Here's That Official Conversion Document You've Been Waiting For!

There's a short official conversion document on the official D&D website. "We’re sometimes asked for advice on converting things from previous editions of D&D to fifth edition. The following PDF, penned by Chris Sims, gives advice on converting characters and adventures, along with the elements that go into them, such as spells, monsters, and treasure." It's 4 pages long, and covers converting player characters, adventures, and treasure from various previous editions. (thanks to Terradave for the scoop).

As the introduction mentions, it is short (the treasure section is four paragraphs in length). As the document says, "Conversion of D&D material is more art than science. The aim of conversion is to arrive at something that feels like the older-edition version, rather than at an exact replication."

Click here for the official conversion document.

Some conversion examples include:

• 5E characters are two-thirds of 4E character levels.
• Modifiers less than +4 are ignored; those of +4 or more use a trait, proficiency, or advantage.
• Ability scores above 20 become 20.

Also of interest is a Monsters By Type list. "Sometimes you want to see a list of all monsters of a certain type. Perhaps you’re the DM building an undead-themed adventure, or you’re the player curious to know which elementals or fey your character can summon. The following PDF is for such times. It lists every monster from the Monster Manual by type and includes a creature’s challenge rating and any tags, such as shapechanger, that the creature might have."

The conversion document has been anxiously - and often impatiently! - awaited for a while now. Its long delay was apparently due to a key staff member being on jury duty (this is the same delay cited for any third party licensing stuff). Mike Mearls said back in March that it would be at least another 4 months (it was!)

There are also, of course, many fan-created conversion documents and tools.

[h=4]Original Post[/h]
Not sure if this is what people have been waiting for, but a 4 page conversion document has been posted for 5E. Quite general.

Also, monsters by type and compiled resources.

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-references-october-2015

 

[Plageman]

How many other RPG line do support 4 previous editions with conversion documents that fully detail monsters, encounters and PC rebuilding ? None. At best you get a small conversion from previous version to current version and even these are not garanteed.

It seems to me that what people expected was one full, 40+ pages document for each edition rather than a loose and fast guideline product.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

How many other RPG line do support 4 previous editions with conversion documents that fully detail monsters, encounters and PC rebuilding ? None. At best you get a small conversion from previous version to current version and even these are not garanteed.

It seems to me that what people expected was one full, 40+ pages document for each edition rather than a loose and fast guideline product.

Most other RPG lines change in much more subtle ways than D&D does from one edition to the next. D&D has been at least five completely different, totally incompatible games at this point.

 

[S'mon]

Not a lot there for GMs.
For pre-3e conversion of adventures, I find doubling monster hp and adding an appropriate attribute modifier to damage works well, often half the die, eg hp 22 att 2 dam d6/d6 goes to hp 44 dam d6+3/d6+3.

 

[Hussar]

Most other RPG lines change in much more subtle ways than D&D does from one edition to the next. D&D has been at least five completely different, totally incompatible games at this point.

I dunno. How many Star Wars systems are there?

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

I dunno. How many Star Wars systems are there?

West End. Then it went along with D&D.

I don't remember a conversion guide from WEG SW to WotC SW. I can't imagine even trying mechanical conversion there.

 

[delericho]

How many other RPG line do support 4 previous editions with conversion documents that fully detail monsters, encounters and PC rebuilding ?

How many other RPGs even have four previous editions? There's Call of Cthulhu (which deliberately had only small changes each time), Shadowrun, and Star Wars (but see below). Maybe Vampire, if you include the Dark Ages line. Any others? It's actually pretty rare for an RPG to get even a second edition, never mind a fifth.

Plus, of course, 5e was deliberately pitched as something of a "unity edition", the one where players from 1st Ed, 3.5e, and 4e could all happily find a home.

I dunno. How many Star Wars systems are there?

About nine, depending on how you count them: WEG 1st and 2nd, plus maybe "Second Edition, Revised and Expanded"; three from WotC (the first one, the RCR, and SWSE); and now FFG's three complementary game lines (Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, Force and Destiny).

West End. Then it went along with D&D.

I don't remember a conversion guide from WEG SW to WotC SW. I can't imagine even trying mechanical conversion there.

Star Wars is an odd case, since the game has been licensed to three separate companies. It may not even be possible for FFG to provide conversion guides from WEG or WotC, depending on how the licenses were worded.

(Certainly there are examples of this in other areas: MWP can't provide official conversions from their old Serenity game to their new Firefly game because of the licenses involved - they are required to keep them entirely firewalled from one another.)

 

[Li Shenron]

I am not surprised that the conversion guidelines are weak, but I am always surprised about how many people eagerly awaits for them, as if they were so important, and are then inevitably disappointed, as if it was possible not to be. Most editions are just too different in both the mechanics, the concepts and the availability of things. At least in 5e character restrictions are at an all-time low, and the PHB has a high number of races and classes, so it's unlikely that someone has to drop too many defining features of their PC. But if your defining features were mechanical, then you shouldn't even expect to be able to recreate the same thing in another edition, with few exceptions.

That said, the conversion guidelines do provide a couple of giddy moments for sure:

- "Level in other* editions converts directly into fifth edition" (other than 4e)... really? How about those older editions where classes had different XP/level progressions, so that a Thief of level X was usually a lot weaker than an Elf (class) of level X? Classes were not equal at the same level, so they had different progressions for balance. If your BECMI party was fair with a 15-lv Thief and a 10-lv Fighter, your 5e party will not be fair with a 15-lv Rogue and 10-lv Fighter.

