Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what, exactly, does True 20 offer and how different is it from 3.5?
Some background: I stopped buying new books when 3.5 came out. I own every book from 3.0 but dropped the game when the "mini-release" came out. Yes, it was just on principle. After that my group and I played mostly d20 Modern, which we liked a lot, and a lot of Rolemaster/MERP (I still have all of my original MERP books wrapped in plastic ... they are precious!). D20 Modern served as a primary campaign, I guess you could say, and Rolemaster/MERP served for fantasy when we wanted gritty, hardcore games.
3E, IMO, started breaking down in terms of fun vs reward (for the work put in) after, say, level 13 to 15. Don't get me wrong, Rolemaster isn't by any means easier or less time consuming, I don't think (I don't want to count the number of charts in the books), but it gave me an out from buying 3.5 since we weren't happy with the system at a certain level, and I was upset over the mini-release.
I've heard that True 20 did some good things and I was curious how the game was different from 3.5. As a matter of fact, I'm tempted to go buy 3.5 books now with 4E coming since I think that 3E will have far more options available for character creation until 4E comes around to producing the needed material for those options (bards, druids, etc.).
So, I'm wondering if I should pick up 3.5 books, for those times that I want to run my older Pathfinder games (I have them but haven't ran them, though I stole a lot of concepts for my Rolemaster games), or could I use True 20 to play my Pathfinder games? Is it completely different, as in not easily compatible?
None of that was clear, I know, but I ramble when I type. Any help would be appreciated. :-)
Heh, I find your 3e critiques interesting, since they seem to be the exact reason that WotC decided to do 4e (and in part why Green Ronin opted to do True 20).
If you're interested in True 20 I would direct you here. I did an interview with Steven Kenson, the creator of True 20, and we discussed some of the differences between the games and what it does/accomplishes (as well as some big recent news about it).
Hey, thanks for the links! Much appreciated.
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There are free True20 conversions for the first two pathfinders available for download from the paizo store.
I believe they are written by Green Ronin, rather than Paizo, so the availability of further conversions is out of Paizo's hands.
I played my first ever game of True20 yesterday, and had a lot of fun. Its an interesting take on the d20 system, but not quite as straightforward to use as it might appear at first glance.
I like it because it is easy to customise your character, especially if you use the True20 Companion as well as the main rules.