D&D 2E 2e Complete Books Conversions

[I'm A Banana]

Good recommendations! I'll have to work them into the next conversion, and into revisions of the other ones.

Also, it's been a dog's age since I've played 2nd Edition. What are kits again? In the 5th Edition context, they just seem like suggested builds with some helpful roleplaying bits and not actual rules bennies.

In 2e proper, they were somewhere between a build and an enhancement - you could get proficiencies and some (usually small) mechanical boost in exchange for a penalty that was usually RP in nature and hypothetically cancelled out the benefits.

In practice, of course, most benefits outweighed most penalties, especially late in the splat cycle.

I find most of them translate fairly directly as 5e backgrounds, and most of those backgrounds already exist, and have some small RP and proficiency benefit (and flaw!) attached, so generally I'm looking at a kit, seeing its background parallel, and saying, "take this background/ability score spread/class if you want to be like this kit, and here's what your character will look like." When the benefits are bigger, or when I think there's room to improve on the 5e representation of a thing, I'll typically include a feat to represent that more powerful ability - certain humans can take that at 1st level, everyone else at 3rd. Games without feats won't get that extra little benefit, but they can still evoke much of the feel of an old kit through class and background choices. For instance, the unarmed combat ability of the Fighting-Monk from the Priest splat is pretty central to its vibe, but right now there's no way for a cleric to just get unarmed combat capability outside of a multiclass. So I made a feat that gives you a monk's unarmed AC and a bit of their martial arts ability.

 

[arjomanes]

These are both really great. Thanks for putting these together. I might present these options to players in addition to the quick builds.

 

[Greg K]

I just looked at the Fighter Handbook conversion. An excellent job. It was interesting to see how your skill and tool proficiencies lined up with my own choices (I don't currently own the 5e PHB and so I am just going off the basic rules, and proficiency list). I do have a few questions and comments- the latter being mostly minor nits. .

1) Barbarian: I was surprised that you didn't give the sample build Herbalism Kit as a proficiency since herbalism was one of the recommended skills of the Barbarian Kit whereas Play Instrument was not. Also, I was wondering why you want with the Barbarian rather than Fighter for the sample build since the Berserker kit was the 2e raging barbarian and this barbarian kit was not designed to be a rager.

2) Beast-Rider: Nothing to represent Telepathic Bond? It was a major aspect of the original kit. Also, again I am surprised you went with the Barbarian since the original kit was not designed to be a raging barbarian.

3) Berserker: There is nothing wrong with Tool Proficiency: Horns.. However, from a conversion perspective and given that Play Instrument was not on the berserker kit's list, I had expected thought Tool Proficiency: Herbalist Kit.

4) Cavalier: Why does the build not have a sword in its equipment? It was a required weapon for the 2e kit.

5) Gladiator: As with the Berserker kit, I wouldn't have expected the Gladiator to have Tool Proficiency: horn . I would have thought Land Vehicles as the 2e Gladiator kit automatically received proficiency in the chariot Also, given this is a conversion, I would have expected the starting Gladiator to have Leather or Scale armor rather than chain since you listed those two as being the equivalent for some of the 2e Gladiator armors.

6) Outlaw: Given that the 2e Complete Fighter's Handbook Outlaw/Pirate gives separate lists of weapon and non-weapon proficiencies for the outlaw and pirate, I would have loved to have seen you do an Outlaw build as well.

7) Peasant Hero: I am curious as to why your conversion build is equipped with the long sword. According to the 2e Complete Fighter's Handbook, the long sword is an inappropriate starting weapon for the Peasant Hero: "Short sword, spear, bow, footman's weapons and the like are all very appropriate; horseman's weapons, exotic polearms, lances, long swords, tridents and the like are not"

8) Paleo-lithic Warrior (a.k.a 2e "Savage"): Just a small point, I don't think those minor abilities in the CFHB are minor magical abilities as they were specifically said to not be subject to detect magic. As such, I considered "Alarm" to be what many games call Light Sleeper. Similarly, I viewed Detect Evil and Detect Magic to be a sixth sense from being more perceptive and in tune with the natural environment which fits several fictional sources (e.g., a place having "bad juju"). Personally, I think that all three could be represented with new feats.

