D&D 3E/3.5 Converting Exceptional Strength to 3E

[Kae'Yoss]

You're not actually serious, right?

I'd ask you to either contribute to the discussion, or don't. Don't invent ridiculous straw man arguments like this. It's a waste of everybody's time.

And I ask you to either contribute to the discussion yourself, or don't. Don't just snap at people without producing something worthwile yourself.


And the idea about 1st level was just an extreme example. I did point out that it worked all the way.

And if you converted him, you _had_ to create the character in 2e, or there would be nothing to convert. It doesn't work only for 1st-level characters, but for all characters! When you convert, you belatedly get the 1 point to an ability score for every 4 levels.

So let's make a comparison:
You create a 3e-fighter from scratch. You put a 18 into STR. At 4th, 8th, and 12th level you put your additional point into STR, ending up with a Fighter12 with STR 21.
You have an old 2e fighter of 12th level. You also put a 18 into STR at the time of his creation, and had a little luck rolling 00 as exceptional STR. Now you convert him: His STR changes to 23 after the table in the conversion manual, and you also get another 3 points cause he's 12th level. You put them in STR and ent up with STR 26.

You'll have a serious advantage to the other fither there, since the hightest STR you usually can achieve at 12th-level (without custom races, without magic) would be 23 (half-orc with 18 put into STR, 3x STR increase). Doesn't sound right to me.

 

[Dr. Zoom]

What they meant for people to do doesn not matter. What they made possible for people to do is the important thing. And of course it is rediculous, but technically possible. So the munchkins would try to get that through, would fail, and would whine. Better prevent the very idea!

But they had to do a conversion guide, so that those who wanted to keep playing their 2e characters could do that. That is what I meant by their intent, and their intent does matter. They could not "munchkin-proof" the guide or the game, even if they tried. And if someone in my game did that, he could whine all day long, but he would make a legitimate 3e character or not play.

Also, after some time, the conversion guide should not see too much usage. Everyone should be making 3e characters now. Only if you wanted to convert an older character you have not used in awhile will this matter. But that is not a munchkin use of the guide. Just lower the Str conversions to something you are more comfortable with in your game. I converted all exceptional strengths IMG to 18's.

 

[ForceUser]

My 2E ranger had an 18/73 Str. I've been thinking of converting him to 3E just for fun, and I'd be wholly satisfied with an 18.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

So it does matter?

If I negate something twice, it's that it's REALLY negated

 

[Kae'Yoss]

But they had to do a conversion guide, so that those who wanted to keep playing their 2e characters could do that. That is what I meant by their intent, and their intent does matter.

Sure they wanted to make something to allow people using 2e characters in 3e. And that's a good thing.
But it's a bad thing to allow those old characters have better values than character created from scratch: an original e3-Fighter can only have a starting STR of 18. But if you convert a 2e fighter with exceptional STR, his "starting STR" (the STR he had when he was created) would now belatedly turned into a higher value. And that can't be right.

They could have created a conversion manual where 18 is 18, no matter if it's 18/(1)00 or 18/04 or just 18. It would have fulfilled its purpose without making characters to strong. I think we agree at that matter.

 

[Valmur_Dwur]

And it gets to be "REAL" funny when you try to convert old Dragon adventures. In Barnicus:City in Peril the main bad guy goes from 9th level to 16th based on XPs. I started to stat it up that way then thought better of it. He'll stay at 9th

 

[Dr. Zoom]

Sure they wanted to make something to allow people using 2e characters in 3e. And that's a good thing.
But it's a bad thing to allow those old characters have better values than character created from scratch: an original e3-Fighter can only have a starting STR of 18. But if you convert a 2e fighter with exceptional STR, his "starting STR" (the STR he had when he was created) would now belatedly turned into a higher value. And that can't be right.

They could have created a conversion manual where 18 is 18, no matter if it's 18/(1)00 or 18/04 or just 18. It would have fulfilled its purpose without making characters to strong. I think we agree at that matter.

We agree. As I said, my group converted their current 2e characters when 3e came out, and we converted 18/xx to 18. But after we finished with that particular campaign, we created 3e characters, not 2e characters which we then converted to 3e.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I wouldn't use the conversation manual anyway. I would let them create new characters from scratch. I'd look what level they are and give them XP accordingly, and I'd give them a certain amount of gold. They could build up their character using the old one as a guide, and maybe they could use their old ability score rolls (what they actually rolled, so if their elf had dex 17, this would count as an 16) - but they would all use the old values, or noone would.

They could use the old character as guideline for what items they bought with their starting money, and what skills and feats the used, but that would be it (because you can't really convert that properly: the thief, for example, doesn't usually have the maximum of his thief skills, but a rogue can easily max out 10 skills). If they wanted to change their class, I would allow it if it's within the context (that dwarven battlerager, a fighter kit afaik, could make a barbarian or fighter/barbarian)

 

[Grazzt]

As a side note and just my guess here, but I imagine WotC included the "weird" conversion guidelines for exceptional Strength because if they simply said: "Exceptional Strength is irrelevant. Convert it to an 18.", too many people would b**ch about losing exceptional Strength or the fact that the way they handled it was wrong...blah blah blah.

Ah well- who knows.