How Backwards Compatible Are You With 3.0 / 3.5?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Steve Geddes wrote:

Is my arithmetic right? You're running 3 campaigns and playing in 3 more?

I'm very jealous - we have time for three, maybe four hours per week, if we're lucky. :(

Well, there are a few factors to keep in mind. Firstly, most of the players are still kid-free, and several of them are couples (therefore no jealous significant-other-of-doom to disrupt scheduling or actual gametime). Secondly, the frequency leaves much to be desired: some of them we're lucky to play/run once a month, and two have been put on hold due to moving.

On the other hand, we like to play from about 15:00 on a Saturday afternoon (or 14:00 on Sundays) to whenever we stop for the night (usually sometime between 21:00 and 02:00). With a break for dinner, of course, and copious amounts of caffeine and healthy/not-so-healthy snacks. So when we do play, we do get a lot in sometimes.


Bellona wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:

Is my arithmetic right? You're running 3 campaigns and playing in 3 more?

I'm very jealous - we have time for three, maybe four hours per week, if we're lucky. :(

Well, there are a few factors to keep in mind. Firstly, most of the players are still kid-free, and several of them are couples (therefore no jealous significant-other-of-doom to disrupt scheduling or actual gametime). Secondly, the frequency leaves much to be desired: some of them we're lucky to play/run once a month, and two have been put on hold due to moving.

On the other hand, we like to play from about 15:00 on a Saturday afternoon (or 14:00 on Sundays) to whenever we stop for the night (usually sometime between 21:00 and 02:00). With a break for dinner, of course, and copious amounts of caffeine and healthy/not-so-healthy snacks. So when we do play, we do get a lot in sometimes.

You're not helping that jealousy thing. :p


Steve Geddes wrote:

Is my arithmetic right? You're running 3 campaigns and playing in 3 more?

I'm very jealous - we have time for three, maybe four hours per week, if we're lucky. :(

Bellona wrote:

Well, there are a few factors to keep in mind. Firstly, most of the players are still kid-free, and several of them are couples (therefore no jealous significant-other-of-doom to disrupt scheduling or actual gametime). Secondly, the frequency leaves much to be desired: some of them we're lucky to play/run once a month, and two have been put on hold due to moving.

On the other hand, we like to play from about 15:00 on a Saturday afternoon (or 14:00 on Sundays) to whenever we stop for the night (usually sometime between 21:00 and 02:00). With a break for dinner, of course, and copious amounts of caffeine and healthy/not-so-healthy snacks. So when we do play, we do get a lot in sometimes.

Steve Geddes wrote:
You're not helping that jealousy thing. :p

Sorry! :D


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Sorry for the thread necro, though on the other hand I don't like to clutter the forums with new threads either for simple questions like this.

I see that people are discussing 3.5 and 3.0 backwards compatibility, but I though pathfinder was only backwards compatible with 3.5? Is it also compatible with 3.0, or am I missing something here?


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It's certainly compatable with 3.0

Back when I ran PF before I houseruled it into my own system, I used material from 3.0 just as much as I used material Paizo published for Pathfinder.


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kyrt-ryder wrote:

It's certainly compatable with 3.0

Back when I ran PF before I houseruled it into my own system, I used material from 3.0 just as much as I used material Paizo published for Pathfinder.

Exactly this.

It is one more system removed from PF, which requires a hair more finagling, but ultimately both require very similar levels of some hand-waiving, simple alterations, or rewrites (depending on the fidelity you seek), so it's basically the same.

It's worth noting that some 3.X options (either 3.5 or 3.0) actually break the PF game into pieces - though each game is similarly balanced, it uses very different concepts to do so, and PF more than either 3rd or 3.5 has a number of places where the assumptions are fundamentally different from the other editions (for a simple example, see Spellcraft where, in PF, it doesn't matter if it's stilled and silent - because of an exceedingly minor word change from 3.5 to PF, it's always assumed that you can identify spells 'cause of little glowing runes and whatnot, whereas that was rather explicitly never the case in the two prior versions of the d20 system), and allowing 3.X assumptions, material or other of any stripe as a hard line (without some element of conversion) will either make its abilities useless, or eliminate what semblance of balance PF has now; though, admittedly, PF's not really that balanced at present, either - it's more of a matter of balancing the two things in very different ways, and thus causing issues by trying to use both balance points at once.

Anyhoo, if you're comfortable using 3.5 material, you can easily use 3rd material.


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SPCDRI wrote:
I was just wondering. Do you allow it all or are you using it all, are you Pathfinder core only, do you use supplement stuff? How does allowing 3.0/3.5 equipment impact Pathfinder? Same with feats, spells, prestige classes and the like. I'm interested to hear it.

