Over the weekend I managed to skim read the first module (Edge of Anarchy), and then do a more thorough read through. I have a good feel for the flow of the plot, so I've accomplished step one of my conversion plan.

I also played around with the XP budget. I want the PCs to be 4th level and partly into 5th at the end of Edge of Anarchy. For 5 characters, this works out to be:

5 PCs X 4500 XP = 22,500 XP total for the module (getting to 4th level is actually 3750 XP per character, or 18750 total).

This will be my target for the adaptation. We'll see how this works out after I look at the separate sections of the adventure.

The adventure has an introduction, 7 parts, and a sort of denouement/cut scene at the end, which may be a weak spot.

In the introduction, the PCs meet a sort of mentor (Zellara) who enlists them to seek out a crime lord who has wronged each of them in the past. In 4E terms, she gives them a quest. Since it will invlove multiple encounters and resolve a good chunk of story, I'll make this a major quest worth 500 XP (the same as a normal 1st level encounter). I need to keep in mind that they won't actually get this XP until the end of part 1, though.

Here's the wording on the quest:

"Bring Gaedren Lamm to justice, or failing that, end his reign of terror", 500 XP.

I'll discuss each section separately, but here's a table of the XP awards by section that I came up with (sorry if the formatting is crap):

Part XP Cumulative XP

0 - Introduction 500 (500)
1 - Old Fishery 3600 4100
2 - City Gone Mad 1800 5900 (PCs hit 2nd level)
3 - Long Live the Queen 0 5900
4 - Welcome to the Guard 3200 9100
5 - Ambassador's Secret 3600 12,700 (PCs hit 3rd level)
6 - Queen's Scapegoat 1500 14,200
7- Dead Warrens 8100 22,300 (PCs hit 4th level)
Denoument 0 22,300

So, there's step 2 on the conversion plan done.

A detailed look at Part 1 next post.