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View Full Version : Curse You Ebay! or Converting from 4th ed to 3.5



Mauther
2010-09-20, 02:38 AM
I picked up a copy of EN Publishing's "War of the Burning Sky" used on ebay (sorry I wasn't going to pay $70 for a pdf) but it turns out the seller failed to identify it correctly, it was listed as 3.5, but in actuality is the newer 4ed conversion. My question is, how difficult is it to retro convert 4th to 3.5? Any resources anyone can point me to would be appreciated. I was planning on mining the campaign for some filler material in my campaign, but if its too much trouble I may just chalk this up as a learning experience.

Da Beast
2010-09-20, 02:49 AM
Story wise it shouldn't be too hard. Mechanically they're far too different to just convert between editions. You'll probably have to make all of the stats from scratch.

Ravens_cry
2010-09-20, 03:31 AM
Get your money back if you can as this was a SNAFU on the sellers end. Fourth edition and 3.X are more different then 3.X and Mutants and Masterminds; converting them would be more like translating.

WitchSlayer
2010-09-20, 03:42 AM
No way. It is very very different.

Katana_Geldar
2010-09-20, 04:00 AM
Wizards haven't done an official conversion for D&D like was done for SW?

I am disappointed.

ericgrau
2010-09-20, 04:27 AM
The official conversion is keep the same story but rebuild all the stats. It really is like 2 entirely different games so a direct conversion would have been too difficult.

+1 to get your money back or keep the story and start over on all the monster and etc. stats.

FelixG
2010-09-20, 04:46 AM
Wizards haven't done an official conversion for D&D like was done for SW?

I am disappointed.

Are you kidding? As soon as 4e hit the shelves they pretty much took a look at the 3.5 players and said "Screw you guys, buy the new junk and deal with it. We just want your money"

Wizards doesn't care about the players one bit :smallbiggrin:

Kurald Galain
2010-09-20, 04:52 AM
My question is, how difficult is it to retro convert 4th to 3.5?

That's not feasible. The two systems are as different as night and day.

Dsurion
2010-09-20, 08:15 AM
Have you asked around on the ENWorld forums? Those guys are usually pretty helpful. Maybe someone there can either make suggestions, or had the same problem.

oxybe
2010-09-20, 08:31 AM
Are you kidding? As soon as 4e hit the shelves they pretty much took a look at the 3.5 players and said "Screw you guys, buy the new junk and deal with it. We just want your money"

Wizards doesn't care about the players one bit :smallbiggrin:

i dunno... they seemed to care about this player by making 4th :smallwink::smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2010-09-20, 09:16 AM
Get your money back if you can as this was a SNAFU on the sellers end. Fourth edition and 3.X are more different then 3.X and Mutants and Masterminds; converting them would be more like translating.

This, definitely this.

I'd be annoyed if I bid on something listed as 3.5, and it turned out to be 4th.

You just can't do a conversion between 3.5 and 4e. 3.0 and 3.5? Sure, not hard. 2 to 3.5? Also frequently possible, and often surprisingly easy. Not 4th, though.

Mauther
2010-09-20, 12:49 PM
Thanks for the responses. Not the answers I was hoping for, but whatare you going to do. The seller already denied the refund, and I've neg repped him. Whan you get bargain basement prices on ebay you are taking your chances, this is one of those live and learn moments. As for getting on the ENWorld forums, they probably would help, but I'd feel sceevy for purchasing their product second hand and then coming to them crying for help. Seems hypocritical to complain about their price point and then ask for assistance for a product I didn't pay them for.

I'll probably just restat the encounters.

ericgrau
2010-09-20, 01:30 PM
If it's already second hand you might get a lot of your money back by reselling it.

Person_Man
2010-09-20, 01:36 PM
I haven't read War of the Burning Sky, but it's possible that you could find all or most of the monsters from 4E in the 3.5 books. The balance would be way off, but it's not like you'd have to homebrew stats for a 3.5 Displacer Beast just because a 4E Displacer Beast is what's listed. Similarly, you it's easy enough to generate 3.5 treasure. NPCs would essentially have to be rewritten from scratch though. But if they're not going to be involved in combat, it's a non-issue.

Fax Celestis
2010-09-20, 01:38 PM
I haven't read War of the Burning Sky, but it's possible that you could find all or most of the monsters from 4E in the 3.5 books. The balance would be way off, but it's not like you'd have to homebrew stats for a 3.5 Displacer Beast just because a 4E Displacer Beast is what's listed. Similarly, you it's easy enough to generate 3.5 treasure. NPCs would essentially have to be rewritten from scratch though. But if they're not going to be involved in combat, it's a non-issue.

The problem with WotBS is that it's mostly humanoid opponents.

Person_Man
2010-09-20, 02:15 PM
The problem with WotBS is that it's mostly humanoid opponents.

Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned! Ask not for whom the bone bones - it bones for thee.

arguskos
2010-09-20, 02:17 PM
Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned! Ask not for whom the bone bones - it bones for thee.
...can I sig this? Please? :smallbiggrin:

Person_Man
2010-09-20, 02:23 PM
...can I sig this? Please? :smallbiggrin:

Yes, though I was just quoting Bender from Futurama. I assumed it was well known enough that I didn't have to attribute it. Sorry.

Shpadoinkle
2010-09-20, 02:51 PM
You're basically asking "How can I convert Poker into Chess rules?" here. Not gonna happen.

Telonius
2010-09-20, 03:05 PM
You're basically asking "How can I convert Poker into Chess rules?" here. Not gonna happen.

... Blast you to the ninth circle, now I'm considering how that would work. You already have a king, queen, and jack (knight). 1-10 would be the pawns, Rooks as the jokers... :smallfurious:

Mando Knight
2010-09-20, 05:47 PM
You're basically asking "How can I convert Poker into Chess rules?" here. Not gonna happen.

Not quite that far. Closer to making Kyle Katarn (Dark Forces) out of Revan or the Exile (KotOR I/II): same company, same series, different rulesets.

Barbarian MD
2010-09-20, 05:47 PM
Thanks for the responses. Not the answers I was hoping for, but whatare you going to do. The seller already denied the refund, and I've neg repped him. Whan you get bargain basement prices on ebay you are taking your chances, this is one of those live and learn moments. As for getting on the ENWorld forums, they probably would help, but I'd feel sceevy for purchasing their product second hand and then coming to them crying for help. Seems hypocritical to complain about their price point and then ask for assistance for a product I didn't pay them for.

I'll probably just restat the encounters.

No, no, no. Dispute it on eBay. It doesn't work like that. They HAVE to give you a refund or else it's fraud. Take it up a level, either by disputing it on your credit card or contacting eBay administration. If you want a refund for a wrongly labeled item, you get it, end of story.

Here's the link to get you started: http://resolutioncenter.ebay.com/

RebelRogue
2010-09-20, 06:05 PM
I haven't read the module in question, but I think people are overreacting just a tiny bit. Yes, it will take some work, but if you have a good grasp of both systems, it should be doable. I agree, that this is the 'hard way around': converting (any) stuff into 4e is pretty much a breeze (at least to me), since you can focus on story more than mechanics. Yes, there will be encounters, but those are easy to tweak according to level/making iconic abilities into powers. Going the other way is more work-intensive, especially if you are concerned about everything being completely rules-legal, but it's certainly not impossible. Though if you bought it to save on prep time, you are pretty much boned, yes.

Claudius Maximus
2010-09-20, 06:16 PM
No, no, no. Dispute it on eBay. It doesn't work like that. They HAVE to give you a refund or else it's fraud. Take it up a level, either by disputing it on your credit card or contacting eBay administration. If you want a refund for a wrongly labeled item, you get it, end of story.

Here's the link to get you started: http://resolutioncenter.ebay.com/

I recommend this too, if you really want to return it rather than adapt it. I got in a very similar situation myself, having bought a "Magic Item Compendium" that turned out to be the 4e Adventurer's Vault. I was able to get a refund using some of eBay's services. I don't think the seller has a leg to stand on, if he really did explicitly advertise the product as 3.5.

imp_fireball
2010-09-20, 06:36 PM
Story wise it shouldn't be too hard. Mechanically they're far too different to just convert between editions. You'll probably have to make all of the stats from scratch.

True, but you can combine elements of the two genres to get the same 'purpose' (ie. what with minions, etc.).

NPCs who are warlords (or whatever) can just have a bunch of homebrewed leadership associated feats - or you could give them the feat leadership and the ability to boost allies as part of a template (the template could be 'I am a commander and I happen to command for LA X' and has toughness to make up for loss HD covered by levels in fighter, etc.). Power heavy encounters could be reworked into encounters with ToB style characters.

For casters, invent a few new spells to cover what the adventure intended and 'bar off' the domains that a specific wizard has - that's really the only difference between 4th and 3.5 ed (i mean really, they should have called 4th D&D 3ed Lite, not 'the next big thing ololol'... pfft, ignorance and marketing make for a yucky chemistry).

In place of healing surge - a new feat. Or a variant of each class to suit the 4th ed classes better - fighter loses one general feat (still retains fighter bonus feat) for healing surge. Wizard is much more barred domain wise in exchange for healing surge. Paladin... somehow has healing surge (in exchange for trading away something from 3ed that didn't really fall in with 4ed). I hope you get the idea.

For the actual adventures - you'd have to redesign the encounters a bit if you want pure 3.5ed. 4th focuses largely on combat, so it shouldn't involve too much actual adventure redesign, though. Mainly, just reworking the NPCs and the 'minions'. Minions can easily be included in 3.5ed as can bosses - bosses might have healing surge for free for example or double hp.

