The Griffin's Crier

So I am thinking about old characters, and converting them to 5e. Especially with some of the Nukemcon adventures we were talking about. So Baldwin came up in conversation, as a potential candidate for the High Level Blackrazors event. He is especially difficult because he took the Elemental Savant prestige class, and this has become central to his character concept. There are, however, a few 5e conversions. This one may work, as an Arcane Tradition:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YBW ... tdOE0/edit

And here it is as a prestige class:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BIJ ... 8fSuc/edit

Thoughts?

Damon.

I read through them and I'll have to do some comparisons but it doesn't look too bad. I would certainly go with the Archtype option rather than the Prestige Class setup though. I liked prestige classes well enough in 3e but I don't see the need in 5e. Archtypes fill the bill quite nicely, IMO.

Not that it matters much for this conversion, but prestige classes allow you more options to do an off-character. FREX Elemental Savant cleric character rather than arcane. Or even for the latter a Sorcerer rather than a Wizard character.

Damon.

I see your point, but I'm hesitant to throw prestige classes into the 5e mix for a few mechanical reasons.

1) Multiclassing itself in 5e is more complex than in 3e. You have to figure out how spell levels stack, for one thing, which is not straightforward like it was in 3e.

2) There is already a system for 'specialized' classes; the archtype system. It seems clunky to me to add a prestige class to that. I don't know that you gain anything by being part abjurer/part elemental savant, you know? Just be an elemental savant.

3) I think you could certainly build out slightly different versions of elemental savant for different classes. You could do a version for Warlocks with an elemental lord as patron, or a powerful genie maybe. And a bloodline for sorcerer seems pretty easy to do.
And then you could build in a little variation of abilities. Maybe wizards stay their base race but can transform x/day similar to polymorph, while warlocks actually have parts replaced as part of their pact, until finally, at high level, they transform permanently (maybe with a few meat parts left, ala Gen Grievous). Dunno, just riffing now.

The arcane tradition version seems workable to give it a try, but I'd be loath to introduce prestige classes for 5E to our campaign.

IMHO I'd rather see us make exceptions rather than rules for certain characters if we can't make them fit the mold. In other words I agree with the vote against prestige classes in 5e, but if there is something specific you think your character is missing bring it up and we can discuss as a group. There's always magic items, boons, etc. that can fix something missing.

Hardcorhobbs wrote:IMHO I'd rather see us make exceptions rather than rules for certain characters if we can't make them fit the mold. In other words I agree with the vote against prestige classes in 5e, but if there is something specific you think your character is missing bring it up and we can discuss as a group. There's always magic items, boons, etc. that can fix something missing.

+1