Converting to 1st Edition


Prerelease Discussion


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The minimum I want out of 2nd ed. is that the APs are easy to convert back into 1st, at least easier than Starfinder, where converting is a big pain as it is. I might enjoy the new setting specific books, after all it is still Golarion, but I really hope I can enjoy playing the Adventures you will writer after August 2019 too.

Don't just screw us over, who came in the 3.5 diaspora to you. Let us keep the system we chose 18 years or so ago and make it easy for us to still enjoy your wonderfully crafted APs even though we won't follow you to your new, sexy streamlined rules.

That's my only wish for 2nd ed. Don't make converting it back too hard


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This, this, this, this, this, this, this. So so so so so much.

As I said in the other thread, Paizo is first and foremost an adventure-writing and storytelling company for me - the APs brought me here well before Pathfinder's mechanics and willingness to continue where 3.5 left off caught my attention.

I fully intend to remain a Paizo customer for the APs alone, even though I have no interest in PF2, and the easier it is to reverse-engineer newer APs back into Pathfinder Classic, the better for all involved.


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If Starfinder is any indication, then this will be like converting AD&D first edition into Pathfinder. In other words, it won't be compatible and conversion just means throwing out one version's mechanics.

Dark Archive

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Would be nice to be able to still buy and convert the Ap's even if I'm not all that interested in the new rules.


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there were two good reasons to buy and play Pathfinder:

.)The quality of their adventures (especially the APs)
and
.)The 3.x ruleset that we knew and loved

To get rid of 50% of the reasons is unwise enough. Restricting the access to the other 50% by not making conversion as easy as possible leves me with no reason at all

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

If you want to convert 2nd edition stuff to 1st edition, don't you just basically just need to pick same monsters from 1st edition and in case of new monsters for 2nd edition, just check cr and create something appropriate and similar to replace them?


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You know, I'll like the opposite a bit more: a convertion guide from 1E to 2E. By the looks of it, they're applying a lot of the Starfinder rules... and Starfinder had rules to convert stuff so you don't have to throw away your books. That's what I'd like to get.

That they release the "3 core rulebooks", I'm fine with it, but for Nethys's sake, just release after that a convertion guide so that all 40 classes and all 6 Bestiaries are covered so that they can start from there.


CorvusMask wrote:
If you want to convert 2nd edition stuff to 1st edition, don't you just basically just need to pick same monsters from 1st edition and in case of new monsters for 2nd edition, just check cr and create something appropriate and similar to replace them?

If I do that for an AP, I probably have to sit ans work a whole workweek for all the monsters in a single session. That's really not something I look forward too.

What I WAS looking forward to, until yesterday that was, was years and years of new content of a RPG system that says "3.5 compatible" on the back, because that's what I signed up for, when I started Pathfinder


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I've got too much 3PP stuff to abandon it all. If I can't convert them in some way, PF2 is not worth going to for me.


Is there any chance HeroLab or the superior alternative PCGen or any company like these will publish conversion software? That would at least fasten the process even if it is complicated.

I have the fear the boards around here won't be of any help in the long run. Once the majority will have jumped on the bandwagon, those few of us who will stick to PF will be very alone with our needs to change the PF2 content to the proven system


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JiCi wrote:
You know, I'll like the opposite a bit more: a convertion guide from 1E to 2E. By the looks of it, they're applying a lot of the Starfinder rules... and Starfinder had rules to convert stuff so you don't have to throw away your books. That's what I'd like to get.

Something like this is already in the works, several Paizo staffers have already mentioned it. Hence why we are requesting the reverse be available as well.


Hythlodeus wrote:

I have the fear the boards around here won't be of any help in the long run. Once the majority will have jumped on the bandwagon, those few of us who will stick to PF will be very alone with our needs to change the PF2 content to the proven system

Oh I wouldn't discount the boards on that sort of thing. For all their other faults, the specific forums for each AP have been nothing but helpful to players and GMs seeking to convert the campaigns into 5e, 2e, even 4e on occasion.

I would not at all be surprised to see "(AP name): Classic Conversion" threads pop up on every PF2 AP forum in the future.

That said, the desire for a conversion guide will only make that task easier on everyone.


Orthos wrote:
]Oh I wouldn't discount the boards on that sort of thing. For all their other faults, the specific forums for each AP have been nothing but helpful

While that's true, after seeing a lot of the reactions here today, I remain pessimistic in the long run.


