Moving editions

[Fortuna]

I play first edition, and know the system like the back of my hand. My friend, on the other hand, has convinced me to give 3.5 a try at some stage. My question is this: how much effort would be required to move editions using only the online SRD? I have a group of six who only know first, the aforementioned friend, and myself.

[BobVosh]

You can almost literally play with only the D20srd. You will be missing the XP and the WBL charts. If your DM has a copy of the DMG you will have no issues.

[Fortuna]

I (the DM) have no 3.5 books of any description. I could ad hoc those tables. I was wondering how much effort would be required to bring my players up to speed and do character generation.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The main changes between 1e and 3e are different to-hit and AC, standardized saves, skills and feats, and different multiclassing, really. If you can explain that much to the group, the rest should easily follow.

[Matthew]

It is not too much effort; there is a conversion document available which might be useful if you were using proficiencies and wanted to import actual characters. Better to start afresh, though, as you appear to be thinking. Mike_G converted directly from first edition to third edition, as I recall, and might be able to offer some insights.

Depending on how "optimised" your group eventually ends up, there are going to be some paradigm shifts with regard to expectations; magicians (wizards) and clerics are much more powerful relative to fighters and thieves (rogues) in D20/3e from around fifth level, but the emphasis of the game is more strongly towards combat and battle mat tactics.

The first D20/3e adventure I tried was one of the ones freely available on the Wizards of the Coast website, the Burning Plague, which I thought was a rather good introduction (though it was written for 3.0, rather than 3.5). In the end I found that D20/3e was not for me, but it is not a bad game on the whole.

[Tyndmyr]

You can almost literally play with only the D20srd. You will be missing the XP and the WBL charts. If your DM has a copy of the DMG you will have no issues.

Provided you use the random treasure tables for loot, and stick to the reccomended 13.3 appropriate ECL encounters to level, you'll be right on target for xp and darned close on WBL.

It's not hard, frankly. You'll have to get used to new stuff, like skills, but I don't see converting forward to 3.5 being very hard. Going backward would likely be more difficult.

[Fortuna]

Thanks for all of the advice! It has been really helpful. I will be meeting my group tomorrow, so I will, to a certain extent, know how well this is going to work.