Converting 4E classes to 5E

[Tvtyrant]

For my group I am currently converting some of the 4E classes whose archetype did not get ported over to 5E. The two I am working on right now are the Psion and the Warlord. The biggest aspects of the difference is that 5E has much more powerful top end spells, but more sharply limited uses (1/day at the top three spell slots) and the ability scores are much lower.

To deal with the ability scores I am thinking of having the secondary stat on powers replaced by the proficiency bonus, so it starts at two and tops at 6.

For the more powerful abilities and lack of versatility for the 4E class in out of combat situations I am thinking of having the Psion simply gain an additional at-will at each appropriate level (1,3,6,9,12,15,18) so they end up with 8. They would get to use 1 daily per short rest, but have access to a larger pool (int modifer worth so they can select the best one at casting time.)

Has anyone tried converting a class over, and how did they do it?

[windgate]

Well the warlord has many of the same elements rolled into the battle master sub type of the fighter (granting attacks to allies).

Converting the 4e psion to 5e seems to revolve largely around empowering cantrip spells with limited use class features. Spell slots become power points. Power points can be used to enhance cantips (typically by adding additional targets or debuffs). The big Class feature would be adding Int Modifier to spell damage (when other classes gain "extra attack")

[charcoalninja]

Personally I would just port it over wholesale. Use 5 e math but eerything else is 4e. The skill system is the same, and prof bonus simply replaces your +1/2 level.

Additionally since all 4e classes have their primary stat and their secondary you have your 2 save proficiencies right there. So Warlord would look like:

D10 HD
Saves: Str, Cha(if inspiring) or Int (if tactical)
Skills choose 2 from the Warlord list that are the same as is 5E.
1st level: features, Inspiring Word
Powers, healing surges
So you make a warlord that plays exactly like a warlord you just calculate your attack bonus, saves and HP in line with 5e and you're done. I recommend making any healing power that grants the use of a healing surge insteads heals 1d6/2levels of the target if the target does not have healing surges. So inspiring word on a 1st level character would heal 3d6 hp. Which makes sense for a Leader character.

[CrusaderJoe]

I was working on an Incarnum update (3e to 5e) but my laptop died with all my notes... In the mean time I'm working on an Invoker 5e class. Once I get my laptop back I'm going to work on the Incarnum stuff.

I'm using the skin of the warlock but changing a few things to make it more cleric/Invoker-ish.

I'm not just changing names but mechanics and concepts of the invocations. So while on the outside it will look the same it should play a bit differently and feel different than the warlock.

I'll be posting the class over on the homebrew section eventually.

But what I really really really want to see is as suggested above. 4e set to the math and style of 5e. Martials with interesting mechanics and things to do? A fighter that doesn't suck? Sign me up.

Man I miss the 4e Fighter :/

[Rawrawrawr]

I know this is a bit late, but I created a 5e homebrew of the Warlord here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...lord-now-in-5e!

[Yakk]

Short rest in 5e is too long to mimic 4e encounter powers. So I'd advocate for a different recharge mechanism. We can steal from Tome of Battle.

Say, hitting with an at-will attack ability on a worthy foe recharges 1 encounter attack power. A critical hit with any ability recharges all of them.

We can steal from the 4e essentials fighter, and make fighter abilities riders (like power attack) on existing hits: but not just damage. Instead, you have a menu of abilities you can apply when you hit.

The Skilled fighter has a collection of Techniques. Techniques are Basic, Advanced, and Inspired.

You can use Basic Techniques whenever you want. When you use an Advanced Techniques, you cannot use it again until you take a rest, or it recharges. When you use an Inspired technique, you cannot use it again until you take a long rest, or it recharges.

You can use exactly one technique to improve a given attack. Some techniques are picked before you hit, others after.

If you hit with an attack improved with a Basic Technique, you can recharge one Advanced Technique. If you strike a critical with an attack, all of your Advanced Techniques recharge, or one Inspired technique recharges.

If a Technique forces a save, the DC is (8 + Strength + Proficiency).

When you use a Technique with an attack, you deal an extra +[W] damage at level 5, +2[W] at level 10, +3 [W] at level 15 and +4 [W] at level 20, where [W] is your weapon die damage.

Techniques have levels, and you cannot learn the Technique before that level.