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I work hard enough running APs published for the current rules. Having to backport from a system that doesn't even have a remotely similar item economy is going to be pretty grueling.


so, any news on that front? any bone the Paizo team has thrown us?


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I would like a conversion guide, too. I also own a lot of PF/3.5/3.0 material, which I still use a lot. So I would appreciate a conversion guide from PF2 to PF.
If conversion would become very complex or even impossible, that would be a reason for me not to buy adventures anymore, since it would be easier and less time consuming to run the older adventures and adventure paths.
I have already decided not to buy Starfinder since I will probably never run these adventures, even though the quality is probably very good.


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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

PLEASE do NOT INVALIDATE my previous purchases bought in good faith from Paizo.

BE the BETTER company.

If not full reverse-compatibility, simple and easily applied compatibility to make my older content still MEAN SOMETHING.

Sorry for caps, it's been a rough morning.


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blahpers wrote:
I work hard enough running APs published for the current rules. Having to backport from a system that doesn't even have a remotely similar item economy is going to be pretty grueling.

It looks like item economy will be the main problem right now.

Liberty's Edge

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I'd put ease of 1st-ed conversion as a nice to have. Good to be able to do this easily if possible, but I wouldn't like to see them sacrifice innovation/design of 2E for it.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The ease of conversion from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder 1.0 was undoubtedly one of the original Pathfinder's major selling points, at least until there was enough Pathfinder material available that nowadays a GM can say "Pathfinder only, no D&D 3.5 material" and very few players would bat an eye.

As long as there are things you can do with Pathfinder 1.0 that have no easy or obvious counterpart in Pathfinder 2.0, such gaps will slow down the adoption of the new rules. I am really hoping that whatever is left out of the core rulebook falls into the general category of "You can adapt this material from 1E to 2E on your own now, but it will be slightly on the weak side until we get the chance to tweak it for the new edition."


you realize this thread is about adapting PF2 material to PF and not vice versa, right? It's right there in the title


The forums give me a lot of hope in this department. I find the AP specific forums to be invaluable for running them. I'm sure the community will drop a conversion thread for every PF2 AP to help take it back to PF1, if that is your preference.

Now hopefully they dont kill the forums to go facebook/twitter....

Grand Lodge

Only thing I recall seeing is here

Berselius wrote:
I'm hoping this new edition will be compatible with the previous edition....(stuff)
Samy wrote:
Me too...(stuff)
Mark Seifter wrote:
I have been directly running Shattered Star in PF2 out of the PF1 AP volumes for a while and am nearing the end of Book 3...(stuff)
Samy wrote:

Mark, I'm talking about the other direction. (Running 2e adventures in 1e system.) We already saw you run Everflame on the video on the fly, so we know that's doable -- it's the other direction that some people are still wondering (and hoping) about.

I don't intend to jump into 2e until there's much more races and classes, so it would be really cool if we could still continue to buy the AP line and use them in 1e while waiting for 2e to fill out with the options we require.
Mark Seifter wrote:
Honestly, the main barrier to doing that, and the reason it's harder than vice versa, is simply PF1 itself. By which I mean, If you have an appropriate PF1 monster or NPC handy already (like if you're fighting a troll and you have the B1 troll handy from PF1), it shouldn't be too hard, with the main task being treasure adjustment. If not, then just the fact that making a monster/NPC is always inherently complicated in PF1 is going to slow you down in that direction.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The question of ease of conversion from 2E to 1E is actually related to the ease of conversion the other way. If, contrary to current rumors, the conversion from 1E to 2E is next to impossible, then the conversion from 2E to 1E probably won't be any better. If the conversion from 1E to 2E is relatively simple, then the question becomes whether the 1E to 2E conversion involved too much throwing out of things that 2E doesn't need, as that would be the only sort of thing that would make a reverse conversion more difficult.


