Does Your Group Use 3.0 or 3.5 Stuff?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Occasionally I see comments like "PF doesn't have eleven hundred PrCs/feats/spells/subraces/templates/others -- isn't that great!" Which puzzles me, because I've been under the impression that being able to use 3.0 and 3.5 stuff with minimal fuss is a big selling point of PF.

So I'd like to get a general idea from actual PF fans -- do you play PF as its own completely independent game, or as a game to mix-n-match with its similar predecessors?

Grand Lodge

I played 3.5 with Pathfinder rules. I would allow 3.5 rules with Pathfinder.

Not sure I count as an actual fan tho....


Our current game is an interesting amalgamation of Pathfinder/3.0/3.5. A few things become interesting since we aren't using Pathfinder Core Rules for classes, races and spells.

Pathfinder Core Rulebook (for “core rules” — skills, feats, combat, etc., but no Races, Classes, or Spells)
Midnight Campaign Setting
Encyclopedia Magica (2nd edition collection of magic items) —
Ultimate Magic
Ponyfinder (Pathfinder My Little Pony races from Paizo)
Tome of Battle
Monster Manual III
Dungeonscape
Arcana Unearthed (A replacement for the Core Rulebooks)
Spell Compendium
Tome of Magic
Incantations from the Other Side
Complete Scoundrel
Complete Warrior (excluding the Samurai class)
Weapons of Legacy
Complete Champion
Lava Rules (just for fun)


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My group only uses Pathfinder, nothing even third party built for Pathfinder. We don't use any 3.0 or 3.5 stuff whatsoever. We wanted to avoid the whole power creep from that material.


I find myself going back for old adventures all the time. Ust ran a 3.0 adventure, which lowers the chance my players have seen it to zero.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Never look back is what I say. We do not use any 3.0 or 3.5 material (even though I have shelves of it). We also do not use any 3rd party material. We are Paizo Purists!


My group had a player of a cleric PC long time ago who, long time ago, used a 3.x splatbook. He simply wasn't aware of the difference between Pathfinder and 3.x.

He spent one session with some seriously broken spells before that got sorted out.

I suspect the issue is less blocking 3.x stuff and more blocking most 3.x splat stuff. There's room for experimentation.

Shadow Lodge

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I also own a wide spectrum of Pathfinder-compatible 3PP. I would be happy to let any such product into my games.


We use a little bit of 3.5 stuff, although I think the "we" here is actually "mostly me." Some feats and spells have made their way into my group's PF games, a community-updated version of the Scout and Swashbuckler classes: excited about both, and both only got to see one game session. =(

My friend really likes Super Genius, so their PF materials figure heavily in many of our games as well.


Swashbucklersdc wrote:
My group only uses Pathfinder, nothing even third party built for Pathfinder. We don't use any 3.0 or 3.5 stuff whatsoever. We wanted to avoid the whole power creep from that material.

Same here. I would have no problem if we wanted to run a 3 or 3.5 adventure though.

Grand Lodge

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Tarantula wrote:
I would have no problem if we wanted to run a 3 or 3.5 adventure though.

PF characters in a 3.5 adventure? Talk about power creep! :)


We use only Pathfinder. No one in my group has ever been interested in 3PP stuff (nothing against per se, just not much exposure to it) and all of our 3.0 and 3.5 stuff has been sold and/or been packed away.


Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Occasionally I see comments like "PF doesn't have eleven hundred PrCs/feats/spells/subraces/templates/others -- isn't that great!" Which puzzles me, because I've been under the impression that being able to use 3.0 and 3.5 stuff with minimal fuss is a big selling point of PF.

So I'd like to get a general idea from actual PF fans -- do you play PF as its own completely independent game, or as a game to mix-n-match with its similar predecessors?

More 3.5 than PF!


Same here. Almost entirely 3.5 currently. I'm hoping to introduce some PF in the near future.


Our group considers Pathfinder as D&D 3.75. We are coming to the end of the Second Darkness AP and I have read hear and in it that it is a conversion. One of our players is a multiclass Magus/Scout (Scout from 3.5). Though we take most of the rules from Pathfinder, we have been known to use things from the game we have played the longest.


The scout from 3.5 is damn good.


The Serpent's Skull game I play in uses the 3.5 Magic Item Compendium, and Feats/Classes/Spells/Etc. on a case-by-case basis. No Psionics though (he's not too familiar with the rules)

However, as none of the players (bar the GM) have ever played 3.5 things don't get suggested very often. We DO have a Cleric that'll be prestiging into the Contemplative PrC though.

Liberty's Edge

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As I only play PF in PFS I am deliberately restricted to just Paizo PF material. However, if it's not PFS I always prefer 3.5 and wouldn't allow any PF material.


sometimes we do, even more than 3.X stuff

Im a GM who loves do things for the system we play, in one adventure, we use the rules from pathfinder with the score abilities modifiers from D&D2E (if the game would have dificulty, this could be the hardest one)

I actualy create a boxing subsystem for the taverns (like in the witchers games)
10 levels of brawl, using a kind of mixed system from D10 with D20


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Some stuff from ToB (Martial Study and Martial Stance feats - no actual classes), and scattered spells/templates/artifacts, mostly.


I'm in two groups. In one, a Kingmaker campaign where I'm a player, no 3.5 material is allowed, and I like that.

In the other, a Rise of the Runelords campaign that I'm GM'ing we're actually running the entire thing with 3.5 rules, due primarily to a couple of rather conservative players who don't want to switch systems.

I've been sneaking in bits and pieces of Pathfinder rules as I can, though. The cleric has channel positive energy instead of Turn Undead, largely because the 3.5 Turn Undead mechanics made my head hurt.


My group tends to use a ton of Pathfinder 3rd Party and 3.5 stuff. Most of us are relative new comers to the game, so we don't have easy access to a lot of 3.5 stuff, but what we do have we tend to use.

After all, the Wizard is in the core rulebook - power creep is largely irrelevant at that point.


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I'm a player in the Kingmaker, Curse of the Crimson Throne and Skull & Shackles APs right now.

For all of that, my DMs use Pathfinder exclusively, and only Paizo material.

For my planned campaign in the Midgard setting (by Kobold Press), I'll be using 3rd party products: Kobold Press products (obviously) and Super Genius Games pdfs [because they rock :-) !]

Before playing with Pathfinder, we played somewhat with D&D 3.0 and had a brief stint with D&D 3.5. But we don't like cross-editions rules amalgation, so we dropped those rules (which doesn't preclude us from using adventures and modules converted from those editions, of course).

I think that in the future, when my rules-fu improves, I will be more willling to integrate chunk of other editions into my Pathfinder system. I just need to be sure of the general mechanics and underlying assumptions of the Pathfinder system that I currently use before tweaking it.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm using 3/3.5 monster books, environment books (Frostwrack Stormburn etc.), adventures (running RotTEE soon). Never had much of any hassle adapting them to Pathfinder.


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My group uses a good number of 3PP material, but always on individual case (but nearly all Super Genius is allowed). We think of 3.5 as one more 3PP company; some material, but not many, really,and always carefully.
As a great Planescape fan myself, the most accepted material from 3.5 are the Fiendish Codex.


No, there is no legacy material when I GM, and none in the separate group with whom I play. I can understand why some groups wanted it early on, but there's plenty of Pathfinder material published now.


One of the things I didn't like about 3.5 was the class bloat (and feat bloat, and insert-whatever-here bloat). There were just too many classes and feats and options, and with so many options, the potential for cheese was just really high, even without considering the power-creep.

I generally play paizo-only as base, and everything else is an ask-me only thing. I will generally accept most things, but I've found that simply making everything else as requiring them to ask me prevents a lot of abuse, since obvious cheese tends not to get requested (rather than in 3.5, when players would sometimes try to slip it past me, because it was legal with the rules). But this philosophy tends to keep people choosing options that make a concept viable (such as allowing a Homebrew version of the Dashing Swordsman PrC from OOTS) rather than choosing options that with the goal of getting a higher power-level, without thinking of the character concept.


As DM, I often use 3rd party monsters that were designed for 3.0 or 3.5, and even some of the more obscure WOTC ones. I also have the Magic Item Compendium and will drop some items in as treasure, for the sake of variety, although Ultimate Equipment did introduce a number of items which covered the functions of many 3.5 items in different ways.

There are two wizards in the party, one of whom is a specialist Diviner, so they may also get hold of some 3.5 spells, but I haven't put any in yet.

Dark Archive

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Yes my group uses 3.5 stuff in our pathfinder games


Nope. We do not.


Depends. As a GM the plethora of 3.5 Adventures, settings, traps, monsters, Magic items and crunch is a really good resource. I tend to look and see if there is anything around I can adapt and utilise when I plan/run a game.

My s&s game makes extensive use of Dead Man's Chest (it doess look as if the devs have used this too) and bits from d20 conan Pirate Isles too. However, I dont use 3.5 NPC's or spells I just hero lab them with relevent pf ones to ensure balance. Tome of Horrors PF has really helped too.

BUT I don't let the players use any material as most of what I hear is that it is broken or over powered. I already had one game fold due to 3rd party material abuse and am rather weary of using it now (though I am starting to warm to Rite publishing and some of Super Genius). The players don't seem to care anyway as there are plenty of PF only options availible now (I guess 3 years ago the options were lower so more people were using 3.5 options to spruce their games up).

Dark Archive

Lots of 3.5 stuff (environment books, monster books, adventures, Books of Whatever Might first and foremost), but no "splatbooks" - Complete ThisAndThat. The cleric and bard class are almost unrecognizable.

After a very embarassing campaign, I pretty much zeroed the PrCs/feats available from sources outside the core books.


I allow 3.x and 3pp material on a case by case basis, so long as the player can provide the book if I don't have it. But I haven't had a player actually want to use anything that wasn't official Pathfinder yet. Gearing up to start a new campaign though, so we'll see.


In one campaign, pathfinder core and APG only.

In another campaign, it's 3.5 only.

In another campaign, it's 3.5 with CMD/CMB and Pathfinder-influenced home brew rules.


I run a "Core Rulebook Plus" game: Everything from the PF Core Rulebook is allowed, but anything non-core must be specifically approved by me on a case-by-case basis. I've ruled that archetypes and feats from the APG are all okay, but not the new core classes or spells. (PFRPG spells from official Paizo books are automatically discoverable via independent spell research, but PCs can't just take them without finding them first. I've dropped several as treasure.) I chose not to use traits at the beginning of the campaign, although I now regret that decision somewhat.

I allow / intorduce some 3.5 stuff on a case-by-case basis. An example is the 3.5 feat "Practiced Spellcaster" that is pretty much a must for multiclassed spellcasters. There are a few other individual 3.5 feats that I've okayed, but the individual ones slip my mind at the moment.

I've had the PCs tangle with a few WOTC proprietary 3.5 monsters in my PF game (including umber hulks, carrion crawlers, shield guardians and a beholder). I think I used a few 3.5 magic items as well, but again, I don't recall which ones speficially.

I've dropped a few 3.5 spells here and there into the game: some that the PCs have access to, some that were only accessible to the bad guys.


Yes we do, but on a case-by-case basis to avoid power creep.

One player took the Inspirational Boost spell (Spell Compendium - 3.5) for his bard and another took the Gift of the Spider Queen feat (Drow of the Underdark - 3.5) for his drow cleric. Both are very effective, but nothing game breaking here.


ngc7293 wrote:
Our group considers Pathfinder as D&D 3.75. We are coming to the end of the Second Darkness AP and I have read hear and in it that it is a conversion. One of our players is a multiclass Magus/Scout (Scout from 3.5). Though we take most of the rules from Pathfinder, we have been known to use things from the game we have played the longest.

Magus/Scout? Sounds like fun!

Sovereign Court

Never really looked back at the old 3rd edition stuff once we moved into Pathfinder.

We don't use anything form those old books with the exception of the old adventure or something along those lines.

Can't really say I miss it either. I do miss certain things about that era but PF has been extremely good to my group.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

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I keep trying to convince everyone to reintroduce 3.0 Haste into our campaigns, but nobody ever wants to do that...


My group still uses the 3.5 Spell Compendium


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We vary on a game-by-game basis, but because some of the subtle rules of PF are different from 3.5 in surprising ways, we've discovered that we occasionally use non-PF rulings in predominantly-PF games (even games we thought, for a while, were PF-only, as an experiment).

We often incorporate 3.X stuff into PF stuff - our Kingmaker game, for instance, is almost entirely a hybrid game.

Over all, we enjoy picking bits and pieces from the various editions that work for us best.

Hey, Sebastian. Try getting them to make 3.0 Mass Haste the 3rd level version. It's the best of both worlds!
Snicker! Suckers! Oh, I mean! Agh! How are you reading my secret thooooooooouuuuuuuuuugggggghts?!?!


Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Occasionally I see comments like "PF doesn't have eleven hundred PrCs/feats/spells/subraces/templates/others -- isn't that great!" Which puzzles me, because I've been under the impression that being able to use 3.0 and 3.5 stuff with minimal fuss is a big selling point of PF.

So I'd like to get a general idea from actual PF fans -- do you play PF as its own completely independent game, or as a game to mix-n-match with its similar predecessors?

I'm currently playing in my 5th PF game in a row, that does not allow any 3e material. As a huge 3.5 fan, this disheartens me greatly.

The main reason I originally went with PF over 4e, was because of the supposed "backwards compatibility;" I wanted my 120+ 3e books to remain usable. Gee, that worked out great.

I realize it's not completely indicative of the system, but had compatibility been more transparent, I don't think I'd be having this problem at the moment.


case by case basis man, and spell compendium for the win.

Grand Lodge

Tequila Sunrise wrote:

Occasionally I see comments like "PF doesn't have eleven hundred PrCs/feats/spells/subraces/templates/others -- isn't that great!" Which puzzles me, because I've been under the impression that being able to use 3.0 and 3.5 stuff with minimal fuss is a big selling point of PF.

It was a selling point when the sum total of Pathfinder was the Core Rules Book. But the material that Paizo has published in the years since then, has put forth better options to replace more and more of that old stuff which is out of print, and not that easy to find anyway.... that and the Paizo equivalents are much better fitted to Pathfinder, so while 3.5 compatibility was a selling point to me in the beginning, it really no longer matters now. I look forward, not back.


Tequila Sunrise wrote:
So I'd like to get a general idea from actual PF fans -- do you play PF as its own completely independent game, or as a game to mix-n-match with its similar predecessors?

We use a large amount of our 3.5 material in with Pathfinder material. There are 3.5 books our ref does not allow (Book of Exalted Deeds and Savage Species for example) but by and large all 3.x materials is allowed.

That said, I think the Ref and myself are the only ones in the game who own the majority of 3.5 material. Most of the folks I play with are not optimizers so it never really becomes a problem if an occasional broken ability filters into the game.

Grand Lodge

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LazarX wrote:
I look forward, not back.

I'm reminded of Xbox One.

The Exchange

When I do 'port' stuff from 3rd Edition, it tends to be rules subsets - chase rules, seafaring rules, etc. I use classes and monsters and so forth straight from the PF books. Ironically, since I set campaigns in the World of Greyhawk, players are more likely to encounter people and things imported from 1st-edition AD&D than from 3.5. (Some of those features had 3rd-ed conversions, but I prefer to convert straight from the original material when I have it.) Imbalanced? So far so good, in part because I'm being careful about what I bring in. 1st-ed artifacts, for example, tend to be "which continent should we conquer oh god my bones have turned to molten lead" powerful as opposed to 3rd edition's "slightly better than a +5 sword" power level.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
LazarX wrote:
I look forward, not back.
I'm reminded of Xbox One.

yet everyone forgets xbox's 2 through 359.

Dark Archive Bella Sara Charter Superscriber

+5 Toaster wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
LazarX wrote:
I look forward, not back.
I'm reminded of Xbox One.
yet everyone forgets xbox's 2 through 359.

Xbox 69 FTW!


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We play 98% Pathfinder, with Super Genius stuff allowed more often than not. Granted, it is not often taken, but enough has been used that most GM's allow it on the assumption it is balanced until proven otherwise. Old 3.5 stuff is allowed on a case by case basis, with the understanding that a rebuild might be in order if the GM decides it isn't a good thing. The rebuild is not penalized if required.

I think most of the 3.5 stuff isn't used more becaue people have yet to try out all the new stuff available in Pathfinder yet. I still have yet to play most of the APG classes past level 10, and the same for at least a third of the core stuff. And this is with multiple games per week.

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