General Discussion

[DangerousPuhson]

Hey, @DangerousPuhson, have you ever run 3e/3.5e/PF1?

Pathfinder, no. But I ran 3/3.5 extensively. The CRs are not equivalent between editions, due mainly to bounded accuracy which throws all the 3e number crunching out of whack. Both DMGs (3e and 5e) have sections that detail how their CR mechanic is supposed to work mathematically.

 

[Beoric]

Both DMGs (3e and 5e) have sections that detail how their CR mechanic is supposed to work mathematically.

Yes, I know, the 5e math just gets really wonky, with the multipliers for larger numbers of creatures. It makes it harder to map to 4e levels, which has much simpler, and much, much more consistent, rules for increasing the number of creatures for higher level encounters. I thought I had it figured out after another conversation we had, but I ended up with unexpected results. Hopefully I have a copy of my work from an earlier iteration, which was cumbersome but gave me results closer to what I would have expected.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Just find an existing CR creature and approximate your stats based off that. HP, AC, dmg - they need to be within existing ranges, that's it. The rest is dressing.

 

[The1True]

I havn't played 5e past 5th lvl. The CR's are fairly similar up to that point, but I can see them diverging slowly around 4-5. I havn't read the 5e DMG, but 3.5 had EL (Encounter Level) as well as CR. There's some decent EL calculators online (although, their mathematical veracity has been disputed) which do a better job than I can of showing how various combinations of CR's add up to similar EL's. I've been using more and more PF monsters in my adventures, but they're stats tend to be higher than the 3.5 average which has been throwing things off a bit.

 

[Beoric]

Just find an existing CR creature and approximate your stats based off that. HP, AC, dmg - they need to be within existing ranges, that's it. The rest is dressing.

This would be fine if I was running 5e, but I'm not, I'm converting to 4e.

I havn't played 5e past 5th lvl. The CR's are fairly similar up to that point, but I can see them diverging slowly around 4-5. I havn't read the 5e DMG, but 3.5 had EL (Encounter Level) as well as CR. There's some decent EL calculators online (although, their mathematical veracity has been disputed) which do a better job than I can of showing how various combinations of CR's add up to similar EL's. I've been using more and more PF monsters in my adventures, but they're stats tend to be higher than the 3.5 average which has been throwing things off a bit.

I have 3.5e conversions sorted, once I learned that a character of level X has a CR of X, the rest was easy.

5e is more complicated. The difficulty of the encounter is measured in the XP values. So for a party of 4 5th level characters, an easy fight would be 1000 XP and a deadly fight is 4400 XP. A CR 4 creature is worth 1100 XP, so that would be an easy fight.

A CR 1 creature is worth 200 XP, so you would think that 5 CR 1 creatures would be an easy fight, but you would be wrong, because you apply a multiplier for multiple creatures. 5 CR 1 creatures have an XP budget of (2000 x 5) x 2 = 2000 XP, which is almost double the "deadly" threshhold. The upshot if this is, assuming this XP math has an accurate relationship to CR, there is a huge difference in danger level between the fractional CRs, but once you get to the large CRs, the differences become so granular that CR starts to lose any meaning.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

This would be fine if I was running 5e, but I'm not, I'm converting to 4e.

C'mon now, you're a bright guy, you can handle this. You compare it something from 4e to make the conversation.

You say "this new thing is probably about as tough as an ogre", you open your 4e MM to "O" for "Ogre", and you copy down the hit points, AC, and damage output of the entry marked "Ogre", and there you have a new creature that's as challenging to the party as an ogre.

Special attacks and powers and immunities? Drop a few points of hp/AC/dmg to balance it out.

The difficulty of the encounter is measured in the XP values.

You've got that reversed. It might be expressed or categorized by XP value, but the difficulty of an encounter is not measured in XP values - it is measured in... difficulty (i.e. monster toughness). XP values are a direct output of a measured difficulty (i.e. this monster is this tough, so it is worth this much XP).

Difficulty is not a hard metric or formula - it is a loose approximation, meant for wiggle room (because you can't mathematically count on consistency from dice, so a CR can't account for players missing all their attacks, or monsters rolling max damage each hit, or what have you - it makes some statistical wiggle room to account for these things). Which is why adapting challenge is easy if you pin it to the hard known metrics of hp/AC/dmg and then work within the wiggle room of the system.

