Hi all,
My apologies if this is placed in the wrong space - feel free to tell me to re-post this elsewhere - but . . .
My stepson is a gamer - don't matter if its the XBox or pen and paper type games. When I told him about what D&D was "back in the day" his interest was piqued. However, it had been many years since I last played and decided to go with D&D's 4e rules.
What a farce! The last I played was with d20 and/or 3.0/3.5 rules. Which is a great upgrade from the Gary Gygax days of which I'm familiar. The classes and such were upgraded to where "I" thought was primo. I lost faith in D&D.
Fast forward many months and after talking to a co-worker, he told me of Pathfinder, which as I understand it, took the 3.5 rules and made it right. My question is this:
How different are the rules from Pathfinder to the D$D 3.x rules? I don't want to buy another gaming set unless I know that I'm going to like it as I feel burned by D&D's 4e rules and whatnot.
Can I take a pathfinder game and run with the standard 3.5 rules or are there things I need to know with pathfinder that's really different? I'm trying to find a beginner's box to no avail - but still spending almost $80 on a new boxed game sets off a red flag for me as I spent the same on D&D and was thoroughly dissatisfied.
Any input would be greatly apreciated!
Largely, the systems are the same.
Game terms mean the same thing, and the core mechanic is the same.
There are large number of specific things that have changed, though. So a certain feat, spell, or class feature may work differently now.
Overall, I don't have problems running Pathfinder with 3.5 material. I played a lot of 3.5, and really like what Pathfinder has done.
If you "get" the 3rd edition ruleset, you will likewise "get" Pathfinder. The difference (to me) is that PF is a game that is still growing and changing. 3rd edition and 3.5 still have followers but no longer has releases or support from it's publisher.
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All the core Pathfinder rules are free online at the PRD site from Paizo....You can check them out and judge how you like them yourself.
PRD link!
Not much difference from 3.5, mostly just stuff like straightening out some of the combat rules, revamping a couple of skills, some of the crafting rules...not a lot of changes, the skeleton is the same, they just ironed out (or tried to anyway) the glaring issues in 3.5.
That link has links to the Core, Advanced Player's Guide, the Ultimate Books, and the Bestiaries. You can use it all for free and never own a book if you want to.
If you like it then you can make purchases.
I use 3.5 modules with Pathfinder rules all the time, the conversion from one to the other is really simple.
Well, there were a few game balance changes, but nothing too crazy. A Pathfinder PC is a little more powerful than a 3.5 PC, so you might adjust a 3.5 encounter's difficulty upward (or its exp reward downward) by about 1 CR level.
One new thing that I appreciated about Pathfinder is the Combat Maneuver mechanic, which makes things like trips, disarms, bull rushes, and the like a lot simpler and smoother to run. Each PC, NPC, and monster has a Combat Maneuver Bonus (the attack bonus for trying any of these tactics) and a Combat Maneuver Defense (a hard target number like AC, to resist them). You can calculate any 3.5 monster's CMD or CMB yourself.
Apart from that, it essentially runs like core 3.5. A few spells work differently. There has been a little tinkering with experience points. You could take any 3.5 module and play it using Pathfinder with no fuss to speak of.
Can I take a pathfinder game and run with the standard 3.5 rules or are there things I need to know with pathfinder that's really different? I'm trying to find a beginner's box to no avail - but still spending almost $80 on a new boxed game sets off a red flag for me as I spent the same on D&D and was thoroughly dissatisfied.
You can pick up a Beginner Box from the Paizo online store for $35 plus shipping. Not sure why you're finding it for $80 places. (Link to Pathfinder RPG Beginner Box)
The Beginner Box is a trimmed down version of the game though, and only goes up to level 5, and doesn't contain some of the more intricate mechanics like Attacks of Opportunity and Grapple rules and stuff like that.
For that stuff you'd want the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, which has a $50 cover price. (Link to Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook)
You can check out all the rules in the Core Rulebook, the Bestiaries, and a number of additional hardback rule books right here on the site though, as someone already said, by visiting paizo.com/prd for the Pathfinder Reference Document. Seeing is believing, as they say.