D&D 3E/3.5 A list of 3e problems and how they were tackled in PF

[Noir le Lotus]

1. No change : you must use adequate PrCs
2. Almost no change (PrC BAB and ST rule has been modified IIRC). Using fractionnal BAB & ST should be a good idea I think.
3. Spells have been modified : SoD deal damage, SoS have a save every round.
4. No change : spellcasters are still SAD if that's your question.
5. a few changes : less buffs available, Power Attack has now a fixed value (1/4 of your BAB) and several feats to give up lower attacks for better damage. All this should speed up things a bit.
6. lot of modifications on skills : several skills are melted together, less skill tax, concentration is gone and cross-class skills no longer cost double. Problem fixed !!
7. As said above, rarely used skills are melted with others.
8. Some good modifications : several abilities now work per rounds instead of X/day (rage, bard songs), cantrips are at-will, clerics can heal with spells or channeling, spellcasters can a 1st level power usable several times per day. No 15-min work day at low level : PCs should be able to make several fights in a day. The high level 15-min work day is more a problem of gaming table.
9. All classes gain abilities or enhance their abilities during the 20 levels. Multiclass dipping is far less interesting as you only gain a few weak abilities.
10. A new feat every odd level.
11. I didn't read completely the final rules but IIRC, the Beta had severa lrules to give 1st level PCs more HP, and anyway you die at -Con.
12. Too early to give an opinion.
13. As the modifications are quite light, it should be a piece of cake to adapt 3rd edition modules
14 & 15. The Paizo crew explicitely said that they don't want any rules bloat.
16. LA is gone. Playing monstrous races now is a DM call. Anyway, the CoT player's guide gives some guidelines on how to play a tiefling : weaken the race by giving up some racial abilities, give more to the other players or give a XP penalty to the tiefling player. We should know more when the Pathfinder Bestiary will come out.
17. More or less the same than 3.X, but some areas have been really simplified
18 & 19. much eaisier to use !!
20. flat XP for msonters.

 

[Remathilis]

16. LA is gone. Playing monstrous races now is a DM call. Anyway, the CoT player's guide gives some guidelines on how to play a tiefling : weaken the race by giving up some racial abilities, give more to the other players or give a XP penalty to the tiefling player. We should know more when the Pathfinder Bestiary will come out.

The Pathfinder book states some races (aasimar, tiefling, goblin, hobgoblin, orc, tengu, kobold, and mite) are equal to the seven core races, while other races (gnoll, bugbear, lizardfolk, drow, duergar, snirfneblin, and a few others) should start one level lower than normal PCs (effectively an LA+1, but its not a hard-wired and doesn't effect your XP table).

The best route is to (IMO) make your own PC stats for said races using the monsters as a guide. It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to assemble a hynea-man, a dark elf, a minotaur, or a lizard-man race on par with the PHB races, now that they have a bit more bite to them.

 

[Sadrik]

I am excited about this product and look forward to playing it.
Here are 10 more popular concerns about 3e, how did PF address any of these?

21. Tripping and spiked chain mayhem?
22. Static class features every class looks exactly the same (rogues, barbarians and lots of others)?
23. Attacks of Opportunities, any changes there?
24. Polymorph/Shape Change/Alter Self/Wild Shape etc?
25. Summon Spells any easier?
26. Animal Companion/Special Mounts/Familiars?
27. Alignment and the black and white nature of D&D?
28. Are there going to more campaign settings than just the current one?
29. Does the D&D economy become any more realistic?
30. What about CoDzilla...?

 

[Jadeite]

I am excited about this product and look forward to playing it.
Here are 10 more popular concerns about 3e, how did PF address any of these?

21. Tripping and spiked chain mayhem?

The spiked chain lost its reach and improved trip no longer grants a free attack. There's a feat called 'greater trip' which causes tripped opponents to provoke attacks of opportunity, though.

22. Static class features every class looks exactly the same (rogues, barbarians and lots of others)?

Rogues and Barbarians get to chose a new rogue talent/rage power at each even level.

23. Attacks of Opportunities, any changes there?

No.

24. Polymorph/Shape Change/Alter Self/Wild Shape etc?

There is the new polymorph subschool. You no longer gain the physical abilities of your new form, just modifications to your normal stats and the additional abilities depend on the spell used (there is beast shape I - IV for example). Each spell is also limited to one or two types of creature you can change in, with a few exceptions like polymorph and shapechange.

25. Summon Spells any easier?

The list of summonable creatures changed, but otherwise it seems to be the same. But the bestiary contains 'quick templates' for fiendish and celestial creatures that may speed things up a bit.

