Old Path of....books

[Ghost2020]

I have a bunch of the Path of ....books from Fantasy Flight, how useful are they in 3.5? I'm thinking they should still be pretty good to go. the chanes weren't that drastic between the two versions.

I'm not a big number cruncher, anythign in there that I should be aware of?

thanks

 

[Crothian]

I liked them. I just never used them. I didn't see anything in them that was bad but like many things I'm sure someone can abuse them.

 

[Voadam]

I have Path of Faith and Path of the Sword but haven't gone over them much. I think the psionic thief class from Path of Shadow would require more work to update due to the change in psionic combat and feats, etc.

 

[Psion]

I have a bunch of the Path of ....books from Fantasy Flight, how useful are they in 3.5? I'm thinking they should still be pretty good to go. the chanes weren't that drastic between the two versions.

I'm not a big number cruncher, anythign in there that I should be aware of?

I don't use big parts of these books anymore (not being fond of the whole ability for XP thing or alternate classes), but

1) Not a 3.0 vs. 3.5 thing, but I felt that many of the arcane legendary classes gave up too much spellcasting to be worth it.

2) Path of magic - I love the alternate bard abilities. Of course, in 3.5, perform is a set of skills, not just one skill, so I'd make each performance style match a perform skill. Also, each bard ability needs to be given a minimum level = the minimum perform ranks required - 3.

3) Again mainly path of magic... many spellcasting PrCs give full spellcasting and very strong abilities. Consider knocking off at least 1 level off of most of the PrCs casting advancement. Maybe more if it is particularly potent.

4) The ability for XP thing was problematic under 3.0, as it put your level off your actual potency. In 3.5, which awards characters XP according to their level individually, it is pretty much broken.

5) Though the organizations were cool, you might consider working them up with the new affiliation rules.

 

[Storm Raven]

I have a bunch of the Path of ....books from Fantasy Flight, how useful are they in 3.5? I'm thinking they should still be pretty good to go. the chanes weren't that drastic between the two versions.

I'm not a big number cruncher, anythign in there that I should be aware of?

I have them all. I have not found any significant problems with them, but rather, require minor fixes. When you use them in 3.5 there will be some translation problems - some skills and feats referenced have been changed or eliminated so you need to watch for that. Anything involving a bonus to save DCs for spells needs to be looked at given the reduction in the bonus provided by Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus. An ongoing problem (in my opinion) with the books is that sometimes they describe a good idea, but don't execute it real well and you need to do a little legwork to fix that (for example, FFG had a tendancy to give fixed DCs for certain spell effects and special abilities, which made them not scale well).