In the beginning I had some use of it, now it all gathers dust as everything I need is covered better in Pathfinder.

The major issue I have with 3.X material is that the stuff that was broken in the old game is even more broken in Pathfinder.


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As a DM,my game borrows from all three (3.0 for unnerfed magic, 3.5 for a lot of options, esp when it comes to PrCs, PF for most of the stuff, though I allow wizards to play plain 3.5 style generalists rather than impose the PF style generalist which has proven unpopular)... I still use a lot of monsters from 3.0 3.5... especially when it comes to psionic creatures, since I couln't get my mitts on any volumes DSSSP might have dedicated to the subject.

The Exchange

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I used to include everything I want from 3.0 and 3.5 but fact of the matter is that in the meantime I have problems to read everything Pathfinder-related that I'd like to use, so I basically stopped looking through older material for inspiration.

Also my home players are mostly not interested in anything outside of the Core Rules, so while they wouldn't even know from where my stuff comes, it also enables me to surprise them with material that is well-established within the Paizo community here at the boards. (notable exception being my 12-year-old son who already asked me if he could also be the GM some time in the near future and loves sifting through monster books, AP issues and so on; guess he'll be responsible for the next TPK).


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Most of my games are like "How does X work?" and then we argue between the mechanics of 3/3.5/PF like we're talking about the same game.

So yeah. I'd rather it remain PF though because as much as PF is a horrid accretion of mechanics and dumb rules about jumping pits it is much faster and simpler than it's parents.


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An aggressive powergamer who is allowed to use Pathfinder, 3.5, and 3.0 material can create truly outrageously broken characters.

Let's say I take Improved Sunder from 3.0, Combat Brute, Deadly Concussion, and Greater Sunder.

Improved Sunder from 3.0 lets you inflict double damage when sundering an opponent's weapon

When you use Deadly Concussion to Sunder your opponents' Armor or Shield, you do again the same damage upon the person.

With Greater Sunder, the residual Damage from destroying someone's thing goes to the weilder.

With Combat Brute, when you destroy someone's Weapon or Shield, you get another Free Attack.

Let's say you use Ancestral Relic or Master Craftsman to customize a magic item: a Maul of the Titans that is put on a +1 Adamantine Earthbreaker instead of a +3 Masterwork Greatclub.

So the weapon does triple damage, with 3.0 Improved Sunder that makes it quadruple, with Deadly Concussion, that makes it Octople Damage. With Greater Sunder, the residual damage goes through, and with Combat Brute, you get to do it again!

What do you take next? how about Pushback: every time you hit someone, you get a Free Bull Rush. In Pathfinder, you need Greater Bull Rush to give Attacks of Opporutnity to your Allies. In 3.5 you don't: Improved Bull Rush will do. But you can still take Paired Opportunist via a level in Cavalier or 3 in Inquisitor, so you and all your allies get attacks of opportunity upon your victims of Octople Damage Sundering.

Take Shock Trooper: if you Bull Rush 1 guy into another guy, you get a Free Trip attempt on both of them. With the 3.5 Improved Trip, you get a Free Action attack on them as they go down. With Greater Trip, you also get an Attack of Opportunity on them as they go down. With the 3.0 Feat Knockdown, you get a Free Trip Attempt on anyone you hit for 10+ Damage on a single attack.

Take Panther Claw and Elusive Target. Both activate on Attacks of Opportunity you provoke by moving out of Threatened Squares. Panther Claw lets you make Unarmed Strike Free Action Attacks. Elusive Target lets you Trip for Free. Take 3 levels in Dervish Dancer so you get multiple attacks as you dance around the battlefield. Take Weapon Master so you can automatically inflict maxiumum weapon damage.

Weapon Masters can get an additional +2 to their Threat Ranges that stack on top of Improved Critical.

GMs should allow blending advisedly


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I use about as much from 3.5 and 3.0 as I do from 4e, 2nd edition, and AD&D. Which is to say those materials provide an inspiration and a heuristic from understanding *how* things work, *why* they work, or how they *should* be.

I'm not going to approve a spell, class, PRC, or item just because it's from 3.5, but I might look at it and think about how it could be adapted to fit in the game I'm running. But I would do that for things players are interested from properties that are not even Dungeons and Dragons anyway.

So from my perspective, Pathfinder is just as compatible (and incompatible) with 3.5 as it is with Gamma World, Castle Falkenstein, Feng Shui, and whatever else players are interested in.

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