Goodman Games

I'm getting ready to start up a DCC campaign using the Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting. I'm going to tweak it quite a bit to make it a bit more R. E. Howardish and low-fantasy. However, it might be nice to have some NPCs to work with, and possibly the ones already in the supplement. That means, I think, down-converting the level of the 3.5 NPCs to DCC standards.

I'm guessing that a 3.5 character's level is about 2 to 5 times as high as the equivalent DCC character. So a 20th level Fighter in 3.5 would be a somewhere between 4th and 10th level in DCC. I'm thinking it probably be more toward the low end, say about 5th level.

What do you think? Is a 4:1 ratio about right?

I don't think you can strictly compare the levels. DCC's power curve is definitely nonlinear, 3.x's is much more linear (if not totally linear). There's also a lot more variables for DCC chars to deal with. I think I would look to the chart that talks about how level 2s are 1 in every 1000 people, level 3s are 1 in 10,000, etc, and use that as a guide for determining NPC "levels." Of course, the true and correct DCC response is, "don't use character classes or levels for NPCs at all, just make up stuff for them that looks appropriate." Go nuts!

My advice: Completely ignore everything about the NPC other than the raw concept of it, and then build a DCC character from scratch that matches that concept and is whatever level you feel is appropriate.

I agree fully with the two posts above.

The adventure in CRAWL! #4 was originally written for AD&D, years ago.
Early attempt at a straight "conversion" to DCC RPG was basically a long waste of time. In the end all the stats were rewritten basically from scratch and all the monsters reinvented. (and the end result is now satisfactory, I think..)

I think "satisfactory" is an understatement. The end result is quite good!

+1.

I've "converted" a handful of AD&D adventures and one LL adventure. LL was easier, but for the most part, but I re-jiggered every monster...every encounter, really. Magic has to change. I run a low-gold campaign, as well, so I have to tweak everything to fit.

You can, however, pretty much do it on the fly after a while, though.

I would encourage trying to use the material without any conversion whatsoever. I've used monsters and adventures from the following systems in DCC without converting anything up front:

* AD&D
* Labyrinth Lord
* 3E
* Pathfinder (I actually use the Bestiary 2 quite a bit.)

It's actually really easy, and you'll come up with your own simple little on-the-fly tweaks as you gain more experience doing it and are more comfortable with it.