5E: Converting Monsters from White Dwarf Magazine for Fifth Edition

[Cleon]

I think the org MV 6" is due to wearing scale mail in 1E led you to having MV 6" (DMG1, p. 27). Probably doesn't count in 5E so MV as human seems the way to go.

Yes, I would assume that's the rationalization.

Scale is Medium Armour in the 5E Armor rules not bulky like in AD&D, which'd be Heavy Armour in Fifth Edition. Although even Heavy Armor only slows a wearer who doesn't meet its Strength requirement in 5E, assuming it has one (ring mail is Heavy but doesn't have a Strength Requirement).

 

[Cleon]

So I've been reading up on converting (WD) monsters to 5E and gave the mouseman a go to see if I could get anywhere. Now I'm having trouble calculating a CR, especially since the tables I've found that are supposed to allow you to do this seem to require you to have a CR in the first place.

Would you like to start doing the Mouseman as a collaboration here then?

EDIT: It might be better to get the Dragon Warriors finished first though, since having two conversions on the go in the same thread is a bit confusion.

 

[ilgatto]

Would you like to start doing the Mouseman as a collaboration here then?

EDIT: It might be better to get the Dragon Warriors finished first though, since having two conversions on the go in the same thread is a bit confusion.

I would, but I thought I'd wait for reasons in your edit.

 

[ilgatto]

Would you like to start doing the Mouseman as a collaboration here then?

EDIT: It might be better to get the Dragon Warriors finished first though, since having two conversions on the go in the same thread is a bit confusion.

Quick question, though. I've seen that some monsters have more Stealth than their stats would warrant. Is there some rule that says how much Stealth you should add for what reason?

 

[Cleon]

their hawk-like face > faces?
their hawk-like face reveal > reveals?

Have to check, but I think it was meant to be "reveals". It was another of those sentences whose wording got tinkered with so many times it was at risk of getting a little muddled…

…not quite, I remember now.

It was supposed to be "An active shadowdancer becomes demonic-looking; its hawk-like face reveals flame-red eyes and a fanged mouth, and its hands are armed with sharp claws." but somehow that wasn't what ended up posted.

Updating the Shadowdancer.

 

[Cleon]

I would, but I thought I'd wait for reasons in your edit.

Don't quite follow. How can I propose edits of your Mouseman, reasonable or otherwise, if I can't see the stats?

 

[ilgatto]

Have to check, but I think it was meant to be "reveals". It was another of those sentences whose wording got tinkered with so many times it was at risk of getting a little muddled…

…not quite, I remember now.

It was supposed to be "An active shadowdancer becomes demonic-looking; its hawk-like face reveals flame-red eyes and a fanged mouth, and its hands are armed with sharp claws." but somehow that wasn't what ended up posted.

Updating the Shadowdancer.

Not to worry. It's long been proven that you can't proofread your own texts and things haven't become easier with computer writing. There's texts I've written years ago and checked a gazillion times and I would find multiple spelling errors in them each and every flaming time - and will if I check them again. And then there's that the spell checks of text editors don't really work (or perhaps they do today, I don't really use them anymore coz they were more trouble than use back in the day).

 

[ilgatto]

Don't quite follow. How can I propose edits of your Mouseman, reasonable or otherwise, if I can't see the stats?

Ah, yes... I meant that I definitely wanted to do the conversion as a collaboration in this thread but that I wanted to postpone starting the conversion until you'd finished converting the dragon warriors. Since your edit said as much, I referred to your edit - in what now turns to have been a bit of a cryptic way.

Apologies.

Would you like to start doing the Mouseman as a collaboration here then?

EDIT: It might be better to get the Dragon Warriors finished first though, since having two conversions on the go in the same thread is a bit confusion.

 

[Cleon]

Quick question, though. I've seen that some monsters have more Stealth than their stats would warrant. Is there some rule that says how much Stealth you should add for what reason?

Well a creature's Skills section only lists those the creature is proficient in. So in the case of Stealth, it'd normally be DEX Modifier plus Proficiency Bonus.

Some creatures are exceptionally skilled, so either have "Double Proficiency" (so a Challenge 6 monster with a +3 Prof. Bonus would add +6 instead of +3 to a proficient skill).

However, there's nothing in the rules that forbids us from arbitrarily adding a modifier to a skill, such as "+2 to Stealth" and we occasionally do that if we don't like the numbers that Double Proficiency or whatever would create.

For example, a 5E Giant Crocodile has Double Stealth Prof, but the Giant Crocodile Mummy conversion we did has a much higher CR so if it still had Double Stealth it's be a LOT more sneaky than the living reptile despite being a creaking undead restricted by a tight wrapping of bandages. So we arbitrarily gave it Single Proficiency with a +3 bonus, so it would have Stealth +5 like the SRD Giant Croc.

 

[Cleon]

Not to worry. It's long been proven that you can't proofread your own texts and things haven't become easier with computer writing. There's texts I've written years ago and checked a gazillion times and I would find multiple spelling errors in them each and every flaming time - and will if I check them again. And then there's that the spell checks of text editors don't really work (or perhaps they do today, I don't really use them anymore coz they were more trouble than use back in the day).

Yeah, I think I'm somewhat better than the average about spotting & correcting the errors in my own writing, but I make up for it by rewriting the same sentence five or six times so the grammar or spelling goes wonky again.

I never use the text editor grammar checks, since their knowledge of English is pretty poor.

Usually have a spell checker running, but am frequently surprised when it doesn't recognize what I think of as a relatively well known word. Although I suppose D&D gamers tend to employ a more eccentric vocabulary than an average user.