Oriental revised classes

Spalkulus · Sep 3, 2003

Hi all!

I have just begun converting my 3E D&D-game to 3.5, and I wonder if there has been a revised version of the Oriental Adventures character classes? There seems to be a 3.5-compliant progression for the epic levels for these classes but what about the original ones?

hong · Sep 3, 2003

There's been no word on any 3.5E conversions from WotC. That said, the core classes shouldn't need that much changing, if any. A few skills might need tinkering, and you might want to add some of the new 3.5E spells to spell lists, but that's about it.

Melkor · Sep 3, 2003

The Samurai class remains largely untouched in 3.5, other than a few skill name changes and feat name changes.

I have been converting OA over myself. The weapons are done (and in PDF format), and most of the classes are done as well. The real headache comes in when trying to convert over the Shaman, Shugenja, and other casting class spell lists.
It's easy to go through and change the spells that have only had their names changed in 3.5, it's also fairly easy to delete spells off of the spell lists that no longer exist.....The difficult and subjective part is:
1)Looking at the native OA spells and determining if they 'balance' with the new 3.5 spells.
-and-
2)Looking through all of the new spells in 3.5 and deciding if they should be added to the OA spell lists.

It's the last two that have caused a lot of frustration in trying to convert. Word from Andy Collins over on the WoTC D&D boards a month or so ago was that 'there might be something in the works' by the original author of OA to update it to 3.5, but he had no new information on that, and suggested checking the author's website for any future info.

hong · Sep 3, 2003

Melkor said:
The Samurai class remains largely untouched in 3.5, other than a few skill name changes and feat name changes.

I have been converting OA over myself. The weapons are done (and in PDF format), and most of the classes are done as well. The real headache comes in when trying to convert over the Shaman, Shugenja, and other casting class spell lists.
It's easy to go through and change the spells that have only had their names changed in 3.5, it's also fairly easy to delete spells off of the spell lists that no longer exist.....The difficult and subjective part is:
1)Looking at the native OA spells and determining if they 'balance' with the new 3.5 spells.
-and-
2)Looking through all of the new spells in 3.5 and deciding if they should be added to the OA spell lists.

It's the last two that have caused a lot of frustration in trying to convert. Word from Andy Collins over on the WoTC D&D boards a month or so ago was that 'there might be something in the works' by the original author of OA to update it to 3.5, but he had no new information on that, and suggested checking the author's website for any future info.

Here's a hint: a lot of OA spells aren't even balanced with 3.0, let alone 3.5. Spells like fatigue, ice knife, and ice blast, for example, are hopelessly weak out of the book. You want to decide whether your conversion process should include trying to bring these spells up to par, or whether you should focus more narrowly on just updating the spell lists.

And really, you don't need to touch anything if your players aren't using it. I'm using a lot of OA stuff IMC, and I haven't bothered to go through it all. If nobody's going to play a Shiba protector, or cast mental weakness, for example, there's no point agonising over the conversion. Just do things on a case-by-case basis, and life will be much easier.