I apologize in advance as I am sure this has been covered but my search function is acting wonky.
I am new to pathfinder and planned on just mixing 3.5 and pathfinder for the most part interchangably.
1) Are there any major down falls to this I should be aware of?
2) I plan on using PF races and classes but planned to allow 3.5 classes and some feats.
(I know some of them are a bit broken, but as the GM I typically discuss this with players and we make agreeable changes as needed.)
More feats always means more exploits, and it is almost certain that there are some posibilities that work only when combining D&D and PF material. But that's really obvious and I don't think in any way worse than what you can do with only PF or only D&D.
Races should be the thing that is the easiest to put into a PF game. There are rather few things in race traits, that would work differently.
I made the grievous mistake of allowing the 3.5 Monk Feat "Vow of Poverty" in my PF game. Never again.
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I've done this for years and had no major issues. That said my players typically don't deliberately try to break things. If your group is known for squeezing out every last little exploit they might try to pull some stuff.
Some of the classes do require some tweaking - skills that got merged or removed for example, and some classes will need their HD adjusted to match their BAB (with the exception of the rare d12 classes). Not difficult to do though.
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I've pretty much decided the last 3.5 thing I'm going to allow is Tome of Battle, though even the Warblade needs tweaking a tiny bit.
Pathfinder is meant to be "Backwards Compatible" but not really for Character Options, because a lot of the things that players would want to import into PF from 3.5E are spells, feats, combinations, and the like which PF was specifically designed to exclude, because they were broken/easily breakable, to one degree or another.
It's "backwards compatible" with 3.5E with respect to adventures, monsters, and the like. Also potentially some weapons (One of the devs told me in a post some time ago that it would probably be fine to allow whip-daggers in the game, because they're not *that* superior to the existing scourge, for example).
Orthos is correct, though, really; as long as you have players who aren't looking for exploits, then it won't ruin anything. It's a YMMV thing, just be careful which parts you let in and aware of the things PF decided, consciously, to exclude or alter.
Thanks all,
my players tend not to TRY and break things also few if any put the kind of time into researching the rules to even make a true attempt at min/maxing beyond dumping CHR.
Also I tend to be the kind of GM that wants to know why "in character" players want to take X or Y feat or class.
Again thanks for the info!!
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For my own home games, I allow 3.5 material for only certain parts of the games.
Races, Classes, and most Feats from 3.5 are not permitted.
Spells with certain restrictions, Magic Items that aren't available due to not being part of the OGL, and most magic armor and weapon enhancements are all legal in my games.
My rules about spells are: 1) If there is a Pathfinder Updated version of the spell, you must use that version, and 2) The DM (me) always has the right to tell you no without needing to explain why for this particular rule.
For the most part, my games all go very closely to RAW, so as a result I don't tend to fudge things on paper when it comes to NPC abilities and weird mechanics that take place in the world.
If someone wants a particular monster from 3.5 to be on their list of things they can summon, or for a familiar/ animal companion that they couldn't get in PFRPG, usually I allow it without too many problems.
My number one thing is not to take too many options away from the players, and I've learned as a DM that there isn't anything I can't kill, so I needn't worry about the power level of my PC's.