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Converting Older Edition Adventures to 5E
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6698523" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>It depends upon what kind of challenge is involved. 5E PCs seem to be substantially harder to kill than AD&D 2nd edition PCs (and therefore I assume also 1e PCs, although I never played 1e) so in melee combat, the levels are roughly equivalent. However, 5E spellcasters are much, much weaker than AD&D spellcasters, especially outside of tactical combat. I tend to think of a 20th level 5E wizard as roughly equivalent to a 9th level AD&D(2) wizard in terms of the scope of his magic and the strategic challenges he can handle. For example, True Polymorph is 9th level in 5E and is basically equivalent to Polymorph Other at 4th level in AD&D, and AD&D's Polymorph Self at 4th level was approximately as powerful as a 5E druid's 20th level capstone in every way but combat power. Magic Jar was a 5th level spell, available at wizard 9, and if you were to convert it to 5E it would probably be 9th level or higher, if that were possible. (Even the severely-restricted 5E Magic Jar is 6th level, and it is inferior to AD&D's Magic Jar in three ways: 1.) destroying the gem when spell ends; 2.) only works on humanoids; 3.) caster usually dies when host body perishes.) There are tons of other examples, from Invisibility to Stoneskin to Fire Trap.</p><p></p><p>Offhand, the only ways I know of in which 5E wizards are stronger than AD&D wizards are in illusion magic and the Clone spell, which now functions essentially as the 9th level Stasis Clone spell.</p><p></p><p>In short, if you have a module which is heavy on non-combat challenges, I would <em>not</em> assume that 5E PCs are anywhere close to twice as capable as their 1E counterparts, and they may perhaps be less capable. But for combat, a 1:1 conversion is probably more than fine, and 2:1 might even be doable. Though honestly I would probably just eyeball the encounters after converting the monster stats to 5E.</p><p></p><p><strong>Final point:</strong> a fair fight in 5E (in the sense of a 50% chance of PC death) seems to be approximately CR = PC level. E.g. if you have 4 17th level PCs, then 4 CR 17 creatures like Red Dragons probably have a decent chance of killing half the party. But 5E is calibrated to play at around 1/4 of that level, 1 CR 17 creature per 4 17th level PCs, so PCs rarely ever face a fair fight at most tables. I don't think AD&D was calibrated that way, so expect to see converted AD&D encounters kill lots of PCs, not because the conversion was bad but because AD&D was designed to be harder.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6698523, member: 6787650"] It depends upon what kind of challenge is involved. 5E PCs seem to be substantially harder to kill than AD&D 2nd edition PCs (and therefore I assume also 1e PCs, although I never played 1e) so in melee combat, the levels are roughly equivalent. However, 5E spellcasters are much, much weaker than AD&D spellcasters, especially outside of tactical combat. I tend to think of a 20th level 5E wizard as roughly equivalent to a 9th level AD&D(2) wizard in terms of the scope of his magic and the strategic challenges he can handle. For example, True Polymorph is 9th level in 5E and is basically equivalent to Polymorph Other at 4th level in AD&D, and AD&D's Polymorph Self at 4th level was approximately as powerful as a 5E druid's 20th level capstone in every way but combat power. Magic Jar was a 5th level spell, available at wizard 9, and if you were to convert it to 5E it would probably be 9th level or higher, if that were possible. (Even the severely-restricted 5E Magic Jar is 6th level, and it is inferior to AD&D's Magic Jar in three ways: 1.) destroying the gem when spell ends; 2.) only works on humanoids; 3.) caster usually dies when host body perishes.) There are tons of other examples, from Invisibility to Stoneskin to Fire Trap. Offhand, the only ways I know of in which 5E wizards are stronger than AD&D wizards are in illusion magic and the Clone spell, which now functions essentially as the 9th level Stasis Clone spell. In short, if you have a module which is heavy on non-combat challenges, I would [I]not[/I] assume that 5E PCs are anywhere close to twice as capable as their 1E counterparts, and they may perhaps be less capable. But for combat, a 1:1 conversion is probably more than fine, and 2:1 might even be doable. Though honestly I would probably just eyeball the encounters after converting the monster stats to 5E. [B]Final point:[/B] a fair fight in 5E (in the sense of a 50% chance of PC death) seems to be approximately CR = PC level. E.g. if you have 4 17th level PCs, then 4 CR 17 creatures like Red Dragons probably have a decent chance of killing half the party. But 5E is calibrated to play at around 1/4 of that level, 1 CR 17 creature per 4 17th level PCs, so PCs rarely ever face a fair fight at most tables. I don't think AD&D was calibrated that way, so expect to see converted AD&D encounters kill lots of PCs, not because the conversion was bad but because AD&D was designed to be harder. [/QUOTE]
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