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Mark Seifter wrote:
making a monster/NPC is always inherently complicated in PF1

wat


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blahpers wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
making a monster/NPC is always inherently complicated in PF1
wat

You know, I don't get that either. It is about 5 minutes in time investement to make a NPC. Yes, making a monster from scratch is a bit more complicated, but how often does one create a monster from scratch? Paizo's adventure authors probably do that more often, but that's part of their profession. The average GM is usually fine with just reskinning an existent monster ftom one of the Bestiaries or adding templates. And even if his idea is so original that those easy steps won't work, creating a monster is just a seven step process (and some of the steps are redundant anyway)


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Hythlodeus wrote:
blahpers wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
making a monster/NPC is always inherently complicated in PF1
wat
You know, I don't get that either. It is about 5 minutes in time investement to make a NPC. Yes, making a monster from scratch is a bit more complicated, but how often does one create a monster from scratch? Paizo's adventure authors probably do that more often, but that's part of their profession. The average GM is usually fine with just reskinning an existent monster ftom one of the Bestiaries or adding templates. And even if his idea is so original that those easy steps won't work, creating a monster is just a seven step process (and some of the steps are redundant anyway)

And if you are fine with that you should have no problem reskinning an AP monster.

Oh its a magical flying beast with acid attacks meant to challenge a level 6 party, I can just reskin the Poison Manticore.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

If they make it easy to convert from the old system to the new then you still get use out of your old purchases.

If you never play PF2E and play PF1E forever you still get use out of your old purchases.

Think of it like a Playstation, when the PS2 came out they made it backwards compatible with PS1 games. However Sony didn’t let you send in your PS1 for a free upgrade to play PS2 games.

The RPG is the console, the adventures are the games. They’re going to make it as easy as possible to convert those old games to the new system but if you want to mod PF1E to run the new games that’s going to have to be on you.

Change is scary, but to demand a company spend its limited resources on the old stuff instead of concentrating on the new stuff they’re passionate about is ridiculous.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Also making an NPC is inherently complicated without tool assistance such as Hero Lab etc

NPC Codex is my go to whenever I need any humanoid statistics because it can take halfback an hour to an hour when you factor in: purchasing equipment, allocating skill ranks, selecting feats (especially when there are literally thousands of feats), selecting spells.

If you make an 11th level NPC that isn’t a CRB class forget about it, a Magus, or Kineticist is so time consuming to build when you don’t use tool assistance.

I have shortcuts (whenever I build a 6th level caster I take Bard stats from NPC codex, swap charisma and casting score where necessary, and swap weapons for new proficiency), but then in game if I have multiple NPCs with multiple resource pools to track, I’m going to do a bad job of representing the challenge.

If I have an NPC builder that’s like: we know this NPC is really going to exist for about 5 rounds maximum here are the highlights that you need to present a fun challenge to your players, I’m going to be all over that. I’ll save using PC rules for NPCs for end-bosses or recurring characters so that my effort to return ratio is a sane one.

Grand Lodge

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Hythlodeus wrote:

The minimum I want out of 2nd ed. is that the APs are easy to convert back into 1st, at least easier than Starfinder, where converting is a big pain as it is. I might enjoy the new setting specific books, after all it is still Golarion, but I really hope I can enjoy playing the Adventures you will writer after August 2019 too.

Don't just screw us over, who came in the 3.5 diaspora to you. Let us keep the system we chose 18 years or so ago and make it easy for us to still enjoy your wonderfully crafted APs even though we won't follow you to your new, sexy streamlined rules.

That's my only wish for 2nd ed. Don't make converting it back too hard

Wait.. You've already used up all of Paizo's great quality AP and Module content? O_O

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Also “3.5 diaspora” is the most dramatic and extra phrase nerds could come up with for not wanting to play a new game.


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Hythlodeus wrote:

The minimum I want out of 2nd ed. is that the APs are easy to convert back into 1st, at least easier than Starfinder, where converting is a big pain as it is. I might enjoy the new setting specific books, after all it is still Golarion, but I really hope I can enjoy playing the Adventures you will writer after August 2019 too.

Don't just screw us over, who came in the 3.5 diaspora to you. Let us keep the system we chose 18 years or so ago and make it easy for us to still enjoy your wonderfully crafted APs even though we won't follow you to your new, sexy streamlined rules.

That's my only wish for 2nd ed. Don't make converting it back too hard

The minimum you want out of 2nd ed is the ability to not use it?

You aren't the target market. Paizo only has incentive to make converting PF 1e material to 2e easy and balanced to flesh out the content of 2e.

Understand your request is equivalent to asking Paizo to keep supporting 1e not a request about 2e. You are only phrasing the request to include the words "2e" but in truth you don't want anything from 2e, you want more 1e.

You'll probably just have to wait for another publisher to make another 3.5/Pathfinder fork. Or buy 3rd party content made for 1e.


