D&D 5E (2014) Converting a 1e adventure to 5e - anything to keep in mind?

[Emirikol]

Im running Citadel by the sea (Dragon #78) at an upcoming con. Im going to run it as 5e. Seems like 1e and 5e are pretty close. Any tips on conversion I should be wary of?

This adventure is for levels 1-3 abd has a lot of orcs.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Reduce the number of orcs, or at least note it, because orcs are much more lethal in 5E than they were in 1E.

 

[ersatzphil]

Pay attention to how much GP is in the adventure, and consider reducing it - the old system used GP as EXP, so the only dial the game designers had to level up PCs was how much gold was in the adventure. Leads to some odd scenarios, where the spinster who lives on the edge of town would be randomly sitting on 500 GP.

 

[Hriston]

Here's the Conversions to 5th Edition D&D pdf that WotC put out in 2015. The section on "Converting Adventures" starts on page 3. Under "Quick Conversions", there's this tidbit:

Monster Groups. If a group of monsters has 7 or more members, it should be evaluated to see if numbers should be reduced. Such a reduction is especially important for player characters of lower than 5th level.​

I'll usually do this on the fly if the encounter exceeds the party's remaining adjusted daily XP budget.

 

[Celebrim]

Im running Citadel by the sea (Dragon #78) at an upcoming con. Im going to run it as 5e. Seems like 1e and 5e are pretty close. Any tips on conversion I should be wary of?

Large numbers of weak opponents are more relevant in 5e than they were in 1e because of the effect of bounded accuracy.

 

[Shiroiken]

Look at the magic items to see if they're more powerful in 5E. Since it's a con game and not a regular one, you don't need to worry about the treasure needing modification (AD&D used to give out a lot more gold). If you're worried about making things more balanced, you might want to glance at the various encounters and see how they compare under the 5E guidelines, modifying them if desired.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Be wary that some monsters have changed considerably in strength between 1st and 5e. Check the challenge level of the encounter, and consider changing the number of foes, or swapping them for a similar monster with a different CR.

Look out for "save or die" situations. These where common in 1st edition but are considered bad form in 5e.