 

[Beoric]

C'mon now, you're a bright guy, you can handle this. You compare it something from 4e to make the conversation.

You say "this new thing is probably about as tough as an ogre", you open your 4e MM to "O" for "Ogre", and you copy down the hit points, AC, and damage output of the entry marked "Ogre", and there you have a new creature that's as challenging to the party as an ogre.

Special attacks and powers and immunities? Drop a few points of hp/AC/dmg to balance it out.

Ugh. In the face of your condescension I'm going to make one last effort to explain the problem.

The problem is figuring out what "this thing is probably as tough as". You need to know that in order to do proper conversions.

In 0e and basic, an orc and a goblin are about equivalent, whereas a hobgoblin is tougher than either.

In 1e, an orc is tougher than a goblin, but weaker than a hobgoblin.

In 3e, an orc and a hobgoblin both have the same CR, a CR of 1/2. Is that because the orc got tougher, or because the hobgoblin got weaker? Or are both at an entirely different level entirely? This is a solved problem for me.

In 5e, an orc and a hobgoblin again have the same CR, a CR of 1/2. Is that the equivalent of a 3e CR 1/2 orc or hobgoblin? No, it isn't.

• An encounter using four 3.5e CR 1/2 orcs/hobgoblins is a "Challenging" encounter for a party of four 3.5e level 2 characters, which is easier than the "Very difficult" or "Overpowering" categories, and appears to actually mean "about average". I'm taking this from the DMG, I have never played 3e.
• An encounter using four 5e CR 1/2 orcs/hobgoblins is a "Deadly" encounter for a party of four 5e level 2 characters, which is the highest difficulty category. Again, I am using the guidelines in the DMG.

Say you were converting a 3e second level module to 5e, which you are running for second level 5e characters. If you swap in 5e orcs and hobgoblins for the ones in the original module, it is going to be a very different, and perhaps fatal, experience than with the original module. You would need to tinker the stats on the 5e orcs and hobgoblins, but more importantly, you need to know (a) that the tinkering needs to be done, and (b) how much tinkering it will take.

If I am running a 4e game using 5e content, I need to know how tough to make the monsters, because the designer made certain assumptions about their toughness, and I am trying to bring the "feel" of the content as much as the name of the monster.

And the feel of the content is not limited to orcs and hobgoblins. I also need to know how those creatures compare to other monsters. How many orcs/hobs are equivalent to one troll? Is an experienced player's understanding of how tough a troll is in relation to his character's level still valid enough for him to make informed decisions? Has the tough encounter in a converted module now become easy, or has an easy one become tough?

Anyway, I now have a table that I think is going to work well enough. And in case you are curious, my assessment is as follows:

[10 3e goblins] = [8 0e/1e goblins] = [8 0e orcs] = [7 1e/3e orcs] = [7 3e hobgoblins] = [7 5e goblins] = [4 5e orcs] = [4 5e hobgoblins]

In case that isn't clear, one 5e orc is as tough as 2 0e orcs. That is going to affect any conversions.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

The problem is figuring out what "this thing is probably as tough as". You need to know that in order to do proper conversions.

4e has rules for balance, yes? Do they not have templates or guidelines for how many hp/AC/dmg creatures are expected to have? Does the 4e MM not stipulate that, no, your first level party shouldn't be trying to fight this lich, in some mechanical way? Are there no pre-existing 4e materials that demonstrate that yes, a pair of ogres is a worthy challenge for four level 3 characters? I ask genuinely - 4e is unfamiliar to me.

In 0e and basic, an orc and a goblin are about equivalent, whereas a hobgoblin is tougher than either. In 1e, an orc is tougher than a goblin, but weaker than a hobgoblin. In 5e, an orc and a hobgoblin again have the same CR, a CR of 1/2. Is that the equivalent of a 3e CR 1/2 orc or hobgoblin? No, it isn't.

If you're converting to Xe, and you look at the Xe value for an equivalent creature and adjust, you'll hit a 90% solution. I'm just saying there's enough wiggle room that these adjustments aren't feather-touch sensitive. If a 3e hobgoblin has more hp than a 5e hobgoblin, odds are good your players won't even notice in-game - a monster going down in two hits instead of one hit is hardly going to break things. At worst, you see that 5e creatures don't have as high hp as 3e ones, and you drop a couple hp here and there. Maybe at super high levels, when an 3e AC of 30 just isn't possible to hit in 5e's bonded accuracy (or whatever the heck 4e does), then it disintegrates a bit, but at low levels it's so negligible it's a non-issue. You can approximate this stuff to 90% satisfaction.

