prestige in pathfinder

[limejuicepowder]

Well I just bought the pathfinder core book, as my DnD group is trying it out for something new to do. However, I have a supreme concern: is the mountain of prestige classes, extra classes, feats, and AFC's available for use in pathfinder? How "compatible" is a beguiler, or a hexblade, or ToB, etc, with the pathfinder rules system?

[Corlindale]

Well, that's for your GM to decide, really. It's usually pretty easy to convert stuff from 3.5 to PF with only minor changes, but it all depends on whether your group intends to do a pure PF game or a mix.

Both are viable, though I think I would recommend starting out with pure PF material, so that you can get to know the system and the changes. Also, some stuff from 3.5 might not be well-balanced with PF options, so keep that in mind.

[sonofzeal]

Officially, no, they're out unless a PF version exists. However, many groups play 3.5-PF blends (generally refered to as "3.P").

You'll generally have to houserule non-PF stuff to fit it into a PF game. Classes will have to be tweaked. Some spells and PrCs and feats modify things that don't exist any more, or have been radically altered. The power curve has been shifted up across the board, and given that Core already had much of the most powerful stuff in the game, that leaves non-Core 3.5 classes and races feeling a bit dejected.

If you're willing to do some creative homebrewing you should be able to fit stuff in. This is a great time to institute the fixes various things already needed, in the process.

Or, you could just play 3.5 and do the same job homebrewing and likely end up with something that fits your current group better than PF. So there's always that, too.

[Tarnesh]

It's viable, you'd have to make some small adjustments: HD, skill requirements... little things usually. Personally (since I'm a Monodominant :P) I'd use only Pathfinder, although as has already been stated you could mix the two.
In my group we use Pathfinder, plus the 3.5 (or 3.0!) material presented by one of us to the DM (for example: "my mage would really appreciate to be a "Master of Absurd", how can we convert it in PF?"). It has worked so far.

[Keneth]

We've switched to PF and decided to disregard all 3.5 material. I thought the transition would be harder but to be frank I very rarely find myself wanting anything. Perhaps the occasional feat or spell but those can be easily converted should the need ever arise.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Don't go pure Pathfinder. It isn't better than 3.5. It's basically just more support for the same system, and some better base mechanics.

Don't be fooled by the shiny new fighter, they nerfed his feats.

Monk is now viable past level six, but only if you use archetypes.

Sorc is almost good enough to be considered tier 1, and human sorc with the APG alternate race feature could easily be tier 1.

They nerfed spells, but here's the thing, they only nerfed the friendly spells. No more using Grease or Blink for sneak attacks, but Gate, the Planar Binding/Ally lines, and the Summon Monster line weren't nerfed at all.

Also, don't buy any of the PF books past the core book, unless you want to support Paizo and/or have the art, since there's the third-party SRD (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/) and the first-party PRD (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/). The third-party one isn't as well organized, but has weapons and feats and PrCs from Paizo's campaign setting, and third-party content.

[Curious]

Also, don't buy any of the PF books past the core book, unless you want to support Paizo and/or have the art, since there's the third-party SRD (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/) and the first-party PRD (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/). The third-party one isn't as well organized, but has weapons and feats and PrCs from Paizo's campaign setting, and third-party content.

The SRD also has links to everything, making it much easier to navigate.

[Benly]

My recommendation for pure vs. mixed: either go pure PF for the convenience of having everything in one place via PFSRD, or allow things from 3.5 on a case-by-case basis with a preference for things that make the lower-tier classes better rather than the billion spells for clerics to cherry-pick.

[Coidzor]

Fairly easy to port things over, most things that are actually good in 3.X can just go straight over. I'd basically do the usual thing of houseruling/not porting over particularly egregious things, but, by and large, most things should be fine to allow with a minimal amount of work to convert the things you end up actually using out of that pool of kosher content.

And if you wanna buy things to support Paizo, consider the adventure paths, especially considering that their writing strong suit lies in adventures rather than mechanics. That, and, IIRC, a good part of the reason pathfinder exists is to have continued support for a system that their adventure writing paradigm works with (and possibly whatever licensing schema 4e was using made 3rd party adventures problematic to market) from what I've gathered.


We've switched to PF and decided to disregard all 3.5 material. I thought the transition would be harder but to be frank I very rarely find myself wanting anything. Perhaps the occasional feat or spell but those can be easily converted should the need ever arise.

These two things, they're contradictory. Mutually exclusive, even.