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*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Equating AD&D 2e XP to 5th edition CR
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7065631" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I think you've mostly just shown why conversion between systems is hard or impossible.</p><p></p><p>Anyone familiar with the 1e or 2e attributes of the Death Slaad and the Yochlol would know that they are monsters of vastly different lethality and potential challenge, and that the range of characters with which you would challenge with one or the other is quite different. A Death Slaad is by no means an outlier in context of its XP and challenge in 2e. Nor is it necessarily the case that it's CR is wrong in 5e given the monster's attributes.</p><p></p><p>The outlier is really the difference in the power of the two different monsters between editions. They are both called 'Death Slaad', but in the process you've gone from a monster that was designed to provide a challenge to characters above 'name level' where the game was presumed to be almost over, to a monster designed to provide challenge to characters in the middle of their careers. I don't think any 1e or 2e player would intuitively think of a Balor as being vastly more powerful than a Death Slaad, Arcanaloth or an Ultraloth, when in fact those later monsters were added to the game based on play testing that suggested a party of high level characters needed vastly more potent foes than originally existed. What we've seen over time is a vast increase in relative power of a Balor, and now in 5e, a vast decrease in the power of Death Slaad, Arcanaloths, and Ultraloths. And since that was probably intentional, I don't think that there is even a ballpark to bash a conversion in. Some of that change (power up of the Balor) happened in 3e, but I'd guess most of the change (power down of an Arcanaloth or Death Slaad) is a product of 5e reflavoring or repowering monsters.</p><p></p><p>I'm not hugely familiar with 5e, but the best example of this deliberate re-powering of monsters in 5e I can think of is the Flind, which in earlier editions was basically a creature only one step of challenge above an ordinary gnoll - as a hobgoblin was to a goblin perhaps. But in 5e a monster with the same name is a not the same monster at all, but is to a gnoll more what a barghest is (was?) to a goblin. </p><p></p><p>Basically, what you have to deal with in each edition change is a certain amount of house rules becoming canon, where the designers decide to bring their own ideas of how powerful or cool a monster should be into the game, and what changes would best reflect how they see the monster.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7065631, member: 4937"] I think you've mostly just shown why conversion between systems is hard or impossible. Anyone familiar with the 1e or 2e attributes of the Death Slaad and the Yochlol would know that they are monsters of vastly different lethality and potential challenge, and that the range of characters with which you would challenge with one or the other is quite different. A Death Slaad is by no means an outlier in context of its XP and challenge in 2e. Nor is it necessarily the case that it's CR is wrong in 5e given the monster's attributes. The outlier is really the difference in the power of the two different monsters between editions. They are both called 'Death Slaad', but in the process you've gone from a monster that was designed to provide a challenge to characters above 'name level' where the game was presumed to be almost over, to a monster designed to provide challenge to characters in the middle of their careers. I don't think any 1e or 2e player would intuitively think of a Balor as being vastly more powerful than a Death Slaad, Arcanaloth or an Ultraloth, when in fact those later monsters were added to the game based on play testing that suggested a party of high level characters needed vastly more potent foes than originally existed. What we've seen over time is a vast increase in relative power of a Balor, and now in 5e, a vast decrease in the power of Death Slaad, Arcanaloths, and Ultraloths. And since that was probably intentional, I don't think that there is even a ballpark to bash a conversion in. Some of that change (power up of the Balor) happened in 3e, but I'd guess most of the change (power down of an Arcanaloth or Death Slaad) is a product of 5e reflavoring or repowering monsters. I'm not hugely familiar with 5e, but the best example of this deliberate re-powering of monsters in 5e I can think of is the Flind, which in earlier editions was basically a creature only one step of challenge above an ordinary gnoll - as a hobgoblin was to a goblin perhaps. But in 5e a monster with the same name is a not the same monster at all, but is to a gnoll more what a barghest is (was?) to a goblin. Basically, what you have to deal with in each edition change is a certain amount of house rules becoming canon, where the designers decide to bring their own ideas of how powerful or cool a monster should be into the game, and what changes would best reflect how they see the monster. [/QUOTE]
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Equating AD&D 2e XP to 5th edition CR
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