I have had quite an intersting day today working as part of a two person team converting all of the D&D 5th Edition SRD over to D100. The project is called 5ex5 as in 5th Edition x5, th emost obvious way to get from d20 to d100.
What is interesting from the Rolemaster perspective is that it will make any future products based upon it very easy to convert to Rolemaster and many will pretty much be able to be used off the shelf.
Free content for RM GMs
If you consider how much is published on Drivethru or RPGnow for free or Pay What You Want, this could explode the amount of free content for RM GMs.
It sounds pretty easy just multiplaying everything by 5 so d20s become d100s and a +1 bonus becomes a +5 and so on. The reality is that in the Monsters section alone there are over 10,000 edits to be made. You would have thought that one could just find and replace to change one thing to another but it doesn’t work that way as you have to check every reference as no one wants a dice rolls for durations or areas of effect multiplied.
The inner workings of D&D 5th Edition
What I have learned to day is a lot about how D&D 5th Edition works. I had only read the free basic version rules before but today I have read in detail then entire combat section of the SRD and I am quite impressed. If nothing else I should walk away with a pretty good knowledge of the inner workings of 5e!
So how long is this going to take?
I have no idea but I hope it is only going to be a few weeks as I have decided I want to have a go at NaGaDeMon (National Game Design Money) in November and there is only so much of me to go around. I am not sure I will have the time spare to do both.
The old MERP modules used to have quick and dirty conversions for AD&D in them, but D&D on the whole has gotten more complex since those simple days.
Yes, I remember those quick dice to dice conversions but in those days a D&D monester was little more than some hit points, THAC0 and AC and little else. Now they all have a full set of stats and a range of actions.
Heck, yes, they are way more complicated. I haven’t compared 5th Edition to 3.x/Pathfinder, so I don’t know if it’s more complex than them, or complex to a similar degree.
I really know nothing about Pathfinder. One day I will take a look. 5th Edition has been a bit fo an eye opener and I must say I am impressed. My opinions of D&D were formed on 1st Edition, may years ago.