They don't convert very well at all in my experience.
PF is inherently more balanced. They had time to take a look at the 3.5 system and remove some of the worst abuses, or simply not port over expansions which broke things.
Combining the two can be bad. There's a bevy of feats and magic items which are not balanced to the idea that the other exists, let alone the massive number of spells and abusable interactions that way.
The classes generally port over just fine. However, the caster classes are done with mind to PF spell balance. Go back to 3.5 spells, and they are way overpowered.
==Aelryinth
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I look at Pathfinder (PF) as the next logical step from 3.5. IMHO, PF is what 4e SHOULD have been. Converting over from 3.5 to PF is simple enough. Granted PF doesn't have nearly as many class options as 3.5 does, but, if there is something from 3.5 that you really MUST have, it can be converted over easily enough. But these "one hit wonders" should be kept to a minimum.
As far as going from PF to 3.5, why would you want to? I liken that to owning a 72" HD television and then "upgrading" to a black and white "boob tube". Though PF is not perfect (no system is) it certainly looks slicker and flows together better than the 1 million plus options that 3.5 required us to keep up with.
Just my two coppers, though.
I look at Pathfinder (PF) as the next logical step from 3.5. IMHO, PF is what 4e SHOULD have been. Converting over from 3.5 to PF is simple enough. Granted PF doesn't have nearly as many class options as 3.5 does, but, if there is something from 3.5 that you really MUST have, it can be converted over easily enough. But these "one hit wonders" should be kept to a minimum.
As far as going from PF to 3.5, why would you want to? I liken that to owning a 72" HD television and then "upgrading" to a black and white "boob tube". Though PF is not perfect (no system is) it certainly looks slicker and flows together better than the 1 million plus options that 3.5 required us to keep up with.
J
Right. Other than campaign related stuff, like Faerun or Greyhawk, I see no reason at all to drag 3.5 stuff into PF, and as for the other ways, that's just going backwards.
Just becuase it came out after doesn't mean its going backwards. There are plenty of 3.5 classes/monsters with no equivalent, and enviroment conditions and systems like taint which have no equivalent that some of my friends are big fans of.
That said, I don't think the game is backwards compatable and moving anything forward or back needs some tweaking.
I was curious what you all think about the 2 systems and how well they are with converting back and forth?
Do they keep balance or is the material for one too powerful or low for the other.
Discuss away.
While I take classes, monsters, magic items and some feats (where they haven't appeared in PF yet) from 3E to my PF game I wouldn't say they are 100% compatible. 99% of the time default to how PF does it just for simplicity's sake. I don't think I would mesh them completely together or use both types of a single feat (for example) just seems like you are asking for some weird rule interactions there and more work for the DM.
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I've done a full convert of the Jage Regent AP to 3.5 and i had to do almost nothing to it.
a little back ground i run gray hawk rules, I'm use the setting for jade regent but all my pc are strait players hand book with 30 point buy left all the monsters and every thing alone its been a hard fight a few times where just ending book 3 but alot of fun. Oh if i have the monster in 3.5 books I use them but many are not in my books so i look them up here, and yes i attack my party with things like the Magus and summoner the fun thing is they have not read the pathfinder PRD so its all new to them.
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I prefer 3.5, probabably more because I'm more comfortable with it it even now. I've never been the type to comb through spells, equipment, etc.
For the most part, PF characters are stronger than 3.5; classes have more goodies in PF. Both have some holes in the rules. A lot of Spells are more powerful in 3.5 than PF. Monsters cross over well, with minor tweaks to CR and a few stats needed.
You can run a 3.5 adventure in PF with only a few tweaks needed on the fly, and maybe adding a bit to the challenge the adventure specifies.
Going back and forth between the two is a bit annoying. I always feel a bit off balance because of easy to forget minor differences. I DM 3.5 with a few rules ported from PF and a some house rules. I go through periods where I GM and play PF in PFS; as the ruleset bloats, I'm less willing to GM because I just don't value putting the time in to keep up. As the culture between the two widens, I find most of the new cultural assumptions in PF as seen in PFS grate on me.
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As far as going from PF to 3.5, why would you want to?
Not everyone agrees that Pathfinder is overall the better system; whilst I feel Paizo made some great improvements over 3.5 (consolidation of skills, death at negative Con Score) I feel some things got worse (Channelling, Grapple rules) and so overall I prefer 3.5 still.
