{{ Not entirely sure if this should be here or the non-paizo products section }}
I will probably start GM'ing a campaign in the near future.
Many of the players still want to use some of their old 3.0 and 3.5 materials that they have spent a fair amount of cash on over the years (and a couple just can't afford several new book atm).
I know they are close, but they aren't the same.
So I've been thinking about the following restrictions.
1) If PF has a version that is very close to the same PrC, feat, spell you have to use PF version.
{{ edited this one after some more thought and Kolokotroni's comment. }}
2) If using any 3.x stuff, I as GM need to have a chance to review PRIOR to the session where you will be taking it. Preferable at character generation.
3) We will be using the PF rules for in game encounter resolution (ie PF rules for CMB and CMD).
4) Some things will not be allowed because they don't make sense in PF or are broken. For example, I know some of the spells released at the very end of 3.x seemed way overpowered for their level.
Does this make sense and seem reasonable to you guys?
If yes, what are some of the things I need to watch out for as game breakers?
If no, do you have counter suggestions?
{{ Not entirely sure if this should be here or the non-paizo products section }}
I will probably start GM'ing a campaign in the near future.
Many of the players still want to use some of their old 3.0 and 3.5 materials that they have spent a fair amount of cash on over the years (and a couple just can't afford several new book atm).I know they are close, but they aren't the same.
So I've been thinking about the following restrictions.
1) No mixing and matching for a given build. If you use a 3.x class you have to use 3.x PrC, feats, spells, and skills.
2) If using any 3.x stuff, I as GM need to have a chance to review PRIOR to the session where you will be taking it. Preferable at character generation.
3) We will be using the PF rules for in game encounter resolution (ie PF rules for CMB and CMD).
4) Some things will not be allowed because they don't make sense in PF or are broken. For example, I know some of the spells released at the very end of 3.x seemed way overpowered for their level.Does this make sense and seem reasonable to you guys?
If yes, what are some of the things I need to watch out for as game breakers?
If no, do you have counter suggestions?
I recomend against number 2. Not allowing pathfinder feats and other things is a bad idea in general if you are playing with pathfinder rules.
I would say allow in non-pathfinder options on a case by case basis, and make conversions or alterations where you feel they are necessary. And honestly it really depends on what your game is like in order to determine what is broke/overpowered. Everything is really a matter of your group's perceptions and how you play. I have seen people call things crazy broken in cases where in my group it works just fine due to play style, or just how the option is used. I have also seen the reverse.
There is no right or wrong list of things that are 'broken'. It really is a judgement call you have to make. And I would say when looking at 3.5 material, air on the side of caution.
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I would say that almost all spell need to be reviewed and a good number should be banned outright. Pathfinder had redone a lot of save or death and save or such effects, removed almost all the direct damage spells without SR and changed how some of the defensive spell work.
Implementing the spells of the Spell compendium without screening them was already bad in 3.5, doing that in Pathfinder would be a campaign suicide. The same reasoning would apply for most of the splat books.
The less dangerous stuff it those written for specific environments like Frostburn or Stormwrack. some spell can be powerful but generally they are narrowly focused and so the possible damage is limited.
DO NOT allow any 3.0 stuff it is the most broken, 3.5 is the least broken (though the later 3.5 stuff got as bad as 3.0 broken)
1) No mixing and matching for a given build. If you use a 3.x class you have to use 3.x PrC, feats, spells, and skills.
Answer: the power level of the 3.5 classes to their PF counter parts varies from about 90% to as low as 70%
again the feats and spells are a mixed bag.
pick one or the other, to keep a class balance,
if nessary upgrade the classes to PF (I can help a bit on this as I have all the complete class books and guess at appropriate upgrading to the class.)
2) If using any 3.x stuff, I as GM need to have a chance to review PRIOR to the session where you will be taking it. Preferable at character generation.
Answer: Oh he** yes, you'll need to review it before they can use it and before character creation, as some of the stuff is incredibly broken in certain combinations and to understand what is does.
If Pathfinder has the feat, you can not use the 3.X version of it.
3) We will be using the PF rules for in game encounter resolution (ie PF rules for CMB and CMD).
Answer: that should be fine
4) Some things will not be allowed because they don't make sense in PF or are broken. For example, I know some of the spells released at the very end of 3.x seemed way overpowered for their level.
