Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Class Question

[gamerprinter]

FWIW, the duskblade, dragon shaman, and other non-core classes from WotC aren't open content, so Paizo can't convert them without risking claims of IP infringement.

(Such claims might not stand up in court, but one doesn't have to lose a legal case to have the costs wreck one's business. Of course, WotC might not make any such claims -- but Paizo doesn't want to take any chances.)

If you were talking to a potential 3pp publisher, then yes, this is sound advice, but for a private use for their home game - this advice is totally meaningless.

Actually I've seen you (Coyote6) bring up this same point to every other private gamer asking the same question, which is just altogether silly. Home games have no license issue.

I am a 3pp and rightly so, I don't convert WotC non-OGL stuff nor even their OGL stuff, but then I only create brand-new classes, that are either completely my own versions or more likely have never been created before.

I wouldn't waste my time converting old 3x stuff anyway, its too easy to create brand new stuff designed specifically for Pathfinder. For most publishers its the same, so there are no issues here.

And at the OP, if you use an old OGL adventure except for the BBEG, leave the monsters and NPCs at their original power levels - granted its slightly weaker than PF classes, its not a huge issue. I would convert the bigger and more important NPCs, but keep the rest as is. It shouldn't be a problem.

GP

 

[coyote6]

If you were talking to a potential 3pp publisher, then yes, this is sound advice, but for a private use for their home game - this advice is totally meaningless.

Actually I've seen you (Coyote6) bring up this same point to every other private gamer asking the same question, which is just altogether silly. Home games have no license issue.

Huh? I don't remember ever telling people they can't convert stuff at home. Heck, I don't remember replying to any other post like this, let alone "every" one. I check the PF forum here a couple of times a week any more, with occasional longer absences. I doubt I've seen every other private gamer asking that question, barring some statistical anomaly. (I'd rather any statistical anomaly involving me today go towards that $300+ million lotto tonight, thankyouverymuch.)

You (the general you, rather than specifically you) can do whatever the hell you want in your home, IMO. That's my opinion in general, and has specifically been my opinion for gaming since I was a kid and read Gygax's article on house rules in Dragon #67.

The OP asked if there was a promise to convert more 3.5e stuff, which I interpreted as "will Paizo be converting 3.5e stuff"; I was explaining why they wouldn't. I didn't say anything about home conversions, because there's nothing really for me to say about whether or not to do it beyond maybe "go for it". Maybe some caveats, but I haven't thought about it enough to figure out where there might be tripwires. And, at 6:30 in the morning when I'm supposed to be getting ready for work, I'm not going to try to give elaborate but general advice on what to convert.

(Aside: I was playing a beguiler in a AoW game that the GM was thinking about converting to PF, so I did think a little about that -- it seemed kind of hard to me, since a lot of what made my beguiler interesting to me was other 3.5e stuff - feats, spells, etc. So I would have been trying to drag a bunch of stuff over. Unfortunately, the GM put the game on hiatus, and now I'm running a PF Rise of the Runelords game; otherwise, I would've been asking about beguiler conversions. Heck, I may have; that was months ago.)

By the way, someone already has converted (or at least done PF versions of) several 3.x classes -- Adamant's Tome of Secrets has an artificer, knight, priest (a la the cloistered cleric variant), shaman, spellblade, swashbuckler, warlock, & warlord (which is kind of a 4e conversion, I guess).

Super Genius Games also has some base classes that might fill similar roles as previous classes.

 

[gamerprinter]

I guess I misinterpretted your post - sorry, I get you now. I'm pretty sure I've seen you respond similarly to one other post, like this one (within the last 2 weeks). I thought it was odd then, but I didn't mention it, but I remembered your forum name, so when I saw this post, it jogged my memory.

But yeah, I guess the OP did imply whether 'Paizo was actually doing any conversions', so you're right, I'm wrong.

Back to the OP, Pathfinder classes are so much better built than 3x classes, that I am inspired to create new classes that are built specifically for Pathfinder, rather than clumbsily converting 3x classes, which in comparison to most Pathfinder classes are utterly crap in most cases, IMO.

If you like Beguiler or Duskblade, instead of converting directly borrow some elements, but build a better, more balanced, more powerful version. I usually pick an existing PF class that looks appropriate for your build, then use it as a template to build the new class.

I built a Samurai class, for example, based on the PF Ranger, because I wanted to offer varying Combat Styles for my samurai, but then I replaced every other Ranger class feature with Samurai inspired features. By doing so, it perfectly meshes with Pathfinder and is perfectly balanced with existing classes - and at the same time is a brand new class, not a converted one.

GP