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

 

[Von Ether]

Conversion documents are fool's game for RPG companies.

They have to serve too many masters. From the GM who wants the apple to oranges math to work perfect for every corner case to the person who a quick and dirty conversion. (Props to WotC trying to provide both).

And then if the conversion is too straightforward or too vague, everyone goes "is that all? I could have done that myself."

It brings back memories of looking up how to covert monsters from AD&D to BECMI. Little did I know that I could have just ran AD&D modules as is.

It's moments like this that make me understand why the Hasbro suits want to find a way to make an "evergreen" RPG that they can stock like Boggle or Uno. I hate that concept myself, but now I get it.

 

[Dire Bare]

Having conversion guidelines for 5E is nice, but hardly essential to enjoying the current edition. I can see why this was a low priority for WotC and got bumped for other more important projects when they temporarily suffered a reduction in manpower.

For those who don't care for the document, in part or whole, that's fair enough. It was definitely going to be one of those things where no matter what WotC did, some folks would love it and others would not. I've got my nitpicks too.

But for those whining, "Well, it's about time!" or "THIS is what we've been waiting for?" and so on . . . . get a grip! WotC was under no obligation to provide this type of document to us, they haven't done so for each prior edition, and again, having this is nice, but hardly necessary. When WotC lost staff, even only for a few months, they had to revise their priorities and it makes perfect sense to me that this document fell to the wayside in front of stuff that would actually bring in revenue.

I'm very thankful that WotC didn't can the idea altogether and kept the conversion guidelines on the "to do" list, finally delivering them to us! I'm very pleased with the support we've gotten for this edition of the game, and WotC's got my support for continuing on with the current release/support schedule!

Thanks Mearls and crew!

 

[Mistwell]

From that document, I give you this table:

Exceptional Score New Strength Score
18/01–18/50 19
18/51–18/75 20
18/76 –18/90 21
18/91–18/99 22
18/00 23
19–20 24
21–22 25
22–23 26
24–25 27

Would it really have been that hard to make a similar table for 5E? In fact I'll do so right now using the 5E MM Giant entries as a guide:

Exceptional Score New Strength Score
18/01–18/50 18
18/75–18/90 19
18/91 –18/00 20
19 21
20-21 23
22 25
23 27
24 29
25 30

WOTC disagrees with you on a fundamental point: for 5e, they don't want you starting with a stat over 18. So they are intentionally converting your 18/00 to an 18. It's not an accident, it's not being lazy, it's not being sloppy, it's not being brief, it's exactly the choice they made. You disagree with that choice, which is fine. But quit ranting that your choice is the only rationale choice. I can see their point. Their point is one rational way to do this - your suggestion is another rationale way to do it. Reasonable minds can disagree.

 

[Hussar]

Given that all stats are capped at 20, starting with a 20, naturally, in a stat is a huge leg up. You don't have to spend any ASL's maxing out your stat. IOW, starting with a 20 in a stat is a free feat, instead of having to choose between stat bump or feat. Makes the base stat too powerful.

 

[JEB]

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

Surprisingly, there actually were rules for this in the back of the first version of WotC's SW RPG. Ran five pages, and was actually pretty detailed.

 

[Valador]

I don't see why people can't just move on... 5E is the living active product. People should stop trying to demand that WotC waste their time trying to accommodate systems from 20 years ago...

You spent a lot of money on books for previous editions, I get it, but didn't you get your money's worth out of them then? If not, that's your fault. Also, no one forced you to buy all those books nor did they force you to convert to 5E.

WotC is producing 5E now, not 2E/3E/4E. That's the facts, accept it and stop living in the past. Who REALLY needs to convert a character from 20 years ago? I mean seriously... Are there really not enough monsters in the MM now that you're hung up on a monster from decades ago that just HAS to be converted?

Adventures I can understand because those stories stick with you, however I don't really feel reproducing adventures is that hard with this edition, even with the wonky CR system. Hopefully WotC will work out some license so we can get some more third party support in order to supplement the slower adventure production.

PS - I think a lot of the problem is that as a society, everyone has gotten seriously lazy and doesn't want to put in any kind of effort on their part and want instant gratification from WotC and then get all bent when WotC doesn't silver spoon feed them what they want.

 

[Von Ether]

It's not lazy, it's usually two types of people.

1) Those who found something that worked for them and it's now their comfort zone. Which can be frustrating for some if you live in a small community of limited gamers and want some variety, but it's not badwrongfun.

2) Stingy gamers who think WotC is a heartless corporation for "forcing" them to buy another book 10, 15, or 20 years later.

Reminds me of DM who wanted to mix things up and was jonesing to try a few different systems. We had Savage Worlds on hand, but he wanted to put it up to a player vote.

I told him, "You do that, and we will be playing D&D, more specifically Forgotten Realms." He laughed.

One guy's literal email vote was "Forgotten Realms, or barring that, Dragon Lance, or Greyhawk." When I told him, "Dude, those aren't different games, those are different flavors of the same game."

He insisted that I was wrong.

The next session, the DM already looked bored and dejected. Mr. D&D-All The Games came in with crate that had every FR gaming book ever printed and a big smile on his face.

 

[S'mon]

WOTC disagrees with you on a fundamental point: for 5e, they don't want you starting with a stat over 18. So they are intentionally converting your 18/00 to an 18. It's not an accident, it's not being lazy, it's not being sloppy, it's not being brief, it's exactly the choice they made. You disagree with that choice, which is fine. But quit ranting that your choice is the only rationale choice. I can see their point. Their point is one rational way to do this - your suggestion is another rationale way to do it. Reasonable minds can disagree.

That's not true - you can per 5e RAW roll an 18 on best 3 of 4d6, put a racial modifier on top, and start with a 19 or 20. You have a much better shot than starting with a STR 19 than a STR 18/00 in 1e AD&D!

 

[Mistwell]

That's not true - you can per 5e RAW roll an 18 on best 3 of 4d6, put a racial modifier on top, and start with a 19 or 20. You have a much better shot than starting with a STR 19 than a STR 18/00 in 1e AD&D!

The converted character can ALSO add their racial modifier. I am talking about the rolled stats, the base portion. They don't want you starting with more than 18 as a base stat. If you raise it outside of stat generation, such as through racial increases, that's fine (provided that part doesn't take it more than 20).

 

[qstor]

[MENTION=46020]Plageman[/MENTION] thanks for posting the links.
[MENTION=10148]JEB[/MENTION] - I totally agree about 4e being hard to convert. I didn't have any of the \
paid online tools for 4e which you needed to custom make monsters. I feel its
just simplest to wing the 4e to 5e conversions.