Porting Pathfinder into 3.5

[danzibr]

Do you do it? How has it gone? Would you suggest it? Any comments?

Right now I'm in a campaign where the Soulknife is using the Pathfinder version of Soulknife, but everything else is 3.5. Seems to be working fine.

[Gemini476]

Hmm.

The "official" way to do it (going backwards in Paizo's conversion guide, that is) is like this:


Hit Dice: Classes with a d6 Hit Die get it reduced to a d4, d8s to d6s, and classes with d10 HD get either a d10 or d8. d12s stay the same.
Dead Levels: Include some, presumably. I'd skip this.
Capstones: Remove them, presumably. I'd skip this.
Anti-multiclass Scaling Class Features: These could probably be changed, since 3.5 is very multiclass-friendly. If you wonder what this is, it's when abilities scale by class level rather than character level. It's there to reward you staying in one class, but yeah. Paizo hates multiclassing.
Restrictions: Like Sneak Attack, making things less lenient in how it can be used. Could probably be kept in the conversion, however. I'd skip this unless the ability already exists in 3.5, in which case I'd either use that version or update everything to use the PF version. Better that than to have even more Sneak Attack-but-not-really abilities around.
New abilities: Removing new abilities, presumably. I'd skip this.


I've never ported anything, but some of the classes look like they might work pretty well in a 3.5 game. Well, some of them at least. The PF Rogue gets massively buffed in the transition, which is nice.


Oh yeah, and give a bunch of things Concentration and remember to split up the skills they combined. Ayup.

[grarrrg]

Hit Dice: Classes with a d6 Hit Die get it reduced to a d4, d8s to d6s, and classes with d10 HD get either a d10 or d8. d12s stay the same.


The only d10 that gets a downgrade would be the Ranger.
The only d8's that get downgraded are the non-Divine Casters.

The main thing would be the condensing of skill lists.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You have to de-condense skills and worry about CMB/CMD. I think that's about it.

[danzibr]

Oh, it's good to know there are official conversion rules. I like Grod's approach, though.

Does anyone have personal experience doing this? Like I said, I have a player who's using the PF Soulknife and it's working wonderfully. Any success stories? Anything to be wary of?

[DJroboninja]

I tried this in my most recent Eberron game, porting in bits and pieces from Pathfinder to try and balance things out. However, over time I realized that I was porting a little too much over and just decided to make the switch to Pathfinder.

From what I've seen, porting martial classes from Pathfinder to 3.5 works pretty well, but bringing spellcasters over can cause issues.

[137beth]

You have to de-condense skills and worry about CMB/CMD. I think that's about it.
Also, if the class grants bonus feats from core, check if/how those feats were changed.

I've tried it with the Magus and it works fine. For casters, you should make a decision about whether to expand their spell lists to include non-core 3.5 sources. Obviously, expanding spell lists would make the class stronger and be more work, so I would only recommend it if you are intent on running a T1-2 game.

[chainer1216]

i've brought over the alchemist, gunslinger, summoner,and paladin. as the gunslinger suggests i also brought in the firearms rules, and outside of class specific feats (like extra lay on hands or extra evolution) i brought over deadly aim. oh and the create pit line of spells, because they are neat.

they all work pretty fine, the only issue i've had so far is that the summoner can be a bit much to handle for DMs not familiar with it, because its really outside the realm of things possible in standard 3.5. Honestly i think grod's got it right, its the skills that you need to worry about fixing.

[Alent]

From what I've seen, porting martial classes from Pathfinder to 3.5 works pretty well, but bringing spellcasters over can cause issues.

Being in the process of going back to 3.5 from Pathfinder, I just wanted to echo this. The physical classes backport nicely, but the casters are just too powerful.

One thing to keep a close eye on when backporting, be careful with ACFs and archetypes. My DM let me use 3.5 ACFs and PF archetypes both on a Fighter (Lore warden)/Wizard/abjurant champion once. I ended up with more feats than hitdice because of how some of the substitutions worked out.

You can also end up ineligible for ACFs because Pathfinder completely changed some of the core classes' features.

[bigstipidfighte]

My group hasn't had any issues bringing Pathfinder spellcasters into the party. Witch and Summoner have both been fine.

As for bringing in pathfinder versions of core classes, we've never tried that, so I can't comment on any issues with pf wizard/cleric etc.

[Coidzor]

The only d10 that gets a downgrade would be the Ranger.
The only d8's that get downgraded are the non-Divine Casters.

The main thing would be the condensing of skill lists.

And, honestly, the Ranger doesn't really need its HD as a d8 instead of a d10.

[ddude987]

In a campaign im in, a 3.5 campaign, a player wanted to play alchemist so the dm let him. We just used 3.5 versions of spells if they existed and 3.5 versions of feats kf they existed. So far everything has gone fine. Were level 8, its an e10 campaign, and the player is about the same power level as others.