Can anyone tell me if there is a way to take things out of D&Ds monster manual and convert them over to a non OP or sickly version themselves for DW? I had a friend recently find and give me a D&D 3.5 monster manual, and i was having trouble taking some of the things and transferring them into DW.
Can anyone tell me if there is a way to take things out of D&Ds monster manual and convert them over to a non OP or…
Can anyone tell me if there is a way to take things out of D&Ds monster manual and convert them over to a non OP or…
When you say “convert” are you talking about “is there a mathematical formula for taking the stats from D&D and turn them into Dungeon World monsters?”
Because if you are, I think that can’t (and very likely shouldn’t) be done.
Since DW is a fiction first game, the trick with “conversion” is first to throw away the stats, and look at the fiction of the monster. Once you’ve built the monster that matches the fiction, then maybe look at that D&D statblock and see if you can get inspired to add a few moves from it.
Well what kinds of things are you trying to convert? Perhaps we can help you convert them.
nothing specific, was just wondering. The list for monster in the book is not very long. I wasn’t thinking of taking every stat but looking over some thing and HP and HD are either super high and would just wipe my party or i would have to throw a small army of them for it to be a battle longer than 10 sec.
HP and armour isn’t the only thing that makes a monster tough or weak. Have you read the 16 HP dragon story?
But Fred Hicks has the right of it. You don’t really convert D&D numbers to DW numbers. You translate the idea of the monster from D&D to DW. Fiction first and all that.
My copy of DW has an appendix starting on pg 384. It tells you how to convert HP, damage and various other numerical stats, as well as guidelines for moves and such.
Have you checked out the Dungeon World Codex?
http://codex.dungeon-world.com/monster/all
yeah just use the DM sheet makes it very simple make a monster in 5 minutes max.
Shouldn’t be too hard to look at the commonly shared monsters in DW & D&D then apply that to other new monsters or look at the DW monsters to find something close to adapt.
Focusing on the fiction is how you create DW monsters. It’s easy to convert creatures from movies, books, etc. Just think about what they do and how they do it, that should inspire moves and tags. All that’s left is Armor and HP. Armor is simple, give it a rating of 0 – 3 depending on how resistant to physical damage you think it is. As for HP I roll either a d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12 for hit points depending on how tough I think a creature should be.
If you have a good sense of what a monster is and what it can do and how it acts, fictionally, all you really need is HP, Armor, damage, and tags. Here’s my cheat sheet for coming up with those super-quickly:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0lFq3ECDQDQVUMwcU9BTjRuQlE/edit?usp=sharing
Personally, I like to write moves and qualities as well, to give myself permission to play the monster to the hilt. But if you’ve got a feel for them it’s not super necessary.