You know, it strikes me that that sort of thing could be significantly alleviated by handy icons that tell you (in a master list, or however) if something has changed from its previous version.

I had taken the whole conversion argument to be strictly about character sheets, though.

Quote from: samurai007;337030Do you believe that 3.0 is "highly compatible" with 3.5, yes or no?

Based on what I can recall, I'd definitely say they were compatible. The only game I can think of that I'd say was "highly compatible" between editions is CoC.

Quote from: samurai007;337030Because IMO the Pathfinder changes are only slightly more extensive than those differences...

I'm not sure I agree...

Seanchai

Quote from: Windjammer;337143Seanchai I suppose, and myself wouldn't say that the changes of individual elements considered by themselves constitute enormous departures from 3.5. Some perhaps (e.g. the rage pool of the Barbarian in the Beta), but that's not what's troublesome. It's the amount of details, the minutiae, which make conversion too bothersome to deal with.

That would indeed be what I was thinking.

Quote from: Windjammer;337143People simply picked up the new rulebook because it saves them all the hassle of conversion.

And don't use the old material that they do have.

Seanchai

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;335481Any seamless compatibility between 3.5E and Pathfinder depends on your tolerance for fuzzy math. If you don't mind handwaving fuzzy math, you're fine. If you care about balance(such as it exists in 3.5E), character optimization, or the philosophy of RAW compatibility is much more dicey.

Eh? Honestly I don't see a huge problem in conversion. Re-allocate skill points roughly where you left 'em (it was always the fastest part of chargen IME... but then I picked some stuff I liked and maxed it out) get your new class features, and be on your way.

You could possibly use a 3.x character more or less as is, as the rules are similar enough, or you could convert which, yes, takes a few minutes. I honestly don't see that as incompatibility.

QuoteI've taken a long and hard look at Pathfinder, having followed the Beta fairly closely and having looked through the finished product. I feel I can apply my experience with 3.5E to judging Pathfinder without having to have played it, as they are that similar. I can definitively say that a nonspellcaster focused on Power Attack or combat maneuvers is a much weaker character in Pathfinder than a character built using 3.5E focused on tripping, grappling or Power Attack. Similar doesn't necessarily mean compatible, especially when you get deep into character creation, which was a game in and of itself in 3.5E.

Based on the feats or based on the classes? The classes you'll be using to make such combat builds have gotten a pretty considerable boost.

QuoteTranslating a character from 3.5E to Pathfinder isn't hard if you're just using the core rules for 3.5E. When you try to import a character built with 8+ WotC books, with Tome of Battle maneuvers and a variety of Prestige Classes that don't exist in Pathfinder it isn't as easy.

I've done the 8+ books thing. Not conversion, though. Characters were built from scratch using supplemental classes and PF rules (for things like skills, the maneuver bonus thing, etc.) Wasn't so difficult. Not more so than usual anyway.

I haven't got anything to say on ToB... it's one of a very few 3.5 books I will not allow in my games.

Quote from: B.T.;335031Why do they call it the Xbox 360?

When you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away.

360 would have you facing it again. 180 would have you facing away. Sorry to nitpick.

Quote from: thecasualoblivion;335505The CMB system would be an exception to that.

On the whole, resolution is very similar. Its less similar from the character creation front, and character creation is what I would call the primary focus of the 3E rules. Take feats, for example. In Pathfinder, you get more feats. If you stay within Pathfinder, this probably isn't a huge issue, but 3E feats are very powerful at the top end. If you are dropping WotC's optional extras into Pathfinder, those extra feats can go a very long way, letting you qualify for PrCs significantly sooner and a less cost, and letting you build yourself with non-core feats to create a significantly more powerful character than is possible with standard 3E rules.

I don't see CMB as such a problem. It's just a derived stat.

You're partially right about feats, but most PrCs have BAB or spell level/caster level or skill prereqs so there's a specific level you must be before you can take them. WotC generally recognised that the rate at which PCs acquired feats would vary depending on class, race, etc. and wouldn't be a reliable indicator of level.

