Fresh request for the B5 1st ed to 2E conversion document

[fscx]

You are the Game Master, you do not need to convince your players, you switch edition as smoothly as possible. All they need to know : it's the same universe, the same game but better and thet just have to have fun as always and for the conversion document. Be like every GM here (and me too) and try to be patient.


Uhm it does not work that way when the characters are lvl 12 in a base class and the new edition only has 10 lvls. Or when as a GM when you try to force your players to switch editions when they do not want to. You usually end up with a Dead Game.

 

[Waylander.]

Uhm it does not work that way when the characters are lvl 12 in a base class and the new edition only has 10 lvls. Or when as a GM when you try to force your players to switch editions when they do not want to. You usually end up with a Dead Game.

for the fist issue, the Gm have to discuss the problem with the players...and for the second, same thing.. :wink:

 

[Cut]

There has been no news about this that I might have missed somehow?

 

[lastbesthope]

They're producing more in depth conversion rules in an ongoing series of articles which started in S&P #36 RPG edition.

LBH

 

[Hellhawk]

However, judging from the one in SP 36, that's not conversion notes, but rather a collection of things that were changed, from which you can derive your own conversion notes.

Rainer

 

[Mouth of Sauron]

However, judging from the one in SP 36, that's not conversion notes, but rather a collection of things that were changed, from which you can derive your own conversion notes.

Rainer

Exactly. And this little bit from the article was especially insulting:

Rather than taking away from our constant and sometimes heavy release schedule to put together a massive conversion guide all at once, Ian asked me to do a series of short articles that look a bit closer at the conversion process from one edition to the next.

Especially since MSprange pretty much said they were working on a document for download. But I've come to expect this kind of thing from Mongoose. Guess instead of working all this time, like MSprange claimed they were, they were thinking up ways to get out of writing it.

 

[Hellhawk]

I wouldn't say I felt "insulted" by the article or that particular sentence - it's just not what I would have expected. The information still helps to convert at least the races - however, it's more of a "designer's notes" than a conversion document. Designer's notes as such are fine, and they're actually often quite helpful, even in this case (you can easily convert your races after reading the article). My main gripe is that it's not "How to Convert your PCs" but "What We Did in Rewriting the Rules".

Then again, there are no easy answers for some of the conversion problems, regardless of how brilliant any conversion notes may be. If you have characters above level 10, for instance, the only solution is to either pick a class combination that best approximates the PC's abilities, or extend the classes as presented beyond level 10 - the progressions are all fairly obvious. I doubt, though, that Mongoose will actually give you "extended classes" for conversion - had they wanted to do these, they would have been in the rules in the first place.

A few hints, however, which class combinations might be useful to best approximate single-class levels above 10... now that would probably be nice.

 

[frobisher]

If you have characters above level 10, for instance, the only solution is to either pick a class combination that best approximates the PC's abilities, or extend the classes as presented beyond level 10

There is a third option - just use the first edition character class pretty much as is, converting only the things that have to be (feats, skills etc.).

There's nothing in the rules that say the classes have to be 10 level, that's just how they are presented.

 

[Hellhawk]

Yeah, probably... although I'd check the special class abilities, since 10-level classes usually have a tighter progression than 20-level classes. Some have probably changed and need to be adapted, but that looks doable.

You also need to continue the DV bonus progression by class, but these have been built around three easy formulae.

A step-by-step conversion guide for telepaths might also be a good idea.

Rainer