D&D 5E "Has anyone converted (x) to 5e?"

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I’ve run original Ravenloft module and When a Star Falls module for 5e but very much ad hoc. I liked that Ravenloft was, what, a couple of months’ worth of weekly sessions rather than a year-plus long campaign - getting dragged into the weird demiplane and out back to normality (albeit at a different place) made for a fun expedition. I tied in WASF to Lost Mine and had Venomfang be the (single) dragon after the machin-I-bozorgs.
I’d love to see a proper version of both - ie as modules and not huge tomes.
Grand Duchy of Karameikos too, for that matter!

 

[the Jester]

Yeah... uh... 'kay.

Feels like that's just a Vampire you make a special ability for, to me. Or in the case of elves: Don't even -make- a special ability, just take away a weakness.

It's just a vampire that you make a special ability for the same way that a death knight is just a ghost with special abilities. In other words, they're completely different.

It seems like you're unfamiliar with the 2e racial vampires. To clarify, they are entirely different monsters from standard vampires. Each is unique and a horror to the (stereotype of the) typical members of the race when alive. Here's the elven vampire, for example: Vampire, Elf (Monstrous Manual)

 

[Steampunkette]

It's just a vampire that you make a special ability for the same way that a death knight is just a ghost with special abilities. In other words, they're completely different.

It seems like you're unfamiliar with the 2e racial vampires. To clarify, they are entirely different monsters from standard vampires. Each is unique and a horror to the (stereotype of the) typical members of the race when alive. Here's the elven vampire, for example: Vampire, Elf (Monstrous Manual)

Yeeeah... no.

Death Knights and Ghosts aren't anything alike, from their hit dice through their features.

Though after specifically looking at that Elvish Vampire... I'd probably just take a Druid NPC, slap the Dhampir racial traits on it, say it takes damage at night, and call it a day. Instead of giving it a separate "Call Wolves" ability, or whatever, just have some wolves join the encounter after a round or two.

Their primary ability seems to be spellcasting, after all. Lemme look at the gnome...

Okay... the Gnome is basically just a regular vampire but it gets Tasha's Laughter as a Reusable ability and instead of Life Drain it does Dexterity Drain... So just kinda add in the Tasha's and describe the Life Drain as particularly physically debilitating comparatively 'cause it already reduces maximum hit points.

Like... These changes are pretty easy and don't really need a whole new stat block.

 

[Sithlord]

I converted isle of dread to call of Cthulhu about 15 years ago. Wish I still had my notes. But it played very well. Had a few deaths with the T-Rex before they learned they can’t fight something that big up close and personal. They did defeat it eventual. They basically trapped it and stopped boulders on it and set it on fire. They did not need to kill the T-Rex. And one point one of the players said “we are humans we can defeat any beast”. It became an obsession until they finally killed it.

 

[Faolyn]

For me, the big ones are the faux faerie and the racial vampires from 2e Ravenloft. Which- are they in the new book? I don't know.

They're not. What I did is just take a bunch of traits (taken from both the racial vamps and the VR Guide to Vampires) and convert them to 5e, where they can be added onto any vampire, template-style. I did it a while ago, so it could probably be redone better now.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

If you’re going to have statblocks for “Strahd zombies” it would sorta indicate the vampire types are different enough to get their own statblocks,

 

[cbwjm]

I’ve thought about the same. The way I’ve considered it is to have a Knight of Solamnia fighter subclass which gains set abilities at Level 3 per entry as a Crown Knight, but has a set for options for Levels 7, 10, 15, and/or 18 for the three suborders, similar to how some of the Barbarian subclasses work, for example (one of those levels could be an ability shared by all again). I figure that it’s technically not important to fully silo the list of options, as a Rose Knight might have a Crown Knight or Sword Knight ability along the way to differentiate him from his fellows — a given campaign would just enforce the “you’re a Crown Knight, don’t take these particular choices without a story reason” ruling. I of course haven’t figured out which abilities or how many abilities are involved (including the spellcasting question for Sword Knight — or whether they simply can gain a “you can cast X spell PB times per LR” ability option).

That sounds pretty good. I think I briefly worked on a fighter subclass like this but your version sounds more flexible. I think I had it so that you enter the knighthood at level 1 as a fighter, at level 3 you get a crown knight ability, level 7 you can stay a crown knight or enter the order of the sword and get a different ability, and then at level 10 a sword knight can choose to become a rose knight while those who don't gain an ability related to the order of the sword and crown knights gain a crown knight ability. I think I gave it up as being too clunky and went back to trying to figure out which way I wanted to work the order.

I also want a good way to figure out the knights of Takhisis, the orders of high sorcery. The holy orders of the stars are probably just regular clerics but with an overarching priesthood depending on if they belong to the good, evil, or neutral orders. I think I'd use an idea I have for my games where it isn't so much you belong to a temple of a single god but you follow a pantheon/faith and gain an ability related to the faith if you choose the acolyte background (signifying a deeper understanding of the faith). Something like acolytes of the Wyld Faith gain a bonus druid cantrip and access to animal/plant type spells whether they have the domain of nature, light, or trickery.