Answer: Good call, if it's OverPowered remove it.
Case by case. UA is generally allowed. MIC is generally allowed. SC generally isn't.
I would say that almost all spell need to be reviewed and a good number should be banned outright. Pathfinder had redone a lot of save or death and save or such effects, removed almost all the direct damage spells without SR and changed how some of the defensive spell work.
Implementing the spells of the Spell compendium without screening them was already bad in 3.5, doing that in Pathfinder would be a campaign suicide. The same reasoning would apply for most of the splat books...
Do you remember which ones in particular?
The first one that comes to mind for me was Iron Bands (or something close). Even on a save it nearly shut down an opponent no matter what level. And I think it was only a 3rd or 4th level spell.
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Do you remember which ones in particular?
You can get some useful general pointer in this thread: What are some things about the Pathfinder rules that you think most people do not know, it ended being a big compilation of the most obscure changes between 3.5 and Pathfinder.
The spells I see as most broken are:
- all the Orb spells (touch attack, generally no SR, no ST, often good secondary effects),
- the [alignment] storm spells (no SR, no ST);
- Fleshshiver,
- the whole range of the Whelm spells (with the excuse that it is "only" stun damage they do a sickening quantity of damage for their level and as a added drawback they force you to track 2 kinds of damage in every encounter).
There are "lesser" culprits like Deific vengeance, a level 2 cleric spell that is almost as good as a same level Wizard spell with no faith imposed limits on the possible targets.
Spells with important differences in Pathfinder are Mind blank (the protection is very different from what previous versions gave) and Divine power (the BAB don't change so no extra attack).
Extremely important as it not only change the spells, but it change a whole class (the druid) Polymorph magic has been extensively redone.
You should review all the classes and races that use it or have powers based on it.
{{ Not entirely sure if this should be here or the non-paizo products section }}
I will probably start GM'ing a campaign in the near future.
Many of the players still want to use some of their old 3.0 and 3.5 materials that they have spent a fair amount of cash on over the years (and a couple just can't afford several new book atm).I know they are close, but they aren't the same.
So I've been thinking about the following restrictions.
1) If PF has a version that is very close to the same PrC, feat, spell you have to use PF version.
{{ edited this one after some more thought and Kolokotroni's comment. }}2) If using any 3.x stuff, I as GM need to have a chance to review PRIOR to the session where you will be taking it. Preferable at character generation.
3) We will be using the PF rules for in game encounter resolution (ie PF rules for CMB and CMD).
4) Some things will not be allowed because they don't make sense in PF or are broken. For example, I know some of the spells released at the very end of 3.x seemed way overpowered for their level.Does this make sense and seem reasonable to you guys?
If yes, what are some of the things I need to watch out for as game breakers?
If no, do you have counter suggestions?
Broken is subjective. Someone will say X is broken and another person will say how it causes no problem in their group. I would just look at everything on a case by case basis.
For now the core book and the APG have a green light. Everything else is subject to review.
Do you remember which ones in particular?
You can get some useful general pointer in this thread: What are some things about the Pathfinder rules that you think most people do not know, it ended being a big compilation of the most obscure changes between 3.5 and Pathfinder.
God I wish I had used a better name than that.
Eh, I don't use much 3.5 stuff. If I like something, I convert it to Pathfinder to the best of my abilities and add it to a list of homebrewed sources my players can use.
Ah, shivering touch, how I miss you :). Hey, would the draconic bloodline arcana work for it? It says you do extra damage per die, and this spell does ability damage :) .
Anyway, I don't think the orb spells were all that bad. They were what, lvl 4? This is a serious investment for a single-attack, single-target damage spell. Yes, they did not allow SR, but I think SR-ignoring magic is fine in moderation - whatever the source, magic or no, fire is supposed to hurt. Also note that since they involved an attack roll, they certainly could miss - and miss quite a bit against enemies having halfway decent touch AC (or in melee combat, or behind cover, etc, etc). Remember, most wizards aren't famed for their high attack bonus.
Really, at that level, I found them quite acceptable, and a bit tricky to use right. Single-target damage and debuff, relying on an attack roll, for a low-BAB class... not really overpowered, sorry.
Eh, I don't use much 3.5 stuff. If I like something, I convert it to Pathfinder to the best of my abilities and add it to a list of homebrewed sources my players can use.
This is my definition of using 3.5 stuff...I guess its a matter of perspective.
