So I've been running a 5E campaign in a homebrew adaptation of the Ravenloft setting, and the issue I'm running into is that I have great tools and guidlines available from various sources for converting monsters, but I don't even know where to begin with converting materials involving spells and magic items. Does anyone have any ideas or rough guidelines that I can toy with to make them work in 5E. Just any sort of ballpark that I could tweak, or anything someone else has done? Because I'm just not super comfortable with tweaking without a net, because I'm new at this. I'm sure someone has had to do this already, so can anyone more experienced give me a hand, or where to find helpful resources, as so far as I can find through searching the forum and the web, I've come up goose eggs so if someone is even just a better searcher than I that would help. Thanks.
I've found conversion is almost impossible to do well. My advice is to use stats from the 5e monster manual and change the name.
I suggest conversion not be done by some over-arching guideline, but on a very specific case by case basis.
I'd be glad to see if I can offer more specific advice, if you can tell me which spells or items you are thinking of converting.
I'm sure many here in the community would be more than happy to help. Hit us up with what you're trying to convert and we'll take a bite at it. 
Theros wrote:
The big things I've been looking to convert stuff from are the Monte Cook OGL Chaositech supplement and the 3.5 Van Richten's Arsenal. And really if there isn't like a nice equation, maybe someone could explain their process for converting, like what do you to best preserve the effect and flavor of things...
ValkyrieRain wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
ValkyrieRain wrote:
I've found that it's much easier to convert 1e/2e era items to 5e than it is to convert 3e era items. Mostly because 3e items tend to be very crunch heavy and depend on specific stacking rules and other traits that simply don't apply to 5e. I recommend checking to see if there is a 1e/2e version of your target item first, and then converting that to 5e...
I am in the process of converting a bunch of ravenloft material over myself so i understand about how it looks like a big task. For magic items it is much easier than in the past since there is no multiple +'s of the weapons. If it is a minor magic item it is just magical and if it is more of a relic make it a +1 item. I just switched out all firearms for magic crossbows with however many shots converted to magic crossbow bolts.
For spells I just use the current one if it is available or do as AaronOfBarbaria suggested and modify based on effects.
If it lists a DC or skill for 3rd i lower the check based on what level the adventure is designed for. take 1 off for every two levels of the DC and it is usually fairly close. or just look at what the chalange is supposed to be and set it at 8 easy 10 normal 13 difficult 15 hard 18 impossible. This way you can also tag on the advantage disadvantage mechanics as appropriate to make it easier or harder based on what happens durring game play.
when it presents a skill i try to find one that matches up with what it is asking you to do. some times it is also helpfull to list two different DC based on which skill is being used so to find something at a crime scene might be a 15 perception or a 10 investigation. Note the skills that you think would fit at a chalange, because even if they do not have the skill they can still attempt this is where if you have a rail the players need to stay on you can give advantage etc. Some of the adventures have some bottle necks where the players must complete a specific thing first, make sure you keep that in mind and if you must adjust DC's on the fly.
saves are the easiest area to change. in the adventure it will tell you the trap and say what happens so all you need to do is figure out what stat or stats would apply and those are the saves.
Subdual damage can be changed to regualr damage just make reduce it to the same as being hit 1pt or 1-2pts at a higher level. players can heal easier and are much more able to survive being reduced to 0 so you do not need to be as concerned about dropping a character.
hope that helps.
What I've gathered on convertion options...
- 1st Edition > https://app.box.com/s/bg0e4vxgl7io1nr7av6x and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLWm8hX-bg4
- 2E to 5E simple conversion guidelines
- Third edition > https://app.box.com/s/2hs3nueoociw5tnn7c8x
- Pathfinder > https://app.box.com/s/hsfuxw9q7wclesf6091r
mirror http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?335778-Attempt-at-Conversion-doc-to-convert-3-5-edition-and-Pathfinder-monsters-to-D-amp-D-Next-on-the-fly
- Essentials to 5th > http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3750526
Some of these docs are conversion guidelines fro earlier versions into D&D Next, not 5th; this this file works too
- Next to 5th > https://app.box.com/s/qobiv845tlihjuqja6c8 (A quick fix for these monsters Add 1 AC, Add 1 damage, Increase HP by 50%)
Hope this helps somehow…
ValkyrieRain wrote: