"As strong," "as powerful,' and "as potent" mean the same thing, as far as I know. Maybe you mean subjectively less potent?
Either way, anything more than 15+ of oral hydrocodone/morphine is too powerful, recreationally speaking, for someone who is opioid naive; they will just feel intense side effects without enjoying any sort of high.
I've only done Morphine once, and that was 4mg IV in the hospital for my first opiate experience about 1.5-2 years ago. I felt absolutely no high due to being in intense pain, I'm sure if I had asked for a second shot I would have gotten so high, considering 4mg IV morphine = 16mg oral hydro/morphine. I watched my opioid naive brother get incomplete pain relief from his Morphine first shot (6mg instead of 4mg would have been perfect) and no high, then he asked for a second one and was noticeably opiated, lol.
I would be a lot more interested in codeine and morphine over hydrocodone/Kratom/tramadol if they weren't so addictive. For some reason, dependence tends to build a lot faster to natural opiates over semi-synthetic ones. Codeine is fantastic for me, though, as is tramadol, due to CYP2D6 polymorphism, making converted morphine/O-Des much higher in my liver than most.