The recent discussion on spell differences is interesting. I focus mainly on combat and rogue builds. Maybe fewer changes were made there*. For spell effects I've never had them memorized... they're just too numerous for me. I've always looked them up, so conversion is a non-issue for me personally, but I can see where it would be problematic for player casters, especially if they worked on memory.

*You think maybe changes in content register less with people than changes in the base system? Especially when they're additive and not subtractive? To begin with, an individual player only has to know a handful of them, and all he has to do is just tack on a new thing to his character sheet (which he'd be doing every few levels anyway.)

We converted our 18th level characters from 3.5 to Pathfinder in about 45 minutes. The spells may have changed, but we tended to have to look them up anyway, and there's no rule that says you have to use the new Pathfinder versions of those spells.

Quote from: samurai007;337084I rather like 4e, in spite of my experiences playing it.  I've only played 4e in RPGA games, and they were truly horrible.  No RP allowed at all, each had 3 combat encounters and 1 skill challenge (completely formulaic, with 1 extended rest allowed between the 2nd and 3rd combat each time), set treause no matter what you find or scavenge during the adventure, etc.  One time I won initiative and decided to try talking to the enemies rather than just attack yet again, which drew groans all around the table.  Rather than waiting to see if my words had any effect, the next person in order charged and attacked as they were supposed to.  These are my experiences with 4e, and they only served to reinforce the claims that it's only about combat.  BUT, in spite of actual play, I still think a proper game that includes role-playing could be done with 4e, even if the rules don't really support it and it apparently isn't how it's supposed to be done...

Good god that sounds awful : (

This is why I don't like playing in RPGA games.

Quote from: Shazbot79;337265Good god that sounds awful : (

This is why I don't like playing in RPGA games.

Yeah, it was pretty sad.

"What do you mean I can't scavenge their weapons and armor, or search them for other treasure?"  "Because you get a standard set reward at the end of the adventure, no matter what you do.  Either 1 magic item or 100 gp, and nothing you do can increase that in any way."

"You can't try talking to these goblins, this isn't the skill challenge for this adventure, it's a combat.  When he's done talking, I attack..."

I never played in an RPGA event for 3.x, maybe they were the same for that system too?  But those 4e adventures were all 3 combats, 1 skill challenge, and no RP or innovation or deviation allowed.

Quote from: samurai007;337284Yeah, it was pretty sad.

"What do you mean I can't scavenge their weapons and armor, or search them for other treasure?"  "Because you get a standard set reward at the end of the adventure, no matter what you do.  Either 1 magic item or 100 gp, and nothing you do can increase that in any way."

"You can't try talking to these goblins, this isn't the skill challenge for this adventure, it's a combat.  When he's done talking, I attack..."

I never played in an RPGA event for 3.x, maybe they were the same for that system too?  But those 4e adventures were all 3 combats, 1 skill challenge, and no RP or innovation or deviation allowed.

Wow...ouch.

Is that the only game in your area or something?

Quote from: Mistwell;337044You can be such a drama queen sometimes.

Aw jeez man. That doesn't even rhyme with the meme your riffing off of.

Get it straight...

Quote from: Shazbot79;337288Wow...ouch.

Is that the only game in your area or something?

The only 4e game, yeah.  All other game groups I know of within 20 miles won't play 4e, either sticking with 3.5/Pathfinder, or playing other games like Star Wars or nWoD.  4e is not popular at all around here.  But I keep buying some of the books and I hope to someday play some non-RPGA 4e with an actual story, etc.  I listen to the podcasts with Wil Wheaton, and while those games too are very heavily focused on combat, they have a bit more freedom and RPing at least, and sound a lot more fun.  Personally, I'd like to increase that even further, and I think it could be done.

Quote from: samurai007;337284Yeah, it was pretty sad.

"What do you mean I can't scavenge their weapons and armor, or search them for other treasure?"  "Because you get a standard set reward at the end of the adventure, no matter what you do.  Either 1 magic item or 100 gp, and nothing you do can increase that in any way."

"You can't try talking to these goblins, this isn't the skill challenge for this adventure, it's a combat.  When he's done talking, I attack..."

