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BECMI to 5E character levels

by Sheldon Morris

On the topic of converting BECMI levels to 5E levels, my feeling is to do a non-linear comparison. OK, so I just spent the last hour or so comparing the levels contained in the tiers of play between BECMI and 5E, and the levels at which spell-casters get access to the spell-levels.

Have a look at this set-up and see what you think: the lower levels, up to level 10 are 1:1, then it is 1:2 for levels 11-24, and 1:4 for levels 25-36. Here it is chart form:

BECMI lv.	ratio	5E lv.
1	1	1
2	1	2
3	1	3
4	1	4
5	1	5
6	1	6
7	1	7
8	1	8
9	1	9
10	1	10
11	0.5	10
12	0.5	11
13	0.5	11
14	0.5	12
15	0.5	12
16	0.5	13
17	0.5	13
18	0.5	14
19	0.5	14
20	0.5	15
21	0.5	15
22	0.5	16
23	0.5	16
24	0.5	17
25	0.25	17
26	0.25	17
27	0.25	17
28	0.25	18
29	0.25	18
30	0.25	18
31	0.25	18
32	0.25	19
33	0.25	19
34	0.25	19
35	0.25	19
36	0.25	20

This may need some tweaking but I think it will solve some of the spell casting issues; i.e. not having the casters being able to cast the spells they used to be able to. It also keeps the tiers somewhat close to what you have in your original post.

Alright, I did some more analytical work on when the spell levels are gained, as you've pointed them out.

The first three columns are the same as the previous table, with the exception of just a couple of tweaks to the level ratio. This was done to match up the BECMI M-U's spell levels with the 5E's spell levels. As we've already discussed, the BECMI's cleric spell levels simply will not match up.

BECMI lv.	lv. ratio	equiv. 5E lv.	M-U spell lv.	Cleric spell lv.	5E spell lv.
1	1	1	1		1
2	1	2		1
3	1	3	2		2
4	1	4		2
5	1	5	3		3
6	1	6		3
7	1	7	4		4
8	1	8		4
9	1	9	5		5
10	1	10		5
11	1	11	6		6
12	0.5	11		6
13	0.5	12
14	0.5	12
15	1	13	7		7
16	0.5	14
17	0.5	14		7
18	0.5	15	8		8
19	0.5	15
20	0.5	16
21	1	17	9		9
22	0.25	17
23	0.25	17
24	0.25	17
25	0.25	18
26	0.25	18
27	0.25	18
28	0.25	18
29	0.25	19
30	0.25	19
31	0.25	19
32	0.25	19
33	0.25	20
34	0.25	20
35	0.25	20
36	0.25	20

I actually created a conversion chart based on the XP of the BECMI character, but I feel it is overly complicated when the above does the trick well enough (IMO).

---

I did a conversion based on XP too, as I mentioned in my last post. It isn't that different than yours actually, except for how I handled the highest levels.

Essentially, I converted based on the Magic-User's spell casting levels, referencing XPs at those levels. But then at the Magic-User's level 21 I paced the 5E levels to bring a 36th level BECMI Cleric to a 5E 20th level. (The cleric requiring the least amount of XP to get to 36th level). I did this so as to be able to use a single-reference chart rather than one with multiple class references.

What really surprised me though was just how close it was to yours! I take that to mean that we're fairly "on target".

The biggest advantage I'd give to using a chart like this is the potential flexibility in assigning a 5E level; since the BECMI level is a range of XP you could pick a value either high or low within that range to possibly be a 5E level higher or lower. (That said, if we're going to fudge it a bit anyway, why not just use the simpler level-to-level conversion chart and fudge that.)

Mike's XP lvs	Hugin's XP lvs	5E level
-	-	1
2,400	2,500	2
5,000	5,000	3
10,000	10,000	4
20,000	20,000	5
40,000	40,000	6
80,000	80,000	7
160,000	150,000	8
300,000	300,000	9
420,000	450,000	10
600,000	600,000	11
960,000	900,000	12
1,280,000	1,200,000	13
1,440,000	1,425,000	14
1,760,000	1,650,000	15
2,000,000	1,875,000	16
2,240,000	2,100,000	17
2,400,000	2,350,000	18
2,640,000	2,600,000	19
2,880,000	2,900,000	20