Instant Edition Converter

[Tequila Sunrise]

One thing I forgot mentioning is that for this discussion I am much more interested in your ideas about how this could be achieved, than in rational insights as to why it is not possible. I know the idea is absurd and probably impossible but once ideas are born they are sometimes hard to silence.

I was once invited to a game where the GM told me I could play literally any character I wanted to. I think it was freeform, because that's the only way I can think of to achieve something like this.

 

[SkredlitheOgre]

Another thing to consider is the effects of house rules on a system. Yeah, you could convert something, but if there's a house rule in place for specific conditions/effects/abilities, the conversion may not ultimately be what you need. As Stormonu said, it would probably be good for 'before the game' stuff.

I haven't played 4E and have no desire to, so I don't really have any insight into how it works or how the books are laid out, but if you wanted to put together a ginormous book (or multiple books, more likely), like a Player's Handbook, you could have it set up so that each section (Abilities, Races, Class, Combat, Magic, etc.) would say "Here's how the Trip attack (for example) works in OD&D, AD&&D, 2E, 3E, 3.5 E, 4E, and Pathfinder."

Possible? Yes. My idea, though, would be expensive and unwieldy. Especially if you have to duel wield books. You would take a -2 to your Reading skill.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, perhaps the thing to do is to make a one way converter first, going from previous editions to 4e, rather than trying to get it to work both ways, at least at first.

This will make it easier for 4e DMs to take advantage of the vast back catalog of adventures and to benefit from materials created for Pathfinder. 4e just does not have as large a number of adventures to convert.

Perhaps a pull down menu of common special abilities to add them to existing critters from older editions?

The Auld Grump

 

[MortalPlague]

The other challenge I could see, aside from the obvious ones, would be mastery of the rules. The DM would need to know every rule from every D&D edition in order to adjudicate the effects of a given action properly. I have trouble keeping on top of one system!

 

[prosfilaes]

How do you balance two fighters from OSRIC and 3.5E? At 15th level, a OSRIC fighter with 15 Con has 9d10 + 27 HP. A 3.5E fighter will normally have 15d10 + 30 HP, and the difference only gets worse going up. The 3.5 fighter gets all sorts of feats going up; you can add a table giving feats to the 1E fighter, but then the 1E fighter is a 3.5E fighter with fewer options. Can a 3.5E wizard learn 3.0 Haste? What about spells from 1E? What about spells from 4E? What happens when two characters grapple, which rules do you use?

In the end, I can't see the victory. You've added a huge set of rules to make a mechanically inconsistent world. The level of complexity needed to balance fighter alone against fighter is huge; I can't imagine what gain you would get from playing 1E fighter except for simplicity, and then it would easier to make a 3E or 4E class that was a simpler fighter then this set of rules. And to play a 3.5 Wizard when the DM is playing 1E and trying to reinterpret everything I do through those square holes? That's got to be more frustrating then fun.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Two real issues:

1. Would it be possible?

2. Would it "work" at the table?


For the first, it'd require massive, massive rules knowledge to create such a thing. Might it be possible? Yes. But it'd have to either be more "guidelines driven" for specific feats, prestige classes, monster powers, etc etc etc or it'd have to be HUGE, incorporating virtually every rule, spell, monster power, etc etc etc.

E.G. Do you have "spell damages convert to x,y,z" or do you have a "here is how to convert magic missile across all editions".



For the second. I don't see it working at the table. It'd slow the (already slow 3e and 4e games) to below a crawl.



BUT! I think, if it were a computer program, that it could work. It could be seamless, with each person selecting an input edition, and perhaps they'd only ever "see" their own edition (including the DM). A computer program would allow for instant conversions without spending time looking things up in tables, and would be able to hold the massive volume of information.

 

[Vascant]

First let me state, I think it is do-able from a sense of just building comparison tables however it won't work for playing the game because each edition is balanced upon itself not with regard to previous editions. Perfect example of this is the bard, in 1e it was perhaps the rarest class selected (if even allowed) but in the last 2 editions they are more common then orcs. Psionics would be another disaster in the making when compared to 1e and 3e era.

Finally, doing all this at the table just seems like a nightmare. The idea is to keep things running smoothly at a table not find every way possible to slow the game down. If you want to run something from a previous edition, just plan ahead.

 

[IronWolf]

On the fly conversion? I don't see how you could accomplish this *during* the game with a mix of classes from each edition without bogging the game down horribly - with or without electronic aide.

Now - pre-game conversion? That seems more possible to me, though with a lot of work to build the tool or conversion charts to do so.

As some of the others have suggested I would say one would need to go through each edition and build a list of all special abilities, damage possibility, etc for the monsters. Once those are done then you can build charts that work on an ability by ability basis. Then apply those to the monster in question. No small task, but possibly a reasonable approach to such a task.

 

[prosfilaes]

BUT! I think, if it were a computer program, that it could work. It could be seamless, with each person selecting an input edition, and perhaps they'd only ever "see" their own edition (including the DM).

It could never been seamless. Can a fighter in non-magical chain mail swim? In 1E? "Swimming will be impossible in any type of metal armor with the exception of magic armor."* A 3.5 character just needs a DC 20 Swim check to swim, 15 to stay afloat. A 8th level fighter with full skill points in Swim couldn't fail the check to stay afloat. If the armor is magical, the tables are turned; the 1E character can automatically float (sort of*), whereas the 3.5 character still needs to make DC 18/13 Swim checks. I'm sure if the two characters trade armor it will be called metagaming, but it is the reasonable thing to do.

* DMG55. I've owned the 1E DMG for many years, but never personally realized how bad it was in some ways until now. The paragraph on Swimming, which has no entry in the index, is an unclear collection of special cases.

 

[Mark CMG]

It could never been seamless. Can a fighter in non-magical chain mail swim? In 1E? "Swimming will be impossible in any type of metal armor with the exception of magic armor."* A 3.5 character just needs a DC 20 Swim check to swim, 15 to stay afloat. A 8th level fighter with full skill points in Swim couldn't fail the check to stay afloat. If the armor is magical, the tables are turned; the 1E character can automatically float (sort of*), whereas the 3.5 character still needs to make DC 18/13 Swim checks. I'm sure if the two characters trade armor it will be called metagaming, but it is the reasonable thing to do.

* DMG55. I've owned the 1E DMG for many years, but never personally realized how bad it was in some ways until now. The paragraph on Swimming, which has no entry in the index, is an unclear collection of special cases.

Is the "Instant Edition Converter" meant to make the transition equalized or just meant to let the GM know what the situation will require if he is GMing one edition or the other?