3.5 and Guidebooks, How do you Update?

[Remathilis]

The more I hear about 3.5, the more I realize that the 5 guidebooks are going to be practically useless. While they were of dubious quality (as often mentioned by various members), they did have some unqiue classes, spells, and feats not appearing in the Revision (at least at first).

The question is how do you update this material to 3.5 standard.

For example, the Divine Oracle and Tamer of Beasts now no longer have pre-requsites (Scry and Animal Empathy alone, respectively.) Others are altered due to removals of Inuit Direction, Ambi-dexerity, and who knows what other changes we don't know about.

By the same token, some PrC's mimic classes very closely (Virtuoso, Foe Hunter, Red Avenger). With these classes getting changes (more skill points, decreased HD, etc.) Do you change the PrC's or leave them as is (technically, they ARE thier own classes.)

I'm interested to hear some ideas to making some of these Guidebook materials 3.5 compatible?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Take a look at the closest "base class" that the PRC was intended for and adjust the pre-reqs accordingly -- eliminate or change the skill requirement (Intuit Direction -- Survival; Animal Empathy -- Wild Empathy ability), remove or change the feats. Leave class skill points the same, unless the PrC is virtually a bard- or ranger- only, in which case look at upping skill points to 6 if they're currently four.

Piece of cake -- just use a little judgment. It's not like PrC design is an exact science anyway.

The *books will be just as useful (or useless) as they always were, IMO. The Living Greyhawk folks (etc) will likely come out with a list of codified changes anyway for that campaign -- you might just keep your eye out for that document in about January.