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Hythlodeus wrote:
blahpers wrote:
Mark Seifter wrote:
making a monster/NPC is always inherently complicated in PF1
wat
You know, I don't get that either. It is about 5 minutes in time investement to make a NPC.

I spend much more than 5 minutes just to fine-tune the spell selection of an average mid-level NPC in Paizo's APs to adjust it to my group's power level.


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Hythlodeus wrote:
CorvusMask wrote:
If you want to convert 2nd edition stuff to 1st edition, don't you just basically just need to pick same monsters from 1st edition and in case of new monsters for 2nd edition, just check cr and create something appropriate and similar to replace them?
If I do that for an AP, I probably have to sit ans work a whole workweek for all the monsters in a single session.

Wait, how is it work to find the same monster in 1st Edition Bestiary vs. looking it up in 2nd Edition Bestiary? Paizo also publishes NPC Codexes to use for Classed Humanoids, so grab those and choose spells/etc as appropriate. Talking about "conversion" rather than just using direct or indirect analogs inherently means more work.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Nobody anywhere is saying he should stop using PF1.

Just that expecting the new game rules content to convert backwards easily was an unreasonable expectation.

However setting stuff is usually pretty rules agnostic.


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Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

1) What rules are preventing you from converting Masks of Nylarthothep to Pathfinder 1e? I genuinely don't see any rules that would prevent you converting an adventure to another system.

2) If maintaining backwards compatibility to Pathfinder 1e, would make Pathfinder 2e a weaker game, then backward compatibility should be sacrificed. There are eleven years of mechanical content for PF1, there is plenty of game in there and making PF2 less good to satisfy people who wont buy it seems foolish.

Dark Archive

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HidaOWin wrote:
1) What rules are preventing you from converting Masks of Nylarthothep to Pathfinder 1e? I genuinely don't see any rules that would prevent you converting an adventure to another system.

I've converted between systems that were vastly different mechanically many MANY times. I'd actually say that big mechanical differences are much less problematic than big tonal or playstyle differences. For example, the example you gave....Call of Cthulhu probably isn't the best system to try to convert to Pathfinder, not because of the mechanical diferences, but because of the vast difference in how the game is played.

Customer Service Representative

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I have removed some posts and replies to them. Personal attacks do not foster a healthy or friendly environment, so please avoid making them.


With the wealth of material available for 1e, I can't imagine converting will be that difficult. I constantly convert D&D 5e stuff into Pathfinder 1e with ease simply by looking up comparable monsters in the 6 Paizo published Bestiaries or the many many other bestiaries published for 3.5e. Pathfinder has almost 20 years of material compatible with it. You guys will be fine.

For the rest of us, it's time to move on. Nothing lasts forever! :-D


solamon77 wrote:
With the wealth of material available for 1e, I can't imagine converting will be that difficult. I constantly convert D&D 5e stuff into Pathfinder 1e with ease simply by looking up comparable monsters in the 6 Paizo published Bestiaries or the many many other bestiaries published for 3.5e.

Me too, I have a lot of fun converting 5th Ed material to PF1/3rd Ed, and vice versa (3rd Ed/PF1 provides a lot of material to patch/shore up 5th Ed).


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Would it not be possible to use the story and replace the old versions of the monsters with the new although I guess some monsters only appeared in those adventure paths right? so I guess they'd have to be replaced by something else or converted. IF monsters are easy to create maybe just making something similar enough?


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I've done a lot of 'converting' across editions, and to be honest, it hasn't involved much number crunching. If I'm converting an adventure module from 5E or Basic Fantasy RPG to Pathfinder and it says something like "a band of six Orcs ambushes the party" I just copy and paste the monsters of the same name from the Pathfinder Bestiary. It's worked pretty well so far. The same goes for an NPC with class levels. If it calls for a Level 3 Fighter, I just copy and paste in a Pathfinder Level 3 Fighter with the same ability scores. Again, it's worked well so far. If I encounter a monster that isn't in one of the Bestiaries, I scan through them, find a monster with similar abilities, slap on a template or two if its abilities or CR needs tweaking, and call it good. Is it the lazy way of GMing? Maybe. But it works.

So if PF2 ends up something I just can't stand like 5E did, I'll still buy the Adventure Paths and Modules, but I'll run them using the PF1 ruleset.

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