In-Game Justifications for Edition Conversions

[Chacal]

I say "changes in the magical flux" to justify all changes to the magic rules. Other rules stuff doesn't need worrying about IMO.

I've done the "changes in magical flux" for 2e -> 3e, too.
But they were progressive and linked to a big metaplot I had running.
We kept the same campaign world (I started it 10 years ago) and converted the main PCs and NPCs, but started with new PCs to learn the 3rd Ed rules. After that, we also played some of the older PCs.


The sorcerers were introduced slowly. Very few people know of their existence, and the PCs discovered one of them was using magic in an unusual way but they still aren't sure about how he got this.
For quite a long time , even the sorcerer (player and PC) thought he had stolen by accident some powers that gruumsh reserved to one of its priests. As a human, he was afraid and ashamed to speak about this. The human barbarian PC suspecting him of "having something orcish in him" and threatening him didn't help, too.

magic accessibility hasn't changed and is quite low, but that's more a flavor thing.
Some animals and objects have "spontaneously awakened", though.


Most race restrictions concerning arcane spellcasting are still in effect, even if they are now more culturally based (because no dwarf in his right mind would try to be a "wizard" it hasn't occured to them that they might be able to).


Our rogues don't sneak attack with non rogues weapons and our clerics have barred spells depending on the divinity.

I've started integrating some of the 3.5 elements.


Unfortunately I had to move and I will only DM it a couple of times per year.

I just hope they won't change version soon, because I really want to end this campaign and won't use this metaplot thing twice .



Chacal

 

[Chacal]

I think you'd need nothing less than a divine intervention to shapechange all 3.0 Rangers into 3.5 Rangers, a curse to afflict all multiclassed gnome Illusionists,

Wow, that's drastic !
How about simply giving the already existing [N]PC gnomes choice for their "preferred class".
Existing ranger will change only if they want to . And some of the changes can be adjusted over the next levels, provided you're not afraid of house ruling some stuff.

the said abrupt change to magic/weave for all the spells and everything magical,

agreed.

the sudden popularity spread of tripping techniques more effective than before,

Nothing divine in that, that's just metagaming IMO.

and the current fashion of crafting equipment which has insidious shapes to hamper use from bigger or smaller creatures.

How often (outside treasure found) did your PCs use weapons from differently sized creatures without penalties in your games ? IME it's quite rare so the effect is close to zero IMC.

For the treasure they already found, just pretend they were lucky to find weapons fitting their sizes

Chacal

 

[Voadam]

In my Ravenloft game we went from a 1e to 2e without in game stuff, it just sort of happened but I constantly used Oe, 1e, and 2e stuff together. For going to 3e I did a huge plot event. There was a big prohecy to break the bonds of the ravenloft world (a conjunction) that the party was trying to fulfill. One of the players had become a champion of Shiva the destroyer of worlds and they went on a quest to destroy a Ravenloft lord who is a demigod and high priest of a rival major god. After a really cool fight one PC finally killed the god with an artefact designed for that specific purpose. The champion took the corpse of the demigod lord and threw it into a pillar of divine fire as a sacrifice to Shiva, and they felt the world and their very beings change. I shortly thereafter went onto DM hiatus so picking it up again in 3.5 will be no problem, and will work better with some of the character concepts (mystic theurge is better for matching the old cleric magic-users feel).