I use the same guidelines that I did when DMing the shift form 3.0 to 3.5. If it does not exist or does not have support in 3.5 then the 3.0 material is allowed. It is checked against the conversion guide for any changes that need to be made, and the player warned that it will be assessed ongoing during play for balance in it's new environment.
I would allow 3.0 & 3.5 material into my game on that condition. It must be "converted" if possible, cleaned, and its performance checked through actual play. Chances of approval increase if the player has already done the conversion, the "concept" doesn't have good support in Pathfinder, it adds positively to the game (points back at the way Wizards handled team work and some "additional" skill rules). So far it gets kinda hard to find much that Paizo isn't starting to cover these days with "Kits reborn" a.k.a. Archetypes.
Unless you consider Pathfinder and the d20 OGL itself irreparably broken then 3.0 & 3.5 content can be fine. The key point is that in each supplement (just as there are a few cases in Paizo's stuff) there were things that were absolutely poison. With a decent feel for rules interplay they aren't hard to spot.
The problem I found with 3.5 was that it was written in a vacuum. Except for a few example PCs who had content from more the one splat book, all the crunch seemed to be written so that it wouldn't be broken with the core books. It was when you brought in more the one splat book that things got stupid.
... It was when you brought in more the one splat book that things got stupid.
I never thought about it that way before. But I think you are right.
Everything unique to the Spell Compendium was broken in 3.5, never mind Pathfinder.
If it was broken in 3.5, it's more broken in Pathfinder.
The spells I see as most broken are:
- all the Orb spells (touch attack, generally no SR, no ST, often good secondary effects),
You mean like 0th level Acid Splash? The Orb spells are high level Acid Splash and they don't develop side effects until they are what? 4th or 5th level spells?
Just say Pathfinder only and cut out the crap. There has been enough additional junk thrown in to Pathfinder using Pathfinder rules that there is no reason that you should allow 3.5 book combing.
If they say "I want to use 'X' from 'Y' book from 3.5," you say "No."
If that is "3.0," say "Only if you can balance a quarter on its edge on the top of a pencil balanced on it's point on a perfectly smooth surface."
...
I'm of the strong opinion if this is your first Pathfinder campaign, you're best off running it clean without any 3.X legacy material mixed in if you really want to get a feel for the system. To try to list all of the materials from 3.X that can break a Pathfinder game is a venture too large for this venue.
If it is your first Pathfinder campaign, I agree with him 100%
There is so much content in 3.X that it is impossible to list it all, it would likely take about a year or two to make that list.
Costs of books are not an issue. Your players don't need to buy a single thing. They can access the SRD sites for free and D20PFSRD has a free PDF download. They can get a full color PDF for 10 bucks per book and they don't need anything save the core rules...
Cost of books is an issue for some people. Not everything is available as a free download. Some are also still in the dark ages and don't have easy access to downloads. Let alone having it at the table for questions. We want to have more options than are available in the core rule book. We want to get a bit more mileage out of the material we've spent hundereds on over the years.
...I'm of the strong opinion if this is your first Pathfinder campaign, you're best off running it clean without any 3.X legacy material mixed in if you really want to get a feel for the system...
Not first. We ran a short mini with just the core rule book. We are just starting a campaign with just pathfinder. This question was for the next campaign after this one.
I am not expecting a detailed list of everything. Just some of the biggies to keep an eye out for.
I highly recommend BANNING ANY 3.0 Material.
For me Frostburn had no broken content, through if someone takes FrostRager, tell them rend only happens once if it goes off.
The first 4 Completes "Insert Class Type" had the least broken content for the series (Warrior, Divine, Arcane, Adventure) with Mage, Scoundrel and Champion having some powerful and broken stuff.
The races of series is not bad, the fiendish codexes could be trouble.
The BOVD Banned out Right, BOED watch out for the vow of poverty and ban the prestige classes, some are broken to heck.
players handbook 2, ban the base classes, and I can not remember what else.
Costs of books are not an issue. Your players don't need to buy a single thing. They can access the SRD sites for free and D20PFSRD has a free PDF download. They can get a full color PDF for 10 bucks per book and they don't need anything save the core rules...Cost of books is an issue for some people. Not everything is available as a free download. Some are also still in the dark ages and don't have easy access to downloads. Let alone having it at the table for questions. We want to have more options than are available in the core rule book. We want to get a bit more mileage out of the material we've spent hundereds on over the years.
