I am thinking of converting my D&D 5E campaign to DW and I am wondering what base classes duplicate the feel of the…

I am thinking of converting my D&D 5E campaign to DW and I am wondering what base classes duplicate the feel of the…

I am thinking of converting my D&D 5E campaign to DW and I am wondering what base classes duplicate the feel of the D&D 5E classes?

27 thoughts on “I am thinking of converting my D&D 5E campaign to DW and I am wondering what base classes duplicate the feel of the…”

  1. Fighter, Ranger, Cleric, Thief & Wizard are all pretty close to their D&D counterparts in tone. Paladin and Barbarian will be a little different, but still recognizable. Bard depends. Druid is going to be a different experience – still powerful, just in different ways.

    You might have better results if you posted the characters you have, and let people make suggestions though.

  4. I would just start a new campaign set in the same world. Maybe advance the timeline 30-60 years and ask the players to play children or grandchildren of their old PCs.

  5. You are not going to get a perfect conversion, no matter what you do. But you can probably get close enough that the players will be happy.

    First thing to do is to ask the players, as a group: “What are the most defining traits, moments, or abilities for the PCs?” If a fighter cares about his special weapon, that might lead you in a different direction than if he’s defined by his combat mobility. If you can successfully port the traits that the players care about, the other mismatches won’t be a big deal. But just saying “fighter” might not be as accurate.

    Second, look at a bunch of different playbooks. It sounds like you may want to dive into Class Warfare; I don’t know of a cleric/warlock or monk/psionicist playbook, but you could certainly make one with CW. If you post the answers to that first question here, people can probably give you better answers.

  7. I think that there is an Initiate (monkish) playbook floating around there somewhere. Also, Joseph Avolio​ is right, Class Warfare is a really awesome way to get granular on your build- definitely check it out. The thing that might sting the most for players in an import is the sudden uselessness of all of their generic plus whatever gear. Might want to have a convo about what they feel is their most important magic stuff and then convert it as well.

  8. I have seen a good monk one.  I think that it goes under Prisoner Monk.  There is also some Oriental Themed Playbooks out there that have a good monk.  My suggestion would be to have them re-create their character with the classes at hand.  The Warlock might be a bit hard, I suggest you look at the Sorcerer.  Also, some of the classes can take Moves from others.  Like the Barbarian allows a Move from the Fighter to be taken at any time.

  9. That’s good advice about magic items and gear in general Joshua Faller. They need to understand that magic items are more about “magical” and less about buffing. (But it works out because you don’t need the endless +1’s to compete with creatures.) I love that about DW.

  10. Ray Otus totally- I recently offered to run some friends’ high level Pathfinder characters (that they could no longer play in their ongoing game) through a Dungeon World game. They were excited, but felt like they’d be giving up too much in translation. The crunch can be hard to step away from.

  11. The Tags for weapons are quite useful.  A generic + weapon should just have the +magic tag, a +3 or +4, I could see it doing a +1 to damage or to hit.  A +5 weapon, I would give a +2 to hit and it would have +Artifact tag and +powerful magic.  At the same time a Frostweaver would only have +cold or +frost as a tag.  Much simpler.

    Just some suggestions on translation.  The description of the item means MUCH more than it’s game mechanics.

  12. Yeah. I’m always leery of trying to “convert” any group from D&D (other than, say, Bx). Better to just start a parallel game and enjoy the lighter, faster, more narrative play as an alternative/palate cleanser. Conversion begs comparison … “So guys, which one did you like better? Which game is better? Which one would you rather play?”

  14. Just to provide a counterpoint, I did convert a campaign, and it worked very well. Now, it was an OSR spinoff game (Beyond the Wall) but it was doable.

    The most important thing I think is to convert the characters as individuals, not their classes. I picked 3-4 elements of the character that always came up in play; the stuff that gave the feel of the character, and made playbooks based on that.

    If you can define the essential core of the characters – how they appear “in the fiction” vs how they are represented mechanically, and your players are willing to work with you, it can be done

  19. One of the biggest things to consider after you convert, is giving it time. It can take time for players and DMs used to playing D&D to wrap their head around the some of the rules of DW. So give it a few sessions to get the feel of it.

  22. Wayne Peacock I built is using Class Warfare. I believe it is the combo of the Martial Hero, Defender, and Wielder compendium classes. I was inspired by Morgan from the Walking Dead and Kane from Kung-Fu. But the class is versatile enough for more aggro monk concepts.

  27. Actually as far as magic items go, I’ve found that working from the random magic item flavor generation in D&D 5 to create magical effects is much better at creating magic than just a +1.

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