[3.5] Things You Port From Other Editions

[Thurbane]

Just curious: is there any rules or other things for earlier (1E, 2E) or later (4E, 5E) D&D editions that you use in your 3.5 games?

In our games, we use a slightly modified version of the 2E Mirror Image spell instead of the 3.5 version.

Cheers - T

[Buufreak]

Lore, mostly. I really enjoyed alot of the plot, story, and general fluff from 4e.

[mabriss lethe]

I've pulled a good bit of general design influence from 5e to incorporate into my (very slowly coming together) Refined 3rd ed project.

I've also adapted some of the Legendary/Lair/etc mechanics to 3.5 as a houserule and I'm incorporating them into re3 as well

[daremetoidareyo]

Mooks and the bloodied condition from 4th

[Karl Aegis]

Tiefling randomized trait table
Magen
Inspiration

[ShurikVch]

Tiefling randomized trait table3E Races of Faerûn has a bit of it too
Which one you using?

[Aniikinis]

Mostly magic items, monsters, and spells. Though occasionally I'll pull a fast one with my players and throw them a major boon in the lines of a 2e fairy dragon or original young purple dragon cohort for a bit. Also, lore means little to me given that I almost exclusively use homebrew setting or run games in either Generica or Sinkis, Of the Locale Kitchen.

[Malphegor]

Our DM's told us he's using inspriation from 5e, so I'm not sure how that works since it's only come up once.

(I'm sure that'll get excessively confusing if I ever play a factotum changeling, since factotums run on their own 'inspiration' points)

I think we're also running on infinite cantrips as pathfinder/4e/5e do, with only the healing ones not being included in that for obvious reasons. (I've always acted as if they're finite though because I haven't had a concrete answer on whether that's the case)

[Psyren]

I bring lots of things from 3.5 into PF.

For future systems, there isn't a ton mechanically. I like 5e's "Legendary Actions" for boss monsters. 4e's Paragon Paths, where even the most martial classes become less mundane as they climb, is a good philosophy but takes some finagling in practice.

[RoboEmperor]

Lore, mostly. I really enjoyed alot of the plot, story, and general fluff from 4e.

Yeah just lore. 3.5 doesn't give any information about a creature other than their stat block. Even their knowledge check descriptions is about the statblock.

[Biggus]

I give Fighters the Indomitable class feature from 5E which enables them to reroll a failed save 1/2/3 times a day. Fills in some of their dead levels and makes them suck a bit less (I also give them the Bravery class feature from PF which increases their Will saves against fear; it never sat right with me that the Fighter is one of the classes most likely to run screaming from danger).

[Mr Adventurer]

Bloodied as a description of when a creature is at or below half hit points. If I'm running, I'll typically try to not even describe attacks as connecting in the traditional sense (since HP are luck, vigor etc. as much as anything) until it's at half HP or less.

[jintoya]

This is a hobby of mine, if I get a new book, read through it and find anything at all that I like, I alter it or recreate it to fit in my 3.5 game.

It goes beyond tabletop setting too, I do it with movies, games, books I've read...I once ran a Wreck-it-Ralf setting with elements from .Hack

[Biggus]

Bloodied as a description of when a creature is at or below half hit points.

What edition is that from?

[zfs]

What edition is that from?

Bloodied is from 4th Edition.

Seconding/Thirding Legendary Actions and Lair Actions, which I find to be a fun, simple way to give a little extra sizzle to boss fights, making them both more memorable and more dangerous. I tell my players before we begin the campaign that legendary actions and lair actions exist, but not which monsters will have them.

[Mr Adventurer]

Yes, sorry, bloodied as a condition is from 4e. In that game there are a bunch of things that can come into effect tied to that condition, like extra damage or actions as a creature becomes more frenzied. But I just use it as shorthand for "you are starting to win this battle"

[Ryton]

Aside from what's already been posted, technically I port the 3e samurai since its CW counterpart is... underwhelming.

Otherwise, I like offering Dreamscarred Press' Path of War schools to 3.5's Tome of Battle characters. More options for martials generally makes for more fun for martials.

[Crake]

I bring lots of things from 3.5 into PF.

For future systems, there isn't a ton mechanically. I like 5e's "Legendary Actions" for boss monsters. 4e's Paragon Paths, where even the most martial classes become less mundane as they climb, is a good philosophy but takes some finagling in practice.

I do the opposite, I port a lot of things from pf into 3.5 :smalltongue:

I also like grabbing a bunch of interesting knick knack ideas from earlier editions, random, obscure things like gorgon blood painted on walls preventing ethereal access. I also yoinked weirdstones, and then made a homebrew variant of water that's mixed with incredibly fine weirdstone powder that can be splashed on people to prevent teleportation, kinda like an alchemical dimensional anchor. There's a whole short adventure I ran that introduced it, ancient mages were using it in a large ring of water to essentially make a giant area of no-teleportation to prevent planar tears while they were doing shadow plane experiments. The players broke the ring without understanding it's purpose, and released a wraithstorm. Ah yes, the good ol' wraithstorm of 09BE, Orcus remembers it well.

