Is Paizo's Pathfinder really compatible with 3.5?

[Wulf Ratbane]

I can live without prestige classes.

 

[DM_Jeff]

In my Rise of the Runelords game, the party was:

A 3.5 Binder
A PF Paladin
A 3.5 Spirit Shaman
A PF Ranger/3.5 Scout

In my Curse of the Crimson Throne game, the party was:

A 3.5 Green Ronin Noble from Black Company Campaign setting/PF Rogue
A PF Monk
A PF Cleric
A 3.5 Warlock

Once you standardized hit points via PF's ideals and moved a few skill names around, all these classes interacted seamlessly with each other and whatever 3.5 stuff I threw at them, no problem.

-DM Jeff

 

[BryonD]

But not compatible.

Example?

 

[Storm Raven]

I've got no problem with multiclassing. But when levels 11-20 of Wizard are just flat-out superceded by dozens of prestige classes, then there's something wrong with levels 11-20 of Wizard.

And I fail to see why this is a problem. I have never understood why, with a robust multiclassing system, there has been this yearning for single classed characters to be common. Why is it a problem if there are almost no 11-20 level wizards, rather than a bunch of 11-20 level wizard multiclassed characters?

 

[Alzrius]

Based on my read-through of the Beta, I found Pathfinder to be less compatible with 3.5 than 3.5 was with 3.0. I found it sufficiently incompatible to effectively kill my interest in it.

One more time...the final release of Pathfinder will have less changes than the Beta did. Hence, it will be more compatible with 3.5 than the Beta release is. I refer you to James Jacobs from earlier in this very thread:

In any event, yes, Pathfinder RPG will be compatible with 3.5. The final game, which is currently in editing, is closer to 3.5 than the beta; the beta was (like the alpha, but less so) where we threw out some crazy ideas to see how folks responded in the public playtest. Some were well-loved. Other changes, not so much. And in some cases, we realized that the 3.5 rules were more robust and elegant than we thought they were, but only realized that when we took the rules and started tweaking them in an attempt to improve them; in cases where this didn't work, we reverted.

 

[Spatula]

And I fail to see why this is a problem. I have never understood why, with a robust multiclassing system, there has been this yearning for single classed characters to be common. Why is it a problem if there are almost no 11-20 level wizards, rather than a bunch of 11-20 level wizard multiclassed characters?

What's the point of having levels 11-20 of the wizard class if no one is going to use them?

 

[Darrin Drader]

I've been running Rise of the Runelords using the Pathfinder Beta rules and it's working just fine. We're just about on module 3 and the only thing I ever find myself having to do is figuring out the CMB for an NPC on the fly because one of the PCs thinks they should go wrestling. Next time they do that I'm going to call the wrath of Andy Kauffman's ghost on them.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The amount of compatibility is highly subjective, depending mostly upon how much respect your game has for RAW. I've seen a lot of games that were very loose in terms of RAW, and didn't sweat the small details. Players didn't powergame, and there were lots of houserules and/or 3rd party books used with little regard for how everything tied together. I've seen other games based more on a system mastery/CharOp vibe, where the little math and synergies really matter, or a heavily houseruled game that still respects RAW and cares how the math behind the system works.

Its all a question of how easily you want Pathfinder to fit together with 3.5E. If you don't care so much about a clean fit, its great. If you want the numbers to add up and for everything to work seamlessly, it isn't.

Let us not forget the 3.0-3.5 conversion. While some people still used their 3.0E splats, for the vast majority of D&D players, 3.5E largely invalidated people's 3.0E collections. If Pathfinder is being compared to upgrading to 3.5E from 3.0E, I don't expect a seamless transition.

 

[Voadam]

And I fail to see why this is a problem. I have never understood why, with a robust multiclassing system, there has been this yearning for single classed characters to be common. Why is it a problem if there are almost no 11-20 level wizards, rather than a bunch of 11-20 level wizard multiclassed characters?

The goal is for different charachters of level X to be roughly equivalent in power and able to handle challenges of EL X both to survive and have an impact on overcoming the challenges. The more that different options do the same thing but make one option more powerful than the other then the farther from the goal you get. Ideally single classed characters should not be suboptimal, just as multiclassed characters should not be suboptimal. Deciding not to take a prestige class should not be suboptimal.

 

[SteveC]

Like many debates, "is Pathfinder really compatible with 3.5?" really depends on what 3.5 you're talking about. If you're talking SRD released materials, then there is a reasonable amount of compatibility: an NPC Fighter is a Pathfinder Fighter, after all.

If you're talking about any of WotC's closed content, the answer is "not really, nor is it going to be." A Warblade, Marshall or other non "core" class can't be updated by Paizo, so they're not going to necessarily be compatible anymore. I say not necessarily, because if Pathfinder doesn't make more than superficial changes to the core 3.5 rules they'll still be mostly usable. I suppose it's up to the individual to determine if the changes in Pathfinder are superficial...they certainly don't seem that way to me.

...But I think that's good. One positive thing that Pathfinder will do (it must do this because of the OGL) is to cut away all of the closed content from 3.5, since they can't include it. To my mind, all that splat-bloat was what broke 3.5, and it's gone. What they get is the option to recreate the material from the 3.5 splats with design knowledge of the problems that these classes caused.

Just my $.02...

--Steve