I was wondering about the differences between dnd and pathfinder. Is it possible adapt pathfinder modules for dnd? How much work would it require? How different are the two rpgs?
Fifth edition dnd, not sure for pathfinder. Probably the most recent edition would be best, since it would have the most modules available. I’m looking to expand my collection of playable modules.
Pathfinder basically uses 3.5e scaling, so you won't be able to do numeric translations, or even use the same threats and expect the fights to work the same.
It depends what you want to do and how much work you are putting in. In terms of setting path finder is based off much the same worlds as DnD so you can use the stories in the adventure modules, or the background information about the planes etc.
In terms of mechanics some things translate over, for instance in a published adventure with traps etc you can pretty easily transpose over the effects, although you might need to adjust the damage or DC’s.
When it comes to monsters though each pathfinder monster should have a DnD equivalent but do not assume they are automatically equivalent in terms of CR, you will need to use your knowledge of your party, their level and the damage output of the DnD version to equate if this encounter feels about the right level of difficulty. for the names NPCs and BBEG you will need to homebrew these to balance them
Personally I have used Pathfinder adventures for the maps and the story and then home brewed the rest using the monsters listed as a guide.
Pathfinder is into their 2nd Edition. The rulebook is enormous, rules and mechanics go on for page after page with tons of tiny little modifiers that stack for each type of roll that you make. They have 25 classes to D&D's 13 official classes, and I have no idea if they have subclasses. The rules are only vaguely like 5th Edition D&D and are thus likely to be of little use for a D&D game. I am given to understand that the advice to DMs is useful, interesting, and plentiful. For Adventure supplements (modules) Pathfinder will be of little use outside of names, maps, and ideas. It would require a tremendous amount of work to convert anything from Pathfinder to D&D.
Pathfinder's equivalent of the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide is all one book. 640 pages, 60 bucks. Their version of the Monster Manual is 300 pages for 50 bucks. I got my D&D Core Rules boxed set for 90 bucks and Pathfinder's versions would come in at 110 dollars. I saw approximately 18 modules for sale at $25 each. They give you no idea what the page count is, and you will have to pay 25 bucks extra for a PDF version. Over all, Pathfinder is a good deal more expensive, much larger in page count, with far more complicated rules. It is based off the 3rd and "3.5" Edition of D&D and suffers all of the flaws and benefits of it. If you remember and long for those days it's excellent.
There is very little Online support for Pathfinder. I find a character generator and a dice roller. They mention an immersive sound generator for whatever that is worth. That's about it. I find no mention of a dedicated forum or any other sort of online support. No Encounter Builder, Combat Tracker, or Mobile Applications of any kind. No convenient access to rules, no support for homebrew. There isn't anything even remotely close to all that D&D Beyond brings to your games.
You appear to have started with D&D. The greatest virtue of 5th Edition D&D is it's simplicity. Pathfinder's 2nd Edition is in every and all ways inferior. If you don't care, it is a heavy investment to get into Pathfinder, but you may enjoy it once you have it all figured out. I would suggest sticking with D&D or going over to Pathfinder entirely. There's really very little they have in common and conversion would be a huge bother, taking a great deal of time, and getting you essentially nothing. Go with one or the other and don't try to convert between them.
If you want "more D&D" adventures and options beyond WotC official output, you'd be better off researching and investing your $ in quality 3rd party presses writing material for 5e than buying material from a different game system. Kobold Press, Goodman Games, Hitpoint Press, and MCDM come to mind off the cuff for high quality materials; and as a case in point I'm designing a birthday party one shot based off Aerial Combat rules written for 5e provided in an issue of MCDM's Arcadia magazine. Another option, you can explore DMsGuild where a lot of contributors to official WotC products also have stuff for sale, often in the adventures category. A lot of other people contribute to DMsGuild too, but I've noticed a lot of recognizable names attached to 5e or D&D in general have stuff there.
I would buy Pathfinder to play Pathfinder. I would not buy Pathfinder to supplement or get "synergy" or something for my 5e game. There is plenty of support and supplementary material actually designed for the game if you want more.
One exception, if you're a miniatures person, Pathfinder miniatures I think are a good alternative to official D&D minis if want to different look to your game, or the official minis are not in stock (there are also a lot of fantasy minis not specifically tied to D&D or Pathfinder); but my impression is you're specifically looking for written materials.
