I'm a long time D and D dm and player, and have followed along to through the various editions up unitl the most recent 4th edition. A friend of mine who disliked the new 4th put me on to Pathfinder. Having skimmed through the rules I thought i'd ask people who were more versed with pathfinder. What are the more significant or important differences between 3.5 rules and Pathfinder
I'm forced to admit that i'm more impressed with Pathfinder than I thought i'd be. With the sheer size fo the core rulebook i'm guessing that i've missed a number of rather important details
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I'm a long time D and D dm and player, and have followed along to through the various editions up unitl the most recent 4th edition. A friend of mine who disliked the new 4th put me on to Pathfinder. Having skimmed through the rules I thought i'd ask people who were more versed with pathfinder. What are the more significant or important differences between 3.5 rules and Pathfinder
I'm forced to admit that i'm more impressed with Pathfinder than I thought i'd be. With the sheer size fo the core rulebook i'm guessing that i've missed a number of rather important details
All fancy combat manoeuvres (sunder, grapple, disarm) are now unified into the CMB mechanic.
Turning undead has changed completely. It now does damage to undead or heals the living . If you want to make undead flee or control them with negative energy you need a fat but even then it doesn't use the old turning mechanic.
Skills. You do not get 4* skill points at first level. Now all class skills give you a +3 bonus when you put a point in them. Cross class skills now cost 1 point per rank, (as with class skills) but don't give the +3.
The multiclassing penalty has been removed. Favoured Class has consequently changed to provide a bonus for each level in the favoured class rathe rthan reduce the now non-existant penalty.
You now get feats every odd level rather than every three levels.
Those are the big system wide ones I can think of. However, there are loads of little things (like the Dodge feat bonus beigng against all opponents rather than one).
Smaller things include things like clearer definitions of light conditions as they relate to vision, stealth and Shadowdancer abilities. (I think people tend to use them only when it's a contentious issue, but I have a feeling the contention was exactly why the rules were written.)
Concentration checks for casting spells have changed. There is no Concentration skill (and less need therefore to boost Con if you're a spellcaster). Instead you make a caster level+spellcasting stat modifier check versus a certain DC (it varies depending on the situation). Casting defensively is DC 15+twice the level of the spell you're trying to cast (yes, it is harder than in 3.5, but you can still boost defensive casting with the Combat casting feat).
Polymorph and wild shape have changed; you now get a static boost/penalty to ability scores depending on your form and size rather than just taking the ability scores of the creature you transform into (this makes druidzilla a far more reasonable creature to deal with). While polymorphing/wildshaping is more useful, it is much less abusable than in 3.5.
There are a lot of changes to many spells (especially death-type spells) and the easiest thing to do is just read them through to see what's changed.
There are more magic item slots.
Read through the various class abilities; most classes got some kind of new ability (Barbarians-rage powers, fighters-weapon training, rogues-rogue talents, sorcerers-bloodlines, etc. etc.)
Several skills have been consolidated into one (for instance, Spot + Listen + Search is now simply Perception). There are also some new skills that are used for special movements (creatures that can fly, swim or climb need to use the Fly, Swim, Climb skills).
The classes have been rebalanced; all the core classes now give you an incentive to stay in the class to 20th level rather than the players feeling obligated to go into a PrC as soon as possible.
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I'm a long time D and D dm and player, and have followed along to through the various editions up unitl the most recent 4th edition. A friend of mine who disliked the new 4th put me on to Pathfinder. Having skimmed through the rules I thought i'd ask people who were more versed with pathfinder. What are the more significant or important differences between 3.5 rules and Pathfinder
I'm forced to admit that i'm more impressed with Pathfinder than I thought i'd be. With the sheer size fo the core rulebook i'm guessing that i've missed a number of rather important details
I'm in a similar boat. While many of the basic mechanics are the same, there are a huge number of items that are minorly different. In some cases, these are improvements, in others they are basically just different. On the issues that are often discussed and debated, it becomes necessary to review the PF rules before making any definitive statement because SO MUCH is slightly different.
Some additional changes that I haven't seen mentioned so far: Many of the creature type descriptions have changed. For example, Constructs, Plants, and Undead are not explicitly immune to sneak attak/critical attack.
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Oh this may be a minor thing, but i like it. There are three experience schedules for character advancement. There is one for a "slow" advancement, another for "medium" advancement, and a third for "fast" advancement which is more in line with a 3.5 game.
Now the DM has a choice of how fast he wants his PCs to progress through their levels. It is a simple but i think a nice idea.
Thanks for all the tips. Plenty more reeading to go with all the input. Thanks