4E Dungeon Delve for Lancer - Quick Combat Scenarios with minimum fuss.

I once had an idea of modifying D&D 4E encounters to use as quick Lancer missions. Since both are tactical, role-based combat games with strong balance. It should be simple.

Now there are two ways to do this. Just gather up the enemy rolls and note down there are so many traps that use certain damage types and use that as a framework. Or go further and use the exact foes and traps to come up with the scenario. That latter is somewhat harder because you must fit 4E‘s relatively tight spaces into the mould of Lancer. Which is about 40 x 40 spaced combat areas.

With either method we must convert the foes over. 4E had:

Artillery, Brute, Controller, Lurker, Skirmisher and Soldier. Plus, a special designation of Leader.
These could be Minions, Elite and Solo.
lancer has about 30 NPC types divided into the categories:

Artillery, Controller, Defeder, Striker and Support.
And can also be Grunts, Veteran, Elite and Ultras.

Therefore, we can sort of line them up.

Artillery = Artillery

Brute = Defender or Striker

Controller = Controller

Lurker = Striker/Support

Skirmisher = Striker

Solider = Defender

Leader = Support

 

Minion = Grunt

Veteran = Unknown

Elite = Elite

Solo = Ultra

 

Now this isn’t perfect. Brutes tended to be simple high damage melee attacker, with good Defence and high HP. That can fall into either category of Lancer NPC as the encounter seems to use them. Likewise, Lurkers were monsters which well lurked with some sort of penalty to be hit until it was time for a sudden burst of high damage, treading on the Support type’s role as a battlefield manipulator. Leaders in 4E were a subtype, they did their primary role but also buffed, manipulated or debuffed as required. So, there will have to be a choice between them generally assisting or just staying behind the lines. But between 30 roles in Lancer, there is more than enough variety to cover each side of the 4E to Lancer spectrum.

Veterans may come to our aid here. There is no 4E equivalent. But that lets us use the tougher bonuses to better copy over 4E. We could say a Brute is a Veteran Defender, a Lurker is a Veteran Striker and a Leader is a Veteran Support. But that can get reductionist.

 

Let’s try with a simple set of fights from Dungeon Delve, which was a book of premade short dungeons, about 3 to 4 encounters long.

 

Orcs have taken over hilltop keep

Room one: 2 Fire Beetles (Brute), 3 Orc Raiders (Skirmisher), 1 tower, 1 set of cells with dead prisoner with treasure, 1 water bucket, dark lighting.

• Brutes/Soldiers = Defenders, Skirmishers/Lurkers = Strikers.

2 Pyros seems thematic for Defenders, of all the various strikers, Scourer fits the Orc Raider's marking and healing abilities best Level 3 is about Tier 1 for Lancer

Now converting over the room details, which I found a mite tedious despite how small it was. I decided on this mission was stopping a defeated Pro-regime militia have seized old fortifications from pre-Unity period while the Lancers were doing peacekeeping.

We are keeping the Lancer scaling of 1 square/hex being 10 feet. So theoretically the interior increases, but is still very tight for Lancers even with size 2 or 3 chasis. Maybe an exterior could be added with some sort of wall that makes it slightly more convenient to use the prebuilt entrance. But that defeats the purpose of the dungeon encounters.

There’s a tower, a dead villager, a water bucket to spill and it is Low-Light. Some quick caluclations from Lancer tell us the Structure/Actions total keeps this at Tier 1, befitting a low-level D&D battle.

• The tower is the internal structure behind the outward gun platforms and is sized for vehicle movement,
• The cells here contain a dead local who succumb to wounds after being brought there, retuning the corpse earns the respect of the local Techno-Tribe who offer a Downtime Reward,
• The water pipes run against a wall, breaking them creates slip hazards from the high pressure water on concrete,
• While the lighting in here is poor, with only the jury-rigged floodlights, the defensive structures discombobulate scanning, giving 1 penalty dice.

Room 2 is a little more challenging. Some monsters need to be reduced in line with Lancer's rules on using Grunts and Elites. At this point, it's probably best just to keep a record of how you converted each foe so in the future they are consistent.

1 orc eye of Gruumsh (E) = Elite Archer, to represent the front-line Leader idea. I deided to give it the Commander template.

1 orc berserker (B) = Demolisher

10 orc drudges (O) = Reduce to 3 Grunt Breachers as they are Minions.

1 false-floor pit trap = Anti-vehicle mines (in pit) running to switch by outer wall

Dim & Dark light = penalty dice to scanning

Table = mess and motor pool prefabs

Pantry = Stockpile, loot and explosives, a downtime reward here can be found and jury-rigged after a short rest

Cauldron = Fuel-silo, knock it over and oil the floor up

Fire Pit = The fuel piping and electrical fires leave an inferno after the silo is knocked over.

Since 30/12 is 2.5. This level 4 encounter is still within Tier 1 after converting.

Slightly boring to do 3 attack encounters but sometimes a Lancer's job is to sweep and clear. If you add a Beat at the end where the players have to give their post-mission debrief or perhaps testify in court for the trial of the survivors or as proof of a third-party was funding the attack.

1 orc chieftain (C) = Bastion + Elite

1 dire wolf (W) = Couldn't find an NPC Striker that got better the more allies it had also engaging with the target, so it's now a Wolf-Gunship, Ace + Vehicle

2 orc berserkers (B) = Demolisher

Outdoors here scanning works normally

Beds = Barrack prefabs

Fireplace = Temporary base reactor, which is opened prior to create barricade to attack on that side.

Treasure = The secondary objective. My example would be enough Manna and Circuit Tokens to prove the Militia is being funded by the Orbital stations to put pressure on the new government.

I don't know how this might work with Shadow of the Demon Lord, 5E or even 3E/Pathfinder. But it is a nice way to keep the older books from just sitting on the shelf and with a little bit of prep, have an edition's worth of campaigns and encounters ready to go.