Converting 3.5 Warblade to 5e

[Valcor]

Several years ago, ya'll helped me find, understand, and have a complete blast playing a half-orc Warblade.
He's level 8 (almost 9!! 4 levels in fighter), happily taking over sections of the underdark with his friends, leading a force of 150+ orcs with a mystic blade, having recently 'taken management' of some wizard's epic lava-covered castle.

And THEN....we realized we were spending so long on single turns, that we were practically not playing the game. So we're going to try 5e for it's simplicity.

We've been playing a 5e campaign (an evil one, where I have enjoyed a bit much playing a paranoid Schiz. Tortle with a Lucky Bardiche) for 3 sessions now, so I have SOME idea of how this works.

We've decided to continue with our main story, but to convert characters to 5e (going from lv8 to lv3 where levels 4-8 go twice as fast, just so we have more time to think and not have to make all decisions at once). My request is for general concepts and thoughts on converting an established character's feats/items/combat maneuvers to 5th ed. I don't really even know what to ask - I don't know what I don't know! (note, it's been awhile since we've played, and longer since I've been here - so I may be rusty on acronyms)



IF YOU WANT CHARACTER DETAILS:
Things I've got:
-Enlarge Belt, Healing belt properties (man I love that belt, and that DM let me have it)
-Intelligent sword (I think. We'll let the DM worry about that)
+5 composite bow
+2 spike shield: character is sword and board, dual wielding great sword and shield.
+2 Adamantine breastplate (and a total +18 to craft armor to make it....)
-Ring of protection +2

-Counter strike bracers
-cloak of resistance
-chronocharm of the horizon walker
-translocation anklets
-weapon crystal: Returning
-Homebrewish boots that let me move at speed with medium armor (grants that Dwarven ability)
(we also managed to steal an invisible flying carpet, lol!)

Fighter lv4, Warblade lv4

FEATS:
-Fearless (flaw)
-Powerful Build
-Sword & Board Character Alternate (homebrew, bonus to attack/dmg when S&B)
-Power Attack
-Two Weapon Fighting
-Cleave
-Improved Shield Bash
-Shock Trooper
-Uncanny Dodge (per warblade)

MANEUVERS: (if you know Warblade at all...not sure what to do here...except maybe just take a 5e class and try to make it look similar?)
Charging Minotaur
Mountain Hammer
Moment of Perfect Mind
Emerald Razor
Wall of Blades
White raven Tactics (man, I just got these last 2....love those!)
Iron Heart Surge

STANCES:
Leading the Charge
Absolute Steel
Thunder Bustle (homebrew, specific to S&B)


man, I'm just realizing how much WORK went into this build and learning maneuvers.....now it's all gone...
help me guys! Don't leave me so sad =(.

But seriously - as always, THANK YOU for always being so helpful. I tried thinking of what it would be like to convert and said "I'm going to Giant in the playground right now!!"

[Maat Mons]

Hmm, well, I'm not sure that posting in the 3.5 forum asking for advice on building a 5e character is the best idea. We've got a forum just for 5e (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?63-D-amp-D-5e-Next), so moving this thread over there might be better.

[Troacctid]

I mean, you either get 3.5e people who may not know 5e, or 5e people who may not know the warblade. Gotta go somewhere. *shrug*

Warblade doesn't convert cleanly, but if you want a martial character that has a lot of options, I would recommend Battlemaster Fighter. Take Shield Master and Prodigy (Athletics) as feats so you can shield bash like a pro and shove people around. Add Tavern Brawler if you want to use the shield as an improvised weapon and also grapple people. You won't get all the mechanics, but it should do a good job capturing the way the character feels to play (especially once you add similar magic items).

[Crake]

I mean, you either get 3.5e people who may not know 5e, or 5e people who may not know the warblade. Gotta go somewhere. *shrug*

Yeah, but considering the end goal is 5e, this would be like saying in a warcraft forum "How can I stat sylvanas in dnd?", it clearly doesn't belong there.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Speaking as someone who knows 5e, you'll have to do a lot of work.