If you can't abide by such loosey-goosey rulings, you can do what I sometimes do and create some characters to do a few quick rounds of simulated combat playtest.... But all in all, I think you'll find conversions are much more forgiving than you give them credit for.

 

[The1True]

An encounter using four 5e CR 1/2 orcs/hobgoblins is a "Deadly" encounter

I suspect theory and practice may be two different things in this case, since we distinctly encountered humanoid groups of this size in the 5e introductory adventure (the well-respected "Mines of Phandelver"). They were tough but not deadly, and I believe that reflected the intent of the game design which was to raise the stakes of combat back to an old school level. So I don't believe you should be applying this level of mathematical rigor to your conversions. 4 Hobgoblins is 4 Hobgoblins in pretty much every edition, just the stakes are different (and therefor the players' approach to combat needs to be modified from edition to edition).

Possibly mathematical divergence might need to apply at higher populations (the old 0e random encounter with 600 Orcs)...

Where I would agree caution is advised is when monsters got rules overhauls (particularly demons and devils spring immediately to mind. The 3.5e Barbed Devil is a motherfucker, for example).

 

[DangerousPuhson]

So I don't believe you should be applying this level of mathematical rigor to your conversions. 4 Hobgoblins is 4 Hobgoblins in pretty much every edition, just the stakes are different (and therefor the players' approach to combat needs to be modified from edition to edition).

This is the crux, Beoric - what I've been trying to say, but 1True puts it so much more succinctly.

DM-fixation on balance is something that many players claim "sucks the soul" from the game, because the DM's goal is not to make a perfectly balanced adventure (which is essentially analogous to railroading your party's survival, ensuring they'll never meet actual dangerous threats so the game can advance at a preset pace). The DM's goal is simulation of the world and arbitration of the rules. The solution to an overpowered encounter is not on the DM's shoulders if the players are given free reign to approach or disengage at will, as all players ought to be given. The OG random encounter tables had "Red Dragon" and "3d100 Orcs" on them because it was expected that the party would pick and choose their battles when outmatched by stronger foes. Fighting 200 orcs as a party of level 2 characters isn't balanced, but those kinds of encounters are still found in some of the best, most critically-acclaimed adventures.

 

[Beoric]

I suspect theory and practice may be two different things in this case, since we distinctly encountered humanoid groups of this size in the 5e introductory adventure (the well-respected "Mines of Phandelver"). They were tough but not deadly, and I believe that reflected the intent of the game design which was to raise the stakes of combat back to an old school level. So I don't believe you should be applying this level of mathematical rigor to your conversions. 4 Hobgoblins is 4 Hobgoblins in pretty much every edition, just the stakes are different (and therefor the players' approach to combat needs to be modified from edition to edition).

Possibly mathematical divergence might need to apply at higher populations (the old 0e random encounter with 600 Orcs)...

Where I would agree caution is advised is when monsters got rules overhauls (particularly demons and devils spring immediately to mind. The 3.5e Barbed Devil is a motherfucker, for example).

One of the difficulties is guessing to what extent the designers have their thumb on the scale when it comes to encounter design; does "deadly" actually mean "chance of a character dying if the party is both foolish and unlucky"? Is an appropriate challenge for a given level really that challenging? Is an appropriate challenge for four 3e level 1 characters really one 3e level 1 character?

This makes anecdotal evidence tough to assess. When encounter design is so skewed to players never facing any real risk, beating four hobgoblins in both 3e and 5e doesn't really mean that hobgoblins are equivalent in both editions.

So I work with two assumptions. The first is that late-edition designers have their thumb on the scale to the same extent in 3e as in 5e. The second is that designers have more or less succeeded in creating an encounter design system that reflects that framework.

Going to the assertion that 5e is supposed to be more dangerous, I think to the extent that is true, it was accomplished by making the monsters tougher. I remember when Phandelver first came out, seeing some commentary that 4 goblins gave players more trouble than they expected. Well my model, based on what the designers say about their own systems, predicts that goblins are a notch tougher in 5e, and orcs/hobs are also a bit tougher.

