Pathfinder 1E Biggest Difference between Pathfinder and D&D 3

[druidlover]

I am playing a campaign right now where we decided to play Pathfinder, but I'm realizing the DM doesn't really know much about pathfinder and is running the campaign as if it was just D&D 3rd ed.

For those of you well versed in Pathfinder, what would you say are the biggest things we should know?

 

[Glade Riven]

CMB/CMD, followed by the changes to wildshape and polymorph spells.

 

[Kaisoku]

Skills being the other big one. "Class skills" just means a +3 bonus, no more half ranks. Anyone can be "good" at a skill, even if it isn't a class skill.

That and a lot of consolidated skills. If the DM is still running Hide and Move Silently, then you are not experiencing a fundamental aspect of Pathfinder.

 

[pawsplay]

Casters have easier access to elemental and aligned damage types. Fighters have a range of feats more comparable to PHB + PHBII + CompWar. Paladins are monsters against solo opponents. All feat-starved classes are a little less feat-starved.

Skills are different.

Combat Maneuvers are different (better).

I converted my campaign at level 17 from 3.5 to Pathfinder, and it was quite smooth, actually.

 

[concerro]

If the group agreed to convert I would ask him to convert all his baddies to pathfinder. There are rules differences that will be discovered over time though. If he uses an old rule I would either correct him at the table, or do it through an email, depending on how the group handles things.

 

[Talonne Hauk]

Any monster your DM is running will need an upgrade. An on the fly upgrade was to give the monsters a +2 to every roll and giving them Improved Initiative and Toughness to bring them up to their proper CR.

 

[Walking Dad]

Any monster your DM is running will need an upgrade. An on the fly upgrade was to give the monsters a +2 to every roll and giving them Improved Initiative and Toughness to bring them up to their proper CR.

Really?

I took a look at some entries as example for the monsters in both 'games' creature:

Minotaur

Initiative: the same
attack bonus: the same
The pathfinder one has some more HP (as they changed the HD for monstrous humanoids), but the 3.5 one does more damage with a powerful charge...


Hill Giant (CR 7 in both)

Initiative: the same
attack bonus: Pathfinder has less
HP: Pathfinder has less
Saves: Pathfinder has less

 

[DaveMage]

There's a short thread over on the Necromancer Games boards that list some things to watch out for that you may find helpful.

 

[Kaisoku]

The monsters in Pathfinder were altered to fit a more general theme across CRs. They have a big list of stats for when making monsters, and they tried to make each creature fit that list more.

This means a number of creatures had their CRs change, and a few others had their stats changed.

They also made a few different templates to cover advanced versions of creatures (giant, advanced, etc). Which means some larger creatures in an encounter might be written with extra stats instead of just higher HD.
Oh, and some creature types were altered a bit. So that might change a few things too.