Hello there!

Well, I'm running a Dragonlance campaign (after I found my old books from the nineties still in good shape) for a 5e group. So far the group made it fairly well through the first chapter and is currently on the way back to Solace after they 'defeated' Onyx/Khisanth in the Ruins of Xak Tsaroth. So far I really had no issues with converting NPCs, but given the massive power boost between AD&D2e and 5e ... lets just take Tika here for starters.

So in the original book Tika Waylan is a Fighter 5 / Rogue 3. (Stats: STR 14, DEX 16, CON 13, INT 9 WIS 12 CHA 14) (For comparison: The group is Level 5 - Warlock (GoO), Rogue (Mastermind), Barbarian (Berserker) and Blood Hunter (Mutant Order)). Now if I'd convert her to F5R3 Tika would easily outclass the player characters in terms of power. Not to mention that she also had two subclasses. Currently I'm actually pondering of changing her to Rogue 2 / Fighter 2-3 (Champion at best; I really can't imagine any other subclass fitting for her, but that's just my opinion). 

Laurana (Fighter 4, STR 13, DEX 17, CON 14, INT 15, WIS 12, CH 16) isn't that hard; I'd lower her down to Fighter 3 and probably use Eldritch Knight as Subclass. (Speaking of Rebalancing, I'll probably take away all the magical equipment of the NPCs too.)

Gilthanas (Fighter 5 / Wizard 4, STR 12, DEX 16, CON 12, INT 14, WIS 10, CH 13) would again be *way* too powerful; here I'm thinking of making him into Wizard 2 / Fighter 3 (Maybe Arcane Archer.)

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Miri

Man you're really taking me back in time with some of those names :)

I wouldn't worry about putting your NPCs in player terms. The same rules don't apply to NPCs. For Tika, I would use the Master Thief stat block since the power level feels about right for the party. It already has sneak attack and cunning action, and it allows two attacks per round, which is what a fighter would have at level 5. You can probably use it fine as-is, but if you want to buff the fighter side a bit, maybe up her strength by a point or two and give her medium armor instead of studded leather. And don't forget to give her a good portion of Otik's spiced potatoes to hand out to the adventurers, should they visit the Inn of the Last Home.

I exclusively use my old D&D2e and AD&D2e modules and convert them to 5e all the time. That being said, I am personally unfamiliar with Dragonlance as I have always preferred Mystara as a setting and never read the Dragonlance books.

Four 5th-level PCs should not have a problem against one 8th level NPC. But, I have also always adjusted NPC levels to better suit my campaign and 5e is no different.

One thing I will point out is that watching the DM roll tons of dice is boring, so subclasses like Champion are better than, say, Battle Masters if the NPC is going to fight on the same side as the PCs. But a more complex subclass like the Battle Master is a more interesting opponent for the PCs to fight against.

These were just my thoughts and opinions. I hope this was helpful.

And Tika will need tavern brawler to get improvised weapon so she can hit people with her frying pan.

The PCs aren’t actually going to fight these folks, right? These are NPC good guys. If so, You probably don’t need much at all in the way of stats, and could do as devin suggests and just use a standard NPC stat block. 

Also, when in the timeline are these the stat blocks for the NPCs? You’re pretty early on, (I think, it’s been a good 30 years since I read the books) and if these are the stats from the end of the series, that would account for the power difference. 

Not sure this is really what you want or need, but it looks like DMSGuild has Dragonlance module conversions.  Might find some of what you need there. Can’t get the link to paste in for some reason but if you search Dragonlance 5e it comes up.

That's a lot of good ideas - I guess using appropriate "npc stat blocks" would be the easiest way. And yes, at least Tika will (temporarily) join the group; right now I'm not sure about Laurana and Gilthanas, actually.

Speaking of Tika - yesterday she had that famous frying pan scene - I just counted the frying pan as improvised weapon which then dealt the usual 1d4. (Though - in the AD&D2 stat block it's listed as 1d8, but that seemed a little bit too much - that's as much as a longsword after all.)

So I guess I'll run with stat blocks, and probably look up these conversions. :)

Thanks a lot!
Edit: I probably should have clarified that it's about NPCs joining the party, not fighting against them. 

I think in her case you could let the d8 stand. It’s the standard damage for a 1-handed martial weapon, so you could say it’s like a war hammer. 

Quote from Xalthu >>

I think in her case you could let the d8 stand. It’s the standard damage for a 1-handed martial weapon, so you could say it’s like a war hammer. 

 Or at least like a Handaxe that does bludgeoning (1d6) so they could also throw it.