Revisiting old editions to mine for ideas

I’ve spent a little while recently going over some old books I have to mine them for publishable content, specifically (because October brings all sorts of dragon-y delights with Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons) I’ve been looking at a lot of old dragon-based books: the dragon sections of old Monster Manuals, old Draconomicons, and the 3rd editions books Races of the Dragon and Dragon Magic.

Here’s what I’ve found: A lot of good stuff that I can convert reasonably easily, that doesn’t seem to have been done before, and A LOT of stuff that just doesn’t convert well across the editions.

I knew there’d be difficulties with some creatures, especially the ones that arrived in 4th edition as they don’t copy across too well. But I was surprised how difficult it can be reorganizing monsters from 3rd to work with 5th easily.
I’m currently buried in feats, but mostly I’m finding things that just don’t matter in 5e, or would interfere too much with the bounded accuracy built into the system. I’ve started looking at prestige classes as a better source of tweaks and abilities than the feats sections themselves, and I’m thinking I’ll move on to magic items to do the same next.

My current project is pretty chunky now. Character options include a group patron, two new races, one variant for dragonborn, a lineage that a character could pick up in play to switch their racial abilities if they wanted to, over ten feats and still working on them, and currently thirteen monsters (though they may get another yet).
I’ll have a proper rundown and some sneak peaks next week, once I have it into layout and/or on sale.

My hunt for an easy way to convert from 4th edition continues in the meantime!