Carrion Crown Pathfinder Adventure Path converted to 5e

[Zippdementia]

This thread is meant to host the links to my Carrion Crown conversion. Now that I have two done, I thought it would be good to keep them on a single thread. for ease of perusal. As each one is added, I will update this thread. These conversions are free to use but require ownership (in one form or another) of the original Pathfinder adventures to use.

Over the next year I will be completing all six of the conversions for this adventure path and playtesting them. Because of my playtesting, I frequently update these files. I will keep a revision history available on this thread and will post an update whenever a revision is completed. The playtest is livestreamed, you can watch our game (which plays roughly every two weeks) here:

https://www.twitch.tv/morga_knight/

Enjoy exploring the dark corners of Ustalav!

#1 The Haunting of Harrowstone (http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/SJbXfC_LX)

The death of a friend. Letters painted in blood. Sobbing coming from the prison on the hill. Will the heroes be able to solve the mystery of the town of Ravengro, or will their souls become trapped like the others in the Haunting of Harrowstone?

In this adventure designed for three to four characters starting at level 1, players come to a town with a dark history in order to bury an old ally. From here things quickly spiral out of control and the players get wrapped up in investigating the history of the town and encountering the spirits that haunt it.

This is my conversion of the Pathfinder adventure to D&D 5. It converts all mechanics, dungeons, monsters, NPCs, and items and also seeks to solve some of the larger issues that weren’t addressed in the original, many of which were pointed out by fans throughout the years and by the developers themselves. New mechanics include the trust system, the haunt system, and a range of interesting ghosts and encounters that could be used in your own adventures!

#2 Trial of the Beast (http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HkLkyJvDX)

The mob demands blood after the capture of a legendary monster. But is the monster guilty? Can a creature without a soul be defended? Can the heroes prove the Beast's innocence, or have they been handed an impossible task?

In this adventure designed for three to four characters starting at level 4, players are turned into investigative defense lawyers for a terrible Beast that has long roamed the Viestadt countryside. Their investigations will take them to dark towns, a destroyed asylum, and a mad alchemist's castle on a twisted search for the truth.

This is my conversion of the Pathfinder adventure to D&D 5. New content for DND 5 includes a range of interesting beasts and alchemical items that could be used in your own adventures!

#3 Broken Moon (https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/r1ADL_4cm)

Wolves howling in the night. A distant scream of terror. Whispers gently rolling from the shadows. These are the songs that usher adventurers into the Shudderwood for a brush with the supernatural perils of lycanthropy.

This adventure is designed for three 1to four characters, taking them from level 7 to level 9, and throughout its course players will encounter curses and old powers that will challenge their skills and abilities more than any adventure they've yet embarked on. They will run with wolves, meet the undead in combat, and may even come face to face with a goddess.

This conversion will cover every situation, encounter, and challenge you may encounter in the original. It also seeks to solve some of the issues that have come up in playthroughs of the original module. It contains a ton of new werewolf and undead enemies for use in any of your D&D 5 campaigns!

[Zippdementia]

Revision history

Haunting of Harrowstone (last updated 12/16/18)
1.2: removed images, changed the Lopper's reaction to fire, added hitpoints for Splatterman's rats.
1.3: changed lockpicking checks
1.4: adjusted some stats, changed the leveling suggestions, clarified some rules
1.5: added in suggested stats for Kendra
1.6: fixed some formatting issues that caused key text to be cut off.
2.0: adjusted research tables, added in some missing DCs for small events, clarified lockpick checks
2.1: overall, made many fights harder in response to playtesting
2.2: Changed haunt siphon and added haunt hitpoints
2.3: Added a random encounter table for Harrowstone, along with rules for how to use it to affect resting
2.4: updated statistics for following enemies, making them more resilient (in part to counteract the ghosts' loss of possession): giant centipedes, flaming skulls, screaming skulls, Father Charltan, Mosswater Marrauder, Splatterman. Also changed spirit oil statistics.
2.5 Continuing to make minor changes to stats here and there to make combat in the prison more difficult. One major change was to Gurtis Vortch: full stats added for him.
2.6 Prominent spirits in Harrowstone have been given immunity to turn undead.
- 3.0 First update post playtest. Changed level up markers, adjusted enemy numbers throughout, removed ability to break down most doors, adjusted health on Giant Stirge, greatly changed the way the Father Charltan and Piper battles work, adjusted the strength of professor Lorrimor's zombie, changed damage in collapsing house, fine tuned individual haunt mechanics, adjusted the Lopper's decapitate ability, adjusted Splatterman AC, adjusted the rules around the Piper's pipe.

