or give them some chance to detect the ambush before it occurs. It should be noted that, in the 4e version, the GM putting out a battlemap and telling the PCs to place their figures on it should be a clue that something is up.

Moving Forward

I am going to spend some time with this adventure, spanning at least four blog posts, because there are multiple things to consider when converting 4e adventures. We need to examine Winterhaven, map configuration, skill challenges, and at least two more encounters. By the time we are done, you should be ready to convert any adventure from 4e to DCC without too much difficulty.

 

Next: D&D 4th Edition: Keep on the Shadowfell (2): Winterhaven