Converting rolls from 2nd ed

[jerm]

Now in a more appropriate location..

2nd ed D&D adventures are full of Ability checks and Saves at penalty.

Dexterity check at -2 penalty, Save vs. Spell at -6, etc.

Is there a standard on converting these to 3.5? Does -2 typically equate to DC 10? 15? How about -12 penalties?

Havent had much luck finding specific information regarding this anywhere.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Hm.

An ability check in 2nd Ed. was a d20 roll vs the appropriate ability. If you got equal or less than your ability score, you succeeded.

In 2nd Ed., abilities were the same as in 3rd Ed., meaning that an average ability was still 10 or 11.

So basically, you had a 50% chance of succeeding at an ability check.

An unmodified ability check should then be, in 3rd Ed., an ability check vs a DC of 10.

Any penalty should be added (positively) to the DC. An ability check with a -4 penalty in 2nd Ed should equal an ability check with a DC of 14 in 3rd Ed, IMO

AR

 

[jerm]

How about with skills?

I see your reasoning, Dex check at -2 in 2nd ed would be a DC 12 Dex check in 3.5.

I wonder if skill checks translated from 2nd ed should be handled differently. For example, 2nd ed used Wisdom for spot and listen checks. Now there are skills for them. A Wisdom roll at -4 to hear something in 2nd ed.. sure we could do a Wisdom check vs DC 14, but wouldnt a Listen check work better? Assuming a character for whom Listen is a class skill, after just a few levels could easily have +7 or so in that skill. I guess what I'm getting at is that Ability checks and Skill checks should be expected to be different numerically. Even at high levels, one could expect an Ability score to reach only 20-22, which is a bonus of 5-6. The same level character will likely have many ranks in some skills (in addition to the bonus from the corresponding Ability).

[edit: Attribute, Ability....]

 

[Pagan priest]

Something else to take into consideration, back in 1st ed, I had a mage with an INT of 20, at 9th level. Most folks that learned of this character were amazed that he could have such a phenominally high stat! Except for a few rare and valuable magic items, there was no way to raise your stats from their starting values.

The end result is that moduals written for higher level characters still assumed that the ability scores were not too far from what they would have been for low level characters. A simple, linear translation may skew things to be a little too easy for 3.X characters.

 

[woodelf]

How about with skills?

I see your reasoning, Dex check at -2 in 2nd ed would be a DC 12 Dex check in 3.5.

I wonder if skill checks translated from 2nd ed should be handled differently. For example, 2nd ed used Wisdom for spot and listen checks. Now there are skills for them. A Wisdom roll at -4 to hear something in 2nd ed.. sure we could do a Wisdom check vs DC 14, but wouldnt a Listen check work better? Assuming a character for whom Listen is a class skill, after just a few levels could easily have +7 or so in that skill. I guess what I'm getting at is that Ability checks and Skill checks should be expected to be different numerically. Even at high levels, one could expect an Ability score to reach only 20-22, which is a bonus of 5-6. The same level character will likely have many ranks in some skills (in addition to the bonus from the corresponding Ability).

[edit: Attribute, Ability....]

Well, proficiency checks in AD&D2 were based off of a modified ability, so, something like Wis -4. So, to simulate the same difficulty, you'd want to add whatever that number is to the DC. So a "Mining Check at -3" in AD&D would translate to an appropriate skill check at DC 10 + 3(base for skill) + 3 (modifier) = 16. In the absence of access to the AD&D2 books, or, if you want to simplify things, i'd just add 1-2 accross the board. At a quick visual scan of the proficiency tables, it looks like the average modifier, accross all proficiencies, is between -1 and -2.

Of course, that's assuming you want strict mathematical fidelity. While those checks weren't intended to be too difficult, they were intended to be something of a challenge. As others have observed, abilities didn't go up with level in AD&D2, and there was no practical way to increase the score for proficiency checks, either. So, for all practical purposes, such checks didn't scale with level. To compensate for this, you could either address it directly, by simply adding average character level (or half of level) to all such DCs, or you could make a more-general correction. Along the latter lines, it looks to me like 15 is closer to a baseline DC in D&D3E for a skill check, with 10 being reserved for particularly-easy tasks. Furthermore, the default method for generating abilities in AD&D2 was 3d6, not 4d6, so characters would have lower stats, by about 2 points (or +1 mod, in D&D3E), on average. So, figuring all this together, i'd suggest going with DC 15 + the modifier, whether an ability check or a proficiency/skill check. That should give the closest fidelity in terms of feel, if not strict mathematical conversion.

 

[Pagan priest]

To keep the flavor about right, try this:
Challenging, but not too hard for someone with training = DC 15.
Challenging even for the trained (gave a penalty of -2 in 2nd ed) = DC 20.
Very difficult, even for the well trained (-4 penalty from 2nd ed) = DC 25.

These days, a character can start with 4 ranks in a skill, and get a stat modifier of +4 as well, from 1st level. Without undue effort, a 4th level character can have a +16 to a skill... not too hard to hit a DC 25 with that.

 

[slingbld]

A friend of mine runs us through a slew of old modules. He's created a quick & dirty system.
Again, like others here have pointed out, attribute increases are far more common in 3rd Ed. 3.5 trunicated it to a small degree but it is still very common for attributes to exceed 20 before level 10.
For any Dex checks use REF Save.
For Con Checks use FORT Save.
INT or WIS use WILL Save.
All others use the attribute.

All start at a base 15. Every -2 adds +5 tot he DC check.
So an encounter that requires a Dex check at -4 would be a reflex save at DC 20.

This has worked so far for us. He tends to tweak it when it seems unballanced.

 

[jerm]

Thanks, Folks.

That helps a great deal.

 

[Grazzt]

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Nice pic ya got there slingbld.