9) Swashbuckler: I was a little surprised that you went with the sailor/pirate. Since you did the pirate for the Outlaw, I was expecting Three Musketeers (called out in CFHB), Errol Flynn's Robin Hood, Zorro, or a few other non-sailor/pirate archetypes

10) Nomad (Wilderness Warrior): I love the Nomad. It reminds me of David Howery's Nomad which was one of his three kits from the Dragon Magazine article "Completing the Complete Fighter" (the other two were the Assassin and the Northman). However, that stated, as a conversion of the Wilderness Warrior, this one felt off the mark .
While the Desert Nomad was the primary example given, the Wilderness Warrior in the CFHB is not limited to nomads. According to the CFHB entry for the Wilderness Warrior, "This hero represents some tribe (either civilized or barbarian) living in a dangerous, threatening, or unusual wilderness environment—such as the desert, deep in swamp territory, in the frozen North, tucked away in the jungle or tropical rain forest, or in distant mountains." The kit is very close 1e PHB Barbarian which was a non-raging and non-mystical warrior tribal/clan wilderness warrior whose starting weapon proficiencies were knife, hand axe, bow, and additional culture weapons and whose non-weapon proficiencies (i.e., secondary and tertiary abilities in 1e) were based on its culture (with several cultural examples given)
The 2e CFHB like the 1e Barbarian stressed cultural (environment/terrain) weapons and skills (e.g., it mentions arctic warriors starting with harpoon and spears). The kit also receives +5 to Survival checks in their home environment (Advantage/Expertise in 5e?) to represent their survival skill in that terrain. The main difference between the 1e Barbarian and the 2e Wilderness Warrior kit was that the kit does not have the 1e Barbarian's fear of magic/magic-users and does not gain the ability to hit creatures resistant to non-magical attacks.
Again, your nomad is excellent. It just feels too focused to be a conversion of the 2e Wilderness Warrior (in my opinion of course)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Meaty! Thanks for the feedback!

Some overall notes about my thinking on some of these:

• I used the PHB rules where possible, which is why we have a lot of instruments where herbalism kits might make more sense - the Outlander gets proficiency with a music instrument, so any example built as an Outlander is going to have an instrument. This is also why the Cavalier doesn't have a sword - in a contest between sword and lance, I went with the more "unique" choice. With the Peasant, the idea was more to go with the "my master's old sword!" motif from the Folk Hero side. With the Nomad, this kind of invalidated the equipment differentiation. I'm exploring some ways to set different starting equipment now with the Priest's HB, and it's probably something I'd visit again in a revision of this.
• Not totally happy with the gladiator, in part because of that armor. In a revision, I might re-make it as a barbarian with the Gladiator background and the Martial Adept feat.
• I favored the barbarian class in a lot of situations where the CFHB implied a tribal or distant society, since that seems to embody the flavor better than the fighter. In the case of the Beast-Rider, where the text speaks a lot about totems, it actually let me get a very close analogue of their telepathy - totem barbarians can cast beast sense.

Hope that helps show my thought process, anyway. Thanks for the feedback, really useful stuff!

 

[I'm A Banana]

I made one for priests.

Wizards be up next. There, we're not looking at as many kit or equipment conversions as the rogue, or as many "priesthoods" as the cleric, but there's some new spells and some interesting miscellany. Gonna be a bit of a grab-bag, I suppose!

The only question then is do I do something with psionics, or do I skip that for now and go to dwarves (leaving psi so that it integrates with WotC's stuff)...leaning toward skipping psi for now.

 

[Greg K]

I made one for priests.

