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

 

[MoonSong]

Still no way to convert my very dumb but nimble sorcerer who dual wields sickles while letting her talking raven be the brains of the team...

 

[EthanSental]

With a character like that, let the ravens do the conversion to 5e!

 

[graves3141]

I was thinking it would be a longer and more detailed document considering how long everyone had to wait for it. However, it is helpful and at least we did finally get something.

 

[DLIMedia]

So let me get this straight... A "key staff member" was away at jury duty, and because of that this FOUR PAGE document was delayed for four months?!? Maybe it's me but I was expecting something more... dramatic?

In any event, glad to see whoever the mystery staff member was is back and they can start producing stuff. Now I might be reaching here, but I trust that a license will soon follow.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I don't quite get the disappointment Was anyone expecting every old monster converted, every 3E feat chain and prestige class redone as a subclass or feat or any ADEU powers version of the classes for people who wanted to play 4e using 5e rules?

Mind you, I think that might be a worthy endeavor, but I wouldn't expect them to give it away for free.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I think it's great wotc brought out a bit of a guide to help those convert stuff. I'm not interested in converting old PCs, but i have converted a bunch of adventures already.

From what I've seen it's super easy to convert adventures to 5e. Replace monsters with 5e versions or similar/tweak. Same for traps (damage by tier table is handy). Treasure is DM discretion and substitute for 5e version or tweak/make your own. On the spot rulings for ability checks, generally DC 10-20.

On a personal note, I make liberal use of the +2/-2 modifier for when Adv/disad seems to strong.

Tada! And we're done.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I imagine that there are corner cases along the edge of bounded accuracy where +2/-2 is more potent than bounded accuracy, but yeah if you do it by feel there probably isn't much need for me to run the math at this hour.

 

[Evenglare]

Was expecting more... much more. I agree with graves3141 and DLIMedia about the time frame. They easily could have put this out on day 1. There's very little in here that the community hasn't been doing since release as far as conversions go. If you don't want to download it here's the gist... Find something that is similar to what you want in 5e and then use that. Ta da! Easy 5e conversion. I'll concede that I'm simplifying it... but the scary thing is that it's not that far off the mark.

 

[Tia Nadiezja]

Honestly, the document is largely what I've been doing already. "Eyeball it, and keep 5e's idiosyncrasies in mind."

Other than monsters. When I've needed a monster for my game from a previous edition, I've generally just built it using the old monster's special abilities but the DMG's recommendations for creating a monster at a given level, to fit my needs in the adventure I'm running.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes, that document is not very helpful, but do we really need more?

My last comment however was meant serious. A lot more interesting would be conversion documents that tell us which rules to use to emulate the feel of the older adventures.
E.g. use this and that alternate rule to have a campaign like X work better.