Some questions about PF from a non-PF player.

[Terramotus]

Question for you Pathfinder aficionados out there. I've been having some nostalgia for the player-related aspects of 3.5, as well as some player pressure, and am curious about a few things. I always found 3.5 fun as a player and absolutely not fun as a DM at anything above E6 levels. Soo...

1) Has anything been done about the living nightmare high-level npc/monster design is for a DM? Are there any good tools out there? That's the big deal-breaker for me about 3.5. I'm never spending 3-4 hours each week designing encounters again.

2) Have the monsters received the vast boost in power they need to keep up with players who play the game very well, or does the DM still need to spend a lot of time on them?

3) How much of 3.5 is still compatible? Would the Bo9S work? Psionics? Is there a guide as to what to allow and what not to?

Thanks in advance.

 

[concerro]

Question for you Pathfinder aficionados out there. I've been having some nostalgia for the player-related aspects of 3.5, as well as some player pressure, and am curious about a few things. I always found 3.5 fun as a player and absolutely not fun as a DM at anything above E6 levels. Soo...

1) Has anything been done about the living nightmare high-level npc/monster design is for a DM? Are there any good tools out there? That's the big deal-breaker for me about 3.5. I'm never spending 3-4 hours each week designing encounters again.

2) Have the monsters received the vast boost in power they need to keep up with players who play the game very well, or does the DM still need to spend a lot of time on them?

3) How much of 3.5 is still compatible? Would the Bo9S work? Psionics? Is there a guide as to what to allow and what not to?

Thanks in advance.

1.It is 3.5 compatible. In other words no for the monster design question. It is still done by hand.
2.That will vary based on the group, just as it did in 3.5. The monsters are tougher, but so are some of the classes. Codzilla got a nerf.
3.Some of it requires tweaking depending on the situation. There are enough rules changes to warrant a look at the rules before you run a game. Most mistakes will probably be caught in the middle of a session. Psionics has been pathfinderized by DSP(DreamScarred Press), but the 3.5 version is ok also if it worked for your group before. Bo9s will work if it worked before also. You might need to replace the concentration skill. I replaced it with the skill that is only for the Bo9S that is in the book. I can't recall the name right now. Overall PF is a better system. They have a PRD(their version of an SRD) with the rules on it.

 

[Samurai]

Question for you Pathfinder aficionados out there. I've been having some nostalgia for the player-related aspects of 3.5, as well as some player pressure, and am curious about a few things. I always found 3.5 fun as a player and absolutely not fun as a DM at anything above E6 levels. Soo...

1) Has anything been done about the living nightmare high-level npc/monster design is for a DM? Are there any good tools out there? That's the big deal-breaker for me about 3.5. I'm never spending 3-4 hours each week designing encounters again.

2) Have the monsters received the vast boost in power they need to keep up with players who play the game very well, or does the DM still need to spend a lot of time on them?

3) How much of 3.5 is still compatible? Would the Bo9S work? Psionics? Is there a guide as to what to allow and what not to?

Thanks in advance.

1) I think there are 2 main solutions to high-level encounter creation: First, you could just use a monster from the Bestiary 1 or 2 (or any 3.5 monster book). Then your work is done for you. Second, you can create a monster using just the most necessary info. That's what I do when I make up creatures. For instance, here's what my monster stat block looks like:

Crocs  HP:  60     
AC:   24        Fort:  +8      Ref:   +6    Will:  +4
Att:  Bite:  +13, 2d6+6
CMB:  +13                      CMD:  24

Anything beyond that, like skills, I just make it up as I go if I happen to need it. You really don't need to account for each and every skill point, feat, or bonus, just jot down the necessary stuff and eyeball the rest. Using a mini-stat block like this greatly cuts down on prep time, and 90% of the time, it's all I need anyway.

As for tools, the Gamemaster Guide has tons of pages of pre-generated NPCs, such as city guards, thieves, mercenaries, and many, many more. Anytime I happen to need an NPC stat, I just use the ones in there and adjust as needed.

2) No real vast increases in power, no. But Pathfinder has nerfed some of the most abusive 3.5 builds, though not all of them. Still, you might need to throw higher CR encounters at the PCs if they are having too easy a time of things.

