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Long story short: I like a lot of the changes implemented in 4E, but my group still likes 3.5/Pathfinder. Has anyone made a Pathfinder/4E crossover?
I'm looking particularly with help on the following issues:
1) Iterative attacks.
I never much liked iterative attacks either. Not sure what you can do about it in 3E. I heard there is some game called E6 that caps at lvl 6 using 3E rules and has some kind of alternate advancement method you may want to look at.
I especially have been thinking of a way not to gimp archery in relation to everything else in regards to iterative attacks. The archer machine gunner has always been annoying to me. A real trained longbow user was considered very good if he could shoot one accurate shot every 12 seconds from what I have read. In D&D you have archers outputting 7 or 8 shots a 6 second round.
I've been thinking of extending the round to 30 seconds or something more resaonable. But then I would have to make adjustments for movement. I may do it anyway just so things sit better. Movement is often very abstract. So assuming you could combat move 30 feet or so in 30 seconds might not be too bad. I'll probably come up with something I'll give a try soon to suit my sensibilities.
2) Magic item dependence.
Get rid of them or severely limit them. Easily balanced.
3) Fixed enhancement bonus (connected to #2) [similar to Dark Sun or DM's Guide 2].
Modify as above. The nice thing about the 3E ruleset is it is very customizable. You get rid of something across the board and it will in general balance the situation. Though you would have to greatly modify monsters at higher level to account for the loss of enhancement bonus. But that could be done on a case by case basis. Parties fighting parties woud be much easier though.
4) AC scaling with level.
Why even use the AC mechanic if this is a problem? I never understood the reasoning behind 4E hanging on to the AC mechanic if it was looking for a way to make armor less necessary to defense.
Why didn't they go with a block, parry, and dodge mechanic like so many other game systems use with great success. I would go in that direction if I wanted to remove the simplicity of the AC mechanic.
4E gets absurd with level AC scaling. So a naked warrior can fight endless hordes of creatures without ever getting hit. That isn't even something Conan did.
I find the 3E method much better. A high level warrior has a huge number of hit points. That is what models his fighting prowess. He'll still take scratches and hits while mowing down that large group of low level warriors, but his huge hit points will make it so that he is still able to do it.
Whereas 4E he never gets hit and his hit points are huge. So he becomes an unstoppable monster against low level creatures rather than simply hard to kill.
Better to toss out the AC mechanic altogether if you want the guy to wear no armor. Either maintain the high hit point mechanic 3E uses or toss in a dodge, block, and parry mechanic. That would be a far better way to model the narrative of the scantily clad warrior than the method 4E used with the scaling AC by level.
5) Removal or alteration of game-changing spells (fly, find the path, divination, etc.)
Remove the spells across the board. Come up with some narrative reason why that type of magic doesn't work, hasn't been discovered, or isn't available.
Gods won't allow such magic because it destroys the balance of power. Gods respect privacy. Strange magical field destroys scrying. Any possible number of reasons can justify the removal of certain spells.
Just rememeber though, if you remove major defenses from your casters. You will have to ensure they still have a means to defend themselves. Fighters can do a ton of damage. And most of the time D&D gave wizards the game changing defense spells they gave them because one round from the meat grinder fighter was end game for the wizard.
