Is it worth it?

[reapersoulEater]

OK so me and my friends just started playing D&d 3.5 ,and 5of us being completely new to this game and 2 of them Veterans from 1E& 2E.

Now. At first i was like"psst Dungeons and dragons? I'm not playing that Nerd s***!" well nevertheless i now love this game and have read almost all 3.5 books in this recent two months. (i Created a Necromancer!! Btw!)

NOW OUT OF NOWHERE! One of the Veteran players is deciding to ditch 3.5 and go to pathfinders because he "Heard online how it was WAY better than 3.5 and it was actually dnd3.75" and a bunch stuff i don't wanna hear.

Now i am actually pretty open minded but i feel that its a unnecessary change, but if any of you ladies and gentlemen would help me in giving me some few reason to change or counter reasons to tell my friend that we should not waste sessions in trying to learn pathfinders new rules.

[jywu98]

OK so me and my friends just started playing D&d 3.5 ,and 5of us being completely new to this game and 2 of them Veterans from 1E& 2E.

Now. At first i was like"psst Dungeons and dragons? I'm not playing that Nerd s***!" well nevertheless i now love this game and have read almost all 3.5 books in this recent two months. (i Created a Necromancer!! Btw!)

NOW OUT OF NOWHERE! One of the Veteran players is deciding to ditch 3.5 and go to pathfinders because he "Heard online how it was WAY better than 3.5 and it was actually dnd3.75" and a bunch stuff i don't wanna hear.

Now i am actually pretty open minded but i feel that its a unnecessary change, but if any of you ladies and gentlemen would help me in giving me some few reason to change or counter reasons to tell my friend that we should not waste sessions in trying to learn pathfinders new rules.

From what I know, PF is supposed be a fix of 3.5. It seems to be doing quite well, considering it is more popular than DnD 4e iirc.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Pathfinder streamlined a couple things, undoubtedly made skills better, and every single piece of material can be found here (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/).

It also sucks. Because other than that, it has the same problems that 3.5 core-only and core + completes does.

And there are no actual statistics backing up the few claims made by Paizo and fans that PF outsells 4e.

[Spruit]

My group has switched to pathfinder about 6 months ago, and we are all very happy with the changes. We don't optimize much so I can't comment on tier 1 classes or uber builds, but for more casual players it fixed a lot of problems that I had with 3.5. Melee classes for one, seem a lot more interesting.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Pathfinder fixed many problems, created some new ones, the usual. I prefer 3.5 personally. Biggest reason to stay the same: if everyone is enjoying 3.5 and you have a good DM, 3.5 works fine.

[AttilaTheGeek]

I swear by Pathfinder. Literally, if I want to emphasize something, I'll say "By the Sixteen Gods of Golarion..." (not really)

Imagine D&D 3.5 without splatbooks, without earth-shattering spells*, and with simpler rules. That's all it is, and that's all it set out to be. It's also completely free.

*They fixed a lot of spells, like Polymorph. Not all of them, but a lot.

When people say "The only way to fix T1 casters would be to go through and rewrite or cut every single spell", Paizo already did it. Also, CMB/CMD makes combat maneuvers so much easier. In my totally unbiased opinion.

[nedz]

It's usually classified as a good set of house-rules for 3.5

This said, whilst I have used it as a source for house rules, it is a very similar game. Some of the changes are very good, but the big problems of 3.5 are not fixed; possibly even exacerbated.

If you are new to the game, or only play at low levels, then you might not have stumbled across these issues as yet.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I would say that it's a superior enough system that I'd recommend it over 3.5 to a group just starting, but not enough to recommend converting an existing campaign over. The fact that it's all online is really nice, though, not going to lie. On the plus side, most of the material is easily cross-compatible, so there's that.

[WhatBigTeeth]

PF's rules are easier to teach and a bit quicker to play once you're familiar with them, most of its splat materials are free, and its classes are designed to have more distinction between their members, and it has continuing support in the form of modules, adventure paths, and the occasional content-dump splatbook.

The biggest downsides of PF are that class balance is about the same as 3e despite its producers' claims to the contrary, and the writers alienated certain members of the internet character optimization community.

Personally, I'm impressed by PF's advantages, and completely apathetic to those drawbacks, but if you're in a situation where you don't expect to have many new players, you write and run all your own adventures, you don't mind the costs or methods involved with obtaining 3e materials, and you're still excited by the obscure 3e clutter that you still haven't tried (like incarnum, binding, ToB and so forth), I could see sticking with 3e; otherwise PF's the easier, faster, cheaper and overall better system to use.