- "Choose the race that most closely matches your character’s race" and "Choose the fifth edition class that most closely matches your character’s class". So if you were a Fighter in previous editions, you should be a Fighter in 5e. Who would have thought? But be careful because "Class names can frame your thinking"! You never noticed that Magic-User, Mage and Wizard were really the same thing before these guidelines. <sarcasm off> Maybe what they had in mind here is rather converting PCs that used non-core classes and races. Except that maybe you should first think if it's really worth trying... why did you enjoyed playing that class or race in the first place? If it was because of the story, then surely go ahead, keep the flavor intact and just build a new PC of a class/race that exists in the 5e PHB. If it was more than just the flavor, you'd better play something else until such class/race becomes available in 5e.

I do like how they suggest to just ignore feats from previous editions (often about fiddly bits, sometimes individual special abilities) and use 5e feats in a rather different way. And I also like how they clarify that old editions really meant Lawful vs Chaotic to represent the heroes vs the villains, and that is very different from what they meant after the introduction of Good vs Evil axis (and yet a lot of people still think that a chaotic character must "sometimes" do something evil or plain stupid...).

Bottom line, count me in with those who don't see why bother with converting older-edition PCs with precision. Most people just all the time create new PCs, very few keep playing the same PC for many years, and if that's your case I think you'll have more satisfaction in keep playing such PC also in the same edition, rather than suffer the inconsistencies with a new one. Just try something new in 5e.

---

About converting adventures and campaign settings, that is something a lot more interesting. You might want to still use those 100s of adventures you bought years ago and missed the chance to play when the relevant edition was current, and you might love a fantasy setting but not the rules of the edition it was written for.

Adventures tho are easy to convert. All you really need, is to decide (or figure out) the appropriate level range, and make sure that nothing (or at least not too many things) deviates too much from that. Maybe you had an adventure against Werewolves, and in that old edition Werevolves were fearsome foes not suitable for any party under level 10, while in the new edition they would be push-overs for such PCs. Well you can just use 5e werewolves, figure out how difficult the adventure is in 5e terms, and run it for appropriate PCs. If your PCs are already too strong, boost the werewolves using the DMG or just put more of them. Do something similar to all encounters so there is none which deviates too much from the level range. After you've set the encounters, all the other non-combat challenges (traps, various tasks and checks needed) should just be given a DC using the Basic/DMG guidelines.

Nothing needs to change in terms of narrative, unless you had unique monsters. That's the only difficult part, but there is already stuff in the DMG to create monsters from scratch. It might be just easier to use that instead of trying to adjust the monster and balance by addition and subtraction.

I think overall the proposed "Careful Conversions" are just good advice, and I would bet they give more reliable results with a small effort, compared with the "Quick Conversions" that seem actually more precise but less reliable.

Campaign Settings are a lot more difficult to convert, at least if you want to have mechanical character options. Obviously if you just want to keep the narrative, there is near-zero effort required. But often you want unique races, unique classes, elite options (e.g. older edition's feats, spells, prestige classes/kits/etc.) and possibly dedicated rules for stuff that isn't yet in 5e. The problem with that is that no official conversion document can ultimately do the work for you, only a full sourcebook can!

 

[Azzy]

I ike the conversion document but I guess i'll a redux of it on an index card to be able to refer quickly.

For the nostalgics of previous editons I suggest check theses resources and think how unwieldly they were...
Basic D&D to AD&D 2E
AD&D 2E to D&D 3.0 conversion booklet
D&D 3.0 to D&D 3.5 conversion booklet
And remember than converting from 3.5 to PF isn't as straightforward as it seems, there is an 18 pages conversion guide too.

I think a lot of people that were expecting more don't remember these gems. the 2e to 3e conversions, for instance, didn't contain rules for converting over kits or alternate classes like wild mages or things from the Player's Option books (and didn't handle psionics at all).

 

[Patrick McGill]

On the fly adventure conversion has been most of what I've been doing with my current campaign. We've done the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (both parts), Night's Dark Terror, and bits out of the Al Qadim Golden Voyages converted for my world. I ran the first couple of Dragonlance modules over skype back in the latter part of the playtest as well.

I've found it to be surprisingly easy. On the fly DCs are easy to begin with (should this task be easy, average, or difficult?), and I just plop the 5e version of whatever monster is called for, or sub in a level appropriate one. Sometimes I have to scale back or toughen up an encounter, but that's no more than what I have to do with homebrew stuff. Any mechanics specific to the adventure don't really interact with the 5e rules so aren't a problem, or if they are, just sub in an ability check.

I don't see the need for conversion documents for the adventures at all, really. I'm not sure you'd get more than a few sentences! What you basically need to know is stuff already in the PHB/MM/DMG for encounters anyway.

 

[Plageman]

A lot a RPG lines have 3+ editions out now and some have heavy differences between them like Shadowrun or more subtle-but-still-making-it-difficult like Legend of the Five Rings. Most of the RPG companies usually use the new editions as an excuse to sell you whle lot of books "updating" content you already have.

Even between same company editions changes can be tough to track, WEG Star Wars had quite some difference between the 1s and second edition especially with vehicles/ships.

And even more recent games can have some pretty differences between editions, just look at how Fate evolved between editions. Sure it's less important a jump that from 4E to 5E D&D but still different.

Again I don't understand why people are deisappointed. Sure if you have participated in the playtest you saw howt hey handled the "caves of chaos" and "isle of terror" conversions...