Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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It's really more art than science. Just keep in mind that in 2e, a low AC was good. The base mechanic for combat was to roll a d20, subtract that roll from your THAC0* and that would give you the AC you hit (yes, it was a stupid mechanic). All classes started with a THAC0 of 20, so you needed a natural 20 to hit AC 0. AC started at 10 and went down from there.
*THAC0 = To Hit Armor Class 0
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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THAC0 is the one that tends to throw people. I'm surprised it's explained in the stat blocks.
What specifically is causing an issue? A lot of the stuff you just have to throw to the wayside. Saves don't translate over. Skills basically don't exist except for thieving skills, and those are done with a percentage based system. Magic resistance (i.e., spell resistance) is percentage based and caster level doesn't assist in overcoming it.
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The adventures included in the set are the big problem. Many monsters haven't been updated. What's the difference between a ghost and a spectre? What do greater and lesser daemons become? What's the "Total party levels" entry at the beginning mean? And on the subject of levels, do I have to change levels for NPCs to keep them equally powerful?
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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The adventures included in the set are the big problem. Many monsters haven't been updated. What's the difference between a ghost and a spectre? What do greater and lesser daemons become? What's the "Total party levels" entry at the beginning mean? And on the subject of levels, do I have to change levels for NPCs to keep them equally powerful?
Let's see:
I thought spectre was converted in one of the 3e books. 2e didn't have templates, so a ghost was always the same creature, and the spectre was like a ghost but weaker. I would say convert to a ghost or a ghost-like creature.
Daemons = yugoloths. Is this an old 1e type adventure where they are listed as type X daemons? If so, you may need someone with a grayer beard than I.
Just ignore total party levels. 2e adventures were set up for a broader band of character levels because the classes leveled at different rates and multiclassing screwed things up (it worked like gestalt classes, but you went up in level slower). The total party levels is literally adding together the levels of all the characters in the party.
You will have to change NPC's. Try and get a sense of the level you're going to run the adventure for and then use the 3e rules of thumb to convert (i.e., if it's a 5th level adventure, the big boss should be around 8th or 9th level). The classes were not balanced at all in 2e. Fighters in particular used to suck after low levels.
I would really try and figure out what level you want the adventure to be and then convert to meet that goal. If you just do a straight convert, you're going to end up with some really easy encounters and some really impossible encounters.
Think of total party levels as CR. In earlier editions, if an adventure was tailored for 30 total party levels, then that means it could be 5 6th level characters, 3 level 10s, 10 level 3s, etc.
The best way to adapt is to follow your intution.
A -1 AC was 11 points better than the base AC, 10. So this becomes a +11.
HD are bascially the same. With THAC0, subtract it from 20 to get the BAB. "Saves as F8" means their saves are as a Fighter of 8th level. You could use the MM's rules for making new monsters to make ones that seem weird.
Check for monsters across books. For the ghost, or spectre, template something that best fits what is happening in the game.
I know I was given a few booklets during the 3e conversion on how to switch 2e over. I would suggest you check the wizards of the coast website for one, or just the net, and follow it.
I'd skip out on a pure conversion in the sense of trying to work out THACO etc. You should have a class a level and a list of equipment for the NPC. I'd just remake them from scratch using these as guidlines. You need to pick feats etc. for them in any case.
Most of the monsters should be in 3.5 which has way more monsters then 1st or 2nd ever did. If not I'd simply replace with something appropreate from 3.5 if at all possible as long as it still works with the plot line outlined.
My own experience in converting 2md edition material to 3.5 is that attempting to translate everything line by line leads to madness. Its actually slower then figuring out what the adventure requires for this encounter and then finding something appropreate for 3.5.
Pay especially close attention to things that now require DC checks and make sure to take into account that players can do stuff like take 20 in 3.5.
Generally I find that converting NPCs and monsters is usually the easy bit. Its remembering to add in all the DC checks and reworking the traps that is most likely to get overlooked by me only to have me scrambling to wing it on the fly when I realize that I have missed something important.
Things like jumping over a crevice is not a dex check but instead is now a jump check against some DC - or the doors have to all be picked out and mentioned in your module so that you know what their hardness and burst DCs are or that poison has changed completely etc. These are the kinds of things that I find have to be watched for and here is were I am most likely to make an error - usually an error of ommision.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I found my old post about the conversion of traps and locks from 2e to 3e. I will edit it a little and maybe it will make sense:
In 2e, the skill system was just about non-existant. Thieves and bards had certain skills like open lock, move silent, detect traps etc. Rather than rolling a d20 and beating a DC, you rolled percentile dice and got below your skill.
If a rogue had a 20% chance of opening a lock, that's what you would need to roll for any lock. On a d20, that's the equivalent of a modified roll of 16+. A 40% chance is the equivalent of a 12+.
The problem with a conversion is that the base difficulty in 2e is calculated directly using the character level, not with referecne to the quality of the lock as in 3e. What you should do is for a generic lock or trap use a DC equal to say, 15+character level. That will approximate the level of the challenge for a generic lock or trap.
If you run across a lock or trap where there is a penalty to discovering it (e.g. "the trap imposes a -10% penalty to the find traps roll"), divide the penalty by 5 and add it to the DC of the lock or trap.
Anything you do in converting this stuff is going to be messy because the rogue's skills are a very different beast. It's best if you just eyeball it for the character's levels. a -10% penalty means that something has a DC 1 to 2 points higher than would be typical for that level.
I don't know if this helps but I remember when 3.0 first came out there was a free WotC flier at the games shop that had conversions from 2nd Ed. to 3.0 Ed. Unfortunately I lost my flier...
maybe those rules are still floating around on the WotC web site?
maybe those rules are still floating around on the WotC web site?
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a
Yup.
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If a rogue had a 20% chance of opening a lock, that's what you would need to roll for any lock. On a d20, that's the equivalent of a modified roll of 16+. A 40% chance is the equivalent of a 12+.
While this response was very useful, I did want to point out a (very common) conversion error here.
A 20% chance is a 17+ on a d20. (And a 40% chance is a 13+.) That's a minor point though; the advice for conversion of a difficult mechanic is very good.
I think the offset is due to the idea of a natural 20 being an automatic success, maybe.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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If a rogue had a 20% chance of opening a lock, that's what you would need to roll for any lock. On a d20, that's the equivalent of a modified roll of 16+. A 40% chance is the equivalent of a 12+.While this response was very useful, I did want to point out a (very common) conversion error here.
A 20% chance is a 17+ on a d20. (And a 40% chance is a 13+.) That's a minor point though; the advice for conversion of a difficult mechanic is very good.
You're right! Thanks for the catch.
05% = 20
10% = 19+
15% = 18+
20% = 17+
etc...