Something similar was done with 4e, but in the other direction. 4e assumes that fights against multiple creatures are more interesting than fights against one or two. As a result, they dramatically reduced the power levels of a number of creatures, so you could have more of them in a fight. So in that system, you can't assume that a hobgoblin is the same as a hobgoblin in any other system, replacing them on a one-for-one basis would make all the encounters entirely trivial.

So my assumption is, if the designers' encounter design rules suggest that a party of a given level should be facing a greater or lesser number of hobgoblins than it would in another edition, it is a deliberate design objective.

And really, I need something if I am going to adapt material quickly. And I need a way to assess creatures that are unique to 5e, which includes a host of NPCs. And I need a way to spot when WotC has decided to change the power level of a monster; some demons and devils have varied wildly in their power levels between editions.

This is the crux, Beoric - what I've been trying to say, but 1True puts it so much more succinctly.

DM-fixation on balance is something that many players claim "sucks the soul" from the game, because the DM's goal is not to make a perfectly balanced adventure (which is essentially analogous to railroading your party's survival, ensuring they'll never meet actual dangerous threats so the game can advance at a preset pace). The DM's goal is simulation of the world and arbitration of the rules. The solution to an overpowered encounter is not on the DM's shoulders if the players are given free reign to approach or disengage at will, as all players ought to be given. The OG random encounter tables had "Red Dragon" and "3d100 Orcs" on them because it was expected that the party would pick and choose their battles when outmatched by stronger foes. Fighting 200 orcs as a party of level 2 characters isn't balanced, but those kinds of encounters are still found in some of the best, most critically-acclaimed adventures.

It has nothing to do with balance. I don't need encounters to be balanced. But I do want to know what I am creating, and I want adaptations to give an experience as similar as possible to the original. And I want to be able to telegraph to the players what they are facing, other than "There's a troll - oh, too bad, so sad, this troll turned out to be more dangerous that you thought it would be, based on your encounters with other trolls." .Plus, knowing the relative toughness of creatures has an impact on how the creatures relate to the world, and their position in it.

Anyway, I have what I need, so I'm dropping this topic now.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

It has nothing to do with balance. I don't need encounters to be balanced. But I do want to know what I am creating, and I want adaptations to give an experience as similar as possible to the original. And I want to be able to telegraph to the players what they are facing, other than "There's a troll - oh, too bad, so sad, this troll turned out to be more dangerous that you thought it would be, based on your encounters with other trolls." .Plus, knowing the relative toughness of creatures has an impact on how the creatures relate to the world, and their position in it.

I know you said you were dropping the topic, but I have lingering questions.

First, what system are you converting to that doesn't have the monster stats you need? Every version of the game has trolls and orcs and goblins and whatever, so there shouldn't be any need to convert any of the common monsters. Why wouldn't you just use the existing monsters already balanced inherent to the system? Failing that, what's the problem with choosing a monster of approximate toughness extant in the system and cribbing stats from it?

If you know your homebrewed Bogwomph is supposed to be about as tough as a 4e troll, you've got 4e Troll stats to look at already, no? If a troll is AC 13 and a Bogwomph is AC15, do you think players are going to halt play because of unfairness? The players aren't going to know any of the mechanics of the thing, they really don't need to be that precise; players care about three things in a fight: 1) how many swings to take it down, 2) how much it hurts when it hits us, and 3) what kind of freaky powers do I need to deal with.

Besides, if an edition is supposed to be self-contained, why worry about what players know about the difficulty of monsters in *other* editions? It's irrelevant to play. Telegraphing difficulty is done ludologically, in-game; you don't say "these things look at tough as 3e orcs, but they're gnolls instead" - you say "these gnolls are slathering and viscous-looking, ready to tear you apart", and let the players come to understand their toughness through combat.

 

[Beoric]

First, what system are you converting to that doesn't have the monster stats you need? Every version of the game has trolls and orcs and goblins and whatever, so there shouldn't be any need to convert any of the common monsters. Why wouldn't you just use the existing monsters already balanced inherent to the system? Failing that, what's the problem with choosing a monster of approximate toughness extant in the system and cribbing stats from it?

