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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: Ulairi on June 07, 2016, 10:47:05 AM

Title: Porting D20 information into Swords & Wizardry (or to retroclones)
Post by: Ulairi on June 07, 2016, 10:47:05 AM
Hi All,

I have been playing a lot of Swords & Wizardry either and I finally purchased the complete rulebook from the Frogs. I had a question about porting d20 3.x content into these systems. I am a big fan of The Wheel of Time and I own the D20 books that Wizards of the Coast put out in 2001 pre-3.5 upgrade and I want to port stuff to Swords & Wizardry. I'm really not worried about the magic system yet but I was wondering about porting the monsters to the system. S&W is nice because it has both ascending and descending can I just port the monsters that are not already in S&W pretty much as written or would the power imbalance be to strong?  I'm trying to figure out how to import Trollocs into S&W.

Thanks for any advice!
Title: Porting D20 information into Swords & Wizardry (or to retroclones)
Post by: S'mon on June 07, 2016, 10:52:46 AM
There was a good 3e to C&C conversion guide on the TLG forums that had useful pointers. As I recall the main thing is to get rid of the CON bonus to hp, get rid of the STR bonus to damage, and recalculate to-hit based on the listed hit dice. AC may need adjusting, something like halve the AC over 15 (if using ascending AC). Spell powers can probably stay as-is.
Title: Porting D20 information into Swords & Wizardry (or to retroclones)
Post by: estar on June 07, 2016, 12:23:50 PM
Quote from: Ulairi;902356Hi All,

I have been playing a lot of Swords & Wizardry either and I finally purchased the complete rulebook from the Frogs. I had a question about porting d20 3.x content into these systems. I am a big fan of The Wheel of Time and I own the D20 books that Wizards of the Coast put out in 2001 pre-3.5 upgrade and I want to port stuff to Swords & Wizardry. I'm really not worried about the magic system yet but I was wondering about porting the monsters to the system. S&W is nice because it has both ascending and descending can I just port the monsters that are not already in S&W pretty much as written or would the power imbalance be to strong?  I'm trying to figure out how to import Trollocs into S&W.

Thanks for any advice!

The key thing to look at are the hit dice of the monster, the AC, move, and associated powers. Factor in attributes only if they are dramatically different (like Giant Strength). If using the HD of 3.X is not straight forward then look at the CR rating and convert that into a HD.

As for a humanoid race like Trolloc try to covert into a standard race with bonuses for attributes and use it a NPC race if it has 1 or 2HD. Otherwise treat it like the above.
Title: Porting D20 information into Swords & Wizardry (or to retroclones)
Post by: Ulairi on June 07, 2016, 01:25:25 PM
Quote from: estar;902378The key thing to look at are the hit dice of the monster, the AC, move, and associated powers. Factor in attributes only if they are dramatically different (like Giant Strength). If using the HD of 3.X is not straight forward then look at the CR rating and convert that into a HD.

As for a humanoid race like Trolloc try to covert into a standard race with bonuses for attributes and use it a NPC race if it has 1 or 2HD. Otherwise treat it like the above.



Thanks so much!