I'd triage the changes and worry more about converting the spirit of the character rather than the mechanics. Because the mechanics will not transfer well at all. One of the big things is the equipment. A "normal" level 3 character has one, maybe two Common items (ie a sword that glows in the dark and counts as magical, but has no +X). A level 8 character has maybe 1-2 Uncommon (including a +1 weapon or shield) permanent items and at most 1 rare (a +2 weapon/shield or a +1 suit of armor), and you will not necessarily be able to go out and purchase the ones you want. You will not be able to wield a 2H weapon and a shield, nor are there provisions for explicitly spiked shields. The only way to deal damage with a shield is to take the Tavern Brawler feat and use it as an improvised weapon, but that's decidedly sub-optimal (you can't dual wield it since it lacks the light property).

The closest match to the maneuver system from ToB is the Battlemaster fighter.

My recommendation:
Half orc, prioritizing STR and CON but not dumping DEX (so you can use a bow).
Dueling fighting style (+2 damage with one-handed weapons if the other hand is empty)
At level 4, take the Shield Master feat (so you can mimic the bash attack, despite it dealing no damage).

[Segev]

The closest parallel to the Warblade, in general, is the Battle Master subclass of fighter, as somebody else suggested. It has the maneuvers, albeit much simpler ones. For your orc general, there is at least one that lets you direct others to make attacks, adding extra damage.

There are magic items; the big change for you will be that the "christmas tree" effect is much lessened: you can only have 3 items attuned, which limits the kind of items you can have in large numbers. With your DM, you should just go through the DMG's magic items and see what seems a reasonable parallel, and pick accordingly. A lot of the "they give you bigger numbers" items are either gone, or you should drop anyway, because 5e doesn't do "bigger numbers" very well. It's a design choice they call "bounded accuracy" but which really means they tried very hard not to stack bonuses on things much at all. So when picking items, I would recommend prioritizing thematically cool ones and defining ones over "important big numbers" ones.

[Mordaedil]

Magic gear in 5e is a lot more uncommon as well, so most of the stuff you have there would be extremely OP to just bring into a 5e game. Enhancements only go up to +3 too and not so much emphasis is put on magic swag.

For class, just allow him to pick between battlemaster and eldritch knight and don't obsess so much about it, the game is almost an entirely different beast to 3.5. He can just stay that class until the endgame and depending on whether he wants to emphasize "well-trained knight" or "magic warrior" is up to him through these sub-classes.

[Valcor]

Thanks very much everyone - and you're right: where do you go to ask this? I'll try posting in 5e also, in case there is greater wisdom to glean. But you're also right: it's not so much a conversion, as making a character in the same spirit but totally de-emphasizing gear.

Really, it's more a psychological work than a logistical one: giving up all the work done for a 3.5 character to get a completely different game with a character with the same name and character. which is really the point of 5th ed, ya? Get rid of the trappings that keep the game slow, emphasize character and story. In a sense, the 5th switch should be like playing the game itself - ignore stuff, just get on with the game. *deep breath*

Ok, I'll head for battle master, look through the maneuvers, and the DMG through items, and see what happens....and hold it all loosely.

thanks again
PS - this was super helpful
My recommendation:
Half orc, prioritizing STR and CON but not dumping DEX (so you can use a bow).
Dueling fighting style (+2 damage with one-handed weapons if the other hand is empty)
At level 4, take the Shield Master feat (so you can mimic the bash attack, despite it dealing no damage).

[Mr Adventurer]

If you're wielding a shield though, won't you lose your Duellist bonus?

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you're wielding a shield though, won't you lose your Duellist bonus?

No. The dueling fighting style only forbids having a weapon in the other hand or using 2 hands on a single weapon. Shields are just fine.

[Lorddenorstrus]

Get rid of the trappings that keep the game slow, emphasize character and story.

).

It's more like, get rid of the entire point of an existing character sheet to the point of almost making the edition LARPing basically. The real question, is if people don't like combat, why D&D vs a different TRPG? Cause that's kinda the crux of it, combat is "to much" so cut back on the paperwork. But, D&D is inherently an RP Combat Simulator. You kill the 2nd half, you only have LARP lvl RP left. 5e really doesn't have much going for it in the Combat Simulator section. They butchered that.