FWIW, there's a Humble Bundle sale for Pathfinder 2e right now. Get the core rulebook, bestiary, campaign setting guide, an adventure path and more for $35. If your financial situation permits, that's going to be the cheapest entry point into Pathfinder you can find since usually their PDFs are prohibitively expensive (I think they really prefer you buy the book or join their expensive subscription services).
You can look up conversions and whatnot to run Pathfinder stuff in D&D (conversions will take quite a bit of work though as others mentioned). I am considering running Rise of the Runelords in 5e, but it'll be a while until my current campaign finishes... So for now, mostly I just mine Pathfinder for the setting and Wayne Reynold's art. I love Golarion perhaps more than Forgotten Realms just because there's far less baggage and it feels a little fresher and more varied. But as for the gameplay? I vastly prefer 5e's elegant simplicity and lack of endless floating modifiers. YMMV.
To some degree I've done this, as I had quite a bit of Pathfinder information (books, modules, class stuff). In general, you do not want to try to bring equipment over unless it is easily converted. That way lies madness. But for a module, if you have time... it is certainly workable. The story elements are easy enough to translate, and many monsters are on both sides of the fence. You just need to spend some quality time with the Encounter Builder and tweak each encounter. Yes. Each and every encounter in the module. But if you have the art assets, the story design, the NPCs... the encounters is pretty much straight forward. The hardest are the fights with NPCs that are the antagonists as you'll have to build them from scratch. But if you know the intended level and difficulty for them, you can work them out pretty quickly.
In general, it is faster to convert a module than it is to come up with something entirely new. I add in so much of my own stuff anyway that there is no true conversion in anything, but I'll lift some of the design and encounter elements for things I'm working on in my campaigns. But there is no quick way and you shouldn't think there is a cookie cutter method to it as you'll need to assess each encounter versus your player's party.
I will say I have raided Pathfinder for magic item ideas, they then need balancing and tweaking for 5th ed but there are some really cool things that haven't made their way to 5th ed yet :)
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I was wondering about the differences between dnd and pathfinder.
Is it possible adapt pathfinder modules for dnd? How much work would it require? How different are the two rpgs?
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
first off we need to define which edition of each game we talking.
Check out my homebrew subclasses spells magic items feats monsters races
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help create a world here
Fifth edition dnd, not sure for pathfinder. Probably the most recent edition would be best, since it would have the most modules available. I’m looking to expand my collection of playable modules.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep
Pathfinder basically uses 3.5e scaling, so you won't be able to do numeric translations, or even use the same threats and expect the fights to work the same.
It depends what you want to do and how much work you are putting in. In terms of setting path finder is based off much the same worlds as DnD so you can use the stories in the adventure modules, or the background information about the planes etc.
In terms of mechanics some things translate over, for instance in a published adventure with traps etc you can pretty easily transpose over the effects, although you might need to adjust the damage or DC’s.
When it comes to monsters though each pathfinder monster should have a DnD equivalent but do not assume they are automatically equivalent in terms of CR, you will need to use your knowledge of your party, their level and the damage output of the DnD version to equate if this encounter feels about the right level of difficulty. for the names NPCs and BBEG you will need to homebrew these to balance them
Personally I have used Pathfinder adventures for the maps and the story and then home brewed the rest using the monsters listed as a guide.
Pathfinder is into their 2nd Edition. The rulebook is enormous, rules and mechanics go on for page after page with tons of tiny little modifiers that stack for each type of roll that you make. They have 25 classes to D&D's 13 official classes, and I have no idea if they have subclasses. The rules are only vaguely like 5th Edition D&D and are thus likely to be of little use for a D&D game. I am given to understand that the advice to DMs is useful, interesting, and plentiful. For Adventure supplements (modules) Pathfinder will be of little use outside of names, maps, and ideas. It would require a tremendous amount of work to convert anything from Pathfinder to D&D.
Pathfinder's equivalent of the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide is all one book. 640 pages, 60 bucks. Their version of the Monster Manual is 300 pages for 50 bucks. I got my D&D Core Rules boxed set for 90 bucks and Pathfinder's versions would come in at 110 dollars. I saw approximately 18 modules for sale at $25 each. They give you no idea what the page count is, and you will have to pay 25 bucks extra for a PDF version. Over all, Pathfinder is a good deal more expensive, much larger in page count, with far more complicated rules. It is based off the 3rd and "3.5" Edition of D&D and suffers all of the flaws and benefits of it. If you remember and long for those days it's excellent.
