D&D 5E Setting/adventures by Paizo, rules/mechanics by Wizards

As a long time Pathfinder GM, I am impressed by what I am seeing from D&D 5e. Overall, it seems like a much more elegant and simplified system to run. However, I truly enjoy Pathfinder's setting (Golarion) and adventure path products (I have a sizable collection). Is it possible to "have my cake and eat it too" and "have the best of both worlds?" Ideally, I would run adventures from Paizo using D&D 5e rules (without a lot of conversion effort being required).

• Is anyone else in the same boat?
• How difficult will it be to convert Pathfinder adventures to D&D 5e?
• Will there be enough interest in the community to help with this so each of us doesn't have to do our own conversion?
• Would Paizo ever consider making such conversions available to widen the appeal of their setting/adventure products?
• Will Pathfinder respond to the appeal of D&D 5e to those wanting a simpler/easier system to run by offering their own Pathfinder-lite option?
• Will Wizards start releasing adventures that rival the quality of Paizo's adventures?

I am curious to hear the thoughts (and speculations) of others on these questions that are now running through my mind as I consider what to do next with our gaming group.

I would love to see Paizo release conversation notes for the adventures they have already created. As D&D 5 is not complete yet, that would probably be on down the line. Whether or not Paizo would do this, I don't know. I doubt they would reprint any books with D&D stats.

Anytime I can get my hands on a conversion of an old adventure I have, I feel like my collection has gained a wee bit more utility.

techno said:

• How difficult will it be to convert Pathfinder adventures to D&D 5e?

Click to expand...

For a reasonably experienced DM, this part would be easy. Swap out stat blocks and DCs and you're done. You'd have to do some homework first and have a fairly good grasp of 5e mechanics and a source of baddies to pick from.

If conversion is as easy as some people say it is, it should be a cinch. Just use the D&D equivalent of the monsters for one, scale up and down as needed by adding/removing hit dice and attack/damage bonuses. For custom monsters/NPC's, there is a thread floating around where someone presents a formula for converting 3.x/PF creatures pretty much on the fly.

Nebulous said:

[/LIST]
For a reasonably experienced DM, this part would be easy. Swap out stat blocks and DCs and you're done. You'd have to do some homework first and have a fairly good grasp of 5e mechanics and a source of baddies to pick from.

Click to expand...

It may not be difficult, but it would be tedious. Looking up and recopying stats for every monster, converting every NPC (sometimes when the Pathfinder materials use PF material that does not have a clear analog in 5e), revisiting every DC. It'd probably get old fast.

And, it would probably work well for the low end of the Pathfinder scale, but the high-end might get tricky. 5e has bounded accuracy, PF does not. The conversion then does not become obvious.

Magical treasure, as well, will be a problem - you'd expect a lot more of it in PF than in 5e. Making sure the characters are rewarded suitably, is then non-trivial.

techno said:

As a long time Pathfinder GM, I am impressed by what I am seeing from D&D 5e. Overall, it seems like a much more elegant and simplified system to run. However, I truly enjoy Pathfinder's setting (Golarion) and adventure path products (I have a sizable collection). Is it possible to "have my cake and eat it too" and "have the best of both worlds?" Ideally, I would run adventures from Paizo using D&D 5e rules (without a lot of conversion effort being required).

• Is anyone else in the same boat?
• How difficult will it be to convert Pathfinder adventures to D&D 5e?
• Will there be enough interest in the community to help with this so each of us doesn't have to do our own conversion?
• Would Paizo ever consider making such conversions available to widen the appeal of their setting/adventure products?
• Will Pathfinder respond to the appeal of D&D 5e to those wanting a simpler/easier system to run by offering their own Pathfinder-lite option?
• Will Wizards start releasing adventures that rival the quality of Paizo's adventures?

I am curious to hear the thoughts (and speculations) of others on these questions that are now running through my mind as I consider what to do next with our gaming group.

Click to expand...

