My friends and I were juggling around the idea of starting a new gaming group. We've all played AD&D before and I was planning on being the DM.
About half of the group can recite the 2nd edition books by heart and the rest have played some 2nd & 3rd edition. I currently own the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne sets and we were planning on using them.
Any suggestions on what to get? I see campaign setting, players guides, *advanced* players guides, modules. Plus I was wondering how jarring it was to change from 3rd Ed. to Pathfinder rules. (Because the modules I have are 3rd Ed. I believe.)
Thanks in advance!
My friends and I were juggling around the idea of starting a new gaming group. We've all played AD&D before and I was planning on being the DM.
About half of the group can recite the 2nd edition books by heart and the rest have played some 2nd & 3rd edition. I currently own the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne sets and we were planning on using them.
Any suggestions on what to get? I see campaign setting, players guides, *advanced* players guides, modules. Plus I was wondering how jarring it was to change from 3rd Ed. to Pathfinder rules. (Because the modules I have are 3rd Ed. I believe.)
Thanks in advance!
If the adventures are lower level ones it wont be that hard. I would also advice only changing the important NPC's if you are stressed for time.
If it is a high level adventure then the higher level NPC's and monsters seem to take a lot longer to convert due to the new class features. The base rules did not change a lot, but it will take time to get use to the differences. There were many times I found myself doing things the "old" way, only to find it was wrong. I would suggest that at least one of you have the book.
Rise of the Runelords and curse of the crimson throne are written for 3.5, not 3rd. There are subtle differences between the two. You can see what is needed to convert from 3.5 to pathfinder here Use that to decide if it is or isnt too much of a headache to convert to pathfinder.
If you want to go pathfinder, the must haves are the the core rules and the bestiary
After that the gamemaster's guide and the advanced players guide are good additions for later on. I would start with the core rules first, get used to it and then decide if you want to expand or not. I would hold off on the campaign setting as a new version updated to the pathfinder rules is coming out. If you decide to stick with 3.5 then you might instead want to pick up the current campaign guide. The only problem with sticking out 3.5 is it may be difficult to get a hold of the 3.5 rulebooks unless someone in the group already has them on the shelf somewhere.
I'm running rise of the runelords with pathfinder rules, and it is working well, I'll try to find the link to the site that has them already converted over to pathfinder rules for you. I have played every edition of D&D and am hooked on pathfinder. Get the players guide and the APG and your basically good to go.
I'll post the link once I find it
edit: address below to or you can check out my thread "Conversion to pathfinder rules" and the link is there aswell
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/fan-conversions/paizo-adventure-paths
The transition from 3.0 or 3.5 to Pathfinder is pretty easy. For me and my group it was the smaller and easily overlooked things that got us but overall the transition was easy. Now the transition from 2nd edition to 3.0, 3.5, or pathfinder that takes a bit more work. When I first did it I got confused by a lot of stuff
With some quick work 3.0 and 3.5 adventures should also transition easily over. I got to play in a pathfinder Savage tide campaign awhile back and the GM said he didnt change a thing in the stat blocks. From my point of view it was seemless
Anyway, the core book is a necessity as is the bestiary. I hear the GM guide is good even for veteran GMs although I havnt read it yet. APG is pure awesome down to the bone marrow so I highly recommend that partly so players have more options and partly because you can make some really interesting villains with it like Goblin alchemists. I would wait on the campaign setting though, there is a new version coming out soon and its supposed to be more detailed. The races and revisted lines are also interesting, lots of flavor in those books but I find them less useful for pure rules and player or villain options
Also there is a lot of third party stuff thats come out and coming out in the near future that are compatible with Pathfinder. I havnt seen anything truly mind blowing but there are some interesting books out there.