99% of everything in Pathfinder is SRD and online free, legal.
Find the parts you want, then print them off.
... 99% of everything in Pathfinder is SRD and online free, legal.
Find the parts you want, then print them off.
Hmmm, I will have to do some more looking.
Most of what i see mentioned on the boards does not come up in a search except for more posts talking about how wonderful it is.
If you want to keep all your 3.X material.... you might be better off just sticking with 3.X. Combining the brokeness of 3.5 with the character boots of Pathfinder may very well be a recipe for headache.
That is what we've done up until now. However, we have some newish people joining the group who don't have the 3.x material. So as a group we made the decision to pathfinder.
But I can understand them (and myself) not wanting to throw it all away.
If you want to keep all your 3.X material.... you might be better off just sticking with 3.X. Combining the brokeness of 3.5 with the character boots of Pathfinder may very well be a recipe for headache.That is what we've done up until now. However, we have some newish people joining the group who don't have the 3.x material. So as a group we made the decision to pathfinder.
But I can understand them (and myself) not wanting to throw it all away.
If you don't want to throw it way, update the things the players want. I could lend a small hand to that in, because I tend to reverse engineer content to make new content and it tends to be on par with the other content.
When I first started running Pathfinder, I threw open all of 3.5 as allowable. As Pathfinder has been adding to its rules system, I find increasingly fewer reasons to use 3.5 stuff.
Not that I don't like 3.5; far from it. It's great. Was great. Something. But this is Pathfinder, and the power scale is a little different. Nothing has driven this point home more clearly for me than allowing a 3.5 Warmage into the campaign. Yow.
I've already passed the word along to everyone in my gaming circle that the next time we put together a new group of PF characters (once our current campaign reaches the convenient end point), it'll be exclusively Pathfinder; no more 3.5.
The only exception, and it's just ONE exception: the Magic Item Compendium is still 39,583 kinds of awesomeness, so I still use it, making any spell adjustments that I happen to find.
Just my two copper pieces...
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Is a warmage mor powerful than a 3.5 sorcerer? the answer is yes, is a warmage more powerful than a path sorcerer? definitely not, do not be afraid to let your player use 3.x stuff they already can be overpowered within pathfinder (cornugon smash for god sakes), the only thing that maybe you want to do is just allow a few sources and to ban the others
NOTE: I hate book of the nine swords, it have a lot of OVERPOWERED option.
The warmage was not more powerful than a 3.5 sorcerer. It had a slight advantage in blasting, but that was about it.
ToB aka book of nine swords is not broken.
Every time this comes up and it is shown that rules were misread the person just says well "even though I was wrong I won't allow it anyway", which is fine by me so I won't bother getting into it. There are threads on the misreading of the rules though.
I will say some rules were badly written to allow for various interpretations, but a good GM will use the interpretation that makes sense.
edit:changed "and" to "but"
I would say Bo9S is roughly on par with the vanilla fighter of PF. Some areas they are better, some areas they are worse.
Compared to the 3.5 Fighter? Yea. They were a lot better. But that isn't saying much.
I would say Bo9S is roughly on par with the vanilla fighter of PF. Some areas they are better, some areas they are worse.
Compared to the 3.5 Fighter? Yea. They were a lot better. But that isn't saying much.
The 3.5 and Pathfinder Fighter are not notably different. One gets a few more perks, but they don't amount to much. The Book of Nine Swords classes weren't even on the same power scale as 3.5/Pathfinder melee characters. They are between melee and casters.
The 3.5 and Pathfinder Fighter are not notably different. One gets a few more perks, but they don't amount to much. The Book of Nine Swords classes weren't even on the same power scale as 3.5/Pathfinder melee characters. They are between melee and casters.I would say Bo9S is roughly on par with the vanilla fighter of PF. Some areas they are better, some areas they are worse.
Compared to the 3.5 Fighter? Yea. They were a lot better. But that isn't saying much.
Critical Feats, etc.
Anyways, I suppose how I should have worded it is that in 3.5, I would never choose a fighter if Bo9S was allowed.
In PF, I would actually have to think for a while if I wanted the vanilla fighter, or the Bo9S.
I was more focused on the classes and feats, I really didn't read the spells much, and wow can't believe I missed that one.