I was able to run some Paizo adventure paths using 4E rules (Rise of the Runelords & Kingmaker). So, I assume 5E would be fairly do-able as well.

4E did take some work to convert, and I had used some online conversions as a starting point. So, I was ahead of the game there, but I did do a lot more manual stuff when the games got to higher levels.

I hope Wizards can release more good quality adventures (so far, the 5e adventures have impressed me more than the early 4e modules). I think Paizo's APs are well regarded because they're basically a whole campaign in one series of six modules. There are not a lot of separately published Wizards adventures that basically take you the entire span of a long campaign (levels 1-18 in most cases) in any edition, that I can recall, so there is obviously a good market for it. (Yes, I know there have been campaigns in Dungeon Magazine, but it's not quite the same as having stand alone books.)

I think the Paizo APs are pretty good overall, but even the most popular ones (Rise of the Runelords) are not without flaws (railroady at times?) and weak links in the chain of six adventures.

techno said:

Is anyone else in the same boat?

Click to expand...

Similar boat, I've been accumulating Paizo APs for a while and have all but Kingmaker. But I don't play Pathfinder rules.
5e is my chance to run the backlog. Likely for years or even potentially the entire 5.0e run.

How difficult will it be to convert Pathfinder adventures to D&D 5e?
I expect it to be fairly straight forward to run rough plot-based conversions of the modules, ignoring PF specific mechanics.

Will there be enough interest in the community to help with this so each of us doesn't have to do our own conversion?
While the community may help, personally I'll be converting on the fly with the MM handy or with a quick and dirty monster conversion (just notes probably). Cleaning it up for sharing isn't going to happen.

Would Paizo ever consider making such conversions available to widen the appeal of their setting/adventure products?
I doubt Paizo will officially do anything, they are borderline keeping the current APs on schedule. However, they won't censor conversions on their boards. They allow 4e conversions.

Will Pathfinder respond to the appeal of D&D 5e to those wanting a simpler/easier system to run by offering their own Pathfinder-lite option?
Pathfinder-lite is pretty much an oxymoron. The appeal of PF as a ruleset is the option heavy aspect. Although fan house rule packages or third-party products may fit the bill. Is there a 3.5 lite now beyond E6 or E8?

I think I'd take a stab at creating 5e versions of the new PF classes and those in the PF splats.

Will Wizards start releasing adventures that rival the quality of Paizo's adventures?
This is subjective, but I expect yes. Especially if they start using the same writers and companies writing PF adventures. 5e and PF are much closer for story adventure building than 4e Encounter-based design.

However, I already have 6+ years worth of APs to run, being as good as what I have yet to run won't force me to buy WotC. I'm not a completionist. (Not including the nostalgic runs through BECMI, 1e, and 2e adventures).

However, I may still pick them up since 2x$30 (or less via Amazon) nets me a 5e 1st-15th campaign and ongoing PF APs are running about $22 x 6 on subscription including shipping. For each PF AP I skip I can buy the year's worth of 5e not including running the Expeditions adventures for free.

Low-level adventures will probably work out OK. The basics are similar enough that conversions will result in sensible situations and variations in reward won't be particularly noticeable..

Mid-level and higher will tend to require more reconstruction based on intent than conversion. The system design starts to diverge enough that straight conversion will start to provide nonsensical situations.

I don't think there's an objective answer to the question "how difficult it will be to convert" - because it really depends upon you, and how difficult you want it to be. Meaning, if you're comfortable with "hand waving" stuff on the fly, it should be relatively easy. But if you want an exacting, scientific approach to conversion, it could be a headache.

When in doubt, take the easy route!

I think having experience with 4e creature design and hopefully the 5e DMG will help with thematic conversions. I could see using the 4e Monster creator to make stat blocks for 5e if you need pretty ones.

What does the NPC or creature do fundamentally?

Give it those abilities with level appropriate attack bonuses and save DCs.
Use original fluff.

And with bounded accuracy if you are off high or low it's probably only a 1-2 difference which may end up totally irrelevant over a few rounds of actual rolls.