Hi folks,
What is your opinion on pathfinder vs. 3.5 for the purpose of playing and mastering a whole adventure path?
I have read some pathfinder rule books, and have been lurking in the boards - what i see is appealing, yet I have not had the chance to play and g-master it. Is it worth the effort to relearn if you play only once or twice a month? Is it worth the effort to converse a whole campaign from 3.5 to pathfinder (savage tide)? What are the biggest benefits? the drawbacks?
Thanks for your biased opinions!
Our recent campaign began in 3.5 then converted midway to Pathfinder. We have gamed once per month and all of us participating found the conversion worthwhile. Observations:
1) Condensing the skill system had some unexpected side-effects, though not unpleasantly so. Our shadowdancer suddenly had even more skill points to spread around because Move Silently and Hide became Stealth and Spot, Search, and Listen became Perception. My cloistered cleric benefited from the conversion on Perception and also found herself strangely able to make forged documents due to the combination of skills that became Linguistics. Overall though, not much to relearn.
2) Additions to classes made things more fun. Sorcerers gained whole bloodlines that put a unique spin on their abilities. Channel energy gave my cloistered cleric a bit more healing power out of combat. Rangers gained some interesting abilities too. And paladins became pure awesome.
3) Improved feat progression let us develop our characters a bit more due to the greater number of feats available to a higher level character. My character was the weakest in terms of hp, so I took Toughness. I also took Spell Penetration since I found myself fighting creatures with SR more and more. The arcane archer took more item creation feats to help make things during downtime.
4) Rule changes are sometimes hidden. You will find yourself looking things up just to verify that they have indeed changed, such as damaging objects rules (effects of various energy types got me at one point), or that initiative is a Dexterity check (with some fun applications when abilities modify ability checks specifically).
5) Changes to spells varied from none to significant. Specific lines of spells have been created to deal with the issues with polymorph, so if a character had been using certain spells they will definitely need to investigate what happened to them.
Overall, I found conversion wasn't difficult and worthwhile. Worthwhile, being a value judgment, is of course subjective and just as biased as all opinions, but from personal experience, I highly recommend it.
There really is no effort. It's the same basic system.
You can learn that Acrobatics skill replaces Jump, Tumble, and Balance in the amount of time it takes me to type it.
Don't convert the whole campaign. Convert the players. I ran Savage tide this way, and just gave prominent bad guys +10 hp and +2 to hit and damage.
Worked great.
Is it worth the effort to converse a whole campaign from 3.5 to pathfinder (savage tide)? What are the biggest benefits? the drawbacks?
If you can get enough enthusiastic 3.5 players, I don't think there's much benefit in learning Pathfinder and converting Savage Tide.
I think the biggest benefit of learning Pathfinder is that a fair number of 3.5 players have moved on to different things. At least, that seems to be the case in my area.
It might be worthwhile to pick out a few things that you like from PFRPG in order to incorporate them into a 3.5 campaign, though.
initiative is a Dexterity check (with some fun applications when abilities modify ability checks specifically).
How is this different from 3.5?
From the SRD:
"An initiative check is a Dexterity check."
Huh. Never noticed that before, but you're right. I sit corrected!
I have run both 3.0 and 3.5, and for some reason I was convinced that 4th edition would be the greatest and ran that for a year. The decision to return to Pathfinder was the greatest decision I have ever made.
There is minimal learning curve for someone with any 3.5 experience, with the occasional thing popping out and needing attention. My party is actually willing to grapple, bull rush, etc in Pathfinder as well. Many of the current grouping of players started with me in 4th edition so when we changed I told them that they had been coddled with easy rules for to long. Pathfinder was an adjustement for them because it is a hint more involved than 4th edition ever was, but after a few quick sessions (ran them through Sunless Citadel to start the campaign) they quickly got the hang of the rules. Now they work through the system like a well oiled machine and they are all taking to the multiclassing in ways that they never knew were possible before.
What I enjoy the most is watching them learn, and make their own mistakes as they develop the characters as they wanted. The Barbarian / Cleric, for example, learning to late that he can't cast while raged. The Rogue / Sorcerer learning the synergy of their spells and sneak attack. The Ranger / Druid enjoying her monkey familiar and the fact that she can deliver touch attacks through the monkey.
Thank you, Pathfinder, for you have brought my inner child back to life.
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Pathfinder isn't without it's "gotchas" though. Unlimited cantrips are a good one. Check out the thread 'my GM hates detect magic' for an example.
PC's are more powerful, and the monsters generally aren't. I'm still having trouble when I 'run-and-gun' on encounter design, and I had it down-pat in 3.0...
There are some mild balance issues, too. Rogues get a bit of a short shrift in the skills conversion, for example, because while they get more points to put in things that aren't Rogue-like, everyone else gets better at Rogue-like skills due to the conversion. It's weird.
Is it worth it? Oh, yes, totally. Version 3.5 is basically dead now. Only 3.P and 4.0 continue. If you want new material and an excited player base, then you kind of have to 'drop the shiny' in front of them on occasion. In my experience, anyway.
Thank you all for sharing your experience!
It seems to me that most agree on pathfinder being better for the PCs, and that this change is quite liked by the players.
On the DM - ahem - GM side, there is voiced no big conversion headache other than to make monsters tougher.
Well, my prime directive is to keep your players happy. Pathfinder it is. Now I only have to find a way how to convince someone to play a houseruled conversed disciple of the nine swords, cause I really really like to see this in action...