[Answerer]

I personally think Paizo is a pretty worthless development company run by unprofessional and immature prima donnas, and Pathfinder itself introduces at least as many problems as it solves.

I also think attempting to limit 3.x material makes absolutely no sense: the system is not a good one, and the only thing it has going for it is the stupidly-huge amount of material available for it (and the multiclassing system that allows you to use a reasonable amount of that material at once). If you aren't using that, just switch to a better system; there are plenty.

In this vein, I wouldn't "switch" to Pathfinder, even if I liked it, but rather I'd play a combination of Pathfinder and 3.5. Paizo largely failed to deliver on their promise of backwards-compatibility (almost nothing can be used without conversion), but the conversion process isn't difficult in most cases, just time consuming.

[Rejusu]

OK so me and my friends just started playing D&d 3.5 ,and 5of us being completely new to this game and 2 of them Veterans from 1E& 2E.

Now. At first i was like"psst Dungeons and dragons? I'm not playing that Nerd s***!" well nevertheless i now love this game and have read almost all 3.5 books in this recent two months. (i Created a Necromancer!! Btw!)

NOW OUT OF NOWHERE! One of the Veteran players is deciding to ditch 3.5 and go to pathfinders because he "Heard online how it was WAY better than 3.5 and it was actually dnd3.75" and a bunch stuff i don't wanna hear.

Now i am actually pretty open minded but i feel that its a unnecessary change, but if any of you ladies and gentlemen would help me in giving me some few reason to change or counter reasons to tell my friend that we should not waste sessions in trying to learn pathfinders new rules.

Pathfinder made some things better, some things worse. I'd say that it's more a different flavour of 3.5 than a "3.75". It's biggest advantage is in availability since unlike 3.5 it's still in print. At the same time though the amount of material available for it is a fraction of what's there for 3.5 (although it's still largely unavailable to purchase).

Frankly you shouldn't really have much trouble adapting to it. But you need to ask yourselves if it's worth the bother. It's probably better to just cherry pick what you like out of it and work it into your 3.5 games.

[Ellrin]

I'm a long time 3.5 player who's never played PF, but has been preparing for a PF campaign since mid-December and has gone over a lot of the material in that time. (Getting a little worried that campaign isn't going to materialize--haven't even heard from the DM in over a week--but that's neither here nor there.)

I like a lot of what I've seen in Pathfinder. It's very similar to 3.5, and the general statement that it's essentially 3.75 is not a bad way to put it. In addition, it gives a players a ton of customization options which can result in some really interesting roleplaying and mechanical ideas. It doesn't really do what it claims to--fix 3.5--at all, but I don't necessarily care about that as I don't really play to munchkin or with munchkins.

That said, it has problems. I haven't seen it in practise yet, and I can understand the reasoning behind it, but CMB/CMD looks like it's going to infuriate me. From what I can tell, it manages to somehow simultaneously make a lot of attack options harder to pull off as the kind of guy who would rely on them; as well as harder to resist as the kind of guy most vulnerable to them. You almost have to be combat focused in order to know how to tie a knot. What?

The number of things that PF tried to fix (and in fact simply made worse) that didn't need fixing may actually be greater than the number of things PF tried to fix that did.

In addition, most of my favorite classes and races in 3.5 came from non-SRD material, and of course PF can't use non-SRD material. Sure, it's backwards compatible, but there are some issues with that as well.

It's a really neat system, with a lot of great material and ideas, but I would never run a pure PF campaign, myself--I'd rather mix what I like in PF with what I like in 3.5.

[Slipperychicken]

You can kind of play both, actually. One can easily port 3.5 material into PF, or vice versa.

[LTwerewolf]

i'm one of the people that prefers 3.5 to pathfinder. I've played both, and both seem to require about the same amount of house rules, though often in opposite directions. When in doubt though, I prefer more options to fewer, and 3.5 has more than pathfinder does.

"But 3.5 has so many broken things!" Well yeah, it does, but pathfinder has the same.

When we played each, I did find that our most fun campaigns consisted of playing 3.5, using some pathfinder rules, and a couple house rules.

[Answerer]

It's probably better to just cherry pick what you like out of it and work it into your 3.5 games.
This. I like their Smite Evil and I agree with the concept of combining skills (though they did not go far enough). Their favored class rules are... at least better than those in 3.5.

The real problem is all the little details that changed. Slight wording changes in myriad different feats, spells, items, and so on are just a huge headache. And a major reason why I say Paizo failed at backwards-compatibility.

