How 3.5 Compatible is Pathfinder?


General Discussion (Prerelease)

Liberty's Edge

I have preordered the Pathfinder RPG.

I love the Pathfinder AP. As a 37 year old father of 1, with a job and a slate of obligations I like having Adventures all planned out for me. My Group only plays every other week and my campaign is only the second half of our D&D days so we are only to Sins of the Saviors in the Runelords Campaign.

My Basic thought was to run Pathfinder RPG AP with my players playing 3.5 Characters. What modifications would they have to make to play Pathfinder adventures. I read something a few months ago that if they start with more HP and take feats every other level the power would equalize with Pathfinder Characters.

Any insights anybody?

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

[moved to Pathfinder RPG forum]

Sovereign Court

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

From my own experience, I'm running one of the Dungeon mag APs as-is with PRPG rules. We've had about 12 4-hour sessions so far. The characters are lasting a lot longer so I image that as the levels keep going up I may need to add hps to the bad guys. I am also going to retool some of the bosses to give them more feats (since the players get them more often so should everyone else). But so far that's it!

Anything in particular you're thinking about?


Likewise, I'm playing in a couple of play-by-post campaigns (Savage Tide & Red Hand of Doom) using the Pathfinder Beta rules, and the only real difference I've noticed is that there's more healing (viz. Channel Energy). The Savage Tide modules aren't converted at all (AFAIK).

Sczarni

Durin1211 wrote:


My Basic thought was to run Pathfinder RPG AP with my players playing 3.5 Characters. What modifications would they have to make to play Pathfinder adventures. I read something a few months ago that if they start with more HP and take feats every other level the power would equalize with Pathfinder Characters.

Any insights anybody?

Guys, I think Durin is asking the other way - PFRPG adventure and 3.5 characters

Short answer: it depends on your group.

Longer answer: the base classes were made stronger to balance them with those in the 'complete' line of books and to help them survive in the first adventure. If your group runs with lots of things from the WotC splatbooks, you should be fine (maybe give them a few extra HP), otherwise, gauge how they are doing at each level and if they need an extra feat on some of the 'dead' levels. (might want to download the free beta test to see what the extra feats/powers recommended are).

But also keep in mind that paizo is trying to keep it backwards compatible, meaning that any pathfinder module is supposed to be able to be run in 3.5 with minimal adjustment - most of this being converting the CMB to grapple bonuses.. This works the other way around too, the players should have to convert very little/nothing and be able to play pathfinder adventures as a 3.5 game if you look at the obituary threads, the APs are generally hard for players, as I understand it, they won't be getting harder, so it should be about the same difficulty as a current AP.

take this with a grain of salt though, as I have not been around the playtest boards as much as I have the other boards on this site.

Liberty's Edge

Thank You!

Answered my Question. I don't think my group will necessarily switch to Pathfinder Characters but I want to utilize the continuing Pathfinder RPG AP's.


Durin1211 wrote:

Thank You!

Answered my Question. I don't think my group will necessarily switch to Pathfinder Characters but I want to utilize the continuing Pathfinder RPG AP's.

Have you looked at all the nice goodies the classes get?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Durin1211 wrote:

Thank You!

Answered my Question. I don't think my group will necessarily switch to Pathfinder Characters but I want to utilize the continuing Pathfinder RPG AP's.

I fully hope that the Pathfinder APs will work fine with 3.5. Shouldn't be a big problem; the two big hiccups will probably be with skills (you'll need to know that 3.5's Hide and Move Silently are now both rolled into Stealth, for example) and CMB (but you can still handle things like bull rush and grapple and trip and all the combat maneuvers fine with the 3.5 rules).

We'll have a free conversion PDF to aid anyone who wants to run 3.5 rules with a PF RPG adventure or vice-versa to go along with the game's launch this August, in any case.


hogarth wrote:
The Savage Tide modules aren't converted at all (AFAIK).

You sir are correct, besides the eberron conversion anyhow. I run em 95% as printed. I do CMB on the fly and the changes I made are me making the AP fit the players and the setting, not the ruleset.

Scarab Sages

I have a few questions about this:

- Do you think the classes (base and prestige) in the Complete books can be used as-is due to ther power levels (with the changing of skills and CMB etc as usual)? And what about the feats?

- One of my players is a fan of the Spell Compendium. Would it work in PRPG?

Cheers! :D


ComicJam wrote:

I have a few questions about this:

- Do you think the classes (base and prestige) in the Complete books can be used as-is due to ther power levels (with the changing of skills and CMB etc as usual)? And what about the feats?

- One of my players is a fan of the Spell Compendium. Would it work in PRPG?

Cheers! :D

Well comicjam

1 some will be fine they where way powerful as is, some will be weak. It depends on the class and PRC really. But yeah they can be used as is. Match the BAB/HD and such. Anything more then that is up to you

2. As much as ya can in a 3.5 game.

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