Pathfinder is for me just 3.5 with house rules. Which means it is very good and suits my purposes, but it isn't necessarily the bees knees. I am most likely going to use Trailblazer as opposed to "core 3.5". Perhaps with some UA options thrown in, maybe even adapt 4e races slightly and use those instead of the core races. Will add some power to the players, but not too much. Probably less than the magic I intend to withhold from them
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I have heard good things about the Paizo adventure paths, but I am going to be playing with 3 players (probably add one DMPC which is going to be played by a player who will only be there 50% of the time). is that going to be a problem? I heard Paizo balances their paths for 5 players. Also, I really,
really, don't want to DM above 11th level. If I have to scale down everything to keep following the path, that would probably be too much work for me to enjoy it as a DM.
Honestly, if you only compare the PF Core with the 3.5 PH and DMG, but reading between them only, you'll only come up with the conclusion that PF is just 'house rules." However, if you actually play the game, there's a huge difference between the two - huge but subtle, as it still plays like "D&D".
We've been playing PF for over a year, but when we started we ran four sessions to complete our first adventure, afterwhich I asked if the party would like to go back to 3x, and they responded, "No way!"
The difference between a 1st level 3x character and a 1st level PF character is huge. In fact all the base classes are significantly powered up, while the casters are less so than the martial members, there are still improvements. Then look at Prestige Classes, these are now flavor differences, and few mechanical options, but nolonger are you looking to definitely move into a prestige class as part of your build.
I have only one player who has taken a prestige class, everyone else is sticking to single class, and throughout 3.5 all these players, always played multi-class as their preference. Now the single classes have so much more features and capabilty - at each level, few are compelled to leave their base class.
Add to this the great variety in the Advanced Players Guide and the options are even greater.
In the beginning, we took the 'backwards compatible' premise and continued to use the various 3x books to enhance our game. With the release of the APG, all of the 3x books in our game has been banned. APG and Core provide everything we need for an excellent gaming experience. 3.5 is just a memory now.
We had our own house rules for 3x, so why switch to somebody else's house rules... because its not just house rules, its a completely better game, yet still feels just like 3x... YMMV.
GP