D&D 3E/3.5 Converting 3.5/PF to 5e

[plancktum]

Hi,

at the moment i'm preparing the "Rise of the Drow" Campaign for my group. But we want to play it with D&D 5e.
So I need to convert the Campaign from D&D 3.5 or Pathfinder (Stats for both Systems are given in the Campaign) to 5e.
My questions are:

1) There are so many conversion guidelines out there. Which is the most recent version? Or, more precicely, which should I use?

2) Should I use the conversion Rules 3.5 to 5e or Pathfinder to 5e?

3) As often as possible I do not want to convert Monsters but instead use the D&D 5 Version from the upcoming MM. Do you think this is a good idea? Or should I just convert everything with the conversion rules?

Thansk for the help

best regards

 

[dco]

I am also interested, where are those guidelines?
I'm going to run some adventures in the Ptolus setting, for the monsters I would use the ones from the monster manual and if they have an interesting combat mechanic I would port it if it fits.

I only played pathfinder once, I found it more complicated, but you should be ok starting from one or the other. The only problem I see is with NPCs, you can build them as players with abilities from classes (ignore the abilities requiring bookkeeping) or like monsters, the rest should be straightforward, you know the hit dice, proficiency bonus you can tie it to level (5,9,13,17), put save and skill proficiencies if you want and lastly attacks and defenses. You should have care with stats and with magic items (in this version they are rare, avoid most of the cheap ones and downgrade the others).

 

[Tormyr]

I am running Age of Worms since April. We started under the September play test rules and converted to Basic when it came out and then the PHB when it came out. I do not use any particular conversion guidelines that are posted anywhere. I just kind of do my own thing.

Monsters: Use something from the MM when available. The MM comes out this Friday at WPN stores and 9/30 for the rest of us. When the MM does not have a creature or NPC, choose the closest equivalent you can based on CR level. A CR4 creature in this case would be CR4 in 5e. Find a creature or NPC that is close, change the ability scores to match 3.5, change equipment to match a 5e version, and recalculate AC, hp, to hit modifier, damage and the like. You are just trying to get close enough. As for actual conversion rules, I am going with what I explained her until I can see if the DMG has creature creation guidelines.

Magic Items: Find something from the Basic DMG to emulate. For our campaign there are a lot of wands of cure light wounds in 3.5. I changed those to wands of Healing Word to try to preserve some balance and gave them mechanics like the wand of magic missile: 7 charges, use 1 to 3 charges to cast Healing Word at level 1 to 3, etc. Drop masterwork items entirely. Rescale the +1 to +5 magic items to +1 to +3. Basically try to match it with something that already exists, require attunement for really strong items, etc.

Saves and DCs: This will take some getting used to. Until you have a better feel for things just use the Easy DC10, Moderate DC15, Difficult DC20 rule of thumb. Remember, a commoner can succeed on an easy check 1/2 the time, where even a trained person can fail a hard check or save half the time.

Encounter Building: Treat Encounter Level as a moderate difficulty encounter for a party of that level. So if you have 6 PCs, an EL7 encounter in 3.5 should have the XP budget for 6 level 7 PCs (4500XP) even if the PCs are actually level 5. In this example, it makes it a hard encounter for the level 5 party. In some cases, monsters are significantly weaker in 5e. You can either use another creature as is, reskin another as described above, or include lots of the weaker 5e version per the encounter building guidelines in the DMG.

Spellcasters: Make a cheat sheet of their spells. My spell card generator is one way to do that.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1119

This is what I have been doing, and it has worked well. We are 1/3 of the way through chapter 3 of a 12 chapter AP. Let me know if you have any specific questions.

 

[TheRustyOne]

What do people use as treasure guidelines? That's been the hardest thing for me to figure out, as my players do not need thousands and thousands of gold for magic items they can not buy. So far, I've been leaving everything 50gp or less as as, and for items over 50gp adding 10% of the value to 50gp.

 

[Tormyr]

What do people use as treasure guidelines? That's been the hardest thing for me to figure out, as my players do not need thousands and thousands of gold for magic items they can not buy. So far, I've been leaving everything 50gp or less as as, and for items over 50gp adding 10% of the value to 50gp.

I use what is published in the adventure. The PCs are finding plenty of things to spend their money on. They took a 200 lbs. table made of shiny red space metal over to the local blacksmith and had him make armor and weapons and stuff from the metal. They have repaired and built up their base of operations. They have potions of healing. They purchased a horse and cart for transportation. The wizards copy spells into their books. You get the idea. And besides, their is nothing wrong with getting rich from the adventuring life.

Until the DMG comes out, you could also use the September play test docuemnt's DM Guidelines pdf. Just replace the word "Level" with CR and you have a nice set of tables ready to go.

 

[Morrus]

Official conversion docs are on their way. There are various fan created ones about, too.