If you know your homebrewed Bogwomph is supposed to be about as tough as a 4e troll, you've got 4e Troll stats to look at already, no? If a troll is AC 13 and a Bogwomph is AC15, do you think players are going to halt play because of unfairness? The players aren't going to know any of the mechanics of the thing, they really don't need to be that precise; players care about three things in a fight: 1) how many swings to take it down, 2) how much it hurts when it hits us, and 3) what kind of freaky powers do I need to deal with.

Two first level characters would be an even match for a bog standard 4e troll. As would four kobolds. A 1e troll would kick two 4e troll's asses.

The designers of 4e thought that fights were more interesting if there were more more opponents. I don't disagree, but instead of gearing encounters towards using monsters that were already weak, they weakened existing monsters so you would encounter them earlier, and fight more of them at a time. So by third level, with the 4e standard 5 PC party, you could easily handle two trolls, probably take three trolls, and have even odds against four trolls.

I don't know why is isn't clear that the dynamics of a module change if you change the relative toughness of monsters to each other within the module. If I was adapting B2 and just swapped in 4e monsters, the kobolds would be slightly tougher than the goblins, the orcs would be slightly tougher than the hobgoblins, and the ogre and the minotaur are each the equivalent of a gnoll. The bugbears are slightly weaker than the gnolls. The kobolds end up being one of the toughest factions, along with each of the orc factions. It is a module designed for faction play, and the dynamics of the factions change significantly if the two orc factions compbined could take out the rest of the complex. It also changes the dynamic if your first level PCs are close to twice as tough relative to the monsters as they would be 1e, with the only exception to that being the kobolds.

A one for one swap just isn't going to work. And to anticipate an argument, you can't just put in more monsters unless you know how many more to put in, which requires to to have some sort of estimate as to how tough the original monsters are.

BTW, if your 4e bogwomph has an AC two points higher than a 4e troll, the odds are pretty good that it also has an attack bonus 2 points higher, 16 more hit points, does 3 points more damage on an average attack, and in general is about 50% tougher than the troll. That is, two bogwomphs would be an even match for three trolls. That has a significant impact on "1) how many swings to take it down, 2) how much it hurts when it hits us".

Failing that, what's the problem with choosing a monster of approximate toughness extant in the system and cribbing stats from it?

Well, I have to know the toughness of the original monster in order to know what would be approximately as tough as it.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I don't know why is isn't clear that the dynamics of a module change if you change the relative toughness of monsters to each other within the module. If I was adapting B2 and just swapped in 4e monsters, the kobolds would be slightly tougher than the goblins, the orcs would be slightly tougher than the hobgoblins, and the ogre and the minotaur are each the equivalent of a gnoll. The bugbears are slightly weaker than the gnolls. The kobolds end up being one of the toughest factions, along with each of the orc factions. It is a module designed for faction play, and the dynamics of the factions change significantly if the two orc factions compbined could take out the rest of the complex. It also changes the dynamic if your first level PCs are close to twice as tough relative to the monsters as they would be 1e, with the only exception to that being the kobolds.

The dynamics only matter insofar as they can be directly compared.

If you were adapting B2, for example, and used the kobolds and goblins from 4e (and let's say for argument's sake that 4e kobolds are stronger than both 1e kobolds were and 4e goblins are), the party's approach would only change if they knew that kobolds are stronger than they were expecting (i.e. if they were metagaming); otherwise, they fight what they fight, and they end up where they end up. If they start dying sooner than expected, they beat a hasty retreat - if they slaughter the kobolds easily, then they move on. Ultimately though, that choice falls on *them* (agency), not on you the DM balancing things so that the players know that they should run from kobolds (railroading).

Likewise, any world-generated dynamics between the kobolds and goblins are at your (the DM's) behest - if 4e kobolds are stronger than 4e goblins, you can expect the kobolds to win out over time... but also *it's entirely probable that the goblins could win through circumstance*, meaning the relative strength of the kobolds is moot (you could just say the goblins fought with better plans or whatever). The players will not care; all they will care about is "check it out, no more kobolds are around!" It's also irrelevant if the goblins would totally have won against the kobolds in the original B2, because *your party is not playing the original B2*, they are playing your version of 4e B2, which is different.

Unless they are somehow fighting both 1e kobolds and 4e kobolds at the same time, only one variant exists in your world, so the party will come to understand it's strength through encounters, not pre-set expectations. A kobold (of any edition) is as strong as a kobold, and that's all it needs to be.

