Porting monsters from 3.5e to 5e?

[MrUberGr]

As some of you may know we played a couple of sessions in 3.5e but decided to go back to 5e for various reasons. I had built an idea around the clockwork horrors from 3.5 and we're just gonna continue in the same setting of gnomes tunneling under the city etc. I cannot find anything similar that is of appropriate CR and I definitely do not have time to homebrew them myself. So I decided to use the 3.5 stats but I'm not sure how to adjust the CR and the differences on feats or damage so I can use them in 5e. Any ideas?

http://i.imgur.com/9Ba9Asw.png

[Demonic Spoon]

Don't try to port them directly; it doesn't work, the game is built on different math.

use the guidelines in the DMG to rebuild the creature, keeping the thematic elements intact - e.g. lightning bolt for the gold horror.

[Gritmonger]

Retweaking these would probably involve some changes to AC for sure, or else you'll be either upping the CR by a whole lot or presenting your players with a foe they might have no hope of hitting. If you want to mimic a construct's resilience, you could do it with a DR similar to heavy armor mastery.

Other option is to look up and bulk up another construct from the Monster Manual - say, a modron- and then pulling other attributes such as AC and hitpoints from a similar CR creature.

[MrUberGr]

Yup, I was talking with the players and realized most have +8 to +10 to hit. 25 AC seems fine :smallbiggrin:

[MrUberGr]

What's the average dpr for level 10?

[Demonic Spoon]

Use the guidelines in the DMG. No random bits of advice you're going to get in a forum thread is going to help you make a balanced monster more than those, unless we were to literally rewrite those guidelines.

[MrUberGr]

It's just I'm not sure how to get the CR equivalence from 3.5 to 5. So, CR 4 in 3.5 is what in 5?

[Demonic Spoon]

It's just I'm not sure how to get the CR equivalence from 3.5 to 5. So, CR 4 in 3.5 is what in 5?

The games are build on fundamentally different math. There is no easy way to make comparisons. In some ways (for example, hitpoints), creatures in 5 scale vaguely similarly to how they scale in 3.5e. For other things, like save DCs, status effects, and attack bonuses/AC, 5e scales entirely differently.

If you're familiar with 3.5e, and familiar with 5e, it's very easy to just rebuild a monster from its thematic elements - for example, if you want to rebuild one of these creatures as a CR5 creature in 5e, take its thematic elements from the stat page you linked and apply them to 5e.

Instead of "what does 25 AC in 3.5 map to in 5e?", ask "Is this AC high, normal, or low for 3.5e?" - if the 3.5 creature was on the high end of the AC spectrum, then look at the average AC column in the big DMG table and give it something above average for its CR.

[MrUberGr]

Yup discussing with one of my players who knows average dpr, to hit, and AC's of both version I was able to create something that was good I believe. Gonna do a fight and change something if I see it's too much.

One last question. Is there something like 3.5e's sunder in 5? Also, does the DMG have stats for items I cannot find somewhere?

[Inevitability]

One last question. Is there something like 3.5e's sunder in 5?

No. The DMG has rules for variant combat maneuvers (like climbing on a bigger foe or disarming) but sunder is nowhere to be found.

Then again, Sunder was pretty much 'Disarming, but without loot' anyway.

[MrUberGr]

So this is my attempt at homebrewing these critters. I intend on putting 1 adamantine, 2 gold and either 1 gold and 2 electrum or 5 electrum against the party of 4 lvl 10 players. It's meant to be deadly. Do you think it'll be way too much? The party is averagely optimized. It's got a Pyro sorcerer (mainly fire spells), a battlemaster fighter, a barbarian, and I think a rogue (not even the player is sure what's he gonna play :P ).

http://i.imgur.com/t7sQUSg.png

[T.G. Oskar]

It's just I'm not sure how to get the CR equivalence from 3.5 to 5. So, CR 4 in 3.5 is what in 5?

You can keep the creatures on the same CR. Just use the parameters for attack bonus and AC, which are the ones that matter the most. Thus, use the recommended parameters for attack bonus and AC, and adjust other stuff accordingly. Add proficiency bonuses sparingly, and only if you consider them necessary.

Oh yeah, and forget about adding Disjunction at-will on the Adamantine Horror. Just saying.

[MrUberGr]

Even if disjunction was a thing in 5e, I wouldn't be so cruel. I don't know what else to give it though. Forgot to ask this in the previous comment.