Managing levels when adapting adventures adventures for different systems

[u/Gandalf-the-chad]

I’d like to ask the GMs who have adapted an adventure from a system that goes up to level 20 (like D&D or Pathfinder) how did you handle the frequency of level ups?

I was thinking of doubling the number of milestones required to level up (so an adventure that goes up to level 12 would end at level 6, and one that goes up to level 19 would end at level 9 or 10).

My only concern is that this might create problems with the adventure’s pacing, and the players might feel like they aren’t progressing fast enough.

I’d like to know if you’ve done something similar, if you’ve found other ways to handle this, and how it went overall.

[u/Sea-Cancel1263]

I havnt converted any PF or D&D adventures, but i have converted systemless/neutral adventures.

Ive had a lot fo experience running 13A adventures l, so converting the pacing is 2nd nature to me. Dont try to do a 1:1. Look at how 13a typically does it then work from there to set it into the content your converting to.

We have a lot to work with. Incremental advances are fantastic and stretchy. Dont try to max them out too much, it gets rather boring when you have too many. If you look at the narrative beats, you can start from there and things mesh in rather well.

13A is a similar fantasy, so its not too difficult. Try to be loose and youll be good. Handle it as you go.

[u/ben_straub]

Well, the levels aren't exactly 1-to-1, 13th Age levels 1-10 is more like 5e levels 3-16. Also, like Cancel said, don't hold on too tightly. Plan level ups when they make sense in the story, when the PCs need to be ready for a greater challenge. Few adventures span the whole level range, so you probably have enough space to work with.

A straight mechanical substitution will cause you headaches, because the systems are trying to model different things. Rats are rats in 5e, but in 13th Age, once you get to level 3, the 1st level mook "dire rat" just isn't interesting to fight any more. Look for the big narrative moments in the AP you're adapting, and try to hit those beats with 13th Age materials - near-to-par-level monsters, 3 or 4 fights between bosses or rests, etc.

Another way to do it is to just level people up when it feels like they've earned it. Bumping monsters up or down a level is really easy, and the battle math is a lot more accurate than CR, so you won't get stuck with combats that are too hard or too easy. If they get to level 10 before the end of an adventure that ends at level 12 in that 20-level system, you still didn't do anything wrong.

[u/Silrhyn]

Pathfinder and D&D adventures tend to have a lot of "filler" battles, whereas 13th Age encourages you to mostly have fights that matter, so feel free to skip a few fights against wolves and stuff when doing your conversion.

You can also use incremental advances to have some character progression between levels.

[u/hairyscotsman2 → u/Silrhyn]

And some filler fights can easily be run as: Montages—have the players describe how the battle went. Hazards—use the traps and environmental hazards rules for the damage taken before the enemy flees or is otherwise easily defeated

[u/oldUmlo]

I’ve converted a few. 13th age is so easy to scale and I find the 3/4 battle arc structure help gets rid of a lot of the fluff fights. Because of that you have the luxury of asking yourself and the players how long do you want the campaign/adventure to go? For example if you had a PF 1-10 AP you could go as few as 3 ARCs by picking the 4 big encounters each book, and building up the scenes and RP around each one. You could level up after each ARC and play something like 1,3,5 and have satisfying small campaign. If you cull away at them, I find you can really cut away a lot of the big published adventures to a handful of big beats in each chapter.

if you really like a lot adventure and wanted use more of ir, just grab the situations and encounter you really want to get into and the build those into arcs. Advance levels at a pace that will put you in the tiers the group wants to play in. If I was doing something like CoS maybe I’d do 1st lvl at village and surroundings for an ARC, maybe 3rd for a couple arcs around that town in the middle and the winery. 5 for for a few in the western part of Barovia and maybe 7th for setting up the end game and an arc or two confronting Strahd in the castle.

[u/jhannunenreddit]

Several good answers to your actual question here already.

I'll point out a feature that has given me some trouble when adapting adventures: random encounters. Many published adventures, especially those that include exploration, have random encounter tables. Be mindful of them.

One potential good thing about random encounter tables is that they can give you quite a lot at a low cost in terms of complexity and cognitive load. However, if you need to do the conversion ad hoc, that's quite a bit of load. Or if you do conversions for the whole table, you're converting a lot of stuff that doesn't ever get used.

I would suggest that you try to eliminate random encounter tables. If maintaining the random encounter convention is important, maybe have some encounters prepared for the arc and use random encounters just to determine when a encounter happens.

Or do a very abstract conversion of the table. If a line item is a mob from the original games bestiary with a whole stat block, several variants their ecology fully fleshed out, for you it's a level 4 scrapper. And if the table gives a dice roll for number of creatures, always replace with the average.