What made you stick with 3.x?

[vivsavage]

For those who still play 3.x, what made you stick with it rather than jump over to Pathfinder?

 

[Agamon]

I don't, but if I did want to run a d20 game, I'd go with 3.5, just because I have a lot material for it, whereas I only have the core book for PF.

 

[Celebrim]

For those who still play 3.x, what made you stick with it rather than jump over to Pathfinder?

1) Much like 3.5e itself, the Pathfinder rules struck me as being simply some DMs house rules such as I might see floated in the house rules forums at EnWorld. A few of their ideas in things like cleaning up the language and handling of combat maneuvers and AoOs struck me as being very inspired and professional (ei, better than I would have conceived by myself), but for the most part their innovations struck me as decidedly amateurish in nature. Partly this is because Paizo was in a position where it didn't need to overhaul its rules to address anything - fiddliness of the system, poor balance, random unlucky deaths, complexity of high level play, etc. Overall, Pathfinder is a lot like 3.5e and that was the selling point.

2) I already have my own amateur revisions to the 3.X rules, forked off of what I considered to be the superior 3.0e rules set rather than 3.5e and borrowing only from 3.5 where errata was clearly needed and there was general agreement the rules needed changing. These homebrew rules are every bit as extensive at this point as the original core Pathfinder rules and more importantly are perfectly suited to my particular tastes just as Pathfinder was presumably perfectly suited to the tastes of its creator. Adopting Pathfinder would amount to having to redo the rules again, as Pathfinder is in no way clearly superior in all regards to my own rules and also retains much of the problems of stock 3.5 that I'm trying to fix. At some point I want to sit down and study the Pathfinder rules for innovations that I can steal, but that's a low priority. Ultimately, it's just easier to keep refining my own rules than adopt new ones.

3) I was in the middle of an ongoing campaign using my 3.X rules. Until the campaign is finished, I see no need to look for new rules of any sort.

 

[gamerprinter]

Well I can't say this applies to me, since I jumped to Pathfinder, but my previous table of friends did stick with 3x, and I know why. The majority of those friends are unemployed (or were, some have jobs now), but over the past almost 10 years. One of them purchased nearly 100 Wotc and 3PP 3x hard bound books, and now she is unemployed. When I jumped to Pathfinder, I did my best to convert them to PF. With the huge investment in 3x books, and the fact we mostly played games at the house of the woman who made all those purchases - she wore the pants at that table, and insisted "if you want to play at my house, you're playing 3x, not PF". While I stuck around for another year playing with them, when my trilogy of modules for my published Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) was finally released (in 2010), they refused to give it a try (because it was for Pathfinder). So we parted ways. I think in their situation, I understand - and that's the reason they stuck with it.

I don't, but if I did want to run a d20 game, I'd go with 3.5, just because I have a lot material for it, whereas I only have the core book for PF.

Honestly, I've only purchased the Core, APG, and Paizo gave me the GMG (to help me in writing the City of Kasai Gazetteer for The Empty Throne module, Jade Regent AP). I rely on d20pfsrd.com instead of having a need to purchase anything. There's no need to purchase to play PF, is all I'm sayin'.

 

[billd91]

One group I play and run in did jump to PF. I generally prefer it to 3.5 because of changes they made, particularly with the character classes and monsters.

The other group I play with didn't make a switch to PF. We went back to 3.5 after being disappointed by 4e. So why stick with 3.5? We liked it better than we liked 4e.

 

[Greg K]

1) I didn't like most of the changes Pathfinder made to the classes (Rogue Genius Games's Talented line is fixing many of my issues, but have not touched on several classes that I think need work).
2) A combination of
a) The 3.0 DMG variants, Unearthed Arcana variants
b) The third party support (mostly for 3.0): Several Green Ronin products (e.g., Psychic's Handbook, Shaman's Handbook, Witch's Handbook), Malhavoc's Book of Iron Might (Malhavoc), Sean Reynold's "Fewer Absolutes web articles", From Stone to Steel (Monkey God), Poisoncraft (Blue Devil Games), etc.
c). I didn't want to rewrite several of the classes and other rules for another edition

 

[delericho]

A two-part answer for me.

1) I stayed with 3.5e firstly because 4e just didn't grab me for a bunch of reasons. I did try running it a couple of times, but just enough to know it wasn't for me. And while I did think PF was an improvement, it was different enough to negate my system mastery while not being quite "better enough" to justify making the switch.

2) I eventually did switch to 5e because the sheer weight of 3.5e finally got to me - I'd seen the kernel of what I wanted with SWSE, and I found that 5e was even closer to what I wanted. I would like more options for that edition, but not necessarily more systems to layer on top of it. But, for now, 5e seems to me to be a better fit for what I want than 3.5e has been recently.

 

[Ranes]

3.x really clicked for me when it came out and I still find it an easy ruleset to remember and run, even at relatively high level. I never saw a reason to move to another game that positioned itself (not unreasonably) as being a variant of the game I was already playing. Some of my players moved to PF. Some moved to 4e. Over the last year, we've all at least tried out 5e (and some of us played through the Next play tests). However, every couple of years, when I tell my friends that I'm running another 3.x campaign, the only problem I have is accommodating all the people who want to play.

 

[Satyrn]

I didn't jump to Pathfinder at first because no one really wanted to fork out the money. Now, I wouldn't switch to it, anyway, because there are far too many character creation options. All those archetypes and long lists of talents/rages/grits/whatever that each class gets to close from, and the seemingly endless procession of feats just don't appeal to me. It seems so much more rule-heavy than 3.5. I don't know if it actually plays that way but that's my perception and that keeps me from wanting to play it.

 

[haakon1]

I stayed with 3.5e firstly because 4e just didn't grab me for a bunch of reasons. ... And while I did think PF was an improvement, it was different enough to negate my system mastery while not being quite "better enough" to justify making the switch.

Yup, what he said. When I'm stuck on a rules issue of some sort, I will consult AD&D and PF rules before making a decision on how to house rule it.