Then again, it's not like I feel they delivered on any of their promises, aside from continuing to publish 3.x material.

[Psyren]

OP, you're not going to get a consensus on whether PF is better than 3.5 here. Some love it, some hate it, but the things most can agree on is that (a) it isn't that different from 3.5, so you won't have much to learn, and (b) it's totally free. So your best bet is just to give it a try and see how much you like it, form your own opinion.

Check out the classes and other rules for yourself here. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/)

[Rejusu]

This. I like their Smite Evil and I agree with the concept of combining skills (though they did not go far enough). Their favored class rules are... at least better than those in 3.5.

The real problem is all the little details that changed. Slight wording changes in myriad different feats, spells, items, and so on are just a huge headache. And a major reason why I say Paizo failed at backwards-compatibility.

Then again, it's not like I feel they delivered on any of their promises, aside from continuing to publish 3.x material.

Personally that's why I think it's probably better to use 3.5 as the base and import PF changes. It's a lot less work than trying to import the huge amount of 3.5 material.

I quite like how they did away with XP costs, and it's something I might ask my current DM to adopt since we don't plan on using XP. Might reopen some doors that have been closed.

[Alaris]

OK so me and my friends just started playing D&d 3.5 ,and 5of us being completely new to this game and 2 of them Veterans from 1E& 2E.

Now. At first i was like"psst Dungeons and dragons? I'm not playing that Nerd s***!" well nevertheless i now love this game and have read almost all 3.5 books in this recent two months. (i Created a Necromancer!! Btw!)

NOW OUT OF NOWHERE! One of the Veteran players is deciding to ditch 3.5 and go to pathfinders because he "Heard online how it was WAY better than 3.5 and it was actually dnd3.75" and a bunch stuff i don't wanna hear.

Now i am actually pretty open minded but i feel that its a unnecessary change, but if any of you ladies and gentlemen would help me in giving me some few reason to change or counter reasons to tell my friend that we should not waste sessions in trying to learn pathfinders new rules.

Well, as a person who has played both 3.5 and Pathfinder, I will give you the rundown.

Pathfinder is... EXTREMELY similar to 3.5 in it's rules. The goal they were going for was a "Fix" for 3.5, or an "Upgrade."

There are some streamline fixes that I didn't like, but overall, it is a working system. And the best part? It's pretty much compatible with 3.5. You only have to make a FEW MINOR CHANGES to a 3.5 feat, class, prestige class or the like, and it will work in Pathfinder.

All in all, while I stick with 3.5 (because it was my first D&D edition), Pathfinder is a good system, and it will get my recommendation for at least a try (or look over the rules). It fixes some of the major loopholes (but introduces some of it's own).

[Hand_of_Vecna]

My opinion is that Pathfinder is alright and it has some great material that is compatable with 3.5. It's original Base classes are fun and it has a lot of feats that are cool if not actually good. It even has some changes in it's core rules that can make good houserules.

However I think playing with just Pathfinder and throwing out all your 3.5 splat is just foolish. I also don't recommend swapping out core systems because Pathfinder has a lot of unecessary changes that aren't fixing things that were broken and these changes will sneak up on you because so many other things are identical you'll find your eyes glazing over as you reread 3.5 rules and you'll miss the 1 actual change in a section until it comes back to haunt you in an actual session.

[Slipperychicken]

My opinion is that Pathfinder is alright and it has some great material that is compatable with 3.5. It's original Base classes are fun and it has a lot of feats that are cool if not actually good. It even has some changes in it's core rules that can make good houserules.


That was more or less the goal of PF: print 3.5-compatible material for all the 3.5 players who WotC abandoned, while still having a standalone game system for new players to jump into. I think they succeeded at this.

[Big Fau]

Just a note, the developers are jerks of the lowest variety.

I'd convert to Legend before Pathfinder. But I hold the devs of Legend in far higher regard than I hold the devs of Pathfinder (and their forum moderators). For now, I'll stick to what I know best.

[ghost_warlock]

There really isn't any need to switch or choose - Pathfinder is compatible with 3.5 with some adjustments. I recently played in a game with 3.5 cleric, fighter, and warblade alongside a Pathfinder druid and witch. Worked out better than expected - just a matter of choosing which leveling system you want to use for feats and stat bonuses and some tinkering with skills. Some spells and feats are different between the two but the differences are rarely a big deal. Note that the Pathfinder versions of the core classes have more class abilities. The classes in some of the splat books look pretty fun, too.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Locked for review.