Also, if your preferred setting is in 3.5, you have loads or 3.5 material, and / or you simply know 3.5 better you may be better served by playing 3.5 and importing the odd bit of PF material you want.
Better question, why would I want to go from 3.5e to PF?
I only did it because everyone else did. Doesn't mean I am happy with it.
I like aspects of both games. One thing that would be nice would be a Forgotten Realms done to Pathfinders rule set. a lot of the fun worlds that made D&D so popular feel lost since they made the leap to the Horrid 4th and no love for the 3.75 pathfinder. It would be alot of work for one person to convert the realms over.
It would probably be easier to bring forgotten realms to pathfinder, then to bring pathfinder to 3.5. Most of the crunch could be converted to pathfinder and obviously the flavor of the world is system neutral.
If you need help converting any specific aspect of forgotten realms, I am sure people would be happy to help you, but most of it can probably be used as is or with slight modifications.
In my experience, Pathfinder converts very well to DnD3.5. This is because a lot of the things Pathfinder actually changed are very minor; the system mostly only adds to DnD3.5 and this addendum is easily ignorable.
The other way around, however, is only compatible on paper. Enemies and PCs from 3.5 will feel weak and crippled in a Pathfinder setting.
The way I see it; is that while the two systems are very compatible in terms of rules and can easily be mixed together, they're not compatible in terms of satisfaction!
Because in it's basicsm it's in every way an improved system? Base classes are no longer something to escape from into a PrC as soon as possible? Because it's an opportunity to jettison all that unbalanced splatbook garbage from 3.X?Better question, why would I want to go from 3.5e to PF?
I could argue some things are meh. Splatbooks add in some good flavor and add to the game, what you add is up to you and the GM anyway. PrCs in pathfinder aren't even worth going into most of the time. Green faith acolyte I don't even understand.
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-The underlying mechanics from PF to 3.5 are almost identical.
-The core classes are stronger in PF than 3.5.
-3.5 had a ton of optional content covering a vast array of PrCs, feats, spells, and other character options that have no equivalent in PF. Not all of it well balanced.
If you are mainly already playing 3.5e and are looking to include PF material then you should be just fine dropping it straight in. A skilled 3.5e GM is probably already fairly good at stopping corner case abuses so having MORE of these abuses available by adding in PF content shouldn't be an issue if you take time to familiarize yourself with the PF content. You might even see more straight classed characters than you would playing 3.5e alone.
If you want to play PF and add in 3.5e content then it becomes trickier. A lot of tiny things changed and so many of the cloud of optional content would dramatically alter the game if dropped straight in. It is best to include things with caution and a careful review on a case by case basis.
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Better question, why would I want to go from 3.5e to PF?
I only did it because everyone else did. Doesn't mean I am happy with it.
1. Skills have been condensed, and so have the feats that grant you bonuses to them.
2. The feat trees have been reworked-- fewer underpowered or corner-case feats, more feats to choose from in general.3. The spells that created the worst abuses have been nerfed or clarified, while still leaving plenty of solid spells.
4. Grappling and other combat maneuvers have had their rules streamlined and made much easier to remember.
5. Class abilities now favor player options more strongly-- for example, druids can choose a domain instead of an animal companion, wizards can choose a bonded item instead of a familiar, and so forth-- so that two characters of the same race and class have more freedom of specialization.
As for what Pathfinder lost in the transition, my biggest regret is losing cross-skill bonuses-- five ranks in Knowledge: Local no longer gives you a boost to Gather Information, for example. But since a lot of those skill pairs are now the same skill anyway, I'm not sure how much of a difference it actually makes.
You mean SYNERGY bonuses between skills?
Way too much book-keeping. Remembering that 5 ranks of Rope use gives you +2 on Escape Artist is just meh.
==Aelryinth
You mean SYNERGY bonuses between skills?
Way too much book-keeping. Remembering that 5 ranks of Rope use gives you +2 on Escape Artist is just meh.
It didn't give you a +2 to escape artist. It gave you a +2 to using escape artist specifically for ropes, which if I remember right where one of the easier things to escape from. Use rope its self was useless in most of the games I played unless someone really wanted to tie someone up in rope(I carried chains). Synergy was also imbalanced and gave you 8 points for putting 5 points in bluff. The book keeping for it was meh and easy to forget.