ZEITGEIST Need help / advice about Zeitgeist 4e version

[guillaumebergevin]

As per title.
I'm somewhat familiar with the 5e version, ran the first adventure for a group almost to the end (group disintegrated before entering the keep) and saw a lot of great reviews about the 4e version.
Stuff like 4e fights having a lot of personality and being fun and all, and 5e/pf only reaching that from around 6th book I think?
My group is wary of 4e as they heard it gets too math-y at around lvl 10+ where you need to track a lot of conditional bonus at once so that its an annoyance, and it gets grindy a bit. They themselves aren't all that familiar with it, neither am I to be honest, but I'm really curious about how good the 4e version of Zeitgeist is that it got such high reviews from people.

For those who ran the 4e version, anything I can do to convince them to give the 4e version a try?
Or is 5e/pf close enough early that its fine and to just enjoy it even more once the battles have more personality later on?
Was there any fan-made change to early versions of the 5e Zeitgeist to add more of that feeling to the battles?

Thats about all I can think of about that subject.

 

[Nnesk]

I've been running the 5e version for three players for the past two years (we're adventure 10), and we had a blast with the early adventures. Some fights I changed a bit, removed one or two, looked for some cool monsters from other sources to replace some more banal ones, but all in all - it wasn't a lot of work. Considering that, I think it's a lot easier for everyone if you'll play 5e, and not start learning 4e and teaching 4e to a group that's wary of it. (I also played a full 4e campaign some years ago; I have nothing against this cool system)

 

[Odysseus]

I Dm'd a Zeitgeist campaign. And it was the best game I ever ran! However I did heavily houserule 4E, as it has problems.
I would suggest run it as 5E but reconvert the 4E monsters. As the 5E version seems to lose alot of the flavor especially the main characters.

 

[guillaumebergevin]

Welp, guess I'll try to find the first adventure in 4e and compare it to 5e. I think both first adventures are still free somewhere?

Else, is there already someone who made a list modifications to 5e battles somewhere?

 

[Nnesk]

There's the famous Zetivice you should check out, but I don't recall it discussing the intricates of any fight.

ZEITGEIST - Zeitvice: one GM's guide to the best AP

Good morning, folks. I hope no one will mind if I make a full thread for Zeitvice, my collection of tips and wisdom drawn from my experience running the Adventure Path to 99% completion. A single thread should help aggregate feedback, suggestions, and my updates on my progress writing the...

www.enworld.org

 

[hirou]

I'm running a very prolonged 4e campaign (currently in adventure 10), all in all involving around 8 players of various DnD backgrounds and playstyles. As an experiment, I've been awarding per-session exp for the last 3 adventures (in general, considering each and every scene at least as a "minor quest reward") and it seems to work surprisingly well, I don't feel the grind at all and difficulty stays on point. In-battle math is bearable, I recommend physical markers to track various conditions and modifiers (plastic rings from bottle caps work well with standard miniatures). I'd single out three main drawbacks:

• depending on your players, the system can be broken much easier than 5e, especially with requisition and Prestige rules. If playing by RAW, the party can amass incredible amount of power after first several adventures by mass-crafting low-level magic items and requesting favors.
• time, 4e is notoriously slow in combat. I suggest keeping track of the number of Interrupts in party, both from players' abilities and items. Don't ban them, just maybe suggest taking other options during level-ups, or you risk literally hour-long rounds later on.
• some classes have very bad skill coverage. Considering that the battles in ZG only constitute a relatively minor portion of the adventures, some players may feel useless outside of "climactic final battle" once per several sessions. Just watch your players and employ common sense, don't force your fighter with untrained social skills and low Cha to roll Diplomacy in crucial negotiations if he's just made a good point in his own words.

 

[HenceTheFortress]

First post on this forum, so hello!
Love this adventure path and love @Tormyr 's conversion of it for Roll20. I'm admittedly a defender of 4e in general (as is one of my players), but I absolutely don't think you need to run it in 4e to have success. I really wouldn't hop to 4e just for the better flavor text
I've been running 5e but converting the cooler and more flavorful npc/monster abilities from the 4e version into legendardy/lair actions in 5e, and it seems to be working pretty well so far.
SPOILERS MODULE 2
For example, Captain Bandia's whip grab and yardarm swing are both flavorful and fun but don't really fit the action economy of 5e, so I converted both of them to a lair action while on the Silvo or Griffoni in adventure two.
SPOILERS END
I've generally been finding most of the combat fairly undertuned in BoFF and the first two modules, so adding a few extra goons and some impressive lair actions have actually helped the balance a lot. I do use a lot of the narrative description from 4e on attacks even when I haven't ported all of their mechanics over