I took a quick look and it first glance it is impressive. However, it also reminded me of how much I dislike the 5e cleric compared to 2e priests of specific mythoic/specialty priests with their spell lists determined by the deity's spheres of influence (major and minor) meaning the priest might have no access to certain spells, be limited access up to a certain spell level, or full access to spells in specific spheres. To be fair this dislike is not limited to 5e, but extends to clerics in other non-2e editions of D&D. So, part of me wishes you had attacked spheres of influence in your conversion.

I'll take a closer look tomorrow night.

Also, I don't know that you need to include the AC bonus in the feat used for the Fighting-Monk. The DMG had an option for the cleric giving up armor proficiency and gaining the ability AC portion of the feat. Maybe, you could do something like Skidace did here with his Martial Artist feat where he made a list of battlemaster maneuvers usable only with unarmed strikes and let the player choose two in addition to increased damage with unarmed strikes

 

[Dorian_Grey]

I have to be honest, I am not worthy!

Wow, great work on the CPHB. Tomorrow, when my group meets, I'm going to be like "Who wants kits?!" Now I just need to finish writing up my new skill rules (read: 2e skills, which I loved!)

 

[I'm A Banana]

So, part of me wishes you had attacked spheres of influence in your conversion.

Yeah, Spheres of Influence is kind of a bigger systemic change than I had scoped. Domains do the heavy lifting there, adding spells, but not necessarily taking them away. It's not as granular as access to spheres was in 2e, and doing that in 5e would mean breaking down the spell list and domains into particular spheres...not impossible, just beyond a quick conversion, I think.

Also, I don't know that you need to include the AC bonus in the feat used for the Fighting-Monk. The DMG had an option for the cleric giving up armor proficiency and gaining the ability AC portion of the feat.

That's a good call, I didn't look too closely at proficiency swaps, but this wouldn't have been a bad place to explore some. I'll keep an eye on that for the revision - that'd require some effort to get some equivalents, but I don't think it'd be too rough.

Now I just need to finish writing up my new skill rules (read: 2e skills, which I loved!)

Like, proficiency-score style rules? Interesting, haven't seen many folks try to bring back the roll-under stuff!

Were I to get shenanigans about it, I might use the DMG rules for new ability scores, but make each proficiency an ability score. So rather than Sleight of Hand keying off your Dex bonus, you'd have a Sleight of Hand score (maybe one that starts at your Dexterity score) and a Sleight of Hand ability score bonus and such. I dunno.

Good luck with it!

 

[Dorian_Grey]

Thank you! I loved the old skill system as I saw it as a great way to really differentiate and define your character. I used to play it as "your skills are what you are REALLY good at." And my thought right now is:

Skills are broken out by attribute (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Chr). If you have a good attribute score, you'll do well at that general skill. Training makes you better. Each class gets a number of points to improve skills. They can be highly specialized, i.e. all skill points going into one skill, or generalized (points across multiple skills). This gives you a skill bonus to your DC checks. So if the DC is 10, and you have 1 skill point, plus a +1 bonus from your appropriate attribute (i.e. Strength), you'd roll and get a +2 to your roll. So if you roll an 8 or higher, you pass. Now, some skills are harder than others (i.e. Gem Cutting vs. Appraising), and those skills start in the negative. They are tough automatically. Additionally, beyond just the DC check, the DM might give out additional bonuses or penalties based upon player background, magical items (i.e. Gloves of the Iron Smith, +2 to all blacksmith checks), or difficulties (herbalism in a foreign environment). DC targets are the 5, 10, 15 and 20 range (5 for easy stuff, 10 for moderate, 15 for hard, 20 for normally impossible). That's the raw basis of it

 

[I'm A Banana]

Added Wizards just tonight! Definitely smoother than 20 pages of priesthoods. I learned a lot about 5e spells while I was dinking around with the new spell additions.

On to dwarfs?