PF/3.5 Fusion

[sammyp03]

If you were to combine the best from both Pathfinder and 3.5 rules, classes ,etc... which ones would you use and why?

[Fouredged Sword]

3.5 is great because it is expansive and HUGE. It has more books than one can reasonably buy.

Pathfinder is great because it is more streamlined and the creators realized some (by no means all) of the flaws in 3.5 and attempted to shave off some of the low hanging fruit.

I would do what most people playing 3.P do, take pathfinder and tack a conversion of whatever Pazio and DSP have yet to convert over for me. IE, pathfinder core rules with all the 3.5 expansiveness.

[Psyren]

From 3.5:

- One Improved Feat per maneuver (Grapple, Trip etc.) These would combine the Improved and Greater versions of the PF feats.
- Any base classes that don't already have a useful PF conversion in 1st or 3rd party (e.g. Warlock, DFA/DS/ Artificer.) These would be scaled up or down as necessary to match PF's design goal. Some (e.g. Sha'ir and Marshal) might become archetypes of existing classes.
- The better/more unique non-core spells, feats, domains, powers and items.
- The more thorough guidelines on morality (tweaked in some places - e.g. Poison and Drugs should not be inherently evil; causing undue pain & suffering should.)
- Cool 3.5-only races like Neraph, Dvati and Buomman, all LA 0 and buffed to PF standards.
- Probably a few other things I'm forgetting.

From PF:

- Pretty much everything else

[sammyp03]

I am not very familiar with Pathfinder. What things did they trim off of 3.5?

[Akisa]

From 3.5:

- One Improved Feat per maneuver (Grapple, Trip etc.) These would combine the Improved and Greater versions of the PF feats.
- Any base classes that don't already have a useful PF conversion in 1st or 3rd party (e.g. Warlock, DFA/DS/ Artificer.) These would be scaled up or down as necessary to match PF's design goal. Some (e.g. Sha'ir and Marshal) might become archetypes of existing classes.
- The better/more unique non-core spells, feats, domains, powers and items.
- The more thorough guidelines on morality (tweaked in some places - e.g. Poison and Drugs should not be inherently evil; causing undue pain & suffering should.)
- Cool 3.5-only races like Neraph, Dvati and Buomman, all LA 0 and buffed to PF standards.
- Probably a few other things I'm forgetting.

From PF:

- Pretty much everything else

Well darn there goes my Paladin now that she can't drink alcohol because it's evil now. And the act of using anesthetic is now evil and should be stopped!

[Psyren]

I am not very familiar with Pathfinder. What things did they trim off of 3.5?

That's a loaded question. I've been working on a guide to go through the changes in more detail, but Saph's old primer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?136890-The-3-5-Pathfinder-Handbook) is a good start.


Well darn there goes my Paladin now that she can't drink alcohol because it's evil now. And the act of using anesthetic is now evil and should be stopped!

4th bullet covers that :smalltongue:

[Fouredged Sword]

Well, they are much younger in the design cycle, so they don't have the shear quantity of late 3.5. 3.5 has tons of shear pages of stuff that isn't in pathfinder.

Besides that, pathfinder made more of an effort to make each class unique. They did this by buffing almost everyone so there isn't a class without interesting class features to advance.

They didn't "cut" much. Some stuff was removed for balance though. Shapeshifting works much more fairly (no str 4 druid turning into a str 40 monster anymore). Combat maneuvers and defending yourself from them are much more straightforward (though the feats got unnecessarily split into two).

Really, it's mostly just small changes.

The best part is the wonderful and rabid devotion to open content. Almost ALL pathfinder is online and open for anyone to use. BEST part of the system really.

[(Un)Inspired]

Best Things Pathfinder Has
-Their skill system
-Their feat progression
-The Oracle class

best Things 3.5 Has
-Nice(ish) 1st party stuff for melee
-Larger variety of strong options in core
-The Factotum class
-The Binder class
-Just like, so so many cool prestige classes

[Ssalarn]

Well, they are much younger in the design cycle, so they don't have the shear quantity of late 3.5. 3.5 has tons of shear pages of stuff that isn't in pathfinder.

Besides that, pathfinder made more of an effort to make each class unique. They did this by buffing almost everyone so there isn't a class without interesting class features to advance.

They didn't "cut" much. Some stuff was removed for balance though. Shapeshifting works much more fairly (no str 4 druid turning into a str 40 monster anymore). Combat maneuvers and defending yourself from them are much more straightforward (though the feats got unnecessarily split into two).

Really, it's mostly just small changes.

The best part is the wonderful and rabid devotion to open content. Almost ALL pathfinder is online and open for anyone to use. BEST part of the system really.

Yeah, Pathfinder's accessibility and strong support of 3pp is a big point in their favor. When you tag in all the stuff that's out there from 3pp sources, there's very little of worth or interest not already converted from 3.5 to Pathfinder:
Psionics: Dreamscarred Press
Binder: Radiance House
Incarnum: Akashic Mysteries from Dreamscarred Press
Marshal: Battlelord from Amora Games (in their Liber Influxus Communis book)
Healer: Forsworn from Little Red Goblin Games
Truenaming: Great update port from DSP pending, awesome re-imagining by Interjection Games available
Warlock: Several great ways to cover this concept in Spheres of Power by Drop Dead Studios
Shadow Magic: upcoming port from DSP, serviceable replacements in Interjection Games Edgewalker and Antipodist currently available


I also really like the switch to CMB/CMD over all the diverse combat subsystems in 3.5 (an issue leading to them double-dipping size in the way it's calculated is easily fixable); my players are much more likely to try something other than attack in Pathfinder, just because it's easier for them to understand and execute.

One of the things 3.5 had that I used to miss a bit in Pathfinder is the plethora of playable races, but with the elimination of LA, the variety of racial subvariants(Blood of Angels/Fiends/the Night/the Moon), and the quality of the 3pp work, Pathfinder is pretty much caught up, and has something that covers all my missing favorites; Blood of the Moon gives me shifter replacements in the Skinwalkers, In the Company of Ironborn from Rite Publishing gives me much more elegant and versatile Warforged replacements, etc.

Probably the only thing I really have to go back to 3.5 for any more is PrCs.