There is very little Online support for Pathfinder. I find a character generator and a dice roller. They mention an immersive sound generator for whatever that is worth. That's about it. I find no mention of a dedicated forum or any other sort of online support. No Encounter Builder, Combat Tracker, or Mobile Applications of any kind. No convenient access to rules, no support for homebrew. There isn't anything even remotely close to all that D&D Beyond brings to your games.
You appear to have started with D&D. The greatest virtue of 5th Edition D&D is it's simplicity. Pathfinder's 2nd Edition is in every and all ways inferior. If you don't care, it is a heavy investment to get into Pathfinder, but you may enjoy it once you have it all figured out. I would suggest sticking with D&D or going over to Pathfinder entirely. There's really very little they have in common and conversion would be a huge bother, taking a great deal of time, and getting you essentially nothing. Go with one or the other and don't try to convert between them.
I'd stick with D&D myself.
<Insert clever signature here>
If you want "more D&D" adventures and options beyond WotC official output, you'd be better off researching and investing your $ in quality 3rd party presses writing material for 5e than buying material from a different game system. Kobold Press, Goodman Games, Hitpoint Press, and MCDM come to mind off the cuff for high quality materials; and as a case in point I'm designing a birthday party one shot based off Aerial Combat rules written for 5e provided in an issue of MCDM's Arcadia magazine. Another option, you can explore DMsGuild where a lot of contributors to official WotC products also have stuff for sale, often in the adventures category. A lot of other people contribute to DMsGuild too, but I've noticed a lot of recognizable names attached to 5e or D&D in general have stuff there.
I would buy Pathfinder to play Pathfinder. I would not buy Pathfinder to supplement or get "synergy" or something for my 5e game. There is plenty of support and supplementary material actually designed for the game if you want more.
One exception, if you're a miniatures person, Pathfinder miniatures I think are a good alternative to official D&D minis if want to different look to your game, or the official minis are not in stock (there are also a lot of fantasy minis not specifically tied to D&D or Pathfinder); but my impression is you're specifically looking for written materials.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
FWIW, there's a Humble Bundle sale for Pathfinder 2e right now. Get the core rulebook, bestiary, campaign setting guide, an adventure path and more for $35. If your financial situation permits, that's going to be the cheapest entry point into Pathfinder you can find since usually their PDFs are prohibitively expensive (I think they really prefer you buy the book or join their expensive subscription services).
You can look up conversions and whatnot to run Pathfinder stuff in D&D (conversions will take quite a bit of work though as others mentioned). I am considering running Rise of the Runelords in 5e, but it'll be a while until my current campaign finishes... So for now, mostly I just mine Pathfinder for the setting and Wayne Reynold's art. I love Golarion perhaps more than Forgotten Realms just because there's far less baggage and it feels a little fresher and more varied. But as for the gameplay? I vastly prefer 5e's elegant simplicity and lack of endless floating modifiers. YMMV.
To some degree I've done this, as I had quite a bit of Pathfinder information (books, modules, class stuff). In general, you do not want to try to bring equipment over unless it is easily converted. That way lies madness. But for a module, if you have time... it is certainly workable. The story elements are easy enough to translate, and many monsters are on both sides of the fence. You just need to spend some quality time with the Encounter Builder and tweak each encounter. Yes. Each and every encounter in the module. But if you have the art assets, the story design, the NPCs... the encounters is pretty much straight forward. The hardest are the fights with NPCs that are the antagonists as you'll have to build them from scratch. But if you know the intended level and difficulty for them, you can work them out pretty quickly.
In general, it is faster to convert a module than it is to come up with something entirely new. I add in so much of my own stuff anyway that there is no true conversion in anything, but I'll lift some of the design and encounter elements for things I'm working on in my campaigns. But there is no quick way and you shouldn't think there is a cookie cutter method to it as you'll need to assess each encounter versus your player's party.
I will say I have raided Pathfinder for magic item ideas, they then need balancing and tweaking for 5th ed but there are some really cool things that haven't made their way to 5th ed yet :)