Hi All,
Can I clarify that yes I have been locked (metaphysically at least) in the equivalent of a Nuclear bunker and that yes I have been playing AD&D ver2.0 until now. (I buy new adventures and create my own NPC's, etc.)
Anyway, to my question, it is no longer feasible for me to continue the way I have been going on. I purchased D&D v3.0 last week but have found that I should have got (it seems) v3.5. Do I have to bite the bullet and purchase the v3.5 rulebooks or is there somewhere out there a cheaper upgrade path? As I dont think D&D v4 is the right way to go.
Can I get away just downloading/buying the Pathfinder Corebook?
Can anyone advise me the best way to go, please?
thanks in advance for your time and consideration
Steve
My suggestion is to download the beta of the Pathfinder RPG and then wait the 4 to 5 months for the PF RPG Final Book and the PF RPG Monster Manual. Since the PF RPG is more of a 3.65 to a 3.75 version of the D & D 3.x rules set, you should be ok.
Also, there are some dirrerences between the 3.0 and the 3.5 D & D rules, but not as many as the differences between 2nd edition and 3.x. You should be fine either way!
P.S. - Welcome to the Paizo boards.
P.P.S. - I still have and read the 1st edition AD & D stuff, so you are doing fine on that part too!
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Right now, download the free Beta PDF, along the extra files with more spells and magic items and prestige classes. If you're still missing something (creatures, DM rules about this&that) just go and take a look at this website.
Wait for August and be prepared for the final PFRPG rules.
You can skip the "official" 3.5 rules, as everything you need is in the aforementioned resources, improved Paizo-style.
Moreover, the final PFRP rules will include the Player's Handbook and the DM Guide in the main rulebook, and the Monster Manual will be released the following month.
Be careful, as the overall 3.X power-level of characters and adventuring is sometimes quite different from previous editions (I'm still playing a FR campaign under the 2e rules, so sometimes the contrast is really obvious to me).
golem101 hit the major points - between the 3.0 books, the d20 SRD that he linked to, and the Pathfinder Beta you should have plenty to get the gist of things. The ruleset is very similar though all three incarnations.
The SRD has a great deal of the crunch of the 3.5 system, to the point where I used it and nothing else to play for quite some time. If memory serves most of the updates are fairly trivial and/or similar to what you'd find in the PFRPG Beta - classes tweaked, some skills consolidated/removed, and (if memory serves) a retooling of damage reduction. I'm sure there's more, but I'd be woefully ignorant of it.
I must confess to having no more experience with previous editions than a casual read through of AD&D, but to my understanding the dynamic of play is indeed quite a bit different - the default assumption of power level is quite a bit higher than it was back then.
Naturally, I must third the recommendation to throw more money Paizo's way when the PFRPG rules are available.
Gentlemen,
Thank you for your incredibly swift replies, all of you. You have simultaneously, reassured me that I have not wasted money in the purchase of v3.0 books, given me a resource which glancing through looks exactly what I wanted, and a plan to consolidate with the final edition of the PF rules. - sweet!
Thank you for the warning about the power levels which has caused the main problems in converting modules which eventually, has made me decide to upgrade now.
I have played since the early 80's and the hardest thing is to teach/show my player(s) on a new game engine. I didn't want to be in the unenviable position of having to switch systems as that would have caused chaos and would have got in the way of role-playing! And it has caused me to undergo the much put off, inevitable process of converting my campaign world...
I am thinking now of looking into Paizo's ready built campaign world in taking the strain off me. I will, though, miss the 'grittiness' of World of Greyhawk and 'weirdness' of Planescape though.
I look forwards to posting again and if anyone has anymore suggestions, hints and help I am not above taking your good advice.
Again, thanks.
Regards
Steve
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I will, though, miss the 'grittiness' of World of Greyhawk and 'weirdness' of Planescape though.
You don't have to miss Planescape in 3ed or Pathfinder RPG : see Planewalker
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You don't have to miss Planescape in 3ed or Pathfinder RPG : see PlanewalkerI will, though, miss the 'grittiness' of World of Greyhawk and 'weirdness' of Planescape though.
Besides, THIS BOOK will be the ultimate resource for the planar awesome in Pathfinder.
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I am thinking now of looking into Paizo's ready built campaign world in taking the strain off me. I will, though, miss the 'grittiness' of World of Greyhawk and 'weirdness' of Planescape though.
If you're looking for grittiness, Golarion (the world in which the Pathfinder game is based) has plenty of it.
Take a look at the free modules (D0 Hollow's Last Hope and D1.5 Revenge of the Kobold King), and if you're willing to invest some resources, these products will be quite fitting:- Guide to Korvosa (urban setting)
- Guide to Darkmoon Vale (frontier setting)
- Classic Monsters Revisited (great to get the "Paizo feeling")
- E1 Carnival of Tears (adventure)
- U2 Hangman Noose (adventure)
- D3 The Demon Within (adventure)
- D4 Hungry Are the Dead (adventure)
- Curse of the Crimson Throne AP (campaign)
The already mentioned Guide to the Great Beyond is helpful for the plane-hopping adventures, and the ongoing AP Legacy of Fire should include a healthy dose of exotic, planar adventuring. The campaign outline should be available for download somewhere, just do a quick search.
Finally, both the Player's Guide to the Rise of the Runelords (first AP) and the Player's Guide to the Curse of the Crimson Throne (second AP) should be available for free download (look into My Account/My Downloads), and they have a wealth of info about the setting.