'Bloodied'? Morale bonus on all combat based checks - that is combat maneuvers (bull rush, trip, etc.), caster level checks, attack rolls, damage dealt by attack rolls, caster level checks, and maybe even damage dealt by spells and other abilities (powers, invocations, class abilities, etc.).

You can enhance it for 3.5ed by making it relate to wisdom bonus or con bonus, representing a character's control over their minds and the ability to adapt to circumstances or to overcharge their adrenaline (it could be a minimum +2; or maybe every bonus goes up by 50% - or whatever the bloodied rules are in 4e).

Of course, I wouldn't reccomend some of the silly things like confining players to just one class. Apparently when WotC said they wanted to make D&D easier to learn, they made it 'too easy to master' - a more intelligent approach would have been 'easier to learn' but possibly 'harder to master', more realistic and thus more interesting.

Which is my approach with my OGL 3.6 that I'm working on - although I can only hope for the former (perhaps just by making the wording more clear and concise once it finally gets peached at some point in the far future) and currently GMing would seem more sloggish (right now, it's essentially made to be 'advanced 3.5' or '3.5 for veteran and dedicated campaign designers/fans').

RebelRogue
2010-09-20, 07:07 PM
I wouldn't get too caught up in specific rules of the edition like that. Unless some opponent for which you need stats has a specific power/skill/ritual that is important to the overall plot, you're better off picking something that you know well/fits your preferences, which matches the overall theme of the original. For instance, if you need to convert a martial character, you could model him as a fighter, a warblade, a ranger or whatever - pick what you are familiar with within the general theme. Unless the evil Duke's power to daze you with his swordsmanship is important for the story, there's no need to worry about matching it exactly. Just do a swashbuckly character as you best see fit.

I hope this makes some kind of sense.

Grommen
2010-09-20, 11:34 PM
Hay you can convert A shadowrun adventure to 4th ed D&D and then back to 2nd ed gurps if you wanted.

Just ain't really worth the hassle most of the time. I converted "The Bloodstone Lands" from 1st edition D&D to 3.5 edition. The result was that I spent more time converting the monsters and tweaking the story than it did to actually play the modules. Those editions are at least close. And as a result I know more about stat blocks than any casual player ever should.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-09-20, 11:36 PM
I haven't read the module in question, but I think people are overreacting just a tiny bit. Yes, it will take some work, but if you have a good grasp of both systems, it should be doable. I agree, that this is the 'hard way around': converting (any) stuff into 4e is pretty much a breeze (at least to me), since you can focus on story more than mechanics. Yes, there will be encounters, but those are easy to tweak according to level/making iconic abilities into powers. Going the other way is more work-intensive, especially if you are concerned about everything being completely rules-legal, but it's certainly not impossible. Though if you bought it to save on prep time, you are pretty much boned, yes.
Dude, you've got it backwards.

He wants to convert a 4th Edition module into 3.5.

Might as well try to unscramble an egg. Dude's boned in a big bad way.

+1 to dispute it on eBay. If he listed it as 3.5 and sold you something different, you must have a case.

RebelRogue
2010-09-21, 01:39 AM
Dude, you've got it backwards.

He wants to convert a 4th Edition module into 3.5.

Might as well try to unscramble an egg. Dude's boned in a big bad way.

+1 to dispute it on eBay. If he listed it as 3.5 and sold you something different, you must have a case.
No, I got it. That's why I'm sayng it's the hard way. It takes more work, but it's not impossible.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-09-21, 01:55 AM
No, I got it. That's why I'm sayng it's the hard way. It takes more work, but it's not impossible.
Ah. When you said how easy it was to convert things into D&D4, I thought you had missed the point.

No, merely because it is easy to turn eggs into an omelet doesn't mean it is easy to turn an omelet back into eggs. The fact that it is easy to 'brew stuff into D&D4 has very little to do with the OP's predicament; it is roughly as easy to convert D&D4 into 3.5 as it is to convert into any other rules-intensive system on the market (e.g. SR, WoD, GURPS). At that point it is no longer a "conversion;" you're just taking the plot & maps from a module and porting it into a new system.

RebelRogue
2010-09-21, 02:03 AM
I disagree: Yes, it's harder work, but since we're still talking different versions of D&D there's a lot of common ground: Wizards are still wizards, rogues are rogues, mindflayers are mindflayers etc. The bare-bones mechanical structure of encounters is not the heart and soul of an adventure! Sure, there may be some memorable fight scenes in a module, but I don't see why this should change by using slightly different mechanics.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-09-21, 02:11 AM
I disagree: Yes, it's harder work, but since we're still talking different versions of D&D there's a lot of common ground: Wizards are still wizards, rogues are rogues, mindflayers are mindflayers etc. The bare-bones mechanical structure of encounters is not the heart and soul of an adventure! Sure, there may be some memorable fight scenes in a module, but I don't see why this should change by using slightly different mechanics.
Ha!

