D&D 5E Advice for ZEITGEIST setting conversion to 5e. Races and technology.

I'm pondering a 5e conversion of the ZEITGEIST setting, and we have a nation of formerly-savage races trying to become civilized (and slightly overdoing it; lots of frilled collars, hoop dresses, and genuflecting). So I'm interested in gnolls, goblins, goliaths/half-giants, kobolds, lizardfolk, minotaurs, and orcs. I don't want to reinvent the wheel if I don't have to.

In addition to the PHB set (human, dwarf, elf, halfling, dragonborn, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, and tiefling) and the DMG's options (aasimar and eladrin), have there been any detailed races published?

Also, while the firearms in the DMG are balanced, is their design quite right for a setting undergoing an industrial revolution? Like, in the real world guns made plate armor obsolete. In Pathfinder this is modeled by letting firearms ignore the armor-bonus to AC at close range. There's no equivalent mechanic in 5e. I'm leaning toward us keeping the firearms as presented in the DMG. In our 4e version, firearms just did extra damage on crits, but weren't armor-piercing. Any thoughts?

Perfect timing. I don't have an opinion on these questions, but I just started converting Zeitgeist to 5e myself, so I'm interested in seeing what comes out. Mostly it seems easy to translate, but I haven't figured out how to get the great 4e statblocks and setpieces to come over yet.

FWIW, I'm just making the non-PHB Ber races NPC-only in my campaign. Similarly, I'm planning to exclude Drow and Great Old One Pact warlocks.

You don't want anyone making a pact with a Gidim that somehow got stranded here? :-D

RangerWickett said:

You don't want anyone making a pact with a Gidim that somehow got stranded here? :-D

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I thought about it, but decided the plot complications were too much for me to handle. I almost excluded Demonic pact too, then decided to go the "cursed item" route similar to adventure #4. Should be a nice role-playing opportunity if any players go for it.

Well, there were goliaths in the EE supplement, and minotaurs in one of the Unearthed Arcanas. When I personally run 5e ZEITGEIST, I will use dragonborn for half-dragon PCs, aasimar (mildly changed) for Devas, half-orcs for orcs, add goliaths and minotaurs since it's easy, and none of my players would want to run anything apart from that anyway.
With regard to firearms, I suppose they should effectively replace crossbows in some sense. Maybe use something similar to the DMG, but up the damage a die size (but of course basic firearms retain the Loading property). I would not have them ignore armored AC or anything; I fear that this would make them a bit too dominant and completely mess with strength-based characters.

I just wanted to add: I definitely plan to run a 5E ZEITGEIST after my current campaign ends. (I just can't deal with Pathfinder anymore, and 4E's long combats never appealed to me; 5E seems perfect for a story-focused campaign like ZEITGEIST). In that sense, I would definitely value a conversion very highly!

How are you thinking of managing the backgrounds? From what I understand, the backgrounds/themes give some interesting powers in 4e. Are they necessary/desirable for a 5e port?

Some of the Unearthed Arcana may have different races. The Eberron one does, but not for any of the races that you mention.

As to firearms, it depends on what kind you are talking about. Remember it was the changes to logistics and recruitment that firearms enabled that caused knights to be phased out: armour will still stop musket balls. These were the firearms at the beginning of the industrial revolution: still inferior on a personal combat level to a longbowman.

By the end of the industrial revolution, we're talking revolvers and repeating rifles firing bullet cartridges, which were more powerful and shaped, and more able to penetrate armour. However as shown by the Kelly gang, armour capable of stopping them even at short range was possible.

I'm slowly working on a conversion myself so I would personally be thrilled to have a more professional take on it. I haven't gotten very far though I have a first draft of a Deva race and I'm working on how I want to handle the campaign specific backgrounds. I have a rough draft that I want build out. What I'm building towards at the moment is to make the Zeitgeist themes completely separate from the PHB backgrounds and provide small and limited benefits that unlock as you level up. Possibly patterned similar to how Primeval Thule approached their backgrounds in 5E (though I'm not ditching normal backgrounds like them).

Guns have been giving me a hard time. I'm nervous about stepping up the damage dice like the DMG does (though I understand that reasoning) and I'm toying instead with the idea of giving them a flat bonus to attack without a damage increase. My reasoning is that one of the perks of a gun is that anyone can fire it, but not everyone could pull back a bow. To model that efficiency, I'm tinkering with a bonus to attack. It's subtle and since the firearms will most likely have the loading property, it will make them attractive without throwing off balance too far. In my mind, it gives the framework for firearms to completely replace traditional weapons as the technology improves. That's where I'm at.

For the races, Kobold Press has released two PDFs with some monstrous race options (Southland Heroes and Midgard Heroes) and the actual mechanics of the races appear to be designated as Open Content (IANAL). I will probably use bits of those.

I intend to have the character themes be an extra option on top of race, class, and background. I'm not sure if I'll convert over the prestige classes/paragon paths, though it would be a damned shame not to let a PC get a steam-powered armor suit.