11 thoughts on “Has anyone come up with a formula for converting original D&D (lower is better) AC to Dungeon World AC?”

  1. I’m far from being an expert, but I think you’ll do faster, easier and better by making D&D monsters in DW following the steps for creating monster. I hope that’s helpful, can’t think of a reason why you should want to convert D&D Armor Class to DW other than this one…

  2. I would just do a quick check. Is it…

    …unprotected? 0 armor.

    …a little bit protected? 1 armor

    …properly armored? 2 armor

    …very hard to damage? 3 armor

    …terrifyingly indestructible? 4 armor

    With only 5 possible options, seems like overkill to come up with anything fancier like formulas.

  4. +Nikitas Thlimmenos I have a dungeon I want to run which has D&D sats and I’d like to be able to convert on the fly.

    Colter Hanna. the problem there is I don’t remember how to tell this about D&D monsters anymore. The rule book has heuristics for doing this for HP & Damage but not for AC.

  5. the DW manual asks you “is your monster armored? Does it have thick scales? Is it protected by magic?” and so on. You can’t look at the D&D monster, read their description, and understand how they are armored or if they are protected by magic or scales?

    Look, if I were you I’d stop thinking about “power balance” and mathematics here (I don’t know, maybe you already did that) and start reasoning about fiction. That means, if you have an armored ghost, maybe in D&D it was a “weak” monster so it had a not so good AC. In DW it should have at least 1 (because it wears an armor) and the special quality “Insubstantial” (because, well, it’s a ghost). Does this stats make it stronger than the D&D one? Weaker? To be honest, I’d say “who cares”. The point is being coherent with the fiction and the descriptions, don’t worry about the rest.

  8. I’d say worry about describing the monster in epic detail rather than trying to “balance” it.

    Here’s an experiment, prepare a very vivid image for each creature you MUST have in your next game session (make the list short for ease), then give each one of them 5hp, 1 armor, and 1 move. 

    Then take note of:

    1. How many of your players notice this consistency?

    2. How many of them care?

    3. How much fun is everybody having?

    My theory: Everyone (including you) will enjoy themselves much more.

  9. Matt Smith

    My Players in this case are eight and 1en years old (ie my sons) so no they probably won’t notice.

    But really most of the responsces here have missed the point a bit. I had already decided to do Direct conversion. The Dungeon World book even has suggested rules for this (on page 387) I was just found the armor section a little hard to interpret because I don’t remember what mid range armour class is in old school D&D terms.  wheras someone who has been playing a lot of D&D more recently would know. So I asked for tips on mechanising this like the other parts are already mechanised.

  10. anyway, you found your red book with the conversions, so everything turned out fine in the end, didn’t it?

    My answers were aimed at what I consider some more accurate interpretation of what I think is the “spirit” of Dungeon World. I realize that’s not the point, but those answers were there to explain why I felt that looking for a conversion table was basically a waste of time and energy.

    But, hey, if it works for you and your young players… have fun! 😉

  11. Nikitas Thlimmenos Yes it turn out fine. And If I had more prep time then I actually Have I’d agree with your arguments about doing a more fiction based conversion. However I’m basically adapting some Labyrinth Lord material for me and my Sons to play on the plane, and I’ll be hard pressed working out some basic fronts, let alone doing ideal monster conversions.

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