Two questions really:

Question 1: Is there a way to import my characters from regular Diablo 1 to Hellfire? Or do I start all over again with a blank slate?

Question 2: I am almost at Diablo with my Warrior (normal difficulty) and may have to go through the game again to get a certain spell to get closer to enemies to hit the ranged / running away enemies. Should I go ahead and beat Diablo or can I keep my progress if I go ahead and install the Hellfire version?

Thanks!

According to other posts here, you can transfer the character to Hellfire, but not his items. You will retain your character level and stats.

It's OK to call the spell Teleport. We know what it does. Your progress is purely a function of the save game. If you install Hellfire and don't migrate your character, you will keep playing the pre-Hellfire dungeon you have seen so far.

you lose your items *but not your gold*

the most you can carry in inventory is 200,000 gp.
so sell it all off, and set sail.

DevilutionX will allow to freely switch between vanilla and hellfire (both ways!) without losing your items

It works when you change the file name:

from:
single_0.sv

to
single_0.hsv

For regular Hellfire this will strip all your items and game progress. For DevilutionX you get to just continue where you left off with the additional Hellfire features and content.

Hello folks,

I have converted my Diablo - DevilutionX - Diablo save to the DevilutionX - Hellfire save. It worked fine, but my helmet became a sword and my staff became a lightning rune. No big deal, just so you know. Sadly it works only once. Now the client is crashing when starting a new game.

What interests me more is the question if you have fixed the manashield bug? I read that with increasing lvl of the spell the incoming damage is not reduced but increased. Did you know that?

Thanks for the great work. I'm glad that my all time favorite game gets some love!

There is currently a bug with Hellfire items morphing, it shouldn't be too hard to deal with and will be fixed before we do the proper release.

Yes, the mana shield bugs have been fixed, as have all other bugs that were fixed in Diablo 1.04-1.09b bug not in Hellfire. As well as all fixes found in DevilutionX 1.1.0 and a good chunk of additional issues that I don't remember of the top of my head :)

1.2.1 is now out and all the morphing and stability issues have been ironed out so you should be able to convert you saves in both directions without issues:

https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX/releases

You can still load the saves in the GOG version after converting but note that doing so will cause the converted items to morph if you choose new game.

What guide dude ... it's literally in the message you posted, you just change file extension, can't you read? xD

It's not clear where you got stuck, did you install DevilutionX and put the saves in to %AppData%\diasurgical\devilution ?

a guide to keep the equipment. changing the extension makes the character lose everything and having only gold and no quest saved that means you start a new game with a lvl25 with a lot of gold.
devilution doesnt see any of the saves sadly, i copied it in the correct directory and also changed the extension to hsv

if devilutionx doesn't see saves, you are doing something wrong, feel free to join the discord so we can try to help ;)