Will 3.5 give us this...

[TotallyNotEvil]

Personally, I find that PF offers all the customization and tactical options you could want while also deliberately pruning a lot of the bloat that can make 3.5 falter under its own weight.

It's just... So much easier to realize a concept in PF, at least for me. The classes having inherent customization in their own class features means a party of four Rogues, for example, can easily have four completely distinct characters. Add that to feats and archetypes, and you could probably spend a decade playing regularly without ever making a character that feels same-ish.

In my experience, if you look at a given ability and think "uh, I wonder if I could twist it to work this way instead of that?", there's usually a feat and/or archetype that not only will allow you to do it, but will allow you to do it painlessly. Which often can't be said about 3.5.

You definitely can't reach the towering heights of optimization that 3.5 allows for, but you absolutely have a lot of room to play around in. And you can start playing with a lot more ease.

It's a d20 system with serious customization and serious scaling of its power levels, but it's more... Polished.

Maybe you could say 3.5 is Linux to PF's Windows.

[Segev]

I will say that my suggestion is to use Pathfinder, and permit 3.5 feats, spells, and classes/prestige classes. Maybe not blanket, but mostly sticking with permitting it. It should work for your group and be fun. If anything seems to be breaking, you can revisit it to see why (and this forum will be a good resource for helping with that analysis).


The last several PF1 games I have been in have also used this alternate set of mostly basic feats over Pathfinder's equivalents, due to a perception of "feat taxes."

I also personally think PF did Cleave badly and think 3.5's is better. But these are small and specific issues. Mostly, I suggest using PF as a base but taking anything you like from 3.5.

[rohde]

Thank you all so much, for all this amazing information. As a 3.5 Nepophyte I have really enjoyed reading it all
Thanks also for the Pathfinder recommendation; I have both the PDF and physical copies of the 3.5 2012 updated core books, so I'll be starting out with 3.5 and see how it goes.

Now I'd like to start with a prepared campaign.
And perhaps some of you have some great pointers on this as well.

I was considering starting with Sunless Citadel (I know it's a 3.0 but I guess it can be converted pretty easily?), but other alternatives are Age of Worms from Dungeon, or perhaps even Paizo's Rise of the Rune Lords (the 3.5 original version).
Can you guys recommend one these options? Or some other?

[Segev]

Numbers from a 3.0 module should translate fine to 3.5. The only things that night trip you up are things that I thunk are ignorance and that you may not even notice if you are running low level and don't know 3.5 inside and out.

(Differences in how damage reduction is pierced likely won't come up, for example, and if they dod the 3.0 rules don't work any less well with 3.5 PCs than with 3.0 ones.)

I thunk you could run Sunless Citadel effectively in a 3.5 game without adapting anything. The 5e version of it was quite good for my group, I imagine the 3.0 version will be even smoother, since most of our hangups came from some glitches introduced and not fixed by the areas in updating to 5e

[King of Nowhere]

One important thing in 3.5 is that, since characters of wildly different power levels are possible, the whole party has to agree to a power level.
You should have an early discussion about what you are trying to achieve, and try to stick to it. You will generally have to agree on not doing some things that are particularly strong, while some weaker options would need some buffs if a player wanta to take them.

All of this is not a problem if the party is cooperative. If they are all trying to outcompete each other's charachters, the game won't work

[Efrate]

The first two parts of sunless citadel, sunless citadel and forge of fury, pretty much need no adjustment, just a few skill changes. Once you get to the latter modules a lot needs redoing. For skills several were removed between editions. Intuit direction is a feature of the survival skill as opposed to its own thing. Stuff along those lines.

I would also recommend pathfinder. Concepts come online easier with less hassle. Magus was brought up upthread, as a penultimate gish base class. A lot of character concepts are just simpler with archtypes and the hybrid and advanced classes. Also adding the dream scarred press (DSP) subsystems are great if you willing to learn them and give tons of more options. Warder from path of war comes to mind immediately as a tank which actually works which is rare in 3.5/pf.

[Fizban]

I was considering starting with Sunless Citadel (I know it's a 3.0 but I guess it can be converted pretty easily?), but other alternatives are Age of Worms from Dungeon, or perhaps even Paizo's Rise of the Rune Lords (the 3.5 original version).
Can you guys recommend one these options? Or some other?

Numbers from a 3.0 module should translate fine to 3.5. The only things that night trip you up are things that I thunk are ignorance and that you may not even notice if you are running low level and don't know 3.5 inside and out.

(Differences in how damage reduction is pierced likely won't come up, for example, and if they dod the 3.0 rules don't work any less well with 3.5 PCs than with 3.0 ones.)

I thunk you could run Sunless Citadel effectively in a 3.5 game without adapting anything. The 5e version of it was quite good for my group, I imagine the 3.0 version will be even smoother, since most of our hangups came from some glitches introduced and not fixed by the areas in updating to 5e

I don't know about Rise of the Rune Lords, but a recent mention in another thread seemed to indicate that Age of Worms runs at a later 3.5 power level. Meanwhile, Sunless Citadel will be running at the earliest 3.0 power level.