26. Animal Companion/Special Mounts/Familiars?

Animal companions are now streamlined, as well as mounts. There's the generic companion progression which gets modified depending on the animal. Some of them are better than others, especially big cats and boars. Familiars are unchanged.
Also, each class that gets one has the choice between the companion or another class feature, druids may chose domains, paladins can get a magic weapon, etc.

27. Alignment and the black and white nature of D&D?

Unchanged. Bards may no be lawful.

28. Are there going to more campaign settings than just the current one?

Paizo only has Golarion, but other companies are working on their own PRPG compatible settings.

29. Does the D&D economy become any more realistic?

The price of ladders and iron pots was increased. Magic items are a bit less widely available. Nonspellcasters get to create magic items.

30. What about CoDzilla...?

Wild Shape was changed. Divine Power was changed. Both classes are still powerful, but so are fighters and paladins.

 

[Rechan]

Keep in mind that Pathfinder is intended for people who like 3.5, not people who want to move away from it.

Keep in mind that Having issues with some rules breaking down/not working = moving away from the entire system.

 

[Imban]

Forewarning: I play primarily modded 3.5e, don't really care for Pathfinder except for a few things that I've adopted into my game, and run practically all my games as gestalt games. Your mileage may vary, especially about some balancing specifics.

Multi-classed spell casters not powerful enough?

Unchanged from 3.5e. Multi-classed spell casters still suck unless you take a PrC specifically designed to correct this.

Multi-classes BAB and Saves either too high or too low?

Mostly unchanged from 3.5e, but prestige classes' good saves start at +1, not +2.

Save or Die/Suck spells dominating high level play?

There are less of them in Pathfinder but there are still some, and if you intend for the game to be backwards-compatible, you're obviously going to immediately run into the ones from 3.5e splat material. If you really hate those types of spells, on the other hand, it's easy enough to "fix" the last few in Pathfinder and not allow in any from 3.5e splat material.

But yes, using an instant death spell that the enemy is not immune to is still generally the best response. They just removed a bunch of them.

DCs for spells too high at upper levels

Never noticed this as a problem in my gestalt games - if anything, at high levels, DCs are low compared to the save bonuses people are packing. If you were having a problem with this, though, I'm going to go and say Pathfinder makes it (slightly) worse, by adding some things like the Fey Sorcerer DC bonuses that weren't available in 3.5e.

High level full attacks and actually game time to resolve them?

Same as in 3.5e

Not enough skill points for characters?

Pathfinder features an abbreviated skill list that, of course, is worse than your houseruled abbreviated skill list that you've probably had for years. Since it's not the one your specific group made up years ago.

What, your group didn't abbreviate the 3e skill list years ago?

Skills that are useless (rope use/forgery)?

Appraise is still in, Use Rope and Forgery are out. See above comment, though.

The 15 minute work day?

Still in, so if it was a problem in your games before, it'll be a problem in your games now. Alternatively, whack your wizard's wrists with a ruler every time he goes nova in the first encounter of the day when the fighters COULD have actually chopped it up, and then it won't be, but not because you're playing Pathfinder.

Reasons to not multi-class in certain classes (fighter)?

Um, do you mean "reasons to not take two levels of Fighter if you need bonus feats to qualify for something, or Paladin for Charisma to all saves, or Monk for Wisdom to AC while unarmored", or "reasons to not multiclass out of Fighter or prestige class out of Wizard/Sorcerer as quickly as possible"?

If you mean the former, no, none of the classes which previously encouraged dipping do it any less now.

If you mean the latter, argh. In beta, there were some relatively attractive reasons to remain a Cleric or Wizard, but they made those mostly irrelevant now. Depending on the availability of "high tier" prestige classes, though, you might see more Sorcerers not prestige classing out, since you get fairly decent stuff for just remaining a Sorcerer.

Not enough feats for characters?

Everyone gets 11 feats instead of 7 at level 20 now.

Characters too fragile at low level?

I had to actually hit the rulebook for this one since I just use Pathfinder as a source of 3.5e mods, but casters have higher hit dice, so on average spellcasters will have 2 more HP than they used to at level 1. That's it.

DM prep time?

Same as 3e.

Adaptation of previous edition's modules and supplements?

You can "sneak by" without restatting a lot of stuff, so quite easy. Druids that actually use their Wildshape should get some attention, though, as they're quite different now.

Class glut?
and
Race glut?