[RedMage125]

I also incorporate the bloodied condition!

I use it because I will not discuss enemy hp, no matter how much my players ask, and I also ask that they not discuss hp totals during combat, as it breaks immersion. So when the cleric says "who needs healing?", appropriate responses are: "I was bloodied 2 hits ago, I can't take another one", "I'm hurt a little, but not even bloodied", or "I'm not quite bloodied, but close to it". Of course, if players break this and mention hp totals, all they get is Sern Look Of DM Disapproval +2, but it's not a problem that often.

Also, magical healing resets negative hps to 0 before healing is applied. So when someone's at -7 hp, and the cleric rolls poorly with a CLW and gets 5 total, the guy healed is at 5 hp, not -2. This allows a player who was down to be back in the fight and doing something again, and allows the healer to feel like their action was constructive. A specific exception to this (and it did come up with me) is Frenzied Berserkers with Deathless Frenzy. All negative hps have to be healed up to or above -10 before frenzy ends.

Hide and Move Silently are one skill: Stealth. I know 2 separate abilities is more realistic, but this is a GAME. Simulationism isn't important if it isn't FUN. Likewise, Spot and Listen get rolled into Perception, so defenders don't get 2 chances to notice Stealthy creatures/ Search remains a separate, INT-based skill, as it is actively looking as opposed to a chance to notice something. Anything that grants a +2 bonus to both Spot and Listen (elf racial, Alertness feat), instead grants a +3 to Perception.

Those were all ported from 4e, really.

[Job]

4e:

Artifact concordance
Max damage for crits instead of multipliers and confirmation rolls
Bloodied condition.

5e:

Reduction in number of skills
Advantage/Disadvantage in some corner cases.

2e:

Magic items with weird, horriable downsides for no good reason.

[weckar]

Being on my way of converting a lot of 2e Ravenloft material to 3.5, you could say that.

A lot of 2e things don't REALLY make sense, but ya know.

[soullos]

I import from 5e healing by rolling your HD during a short rest (I define a short rest in 3.5 as 15 minute break of catching your breath doing nothing extraneous). I also modify it a bit saying per short rest, any source of healing the PC receives they can roll their HD equal to the spell level of the effect. In combat you drink a CLW potion healing 1d8+1 plus your rolling 1 HD + Con on top of that since it's a 1st level spell.

You only provoke AoO from leaving a threatened space, casting a spell or making a ranged attack.

I'm also testing out a Concentration mechanic from 5e, where you can only have a certain amount of active spells (any spells with a limited duration other than Permanent) at once and damage can disrupt those spells. In 5e it's one spell but that's too little for 3.5. So I think 3 + Con is a good start (Mage Armor, 0 level spells and at-will spells/spell-like abilities are not effected).

Like in 5e, you can make all your attacks while moving. I translate that to where a Standard action means you can make all your attacks from BAB, or all Primary natural weapons (Secondary natural weapons still require you to park your butt and not move to get those as well, this is so most monsters won't destroy the PC with tons of attacks on a Standard action).

Essentially I want to lesson the need of a cleric for healing, give martials some love, reign in on the casters (you can knock a wizard out of the sky with a well placed hit fro example), and make combat smoother and more fluid getting rid of AoO nonsense. I know, drastic changes, but my players like the changes so far, even the active spell limit and my games run smoother as a result. YMMV lol

[inuyasha]

1. Essentially everything from Planescape. Ravenloft too. I just love those two settings in their 2e incarnations
2. I frequently find myself using the dungeon generation charts from 1e, or at least some of them.
3. Several random appendices from 1e as well
4. Treasure generation/treasure amounts from 3.0 in my PF games are great, a lot more fun.
5. "Cheesy" options from 3.0 in my PF games are also great. Stuff like Keen and Improved Crit stacking. If I'm a master warrior, a magic sword should make me even better, a cut above if you will.

[Psyren]

Yeah just lore. 3.5 doesn't give any information about a creature other than their stat block. Even their knowledge check descriptions is about the statblock.

The statblocks do have lore, it's just that a lot of that isn't included in the SRD. The MM entry for Efreet for example talks about the City of Brass, but the SRD doesn't.



I also like grabbing a bunch of interesting knick knack ideas from earlier editions, random, obscure things like gorgon blood painted on walls preventing ethereal access. I also yoinked weirdstones, and then made a homebrew variant of water that's mixed with incredibly fine weirdstone powder that can be splashed on people to prevent teleportation, kinda like an alchemical dimensional anchor. There's a whole short adventure I ran that introduced it, ancient mages were using it in a large ring of water to essentially make a giant area of no-teleportation to prevent planar tears while they were doing shadow plane experiments. The players broke the ring without understanding it's purpose, and released a wraithstorm. Ah yes, the good ol' wraithstorm of 09BE, Orcus remembers it well.

