Thank you very much, guys. I directed my players here so they can check the advice more directly. Much appreciated!
Hmmm...
The first problem is that race/class/level doesn't give us enough info. For example, is Cassius a dual-wielder, a trap-finder, or a social rogue? Does he favor a particular weapon or fighting style? Remember, feats can make up a LOT of ground between conversion.
Oh, yes, my apologies. I didn't want to clutter with too much information. Generally speaking, the characters specialize as follows:
-Cassius: Human Rogue 16. Skill-monkey primarily focused on Bluff, Diplomacy, Stealth, and Use Magic Item. Most of his perks and feats are geared towards improving both his capacity to lie and remaining undetected. Sub-par combat skills focused on hand crossbows. He's the party's face and resource administrator (the phrase "Cassius pays" has become the stapple of all the other characters).
-Seyfos: Human Sorcerer 16, Draconic Bloodline. Metamagic-obsessed, primarily focused on both getting the most out of Form of the Dragon and improving spellcasting both through his metamagic feats and rods. Asides from his beloved Disintegrate, most of his magical repertoire is geared toward mind-control and thought-reading.
-Celestia: Aasimar Priestess of Desna 16. Built both for heavy-duty combat with her two-handed sword and a barrage of healing/protection spells. Almost no offensive spellcasting. Most feats are focused on improving and expanding her Channel Energy perk.
-Noak: Earth Genasi Fighter 16. Entirely dedicated to soaking as much damage as posible, dedicating all his feats and perks to HP, damage reduction, resistances, and shield-based combat.
-Kheldric: Kheldric, Human Sorcerer 10/Eldritch Knight 6, Arcane Bloodline. Meant as a versatile character, taking jobs as off-tank and off-damage (also "off-healer" with his absurd Wand of Cure Minor Wounds, as he claims to be a Priest of Lathander). Feats are a mix of two-handed weapon fighting, resistances, and metamagic. Spell selection divided between direct damage (mostly lightning-related), illusions, and travel/teleportations or multiple sorts.
-Vander: Elf Fighter 1/Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 6/Arcane Archer 3. Player used some extremely focused optimization that maximizes damage through shooting arrows enhanced with spells and class features. Mechanically speaking, the character is little else than a bow with legs. Suffers from a severe case of the glass
A while back, I started working on a conversion guide. This was what I had:
Ohh, that's very nice indeed! I see a lot of useful information there. Thank you very much!
These are straight swaps - not sure about Genasi powers but their attributes would be STR & CON or similar
Aye. I thought those should be the easiest to recreate, although in the case of Cassius I'm worried about his dependency on wondrous items to do most of his stuff (his play style relies heavily on utility items to enhance both his skills and survivability).
Fighter, Eldritch Knight 12 Wizard 4 or 4 more Fighter levels. Or maybe stop with 6 (or 8 or 11) fighter levels like the last guy if he wants more blasting but then they are similar characters.
I think the player might want to retain the spontaneous casting perk of the Sorcerer. He's never been a fan of spellbooks. But otherwise, yes, I think that should more or less cover his bases.
Fighter, Eldritch Knight 12 Wizard 4 or 4 more Fighter levels. Or maybe stop with 6 (or 8 or 11) fighter levels like the last guy if he wants more blasting but then they are similar characters.
Probably Ranger 6 wizard 10 would work too, or lots of Ranger & a bit of reskinning. It depends what he want to do but he should easily match his pathfinder caster level
Hmm, I'll have him check the Ranger and see how we can refluff it to fit with the concept. Might be a more direct route, after all.
5e will give them more flexibility with their skills & less with feats because there are fewer so there may be a gap if they are looking to do something combo related in Pathfinder. 5e feats are pretty dull mechanically outside fighting ones but can add stacks of character.
Yes, I've noticed that. Except for Vander (and to a degree Noak, but that player doesn't really care how exactly he works mechanically so long as he can be the party's meat shield), the characters don't depend on specific mechanical combos to fulfill their concepts. One of the things they really liked about 5e was precisely what you mention, how much character the new rules like Backgrounds add to the game.
I would suggest that the players just embrace 5e completely with this experiment rather than trying to incorporate any Pathfinder specific stuff. If they look through the PHB and try to find what most closely resembles their PF character and go with the 5e version, it will integrate more smoothly with the rest of the 5e trappings (which will make your life easier). If they still have (or can reverse engineer) what their original dice rolls were, then they can build their character completely using the 5e rules for ability score increases. The characters will find that they gain/lose skills, class abilities and such. If they can stomach that, their characters will just be different than they were in PF, it will mesh better with what you need to do as a DM....
I agree. I told them that this wouldn't work if they tried out a direct conversion, but instead would require them to go back to their original concept and see how they can recreate it using 5e. The plan is to use the original stats (we always roll 4d6 drop lowest for initial scores) and see how they scale using 5e's level advancement.
Now for the really difficult part. Magic items are quite different and more rare. +x items range from +1 to +3. A brooch of shielding gives resistance to force damage and immunity to magic missile instead of charges of the shield spell. Bracers of Defense give a +2 to AC if one is not wearing armor or a shield. Wands of healing do not exist (although in my game I did put in wands of healing word and had them follow the mechanics of the 5e wand of the magic missile in terms of charges). Attunement will cut down on the number of magic items your characters can use as they only get to use 3 attunement items. Many, but not all, magic items require attunement. Some characters will find they have to shed some magic items because they have 4 or 5 attunement items. This more than anything may turn out to be a deal breaker for some people to do the conversion.
This is the part that worries me the most. Even though I'm always very stingy when it comes to handing out magic items, this particular campaign began at 15th level and with a more flexible allowance of magic items to reflect their long adventuring careers (plot is that they decided to fund a company in Sigil after years of adventuring together), so to a certain degree they have become reliant on certain items (such as Metamagic Rods for Seyfos, enchanted bows & arrows for Vander, and all sorts of utility items for Cassius. Also dozens of Bags of Holding, which are almost never used to actually store items in them).
I'll have to see how to work that problem, which might alter some parts of their playstyle. Does it break the game too much to hand over some extra magic items/increase attunement slots? Nothing too powerful; it's more about the variety of choices they like to have than the raw power of a single item.