I find Sunless Citadel to have some annoying problems. It basically starts off with an ambush designed to catch a single character alone, and incorporates checks that doesn't exist in the normal rules (a balance check in response to sufficient damage on stairs, resulting in a fall for more damage). After that you have the problem of skeletons: 3.0 skeletons are very different from 3.5 skeletons, so whether you're using the stats in the book or the stats in the 3.5 MM or srd makes a huge different. The same goes for the goblins and kobolds. It also allows for encountering some foes that a 1st level party should not be fighting, which on the one hand allows them to learn that running might be a good idea, but also means they could all just get killed. I also find the conclusion unsatisfying, as the "boss" uses arbitrary mechanics and the rescue mission hook has no chance of success (though the hook allows for the fact, I would not want my first adventure to be "welp you're too late and they gotta be put down, sucks to suck I guess.")

[Mordante]

Classes are tricky to balance against themselves, because not all classes are not built equally. Players own skills at building those characters impact those as well. The biggest chore for the DM is managing the players not in how they build their characters, but ensuring they have encounters that challenge them without invalidate them.

While unlikely, as an example: if your team has 0 ranged attacks, an encounter with Flying becomes very difficult. But that problem can ramp up with some effects in 3.5. Some monsters that out-right cannot be hit without Magic weapons, some monsters that have prohibitive defenses, such as DR or Hardness. If your party doesn't have character with Trapfinding, then every dungeon becomes a death-trap waiting to happen, because unlike 5th it's trickier to gain the effective "tool proficiencies", and other cross-role tools require careful planning.

That isn't to say you can't use those encounters, but you need to be mindful of the difficulty curve using those encounters vs players.

To me that sound like a bad DM. If a DM knows there are no ranged characters in the party don't let them fight flying monsters. Same goes for trap, don't use them if you know that party can't handle them

[Rynjin]

To me that sound like a bad DM. If a DM knows there are no ranged characters in the party don't let them fight flying monsters. Same goes for trap, don't use them if you know that party can't handle them

While by all means you shouldn't make the campaign flying monster or trap focused, the idea that you should never throw something at your party that puts them at a disadvantage (especially when that disadvantage is easily remedied, they just failed to do so) is silly.

What you shouldn't do is try to TPK your party with these elements, of course, but teaching people they need to be able to deal with flying enemies past a certain point is just good encounter design.

Otherwise their tactics will never evolve, because they know you're just going to softball everything for them.

[martixy]

This was actually an intentional design choice for 3.5, and the idea was to promote information gathering and planning/preparing. It's not a bug, it's a feature of the system, that combat isn't just about blinding charging in and fighting without any sort of forward thinking.

Another feature (at least how I perceive the system) is that early levels tolerate charging in and hitting it with a stick/spell. Latter levels (especially true high level gameplay) venture into the territory of xanatos chessmastery. That is to say, if you show up to a fight and you haven't already won, you dun goofed.

To me that sound like a bad DM. If a DM knows there are no ranged characters in the party don't let them fight flying monsters. Same goes for trap, don't use them if you know that party can't handle them

This depends on how the table agreed to play. If players say "hey, give us a cakewalk", sure. Any amount of verisimilitude discounts this approach.

[Mordante]

While by all means you shouldn't make the campaign flying monster or trap focused, the idea that you should never throw something at your party that puts them at a disadvantage (especially when that disadvantage is easily remedied, they just failed to do so) is silly.

What you shouldn't do is try to TPK your party with these elements, of course, but teaching people they need to be able to deal with flying enemies past a certain point is just good encounter design.

Otherwise their tactics will never evolve, because they know you're just going to softball everything for them.

I agree do a degree, it depends a lot on the party, what they expect of the adventure/game.

Another feature (at least how I perceive the system) is that early levels tolerate charging in and hitting it with a stick/spell. Latter levels (especially true high level gameplay) venture into the territory of xanatos chessmastery. That is to say, if you show up to a fight and you haven't already won, you dun goofed.

This depends on how the table agreed to play. If players say "hey, give us a cakewalk", sure. Any amount of verisimilitude discounts this approach.

In smaller parties with 2 or 3 players, it's nigh impossible to cover all the bases. Even in games with 6 or 7 players I have never had a rogue in the party with skill points in traps. This is just an examples. Specific roles like healers, trap finders, (de)buffers, etcetera are not always present regardless of party size.

My current party is: lvl3 Gnome wizard (who is focusing mainly fire spells), lvl2 Lizardfolk Hexblade & lvl2 Catfolk 1 rogue(UA), 1 bard (close combat focused). We DM in turns

[Endarire]

When GMing for a group that didn't have a dedicated divine caster, more healing and divine spell potions spawned as treasure. As GM, you're somewhat expected to compensate for holes in party roles to prod the PCs toward victory, but it's your discretion.