The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer is a great starting resource, really player friendly, and the complete Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting is... well, just awesome.
In short, give a look at the freely downloadable resources, and choose a product or two: you'll see that Pathfinder has an incredible potential both for gritty, scary games and super-polished high fantasy strangeness. :D
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I am thinking now of looking into Paizo's ready built campaign world in taking the strain off me. I will, though, miss the 'grittiness' of World of Greyhawk and 'weirdness' of Planescape though.
If you're looking for grittiness, Golarion (the world in which the Pathfinder game is based) has plenty of it.
Take a look at the free modules (D0 Hollow's Last Hope and D1.5 Revenge of the Kobold King), and if you're willing to invest some resources, these products will be quite fitting:- Guide to Korvosa (urban setting)
- Guide to Darkmoon Vale (frontier setting)
- Classic Monsters Revisited (great to get the "Paizo feeling")
- E1 Carnival of Tears (adventure)
- U2 Hangman Noose (adventure)
- D3 The Demon Within (adventure)
- D4 Hungry Are the Dead (adventure)
- Curse of the Crimson Throne AP (campaign)The already mentioned Guide to the Great Beyond is helpful for the plane-hopping adventures, and the ongoing AP Legacy of Fire should include a healthy dose of exotic, planar adventuring. The campaign outline should be available for download somewhere, just do a quick search.
Finally, both the Player's Guide to the Rise of the Runelords (first AP) and the Player's Guide to the...
As a word of warning, the Campaign Setting includes pretty much all the information in the Gazeteer plus a load more. If you're a DM, the Campaign Setting is better value, but the Gazeteer is a valuable player resource that doesn't give away all the secrets.
I won’t belabor a point by adding my 2cp to the great advice you have already received but I would like to say that your old stuff is still more than useful.
I'm a F.Realms junkie and still use all of the old info as flavor when playing or running in the 3.5 version.
One thing I would warn you about is the splat books.
The D20 open game license created a lot of non-consistent, non-cannon material. Just because it has the drow as its focus doesn’t make it realms. Don’t waste your money on that stuff.
I hope this helps and welcome to 3.75 and the boards
Side note, if you want a little feeling of the ready built world check out the Pathfinder Wiki which is a fan based wiki on the game world information. It's small at ths point, but grows daily.
Aaah, another who sees the light.
I'm sure you'll see, as I've seen, that 3e/PF offers a level of freedom not seen before - or since! - in D&D.
I am thinking now of looking into Paizo's ready built campaign world in taking the strain off me.
I'm sure you'll love it! Ever since I've been driven away from the Forgotten Realms (one of the major advantages to me was that it was a living, breathing world where new things happened independantly of my campaigns. But with the coming of 4e they decided to butcher the Realms to make the remains fit into their new vision of the game), I've come to consider Golarion (the worlf of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting) my "home". It has a place for everything and strives to support as many different play styles as possible. You don't need a "City Adventures" world, a "Savage Wilderness Frontier" world, a "Gothic Horror World", and all that.
But note one thing: If you still like your old campaign world, I think "porting it over" to 3e/PF shouldn't be that hard. After all, it's still the same old game. Only the rules changed. But a land of frozen wastelands ruled over by an Ice Witch remains a land of frozen wastelands ruled over by an Ice Witch, and a nation with a benign king and a long history of crusades against the darkness remains a... well, you get my meaning.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to persuade you to not buy Pathfinder Chronicles material (because that stuff rocks! And if nothing else, it should be a great source of inspiration for things to implement in your campaign world), but I don't think it will be that hard to use an older campaign setting with the new rules.
In fact, I'm sure that if you posted about advice on how to change this or that, you'd get tons of good advice.
I will, though, miss the 'grittiness' of World of Greyhawk and 'weirdness' of Planescape though.
Well, Golarion can be a gritty world. You don't find a priest powerful enough to raise someone from the dead on every street corner, for example. There's a country ruled by devil-worshipping imperialists, and one area is overrun by the Abyss itself, and the taint is spreading. And no one who was ever caught by ogres or stalked by bugbears would ever describe Golarion as a place where everything is shiny and roast chickens fly into your mouth.
As for weird: Golarion can provide that, too: Even if it doesn't use Sigil or the Great Wheel (mainly because that stuff is owned by wizards of the coast and they don't like to share any more), no one stops you from incorporating them into your game (in fact, the cosmology was designed with the goal to have it fit into the Great Wheel in mind). And there's plenty of awesome stuff on the planes - and the planets.
The Green World Castrovel is ripe with psionic powers, with many inhabitants possessing weird mental abilities.
In the depths of the Negative Energy Plane is a colossal sphere of glass with the inscription "What you think of as life is a great deception. The faithful have already been claimed, taken, and saved. You are ours."
And Zon-Kuthon, god of pain and darkness, is controlled by some unfathomable entity from beyond the stars.
In Absalom, the City at the Centre of the World, there is a Cathedral where you can take the Test of the Starstone - if you pass that test, you become a god! But it's incredibly hard. Thousands have probably tried over the centuries, but in all the time, only three succeeded (but then again, one of them was quite drunk at the time and doesn't even remember how he did it!)
Troll seers perform extispicy (the act of predicting the future from entrails) on themselves!
You can expect plenty of weird in a world where the elves worship the goddess of Trickery, Revenge and Lust!
