Wizards of the Coast has released the long-awaited 5.5E conversion guide. Now you too, can update your own stuff to be SRD accurate.
Exciting news for people looking to use the new SRD 5.2, released back in April. WotC has just released a “conversion guide” for the 6.5E ruleset, that should help anyone updating old materials to match what the new SRD says. Especially useful for people with core classes and such – though the new document does seem to be more of a style guide and list of changes, than a peek under the design hood. At any rate, the conversion guide is available now, let’s check it out!
WotC’s 5.5E Conversion Guide: Make Your Rules Match the SRD
First things first, the conversion guide is aimed at consistency in terms of style and verbiage. And the new SRD conversion guide will absolutely help you make sure anything you write sounds like 5.5E. If you’re looking for a sort of new players’ guide to telling what’s different that’s not exactly what you’ll find. Though you kind of can, if you read through the guide to see what changes they recommend making.
The 5.5E conversion guide is more aimed at creators and designers. It’s a reference you can use to update your wording or, as I imagine many folks might use it, to update your internal style guide. Because a lot of things are different. Even though we colloquialize stuff like Perception check or Concentration save – the technical, actual, by the book nerd language is something like Wisdom [Perception] Check. Because skill checks don’t exist in D&D, the way Trees don’t exist in real life.
But getting the language right is important. And not just for rules. For the vibes as well. You can tell when something sounds like it’s part of the same book family. There’s a pattern, a rhythm, a style that it all follows. And this guide aims to do exactly that:
This document highlights new and revised elements in each section of System Resource Document 5.2.1 (SRD 5.2.1).
Those elements were first introduced in the Player’s Handbook (2024), Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024), and Monster Manual (2025).
In this document, each element of the new or revised elements has one or more of the following tags so you can see at a glance how it has changed:
New Name. This tag is applied to a rule that has a new name. Unless stated otherwise, the rule hasn’t changed apart from its name.
New Rule. This tag indicates a new rule.
AdvertisementRevised Rule. This tag indicates a rule that ap- peared in SRD 5.1 but that has new functionality. Additionally, the tag “Omitted Rule” indicates stat blocks that are omitted in SRD 5.2.1 recommended replacements.
You can find the full text of the document at the link below. If you’re a writer/designer working with 5E and 5.5E you’ll especially want to check out the whole thing. It really is very handy for ironing out those little wrinkles of half-remembered rules from one edition to the other.
And if you were thinking the 5.5E conversion guide was a way to get your DM or other players to try the new rules, there’s no guide for that either, you’ll just have to be persuasive!
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