3) All those are pretty much compatible. The 3rd party Psionics book for Pathfinder is out and it looks remarkably like the Expanded Psionics Handbook. Bot9S would work ok too. You'll need to tweak the skills lists to match PF's skills, as some were combined. You might want to make sure classes get something every level, no dead levels is a PF staple. The rules for shapechanging have been altered a bit (you get bonuses to your own stats, not the stats of the thing you turn into), so you'll need to take that into account if your Psion takes Shapeshifting powers. Other than that and maybe a few other minor changes (like grappling rules, etc) you should have no trouble. Our group uses 3.5 feats, spells, magic items, monsters, etc on the fly, no problem. If you don't want to though, you can just restrict the game to PF only. With the APG out and the 2 Ultimate books on the way, there's plenty for a character to choose from just within PF.

 

[Celtavian]

re

Question for you Pathfinder aficionados out there. I've been having some nostalgia for the player-related aspects of 3.5, as well as some player pressure, and am curious about a few things. I always found 3.5 fun as a player and absolutely not fun as a DM at anything above E6 levels. Soo...

1) Has anything been done about the living nightmare high-level npc/monster design is for a DM? Are there any good tools out there? That's the big deal-breaker for me about 3.5. I'm never spending 3-4 hours each week designing encounters again.

2) Have the monsters received the vast boost in power they need to keep up with players who play the game very well, or does the DM still need to spend a lot of time on them?

3) How much of 3.5 is still compatible? Would the Bo9S work? Psionics? Is there a guide as to what to allow and what not to?

Thanks in advance.

1. There is tool from what I understand called Herolabs that helps for encounter design. Haven't used it, so can't speak on it. I still do it by hand using a template.

2. Offensive power yes. Defensive power yes. Hit points. No. I still believe monsters have too few hit points in Pathfinder. I offset this by boosting hit points substantially, so a fight can last.

3. Don't know. Stopped using all 3.5 material when we switched to Pathfinder. I don't want any of the material that slipped through the cracks or wasn't well-designed slipping in like some of the spells from the Spell Compendium.

 

[Kaisoku]

When they changed skills (cross class ranks specifically), it made making a high level NPC extremely easy if you needed it fully statted.
As a DM, creating NPCs is fairly easy.

Monsters were changed to fit a more "base line" in stats appropriate to it's CR. This means some monsters have lower CR than in 3.5e, while others have been boosted or altered to match the CR they are supposed to fill.

As for DMing, they have a very handy chart in the "Monster Creation" section. Check it out here.
If you were caught by surprise, and need to throw something last minute at the players, you can just pick a CR you want them to face and run the numbers from the chart. My brother ran a "players in a war time" session by doing something like this. Didn't have to stat up a ton of soldiers and captains, etc... just picked stats based on the CR he wanted to emulate, and went with it. Worked out fine.

 

[Thanael]

As for monster design, there's been some work done. Templates and rules tend to be simpler in general and there's a new template type: simple templates. There are also a few 3PP products that offer more simple templates.

Check out the online SRD for a glimpse of the rules:
Paizo site: Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Reference Document
D20PFSRD Pathfinder_OGC
Monster Advancement

The Genius Guide to Simple Monster Templates
GM's Aid IX: Universal Monster Rules and Simple Template Cards

There should be some statblock builders available online too. (Herolabs?)

Also stacking class levels on monsters should be easier due to the rules changes for skills.

 

[Thanael]

As for 3.5 compatability, you can certainly use modules and supplements, but I would hesitate including PC rules (feats, prestige classes) from 3.5. PF Core and APG have loads of feats, classes, options some of them quite new in concept. In general, there is so much PC material between Core, the Advanced Player's Guide, and feats/traits/prestige classes from supplements. 3rd Party Publishers also added some more options. (Check out the d20pfsrd site, they include some 3PPs content.)

Take the Swashbuckler base class from 3.5 for exmaple. There's a Swashbuckler class in Tome of Secrets which is more or less an conversion of that. But you can also do a Swashbuckler PC by using the Rogue Swashbuckler archetype from APG and multiclassing with the Single Hand Fighter archetype or the Mobile Fighter Archetype and using your feats to round this out. There's also certainly sveral fan made conversions of the class in the paizo conversion forums to be found.

Psionics got updated to PF by Dreamscarred Press in Psionics Unleashed. Reviews are great.

 

[pawsplay]

The new skill system makes for easier accounting and hence simpler NPCs. Having a fairly robust feat selection all in one book is also a help.

 

[Scott DeWar]

Having so many feats in so many differrent books makes for a book keeping nightmere if a dm needs to review it, however with pathfinder they were not looking for different book sales for their gain, rather the popularity of a game that all can afford to play with as many rules in one book as they could cram into it. I heard somewhere that James Jcobs wanted more stuff in the core book, but was vetoed by his accountnts.

 

[Thanael]

Also the online SRDs are darn handy, and paizo added the material from APG very quickly, and the d20pfsrd contains even more open content from many different books.