Same as 3e. Both in that Pathfinder has the same classes as the 3e PHB, and that it's mostly compatible with 3e, so any class glut in 3e can also apply to Pathfinder.

Racial Level Adjustments (LA)?

If these were mentioned at all in Pathfinder, I totally missed it. It's like a PHB + DMG combination, monsters and their LA were in the Monster Manual, so... yeah.

Maybe they've tried to fix it for the Pathfinder Bestiary. Maybe they just decided you can't play an ogre ever now. Who knows.

Overall game complexity?

Same as 3e, only you have to note a few more powers at low levels when you're making a Wizard or something.

Complexity of Grappling?

Slightly simpler, doesn't work as well. Meh.

Complexity of Turn Undead?

Much better - you can now radiate positive or negative energy to heal or deal 1d6-10d6 damage in an area around you, depending on your alignment. Obviously positive energy blasts undead, so there's Turn Undead for you, and it heals your party to boot. For controlling undead, there's a feat to do it if you have the negative energy version, and it's just treated as any other saving-throw-based effect.

The complexity of the CR/EL XP system?

Again, not a monster manual, but they've already basically said it works like every edition other than 3e, with fixed XP values for each monster, with its attendant benefits (far easier) and drawbacks (wonky results on the far ends).

Tripping and spiked chain mayhem?

Tripping is now BALLS HARD to do because it's exactly as hard as grappling people and no longer works on flyers of any sort. (I honestly can't remember whether it was a houserule or not that tripping works on winged flyers with non-perfect flight, but that's how I always played it.) Spiked Chains, for their part, suck and there's no longer any reason to use one ever.

Static class features every class looks exactly the same (rogues, barbarians and lots of others)?

Um... basically everyone has little forms of differentiation between a 20th-level member of the same class now.

Attacks of Opportunities, any changes there?

Fairly sure they're the same as in 3.5e.

Polymorph/Shape Change/Alter Self/Wild Shape etc?

They've been modified to grant stat bonuses instead of replacing your stats, though you still get to go book-diving for a monster with the exact minor ability you're looking for. Less broken, though.

Summon Spells any easier?

Umm... I have to admit I don't really get this one. You summon a celestial dog, it uses the celestial dog stats from the Monster Manual, uh... ???

Animal Companion/Special Mounts/Familiars?

Animal Companions now work completely differently and are basically created using a special 'class'. Special Mounts are pretty much just summonable normal mounts. Familiars seem to work basically exactly as in 3.5e, but they're now quite optional - one of two options for Wizards, but only available to one Sorcerer bloodline.

Alignment and the black and white nature of D&D?

Same as 3.5e.

Are there going to more campaign settings than just the current one?

You can use the 3.5e ones just fine.

Does the D&D economy become any more realistic?

No, it's just as unrealistic as it always was. But it's not as unrealistic as 4e's is.

What about CoDzilla...?

Now just Czilla, because Wild Shape now is just non-slot-consuming spells that Wizards can cast. If you want it, though, an Animal Domain Cleric gets to turn into any animal (though not any plant or elemental) at one level after the Druid gets their last one of those, and also Shapechange, which is unconditionally better than the entire Wild Shape ability, at level 17.

Wizards (and Animal Domain Clerics, once they get Shapechange) also have access to Form of the Dragon, which pretty well puts all the shapes Druids can actually take to shame, too.

 

[Quantarum]

The honest answer to most of your questions is "They really didn't fix that." Pathfinder is D&D 3.55. If you find these things a problem ( as I did for some of them during my last 3.5 campaign) you're going to have to fix them yourself if you want to use Pathfinder.
For myself, I'd rather play Pathfinder than 3.5. The beefed up character classes look good to me. If I was running it I could break out my 71 pages of 3.5 house rules and use them without much alteration.

-Q.

 

[Felon]

What's a "CoDzilla"?

 

[Belphanior]

CoDzilla = Cleric or Druid zilla.

It refers to these two classes easily turning themselves into physical powerhouses who totally eclipse the power of fighters or barbarians. In 3.5 this is quite easy to do with the PHB alone.

Whether or not it still exists in Pathfinder I can't really say.


As an aside, I find it interesting to compare Form of the Dragon III and Giant Form II.

They are the same level but it seems to me the Dragon version is much better. Better stat bonuses, better senses, breathweapon, fear aura, flight, DR...

 

[Alzrius]

What's a "CoDzilla"?

The "CoD" there stands for "Cleric or Druid," because these are commonly recognized as being the most powerful among the core classes. Hence, their ability to stomp all over their opposition (comparative to other classes) earned them the nickname "CoDzilla."