Have fun converting a LV 5 Artillery Leader "Warlord" into anything meaningful in 3.5, much less adjusting the module for 3.5 Casters :smalltongue:

RebelRogue
2010-09-21, 02:18 AM
Ha!

Have fun converting a LV 5 Artillery Leader "Warlord" into anything meaningful in 3.5, much less adjusting the module for 3.5 Casters :smalltongue:
I didn't say it was easy. Just that it's not impossible (and since not everybody insists on doing everything 100% by the book, one may be able to twist things here and there when there's no easy legal build - YMMV there).

Edit: To elaborate a bit more: I assume that the converter in question has a good grasp on the system being converted to (3.5 here) and decent knowledge of the original one (4e here). In other words, he or she should have a good idea of how to realize things mechanically in the "new" system (again 3.5 here) in a meaningful way. Since this is a skill of most good DMs anyway, I just didn't think it was all that far-fetched.

tbarrie
2010-09-21, 02:35 AM
No, no, no. Dispute it on eBay. It doesn't work like that. They HAVE to give you a refund or else it's fraud. Take it up a level, either by disputing it on your credit card or contacting eBay administration. If you want a refund for a wrongly labeled item, you get it, end of story.

Here's the link to get you started: http://resolutioncenter.ebay.com/

The one time I tried that, I was told that the difference between a PlayStation 3 that could read discs and one that couldn't was a "minor difference", and hence no refund was called for. Good luck getting them to care about a difference between editions of D&D.

Fax Celestis
2010-09-21, 09:54 AM
I disagree: Yes, it's harder work, but since we're still talking different versions of D&D there's a lot of common ground: Wizards are still wizards, rogues are rogues, mindflayers are mindflayers etc. The bare-bones mechanical structure of encounters is not the heart and soul of an adventure! Sure, there may be some memorable fight scenes in a module, but I don't see why this should change by using slightly different mechanics.

You pretty obviously haven't read War of the Burning Sky.

It is a war campaign.

The combats are the heart and soul of the campaign.

Barbarian MD
2010-09-21, 10:13 AM
The one time I tried that, I was told that the difference between a PlayStation 3 that could read discs and one that couldn't was a "minor difference", and hence no refund was called for. Good luck getting them to care about a difference between editions of D&D.

Something my parents taught me that I'll never forget: contest the charges with your credit card company. You call up MasterCard and say, "Hey, I've been the victim of fraud and I'd like to ontest the charge on my bill." they wipe away te charge, and you're done (well, not quite that easy, but almost).

Tyndmyr
2010-09-21, 10:31 AM
The one time I tried that, I was told that the difference between a PlayStation 3 that could read discs and one that couldn't was a "minor difference", and hence no refund was called for. Good luck getting them to care about a difference between editions of D&D.

Don't talk to ebay. Talk to paypal. Once paypal reverses the charges, you essentially win.

imp_fireball
2010-09-22, 12:34 PM
Don't talk to ebay. Talk to paypal. Once paypal reverses the charges, you essentially win.

What if the person who receives the payment withdraws cash from their paypal account though?

If they know they're selling something faulty, chances are that's what they'll do as soon as they receive a payment. They might even run a bot to do it for them.

People that commit fraud tend to do these things.

Tyndmyr
2010-09-22, 12:40 PM
What if the person who receives the payment withdraws cash from their paypal account though?

If they know they're selling something faulty, chances are that's what they'll do as soon as they receive a payment. They might even run a bot to do it for them.

People that commit fraud tend to do these things.

That's between them and paypal, at that point.

Report the fraudulent sale to your payment provider as soon as possible. That's your best means of resolution.

Ravens_cry
2010-09-22, 12:53 PM
Either intentionally or not, they advertised the item as being for 3.5 and it was Fourth Edition. You should try to get you money back because they provided the wrong product, and this kind of behaviour should not be rewarded. That they are denying you a refund means you should talk to eBay and Paypal. Online shopping is built on a trust that the product will be what the seller says it is. Violating this, whether intentionally or not, breaks this trust. Getting your money back is both a practical consideration and and a matter of principle.
Converting is not really an option in this case, though both use d20's and both have some similar titles, they are completely different games with different assumptions.

Dairun Cates
2010-09-22, 12:57 PM
i dunno... they seemed to care about this player by making 4th :smallwink::smallbiggrin:

It's almost like they LISTENED when people constantly said 3.5 was broken and couldn't be fixed and actually tried to do something about it. I still wonder why people are shocked they abandoned 3.5 after all the constant complaining people had over it.

On topic though, you're not going to be able to convert them unless you have some really good experience in that kind of thing, and even then, it's easier to just redo it.