I never played in an RPGA event for 3.x, maybe they were the same for that system too?  But those 4e adventures were all 3 combats, 1 skill challenge, and no RP or innovation or deviation allowed.

The problems you are stating were there in the RPGA back during AD&D2. That is the reason why I dropped out of the RPGA, no room for problem-solving that wasn't part of the railroad.

Quote from: samurai007;337293The only 4e game, yeah.  All other game groups I know of within 20 miles won't play 4e, either sticking with 3.5/Pathfinder, or playing other games like Star Wars or nWoD.  4e is not popular at all around here.  But I keep buying some of the books and I hope to someday play some non-RPGA 4e with an actual story, etc.  I listen to the podcasts with Wil Wheaton, and while those games too are very heavily focused on combat, they have a bit more freedom and RPing at least, and sound a lot more fun.  Personally, I'd like to increase that even further, and I think it could be done.

If you run it...they will come.

Quote from: Shazbot79;337364If you run it...they will come.

I've volunteered to run it, to no avail.  Even the group of friends I've been playing with for years refused to play 4e, preferring to go to Pathfinder instead.  Now, I really like Pathfinder too, so it came down to "1 person likes both games, 5 people only want to play PF", and PF won.  But, I (somewhat loosely) converted Scepter Tower of Spellgard to PF for our 1st adventure to at least give them a taste of a 4e adventure, and they seemed to enjoy it, for the most part.  Maybe someday...

Quote from: Windjammer;337143Agreed. But your use of the word "extensive" is a bit vague here. Seanchai I suppose, and myself wouldn't say that the changes of individual elements considered by themselves constitute enormous departures from 3.5. Some perhaps (e.g. the rage pool of the Barbarian in the Beta), but that's not what's troublesome. It's the amount of details, the minutiae, which make conversion too bothersome to deal with. James Jacobs himself said that the changes - not from 3.5 to PF- but from PF Beta to Final were too numerous to list them. And that's the catch. Your 3.0-->3.5 comparison is spot on. It was a pain in the back to chase up every single spell WotC had altered so slightly. Sure, there were the handful examples everyone knew about (the buffs, haste), but there were tons of less visible instances where 3.5 differed from 3.0. Pathfinder Beta (never used Alpha at my table) did the same to 3.5. You basically never found out these changes existed unless you looked them up individually. Scorching Ray, for instance (iirc) deals 2d8 in PFBeta not 3d8 points of damage in 3.5 (beware - numbers from memory). And then all the remove condition spells which now have a caster level check where 3.5 didn't. The list goes on and on, and no one has it in their head (and how could they).

And that's the problem. I'm still playing 3.5 after having tried the Beta briefly. I'd like to try the Final version too, and initially I was hoping, two of my players could use their Beta softcovers at least to reference their spells. Well, I've given up on that, because it's too much bother. My group certainly won't invest in a whole new round of rulebooks, I'm fortunate that we got two copies, but as I said, it would have been nice for everyone to have one for table reference.

What I mean to say, in a word, then, is that the amount of conversion has nothing to do with how extreme the departures are from 3.5. (especially next to 4E), but how numerous they are. This can't be handwaived with "well, look if it comes up in play". That's the whole issue. If I have to start looking up every single line in the rulebooks just to see if it has changed I've got the worst session stopper EVER. And, if you recall, that was precisely Monte Cook's complaint with the 3.5 overhaul. He welcomed the idea of streamlining 3.0, but he hated the fact that 3.5 introduced way more changes than was strictly necessary - with the foreseeable and absoltuely intended consequence that people won't bother looking into their 3.0 books anymore. People simply picked up the new rulebook because it saves them all the hassle of conversion.

As I said, your comparison is spot on.

This

Quote from: DeadUematsu;337045So, Koltar, what happened to you this weekend?

A VERY strange experience with Dungeons & Dragons 4/e.
Lets put it that way.

Best term I can think of might be 'cognitive dissonance' between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.  


I am now looking to start a new campaign group, with me as GM - where I should be.

- Ed C.