You can have at most one Stance active at any one time -- if you enter another stance, your previous stance ends. Stances are as exhausting to stay in as being in combat (but no more than being in combat if you are in combat as well), and you cannot stay in a Stance if you take a rest. You can leave a stance as a free action. If you are subject to an effect that prevents you from taking reactions (except taking a reaction), the beneficial effects of the stance are suppressed until you can take reactions again.

Basic Techniques:
Tide of Iron(1): Requires you are equipped with a shield. You force a foe you hit back out of your reach, and may choose to follow after. If you follow, your movement does not provoke opportunity attacks. If the target is 2 or more sizes larger than you, it must make a Strength save to prevent the movement.

Advanced Techniques:
Hammerblow(1): If you use this while using a hammer or mace, deal +1[W] damage. The target must make a Con save or be Stunned. While Stunned, the target can make a new save at the end of each of its turns to remove the effect.

Inspired Techniques:
Rain of Steel(5): After you hit a worthy foe, you enter a (Stance). While in this Stance, enemies who end their turn in your reach take [W] damage. Enemies that leave your reach in a way that would provoke an opportunity attack take [W] damage. Dealing this damage is a free action on your part.

Does that work?

[charcoalninja]

While it is too long to completely mimic how a 4e class would function, 4e Encounter powers are on par with the short rest abilities most other classes get so while you'll be weaker than you would be in 4e, you'll still be on par with the expectations of 5e.

[Aviose]

Short rest in 5e is too long to mimic 4e encounter powers. So I'd advocate for a different recharge mechanism. We can steal from Tome of Battle.

The DMG provides guidance that states that if you feel that you want it for your campaign, to reduce the time for a short rest to the 4e levels. Since the duration of a short rest was changed intentionally, and overall characters are less powerful in 5e, it keeps them on par with each other regardless.

We can steal from the 4e essentials fighter, and make fighter abilities riders (like power attack) on existing hits: but not just damage. Instead, you have a menu of abilities you can apply when you hit.

I would rather see the Warlord abilities function similarly to maneuvers, but I think that the system from 4e itself is fine for dealing with abilities. Just keep the length of the rest 'the same' (short or long), and it works.

The Skilled fighter has a collection of Techniques. Techniques are Basic, Advanced, and Inspired.

The naming convention used can be adapted to whatever works, but the recharge mechanic here is needlessly complex and just doesn't feel like it would work.

If a Technique forces a save, the DC is (8 + Strength + Proficiency).

This should be Charisma. They control the battlefield through force of personality.

When you use a Technique with an attack, you deal an extra +[W] damage at level 5, +2[W] at level 10, +3 [W] at level 15 and +4 [W] at level 20, where [W] is your weapon die damage.

This could remain the same, but I don't think it should. It would take a lot of testing to see if this works and is still balanced with the Extra Attack function in the fighters and other classes damage functions. Even a full blown fighter only barely gets 5W damage per round, and the support skills of a warlord are pretty crazy good. Additional attacks are far more balanced than additional weapon dice in this system.



As for the saves, it is important to remember that each class listed thus far have one "strong save" and one "weak save". Strong are more common among the possibilities for 5e (Str, Con, and Wis), and weak are rarely saved against. To go with Str and Int/Cha is a bit of a problem, because they end up with no strong save. I would recommend Wisdom as the strong save and Strength as the weak one. It shows physical resilience, and yet shows a strong and indomitable will.

Care would have to be taken to ensure that numerical bonuses take the new system in to account. Bonuses/penalties to hit should likely be changed to advantage/disadvantage, and damage should be reduced in many situations, most likely.

Any ability a warlord has to grant extra attacks will cause issues with boosting a rogue's power immensely, so be careful there as well... If a rogue makes an extra attack outside their own turn, they get their sneak attack again if applicable. (Battlemaster Fighter already does this, but is limited by maneuver dice.)

All the stuff about Warlord having been said, I want to see a port of the Chaos spells from the wildmage sorc for 4e... My wife was a huge fan of Chaos bolt.

[Yakk]

To be clear, I was converting the Fighter, not the Warlord with that post.

The DMG provides guidance that states that if you feel that you want it for your campaign, to reduce the time for a short rest to the 4e levels. Since the duration of a short rest was changed intentionally, and overall characters are less powerful in 5e, it keeps them on par with each other regardless.

I disagree: if the goal is to create a character that plays like a 4e character, they use their encounter powers a lot. Your at-wills are basically 'backup'.