Trial of the Beast (last updated 10/29/18)
1.1: Adjusted item purchasing in Lepidstadt, made it more restrictive (I saw some potential issues for power gaming)
1.12: Slight wording changes

[Zippdementia]

After further playtesting, adjusted the fight difficulty (made it harder) for a few fights.

[nickl_2000]

After further playtesting, adjusted the fight difficulty (made it harder) for a few fights.

An experience we had while playing the Rise of the Runelords campaign. A lot of combat needed to be adjusted be more difficult (especially against casters). The concentration aspect of 5e really nerfs a lot of caster's abilities in comparison to pathfinder.

[Zippdementia]

An experience we had while playing the Rise of the Runelords campaign. A lot of combat needed to be adjusted be more difficult (especially against casters). The concentration aspect of 5e really nerfs a lot of caster's abilities in comparison to pathfinder.

It's a tricky balance to strike, for sure. DnD 5 can easily snowball out of control in a bad situation (both for players and for monsters). IN my most recent game, the level one players had no trouble taking out one of the harder fights just because of bad rolls on my part, but a single lucky attack from a stirge nearly killed a player.

DnD 5, overall, tends to even out the more enemies there are, or the more encounters the players face in a day. The biggest difficulty comes when the players are facing a single enemy. This is where things like stun locking can turn an intended difficult encounter into a cake walk. As I continue to playtest, I may seek to add little allies to each "boss" encounter to insulate them against these kind of outcomes.

[Zippdementia]

A decent update: changed the haunt siphon in harrowing (and added hitpoints to haunts as a result). The original item was too "pathfinder" and not enough DnD 5, which overall the items are more dramatic in their effects while maintaining simplicity. I think this redesign does a better job of achieving that.

A small update to Trial of the Beast: adjusted item purchasing to be a little more restrictive to avoid power gaming.

[Zippdementia]

One more quick (but significant) update to Harrowstone. I had so much fun converting the random encounter table in Trial of the Beast that I decided to go back and convert Harrowstone's. This also adds in some good rules for using encounters to "harrow" players trying to rest inside of Harrowstone.

[Manyasone]

...The biggest difficulty comes when the players are facing a single enemy. This is where things like stun locking can turn an intended difficult encounter into a cake walk. As I continue to playtest, I may seek to add little allies to each "boss" encounter to insulate them against these kind of outcomes.

This is a problem in all editions, mate, it's called action economy...one boss with one set of actions doesn't weight up against 4-5 PC's, regardless of level. Because when you overlevel the boss to "compensate" you open a sticky pit called TPK. Thus, you can add lesser foes whilst keeping the CR equal, depending on APL. Or whatever you fifth players do, don't really know

[Zippdementia]

This is a problem in all editions, mate, it's called action economy...one boss with one set of actions doesn't weight up against 4-5 PC's, regardless of level.

Oh yeah. I know all about action economy :)


Because when you overlevel the boss to "compensate" you open a sticky pit called TPK. Thus, you can add lesser foes whilst keeping the CR equal, depending on APL. Or whatever you fifth players do, don't really know

In fifth we generally do the same: add lesser foes to keep the players from focusing fire.

But we also have another option in fifth, called Legendary Actions. These were designed specifically to create "boss monsters." It lets the monster act out of turn order, by taking specific actions on the player turns. These actions differ for each legendary monster but typically it lets them do things like move and make an attack out of turn, or shake off the effects of a condition, or use a lower level spell or ability. I really dig it because it brings back the spectacle of a boss fight without forcing the GM to create a death machine.

I heavily debated using Legendary Actions in creating the Splatterman boss fight. I may still go back and add them, one I see how he functions in my current playtest game. Generally you don't get into Legendary monsters until level 10 or so, though.

