Using D&D Next for World of Warcraft's Azeroth

[Kaiu Keiichi]

D&D Next seems like a great match for Blizzard's Azeroth setting. The only thing that it seems it would need would be perhaps a tweaked Shaman specialization for Druids, a Priest class, and Race templates to match Azeroth, but otherwise it would work. Thoughts? Am I crazy?

[Mr.Moron]

I think you'd need to broadly redo the classes a fair bit. The universe has so many iconic spells and powers many of which are tied into the lore of the world, the more generic set in D&D doesn't feel at all fitting.

I think that you'd need to make PCs generally a bit less fragile, especially at lower levels. Otherwise the baseline engine is probably fine.

[Chaosvii7]

D&D Next seems like a great match for Blizzard's Azeroth setting. The only thing that it seems it would need would be perhaps a tweaked Shaman specialization for Druids, a Priest class, and Race templates to match Azeroth, but otherwise it would work. Thoughts? Am I crazy?

Instead of making a brand new class for Priests, you can just use Clerics and make a Shadow Domain, or re-fluff the Light Domain(which IIRC is the smite by holy fire domain) so that they can do the damage.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Warcraft_RPG

If you can find any content from their tabletop RPG(which was d20 OGL), you can probably convert some or most of it over to 5e.

[TheSethGrey]

D&D Next seems like a great match for Blizzard's Azeroth setting. The only thing that it seems it would need would be perhaps a tweaked Shaman specialization for Druids, a Priest class, and Race templates to match Azeroth, but otherwise it would work. Thoughts? Am I crazy?

No you're not as I have been working on a Tinker Conversion, that kind of spun out of control and become it's own thing, and less of a conversion. You could "easily" convert everything over, and I say easily because it does take some amount of time and skill to think of how things will port over, but it's do-able.

Hardest thing is re-writing everything that's Azeroth specific, unless you're gonna play in that setting in which case you're fine.

Honestly, though the hardest part I could see would be Racial Levels, and All Spell Caster EVER. Think about how many spells there, including RuneMaster spells/runes, that's a lot of stuff to sort through and convert.

[DiBastet]

It's al there. You mostly just need a druid subclass focused on spirits for shamans, an artificer-tinker-gadgeteer class, and a paladin subclass for death knights and you're set. I think you shouldn't try to emulate the game mechanics and limitations however, since the limitations were put in the game for game reasons. I've lost count of how many times I had to explain that X class has Y spell but not Z spell because of videogame reasons.

In fact my point always is that in a pnp rpg, where you can have more choices and the GM do do the fine tunning you would see night elf priestess with access to moon-themed spells, and you could make draenei Ligh-channeling work different, or you could, you know, customize your character. it's very hard to convince stupid wow-only "fans" that in a pnp rpg you can customize your character abilities, exactly like you see with some npcs. For some reasons it's incredible hard to make some people understand that Thrall being a shaman and wearing plate isn't all that amazing and it doesn't happen just because he is awesome: in most rpgs you could just buy the ability to wear heavy armor and call it a day. Eventually it comes down to the point that I have to show that some iconic abilities were removed because of game balance or other reasons; like melee hunters, ranged rogues, shotgun warriors, starfall priestess, undead harmed by healing, unnarmed master warrior and lots of others... Things I heard because I described my rogue lining up a shortbow shot...

You don't need a light armor only cleric class. In fact some very traditional priest sets look like light plate armor or mail, even being described as "cloth" in the game.