Short Rests in 5e are few and far between. A short rest ability is not your bread and butter -- it is your "extra oomph" ability. A character with short-rest fueled "encounter" abilities is an at-will fueled character.

Tuning damage output (and the like) is *easy* -- just move it up and down. A character who is always using "special case" abilities is what the 4e weaponmaster fighter is.

I would rather see the Warlord abilities function similarly to maneuvers, but I think that the system from 4e itself is fine for dealing with abilities. Just keep the length of the rest 'the same' (short or long), and it works.

No, you get a very different feel of character. While we might want to move healing to short-rest based or daily based (as healing, unlike damage, can be spammed out of combat).

The naming convention used can be adapted to whatever works, but the recharge mechanic here is needlessly complex and just doesn't feel like it would work.

If you have X Advanced abilities, you get to do X of them in a row. After that, you get 1 every 2 rounds.

If you need to get a particular Advanced ability back, you need to "waste" an attack on a Basic one.

The critical bit is just for fun. Should be separated in presentation as a "when you crit" thing, not core to the recharge mechanic, as bundling them together is confusing.

This emulates the "low level characters get few uses of encounter abilities, higher level gets more" and that Basic are the "backup" abilities of 4e. Which is my goal.

This should be Charisma. They control the battlefield through force of personality.

Yes, for the Warlord. Not for the Weaponmaster Fighter.

This could remain the same, but I don't think it should. It would take a lot of testing to see if this works and is still balanced with the Extra Attack function in the fighters and other classes damage functions. Even a full blown fighter only barely gets 5W damage per round, and the support skills of a warlord are pretty crazy good. Additional attacks are far more balanced than additional weapon dice in this system.

The full blown fighter gets 5[W] plus 5x bonuses. What I described was 5[W] plus 1x bonuses. That is about 2x weaker than the full blown fighter.

(Weapon) Dice aren't damage: dice plus bonuses are damage. This is why Eldrich blast is way more damage than other cantrips -- it can apply bonuses more than once.

Care would have to be taken to ensure that numerical bonuses take the new system in to account. Bonuses/penalties to hit should likely be changed to advantage/disadvantage, and damage should be reduced in many situations, most likely.

Yes.

Any ability a warlord has to grant extra attacks will cause issues with boosting a rogue's power immensely, so be careful there as well... If a rogue makes an extra attack outside their own turn, they get their sneak attack again if applicable. (Battlemaster Fighter already does this, but is limited by maneuver dice.)

Yep. Granting bonuses to allies on their turn (even extra attacks) is far safer.

[Aviose]

You see... My issue with using the recharge mechanic listed above is that it ends up overpowering the character far too much when compared to other characters in 5e unless you Nerf even weapon damage for a character that uses them.

Your method, by your own admission, allows a super attack every round for the first 5-6 rounds, and another every other round in every fight. That is more powerful than even 4e characters are.

The best way to emulate 4e characters is to shorten the length of short and long rests to 4e standards. At that point, the system functions very similarly to 4e with minor alterations, the 4e style characters still have the same attack rate, and everyone is relatively balanced.

Only basic attacks are really an issue, and that is simply weighing the balance between one attack that does insane damage (which is the forte of rogueish characters) or multiple attacks (more fighter-esque characters).

[Yakk]

No, a well built 4e character does a super attack basically every round, as optimized 4e characters optimize their at-will options, and use encounter powers for off-turn attacks, or find some way to make an encounter power nearly at-will.

Level 20 5e fighters get 4 attacks per round. That is ridiculously more powerful than a 5[W] attack. Track the damage budget of a reasonably well built 5e fighter, then design the equivalent 4e-ported-to-5e fighter to do the same damage without the myriad of attacks per round.

The obvious way is to give the 4e-ported-to-5e fighter more [W] on their one attack.

If the 5e fighter has a 1d12 damage weapon and a 20 strength and a +2 weapon, they are at 13.5*4=54 damage if everything hits. And we haven't even looked at optimization yet.

With a +2 weapon and 20 strength, the 4e-in-5e fighter who deals 7[W]+Str+Enhance once per round ... does less damage. 7*6.5+5+2=52.5 average.

Optimization can change this, naturally. But lots of [W] isn't nearly as strong as more swings.

And once you have done that, everything else is set dressing. The ability to have rapid refresh encounter powers that add a few [W] is just set dressing on giving the level 20 fighter a bunch of [W] to throw at the target.