I'm a fan of alchemy and obscure reagents. One rule I particularly like is that dousing a petrified victim in basilisk blood can free them; handy if you run into them at low levels before people have BE or S2F.

[Thurbane]

I'm intrigued now: how do Bloodied and Inspiration work, and how do you port them into 3.5?

[Godskook]

I just say "he's bloodied" whenever a monster drops below half. It's meaningless except to tell my players a rough HP value, but my players *LOVE* the sensation that they're making progress in a fight, as well as being able to make decisions around which monsters are bloodied and which are not(since it'll be easier to drop a bloodied monster if you're not 1-shotting things).

I'll even say this for bloodless creatures, although I typically choose a new word in those cases, cause I like how it affects players.

[Psyren]

I'm intrigued now: how do Bloodied and Inspiration work, and how do you port them into 3.5?

Bloodied was already answered, but the idea there is that the condition applies some kind of change to the monster that HP damage usually doesn't. Some monsters will take penalties at this point, representing them getting more wearied as a fight drags on and they accumulate wounds - a quick and dirty approach could be to make such monsters fatigued or sickened.

Inspiration is more or less Hero Points, which you can grab from Eberron, perhaps with wider applications.

[Aotrs Commander]

Large chunks of Pathfinder rules, to the point I call what we play 3.Aotrs, as it is now more or less a 3.5/PF hybrid.

Including, but not limited to:

The way they do skills (not quite EXACTLY the same skills combined (I still have Concentration and Search), but the numbers)

Gold not XP

A lot of the ancillary rules (e.g. light sources, permenant negative levels and how to remove them etc, downtime rules, spellbooks and scribing spells, settlement rules, drag, afflictions, bleed etc)

A few ideas from some of their classes (rogue tricks to rogue, barbarian rage powers, witch's hexes to hexblade) or whole classes with a few mods (e.g. Bard and Oracle)

Some selected feats

Updated our entire bestiary to basically be PF standard monsters (which gave some much-needed buffs)



Modifed version of the solo template (more just the idea) from 4E (while I was not struck on 4E, never let it be said I won't pinch a good idea). The idea in practise has turned out to be one of the best I've ever had; boss monsters can stand up to mid-high optimisation parties of six to eight and still be a reasonable challenge.

Ongoing damage (slightly modified) from 4E (slightly different to Bleed).



Nothing from earlier editions (or 5E, which I'm, not even familair with otuside listening to Lanipator's Role with Me series.)

[Thurbane]

Some class and item abilities trigger when a character is below 1/2 full hit points in 3.5 - but bloodied is usually a negative effect?

[Mr Adventurer]

No, in 5e bloodied doesn't do anything except convey information. Lots of monsters and classes have special rules that key off you or your target having the condition, though. In other words it gates the use of some powers. So it's usually positive for players.

[unseenmage]

Our group ports 4E minion rules a lot.

I port my fav 3.x spells (quirky unique superpowers, not better numbers) to PF.

And our cosmology is a weird blend of every editions' cosmologies.

[Mr Adventurer]

How do you do 4e minions in 3.5? How do you figure the CR?

[unseenmage]

How do you do 4e minions in 3.5? How do you figure the CR?

Pretty sure theres a minion rule in PF we combine it with but it's been quite a while and it was one of the other guys who imported the rule.

More important was the one-hit-you're-out part of minions. We basically treated them more like terrain without a CR than actual enemies.

[Buufreak]

Some class and item abilities trigger when a character is below 1/2 full hit points in 3.5 - but bloodied is usually a negative effect?

Generally, yes and yes. It is a signifier that a person is at or below half health. However, it can proc certain effects. The most common is dragon born racial of I believe +1 or 2 to hit and damage while bloodied. Others have similar effects determined by being, or targeting someone who is half or lower.

Not the cleanest, but when a fair bit of the system was built around it, it worked well enough.

Fast edit is fast: most dragon breath weapons were set to recharge based on a d6 roll, but equally a fair few got a free recharge when first bloodied. Logically, a mild abuse of getting to half, leaving an encounter, mildly healing, then wash rinse does exist.

[weckar]

I've mentioned Ravenloft earlier, but I felt like being a bit more specific.
My group recently finished playing a 3.5 conversion of Hour of the Knife, and is just finishing a 3.5 version of When Black Roses Bloom.
I've adapted both a tad to include them into the overarching plot of the Rose Hunt, as I thought it was a bit thin, but having the originals available was invaluable!


Pretty sure theres a minion rule in PF we combine it with but it's been quite a while and it was one of the other guys who imported the rule.

More important was the one-hit-you're-out part of minions. We basically treated them more like terrain without a CR than actual enemies.
Terrain influences CR, though...