You don't need to preserve the dynamics of a module via conversion - you only need to make the module function as a module (i.e. you can run it easily, and it doesn't slaughter the characters unfairly). Your job is to present the world - if that world is a little harder or a little easier than some alternate-reality other-edition world, it doesn't matter, because the players will not be making that comparison. The players will rebalance things organically through their choices/actions, assuming they are competent. They will avoid fights that threaten them, and will take fights they deem easy; you, as the DM, are not meant to guide that effort, especially not if it means tearing your hair out trying to match a 4e kobold to a 1e goblin or whatever.

Worst case scenario - you run a test game and say "gee, those 5 orcs in Area 17 were just way too much, I'd better reduce that number to 3 orcs", and it gets resolved in version 1.2. Which really only matters if you're publishing this, in which case - you do playtest, right?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

BTW, if your 4e bogwomph has an AC two points higher than a 4e troll, the odds are pretty good that it also has an attack bonus 2 points higher, 16 more hit points, does 3 points more damage on an average attack, and in general is about 50% tougher than the troll.

You just added all that extra stuff. Assuming a mostly-direct conversion, then mechanically a Bogwomph is identical to a troll except that it has 2 more points of AC (to account for a slightly inaccurate conversion). With that in mind, if you didn't tell your players what they were facing, would it be safe to assume they wouldn't be able to distinguish between a bogwomph and a troll?

If I ran two combat sessions for you against two unidentified enemies that turned out like this:

Fight 1 - The enemy took at least 78 points of damage to die (from 6 hits, lowest roll that hit was a 16, highest roll that missed was a 12), and it did 35 points of damage to the party from 4 hits.

Fight 2 - The enemy took at least 85 points of damage to die (from 7 hits, lowest roll that hit was a 15, highest roll that missed was a 13), and it did 29 points of damage to the party from 4 hits.

Could you tell me with certainty that those monsters were the same creature, or were they entirely different? Were those fights against two trolls, two bogwomphs, or against one troll and one bogwomph? If you can't answer that with conviction, then you'll hopefully see why we say conversions have a lot of wiggle room.

 

[The1True]

So by third level, with the 4e standard 5 PC party, you could easily handle two trolls, probably take three trolls, and have even odds against four trolls.

Oh my god! NOOOOOOO!
I mean, okay, I know they stuffed a troll into the early stages of "Return to Keep on the Borderlands" (2e), but he's asleep when you encounter him. A troll is like Fireball; it's how you know you've made it to 5th level in all editions!

Honestly, a lot of the time, when running 1e conversions, I just run the majority of monsters as-is; shitty hp and AC's (converted to ascending) and all. The players cut a swath through them and everyone has fun. I choose a couple of set-piece/mini-boss/boss encounters and completely restat them using 3e tools, and that provides a couple of surprising challenges as punctuation to the adventure day.

 

[The1True]

your homebrewed Bogwomph

I would know more of this "Bogwomph"...
More toad than troll surely. Matted hair? Lazy lurker? Tortoise shell? AL: N (hungry)? Wis: 18?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I would know more of this "Bogwomph"...
More toad than troll surely. Matted hair? Lazy lurker? Tortoise shell? AL: N (hungry)? Wis: 18?

A mysterious and evasive albeit dangerous creature - thrives entirely in darkness, like a slimy grue.

 

[The Heretic]

I can appreciate what @Beoric is trying to do, emulate the original module faithfully with modern rules. Sure, it's not for everyone but it sounds interesting to me.


The Heretic

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I can appreciate what @Beoric is trying to do, emulate the original module faithfully with modern rules.

The issue is, you sort of can't. The most you can do is approximate, but it will never be a direct conversion. If converting means you need something stronger than goblins (like orcs instead) to balance things, then you haven't preserved the original at all - you've just replaced one thing with another different thing. At best, you get something that *might feel* a little like the original (but also won't feel like it, because all those goblins are actually orcs now); at worst you get a totally broken adventure. Converting requires adaptation, adaptation means change, and change means the new piece is no longer faithful to the original.

Many people have tried, nobody has succeeded. I challenge anyone here to name even one module that was converted to another edition that felt exactly the same as the original did. If we've learned anything from Bryce's reviews, it's that it just doesn't happen.

I can appreciate what Beroic is doing too, but that doesn't mean it's entirely feasible.