5e D&D conversion

[Goldgardian]

So, making a TL3-4 ish campaign setting. and there's a few things I want to do with magic, the setting initially started in 5e Dungeons and dragons, which while a great starter system, lacks the flexibility of GURPS. I am however, REALLY attached to the setting, and want to try and convert it to GURPS so I can have my cake and eat it too. the martial aspect of things is easy enough, but the magic is the tricky bit. I'm trying to make several different ways to use magic (IE D&D classes) and there being basically 6 different magic using classes in 5e, means I basically need to make 6 different magic traditions. Druid, Cleric, Paladin, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard. (and yes, these different ways to use magic are relevant to the lore)

can someone give me a hand?

[mlangsdorf]

The Dungeon Fantasy line and DFRPG have some ways to approach this question, but let me give you my suggestions anyway:

* Druids use the spells and concepts from the standard magic system but replace the Magery talent with Druidic Investment and can only learn Air, Animal, Earth, Healing, Knowledge, Meta, Plant, Water, and Weather spells. Druid spells do not have prerequisites aside from the appropriate amount of Druidic Talent.
* Clerics use the Divine Favor system from the PDF of the same name.
* Paladins pick selected advantages[1] with the Pact limitation.
* Sorcerers use Sorcery from the PDF of the same name.
* Warlocks pick selected advantages[2] with the Pact and granted by a familiar limitation.
* Wizards use the standard magic system, but can only learn spells from six colleges and can't learn Animal, Plant, or Healing spells.

Wizards and druids have very different spell lists, and druids can learn any spell that they have sufficient Druidic Investiture for, while wizards have to learn prerequisites, so they'll feel fairly different. The other four all use variations of advantage based magic, so there will some similarities there, but sorcerers attack at range while paladins do crazy things with melee weapons, so there's a fair bit of difference between the two. Clerics have a small pool of learned prayers that are reliable, but can infrequently perform massive miracles of amazing power; sorcerers likewise have a small pool of known spells that are reliable and can sometimes improvise a small spell - but they do it more regularly than a cleric but are more strictly bounded in what they can improvise.

[1] Mostly Blessed and melee Imbues from Power-ups 1: Imbuements.
[2] Mostly ranged innate attacks and the ability to borrow abilities from their familiar, so warlocks with winged demons get winged flight while those with fae cats get Mind Control.

[Goldgardian]

It sounds pretty good, there's some stuff that I'll change and tweak, but my big issue is that with the usual GURPS magic system, the iconic element of a wizard is not needed at all. The wizard's spellbook. How can I replicate it's 5e installment? or at least give them a spellbook that's important to them?

[mlangsdorf]

My simple solution for spellbooks is to treat needing to look stuff up in a spellbook as a variant of Disciplines of Faith:
http://noschoolgrognard.blogspot.com...n-fantasy.html

I have a substantially more complicated solution for ritual magic that builds off the concept of grimoires from the Ritual Path Magic system, but I think the disciplines of faith version handles the basic concept of the wizard needing to spend time preparing spells from a spellbook.

[Devil_Dante]

i'm starting to play a campaign previusly played with D&D 3.5 years ago

Magic for my settings (created ad hoc) is divided as follow:

1)Wizards use standard magic, with possibility to use cerimonial magic

2)Clerics and paladins use the clerical magic (power investiture instead of magery) and threshold limitation: they have a fixed list of spells granted by deities and they do not need mana to cast them (probabily giving them 50 points tally and 30 talle regen for clerics and probably hald or a third for paladins)

3)Druidis use path magic with energy accumulation variant

4)Sorcerers use sorcery thaumatology

5)Rangers and alchemists use alchemy (they need magery 0 but not further levels and quick gadgeteer with limitation "only alchemy" -40%) using rules on pyramid 3-82

6)bards use the verbal magic with some tweaks

7)i have some runic spellcaster in my setting: they use symbol magic with treshold limitation

[Kallatari]

Originally Posted by Goldgardian

It sounds pretty good, there's some stuff that I'll change and tweak, but my big issue is that with the usual GURPS magic system, the iconic element of a wizard is not needed at all. The wizard's spellbook. How can I replicate it's 5e installment? or at least give them a spellbook that's important to them?

If you really want the wizard spellbook approach, then your best bet is Modular Ability (Super Memorization; Spells Only, -20%), which is right out of the Basic book.

This makes spellbooks required to change the spells you know, but not to cast them once they are known. A wizard who is happy with his spells might never need to change them so the spellbook isn't that important... until he does need to change spells. So it's not completely like D&D with you forgetting a spell as you cast them, but it does make spellbooks relevant.

To reinforce this, don't allow the purchase of spells using regular skills. A wizard can put points into additional spell slots (or to get a higher level with a spell slot), but they can't actually learn a new spell on their own; they have to get the spellbook to have the spell fill in an available slot.

One tricky thing about this approach is that, to be able to place a spell in a spell slot, you also have to place all the prerequisite spells into other slots first (Modular Abilities does not remove the prerequisite requirements), so it takes a bit more planning to "memorize" your spells.

Note this will increase the cost for a wizard to learn just a few spells, as slots are more expensive that skills. The real benefit is their ability to switch their spells around, so you will need to make that available in your game (easier access to lots of spells in a spellbook?) so that the player doesn't feel like he's wasting points.

Hope that helped.

[Edit: I'm not that familiar how spellbooks work in 5E, but I'm assuming that it's similar to all previous editions of D&D]

[Stormcrow]

I recommend not trying to make GURPS reproduce D&D rules. For example, if you were just going to convert a D&D setting in which there were just magic-users, you shouldn't try to reproduce spell levels and the spells in them. You should just say that D&D magic-users are just people with Magery and spells in the normal spells-are-skills way. Now players can choose spells similar to what they'd choose in D&D, or they can customize the usual GURPS way.

When you've got other kinds of spell casters, just find a GURPS magic system that represents WHAT that kind of spell caster does, rather than HOW they do it. For example, see clerical magic on page B242. When you want to add clerics to your setting, just do what's on that page; don't try to reproduce D&D clerical magic.

Your stated reason for switching to GURPS is flexibility. Don't hamper that flexibility by trying to recreate D&D's rigid systems.

[Humabout]

If you need a ruleset for more than just dungeon delving, you should check out Dungeon Action. It will take care of any social, investigative, or urban adventuring needs, and more.