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Dyllan
2010-06-05, 12:31 PM
Has anyone tried incorporating the 3.5 experience system, as well as the experience costs of crafting, spellcasting (certain spells) and death, into Pathfinder? How hard is it to pull off?

Starbuck_II
2010-06-05, 12:36 PM
Wait, do you mean make crafting cost Exp again?

Mongoose87
2010-06-05, 12:41 PM
Wouldn't this just be the 3.5 crafting system?

Dyllan
2010-06-05, 12:45 PM
Also the 3.5 experience rewarding system, and levelling experience costs...

You can't have experience costs for crafting, death, spellcasting - or anything else really, unless there's a way for the PCs who paid those costs to eventually catch up. At least, it's a bad idea to do so. The default Pathfinder experience system doesn't allow those who are behind to catch up, because everyone earns the same experience, always. In 3.5, lower level characters earn more for the same level of challenge, so the PC who spent experience crafting, or who died and lost experience, or who cast limited wish half a dozen times, will eventually catch back up to the rest of the party.

And yes, it may just be the 3.5 crafting system. Or, I could keep the skill system from Pathfinder and add the experience costs from 3.5 (since the Pathfinder skill system allows people, with a good enough roll, to craft things they otherwise couldn't).

Starbuck_II
2010-06-05, 12:48 PM
It wouldn't be that hard, but it means they will have not be able to build up till build up enough EXP again (though less worries since XP is a River again).

What does Pathfinder do to death?

Dyllan
2010-06-05, 01:06 PM
Pathfinder removes the experience cost of death, and replaces it with what is basically the equivalent of a negative level, that can be removed with restoration (effectively increasing the gold cost of death). Eventually you get multiple negative levels for death, and can't remove them all immediately.

I think experience being a river, and experience costs for all this, makes for a much more elegant system (although a bit more math for the DM, but that's okay. If you're too lazy to do it, don't DM).

Another_Poet
2010-06-05, 02:55 PM
We do this in my Iron Kingdoms game. We use the PF rules for virtually everything, the "fast" XP track (which is equal to the oldd 3.5 track), but we keep the XP cost of making items and such. This is because in the Iron Kingdoms setting, XP cost of crafting items is an important thing - the more XP you put into an item, the more you risk permanently depleting your own hit points or even killing yourself and getting your soul trapped in the item. This is a systemic rule which explains why it's more common to use mechanika (magical machines) which have low XP cost rather than true magic items. We felt it would be pretty hard to leave such a major aspect of the setting out, so we kept the old crafting rules.

It doesn't cause any problems. I use the 3.5 WBL chart as well so everything is balanced.

Dyllan
2010-06-05, 03:21 PM
So do you calculate experience using the 3.5 rules, or the fast track Pathfinder rules?

Because by the Pathfinder rules, experience is fixed, so anyone who spends some will forever be behind. That's the reason I don't like the Pathfinder rules for experience.