[Kadesh]

This is a problem in all editions, mate, it's called action economy...one boss with one set of actions doesn't weight up against 4-5 PC's, regardless of level. Because when you overlevel the boss to "compensate" you open a sticky pit called TPK. Thus, you can add lesser foes whilst keeping the CR equal, depending on APL. Or whatever you fifth players do, don't really know

At least in pathfinder, and 3.5, caster supremacy allowed in built Counters to be included. All day buffs and the like followed by SoL/SoS/SoD spells

5e doesn't have that largely.

[Zippdementia]

At least in pathfinder, and 3.5, caster supremacy allowed in built Counters to be included. All day buffs and the like followed by SoL/SoS/SoD spells

5e doesn't have that largely.

No, it really doesn't, at least not in the released material. From my review of all the released adventures and a fair number of the adventure league modules, I would say that it hearkens back more to DND Basic, where hordes of enemies were your buffer between players directly being able to focus fire on a big bad. That horde-as-shields mentality comes into play a lot in published games.

On the plus side, 5e is simple enough to add abilities to monsters to make horde fighting a little more protected, things like "when next to an ally, this creature gains +2 to AC" or "this creature gains advantage on any attack if their ally is next to the target." It is also simple enough to add in auto-buffs that approximate SoL/SoS/SoD spells. And because 5e is a more bounded by its range of numbers, such buffs tend to be pretty effective, almost too much.

5e has a bit of an odd difficulty progression. Early levels are brutally hard, all the way up to about 5th level. Then the game seems to get progressively easier until somewhere around level 15, where the next tier of monster opens up. After this, monsters hit so hard and have so many hitpoints and resistances that the game get pretty tough again. I've yet to play all the way up to 20 (doing it now, though!), but so far this has been my experience in the campaigns I've run that have approached level 20. Maybe other people have had different experiences.

[Zippdementia]

Just a note: I'm currently updating the Splatterman's stats and some of the other ghosts. For example: The Splatterman is a Ghost (MM 147) with AC 16 and 60 hitpoints. This is to compensate for the removal of possession from them, which I forgot to account for in CRs.

[Zippdementia]

This should be my last update (2.5) for a while, as I now feel everything is set for finishing up the playtest. The next update won't happen until the end of the playtest and will incorporate any changes based on that.

[Zippdementia]

Just a heads up that Homebrewery changed its formatting code. It will take me a couple of days to fix the formatting on the documents. Until then, they are pretty unreadable.

[Zippdementia]

I have fixed the source code for all of my Homebrewery docs and have put in some backup code that will hopefully preserve formatting if they change their system again. Everything should be up and looking good again!

I will have the third adventure conversion published soon. This one adds A LOT more enemy stats and focuses on Werewolves. Should be fun for anyone wanting to lift some ready to use different Werewolves for their own horror game. I was a little bummed there weren't more werewolf templates in Castle Ravenloft...

[Zippdementia]

Okay, so I lied slightly. I did end up making one more update to Harrowstone, but it was an oversight rather than a real change. The prominent spirits in Harrowstone have been given immunity to turn undead. No chasing away the Splatter Man by intoning the name of god, sorry clerics...

[Zippdementia]

And Broken Moon, adventure 3, is done! Took a month longer than expected due to some changes in my location and job, and also because it required a lot more enemy conversion, because of the many werewolf clans and new undead. I also came up with rules for getting drunk, becoming possessed by a particularly nasty ghost, and different options for lycanthropy. Enjoy!

[Zippdementia]

Almost finished the playtest for Harrowstone! It's been a blast and it's given me a lot of information for how to better handle conversions in the future. As such, I've adjusted quite a few things in this latest update. This may be the final update.

- 3.0 First update post playtest. Changed level up markers, adjusted enemy numbers throughout, removed ability to break down most doors, adjusted health on Giant Stirge, greatly changed the way the Father Charltan and Piper battles work, adjusted the strength of professor Lorrimor's zombie, changed damage in collapsing house, fine tuned individual haunt mechanics, adjusted the Lopper's decapitate ability, adjusted Splatterman AC, adjusted the rules around the Piper's pipe.