4E Monster Conversion

[adventurer1971]

Hello.

First time posting here. I have a number of the fourth edition supplements and monster books. While I only managed to find time for a few 4E games over the years I do think that one area they did well with that system was making the monster stat block "everything you need" to run it at the table as the DM. Naturally, Basic Fantasy is also very easy to run from the stat block without needing to have a lot of extra reference material. I'd like to ask folks what conversion methods they have used to add in the various at will and encounter "powers" that 4E creatures have to a basic fantasy stat block. Also, how would you handle the inflated ability scores? Lastly, have you ever used anything like the "bloodied" condition in your BF games?

Thanks,
Legendarius

[Dimirag]

First thing: Welcome to the forum.
I think that 4e is the game least used by the users of this forum, so having some answers for these questions may be hard.

-What conversion methods they have used to add in the various at will and encounter "powers" that 4E creatures have to a basic fantasy stat block.
-The best way is to look for similar monsters or monster abilities or to look for the monster in a previous edition. I would make "Encounter" powers per hour or another set time like that. "At will" powers can be left that way unless the usage really needs to be fixed, in that case maybe treating it like ""Encounter" powers but with a little faster recovery or more uses between time periods.

-How would you handle the inflated ability scores?
-Monsters in BF don't use Ability Scores, you can ditch them, they mostly use a bonus to damage and attack from high STR but that is incorporated in the data and explained in its description.

-Have you ever used anything like the "bloodied" condition in your BF games?
-Not me but there was one user that made a file about poisons that used the "bloodied" mechanic for incremental poisoning effects.

[adventurer1971]

Thanks for the welcome and reply.

That's a good point about the ability scores. That makes perfect sense.

I know a lot of the abilities of monsters in 4E also used the recharge dice notation, so if you roll a 5 or 6 it has the option of using it again, versus something more like a 3 times per day thing. I suppose I could do something similar to that as well in some cases.

[SmootRK]

I briefly had a 4e PHB, but I shelved it without ever really trying it out. Of my group of friends, no one had any interest in it... and frankly, I really didn't either. Anyway, it is deep within a storage unit now.

Considering the trouble of converting 3e creatures, where the game's power curves are radically different from BFRPG or its inspiration editions, I can only imagine 4e conversions being even more troublesome.

Now, I will echo Dimirag, I find going back to earlier editions easier, at least as your starting point. Where a creature has a 2e, 1e, or classic/basic game version, I would go with that as a base. One can then go about layering on all the various special abilities one wants to see from the later editions, however I would caution that going simplistic will be better... after all the underlying principles around here stress simplicity (ie BASIC Fantasy).