Pathfinder - MiC and SpC - do they work?

[MDR]

One of the reasons my group moved to pathfinder was that it was our understanding that it was 3.5 compliant for the most part. But we are apprehensive about allowing the 3.5 books, especially the Magic Item Compendium and the Spell Compendium.

Are those two books overpowered, underpowered, or just right for Pathfinder? In the Kingmaker path campaign I'm about to take my players through, should I allow those books and not have to worry? We have noticed that many spells have been 'tweaked' in the Core rulebook from 3.5, and are nervous about breaking things.

[Tael]

Pathfinder is 99% the same. There are a few class features that won't interact right (Rage & Bardic Music are now rounds/day for example), but almost everything works just fine.

There are no changes sufficiently big enough to unbalance the game that I know of.

[Infernalbargain]

PF's close enough to 3.5 in many regards. So judge them by whether you'd allow them in a 3.5 campaign.

[Cartigan]

MiC wouldn't hurt I'm sure, but SpC would mess with the system as it is full of crazy stuff which Pathfinder tried (poorly generally) to tone down from Core

[Tyndmyr]

MiC wouldn't hurt I'm sure, but SpC would mess with the system as it is full of crazy stuff which Pathfinder tried (poorly generally) to tone down from Core

Actually, PF focused on core, which is where the vast majority of broken spells are. Feel free to flip through SpC looking for overpowered stuff....but in general, core is where the trouble is at, and PF didn't even adjust that much. I don't forsee any balance changes coming from allowing SpC.

[peacenlove]

For Spell compendium remember to add a save each round to each spell that applies a severe debuff for several rounds, and remember that dispel magic has no longer a cap to its caster limit but dispels few spells per casting so chain dispel and reaving dispel work differently now.
Magic Item Compendium conflicts in some points with PF core in how to price magic items, choose one, I personally support the MIC one.

[Ravens_cry]

Magic Item Compendium is nice, it gives a lot of nice extra little options for non-magic players. One of my favourite cheap items is the least crystal of swimming, negates all armour check penalty for swimming. This can be a life saver and it's cheap enough you can just buy it in case you need it. In fact, the whole crystal system is a pretty nice way to have ways to deal with different situations without having to carry a dozen different weapons (or worse, armours), around.

[MDR]

Hmmmm, sounds like it would be best if spells and item are agreed on by the group on an individual spell/item basis. Since we all eventually are the GM, we are all interested in keeping things level.

Thanks!

[Draz74]

Yeah, check things on a case-by-case basis from any book. But 99% of Magic Item Compendium should be pretty safe to add to almost any game.

[subject42]

The only item to watch out for in the MiC as a DM is the Ring of Darkhidden. It's dirt cheap and makes you invisible to darkvision. Pathfinder still doesn't have quite as many monsters with methods of catching invisible folks as 3.5 does.

If you're a player, take it immediately.