3.5 VS Pathfinders

Anyone who have strong oppinions on this? i play alot of 3.5 with my mates but we added the animal companion from pathfinders to our game to balance things out abit anyone who have done similair or just flat out means pathfinder is superior to 3.5?

I think that Pathfinder is superior to 3.5. It's a bit more balanced (as far as balance goes in a D20 games with fighters and wizards in one party). At least Paizo tried to solve some of 3.5 problems, such as grapple, wild shape, and others. Plus, the system look a bit simpler. Last, but not least, I like that almost no class has "dead levels", like in 3.5. By dead levels I mean levels on which you gen only BAB, saves and HD, like all uneven Fighter levels after first (we all know Fighter is a class two levels long =)). Plus, I like the idea of Archetypes. It's not new, but it works. And their setting, although kitchen sinkey, is interesting.

DISCLAIMER: As a GM, I haven't used Pathfinder for any of my campaigns in quite a while, and the following is 100% based on zero quantifiable facts, simply the opinion of me and my group. Our group has all played D&D since the old days, through AD&D, 2E, 3E, 3.5 as well as many other gaming systems - fantasy and otherwise. Many in my group also GM. I remember - back in the day - when Pathfinder first came out, we took a look at it and said things like... "Ohh, that's nice" "That's a great improvement" ...and similar platitudes. I can't remember us having much bad to say about it at that time, and over the years we never felt the need or desire to go back to 3.5. We looked at 4E when it came out, of course, but there wasn't any desire from any of us to switch - we simply didn't see anything worthwhile. The amount of material and support for Pathfinder is now staggering, and I don't see any signs of it slowing. Paizo has a rich campaign world with Golarian, and is still producing quality content in the form of their APs, not to mention 3rd party content is also vast. I personally feel that power creep has taken over the system, but for many people that's a good thing. Just be sure, as a GM, that you review all material beyond the Core books to see if you want to allow it in your campaign. Be certain your players know that just because something is printed with the Pathfinder logo on it doesn't mean you will automatically allow it in the campaign, as some choices can be very unbalancing depending on your campaign.

Balance wise I still think PF has it is shovels compared to 3.5. I GMed both systems with the same group. I had two munchkin players, who live to break games. I had to heavily veto their 3.5 character sheets, cause they came up with broken stuff constantly. Their PF sheets were strong, but not broken. Maybe they did not know PF "that good" to break it, but it still looks like a harder to break system.

1) Pathfinder, not Pathfinder s . PF would probably also be ok. 2) 3.5 probably has more content written for it, but Pathfinder's success and following may have changed that. There is a lot of PF Stuff. When I first met Pathfinder, it was introduced as "like 3.5, but extended." That isn't entirely true, but it sums up nicely what I like about it: MORE OPTIONS. It's also balanced a bit differently, which I like, but some people do not. 3) I find more and more players who find ways to break PF, but it's in surprisingly different or creative ways compared to 3.5 4) Both of them beat 4e and Next. If you're unsure, perhaps play in a game of Pathfinder. Deliberately pick a race/class you're familiar with in 3.5, and see what's different.

I can't stand 3.5 anymore since Pathfinder came out it fixed a lot of little minor issues. Just one example the skill system is far better giving just a +3 to class skills, instead of x4 points at first level. But, I played/ran so much Pathfinder it got old, and still suffers from the same problem most D&D does, high level play is just broken and not even close to balanced. So now I play 4e, Next, and 13th Age and have way more fun then I ever did playing 3e or Pathfinder.

Moved to Off-Topic.

Pathfinder does have the advantage of being open on the internet. As a student who can't necessarily afford 100 dollars worth of rulebooks for Dungeons&Dragons, Pathfinder is amazing.