D&D 3E/3.5 Character conversion from AD&D to 3E

[Pagan priest]

Gee, I used that booklet to convert several characters. The biggest problems that I had were with characters with non-standard abilities, like 1st ed Oriental Adventures type monks or characters built with kits... and let's not even mention Skills & Powers customized classes.

Many of the old NWP's translate into either skills or feats, with an aweful lot of them simply becoming Craft (___), Knowledge (___), or Profession (___). For other NWP's, you may be out of luck, or you may need to create a new feat.

As far as the strength conversions, they too are right on the money. Consider, if you will, that in 1st/2nd ed the strongest possible strength for any giant was 25 and that for a storm giant. Looking at my PHB (3.0) Table 1-2 I see that the strength of an average fire giant is now 30 - 31. Telling a fighter with 18(00) strength that he is forced back to a whimmpy plain 18 just doesn't cut it.

I certainly don't want to say that there are no problems... I had an 8th level mage that ended up losing a lot of spells... even worse when I tried to convert a 1st ed illusionist!

 

[mooby]

as a player who actually enjoys both 1e and 2e, if you want a conversion (I've done it in the past, and still had as much -- or more fun in 3e), just post the character as you have him now, in 1e, and we'll help with the conversion

 

[Belbarrus]

My favorite character from when I played 1st Edition was a 10th level Ranger Human duo-classed with 10 levels of Cleric. He was essentially an 11th level character. If I was to create the same character "concept" in 3.x edition, he would be losing a lot. I figure he would be Ranger 6/Cleric 5 in 3rd edition?

B

 

[The Souljourner]

The problem with dual class and multiclass in the old rules was that you were between 50% and 100% more powerful than any single class character. A 10/10 fighter/wizard was almost 100% more powerful than an 11th level fighter, and yet had the same XP (more or less). That was ridiculous.

I played an elven bard/wizard who had almost twice as many spells per day as any of the other party members.

So.... yeah, you're losing a lot - you should be. Ranger 6 cleric 5 is not a bad translation, but you might want to look at what your ultimate character concept is, and just fit the levels and abilities to that concept, ignoring the direct rules based translation and instead try to go for the closest concept based translation.

-The Souljourner

 

[Destil]

Human dual classed, not demi-human multiclassed... humm. Interesting problem.

Personaly I'd convert him something like this:
level 10 (45,000 XP) + level 11 (55,000X XP) = level 14 (100,000 XP)
Thus I'de rebuild him at 14th level.

That would roughly mirror the time spend in each class within and better fit into 3E rules.

 

[green slime]

Human dual classed, not demi-human multiclassed... humm. Interesting problem.

Personaly I'd convert him something like this:
level 10 (45,000 XP) + level 11 (55,000X XP) = level 14 (100,000 XP)
Thus I'de rebuild him at 14th level.

That would roughly mirror the time spend in each class within and better fit into 3E rules.

IIRC, the conversion manual suggested for multiclassed and dual classed characters the following: Highest level + 2nd class/3 (round down).

So 10 Ranger / 10 Cleric would be a 10 +10/3 = 13th character level.

These could be spread as you like, I'd suggest 3rd Ranger / 10th Cleric to keep the spellcasting.

This means you have Track, Wild Empathy, Endurance, (two weapon fighting if you so choose) BAB +10/+5 (same as a 10th level Ranger) and saves +10/+6/+8 and 13d8 HD

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Since the classes had differing XP-limits for advancing, I don't care much for the "official" method. Also, it's very likely that the DM will just tells you how many XP you have and you work from there. The other systems are only useful if you convert the character for its own sake.

 

[Darklone]

Yeah. I simply had a look at the level for the XP total and started from there.

 

[Voadam]

Originally my current character was a 2e human fighter myrmidon kit who specilaized in two weapon fighting. He eventually learned 1e martial arts and switched class to mage after three levels of fighter. He used 1e UA human rolls and got very gross stats including an 18(84). In converting to 3e we came up with a backstory involving a campaign villain vampire wizard summoning him by accident when trying to break into the banewarrens. After many items were lost and many levels energy drained, he ended up a lvl 1 rgr lvl 1 ex monk, lvl 5 fighter to match the campaign starting level of 7. With only two PCs in the party his overly generous equipment stats and even his multiclassing came in very handy. We turned his str into an 18 at my suggestion instead of the recommended 23 or so.

In 3.5 converting I dropped the ex-monk dropped the 2 weapon fighting (never used it in game) and simply took IUS.

It worked fine for us.

 

[Legildur]

Agreed. When we converted some things, we ignored that aspect of the conversion manual and simply rounded 18/XX to either 18 or 19. WotC's idea of ramping it up to a max of 23 or 24 was well, like you said.... stupid.

Yeah, when I first converted my PbEM elven myrmidon to 3E I was quite delighted to get the 22 Str from a 2E 18/97 (DM rolled the 97, so don't blame me). Mind you, when recently, as a party of 8th level characters, we went up against various vampire spawn, skeletons, hell hounds and the BBEGs (demon and dual scimitar wielding vampiric drow fighter/wizard) I was thankful for every last ounce of hitting power (lost half the party).

Nasty battles are the stock of our e-mail game (8 years and still going strong).

But I have to agree, the Str conversion is a bit over the top.