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Is there a big conflict between 4e and 3.5e? Lets say I had a sourcebook for Eberron or Forgetten Realms from 3.5e... could I use those with 4e games? I know when I've played 3.5 that I was able to use 3.0 books. Just wondering if 4e and 3.5e could have the some compatability.

You could use the sourcebooks for their fluff, but the rules are largely incompatible.

I imagine there are some tools on the web to convert 3.5 to 4e and back, but I think aneasier tool would be to shell out the $15 for D&D Insider and get access to their huge compendium of monsters and adventures.

Yeah, if you wanted to use things (monsters, items, spells) in 3.5 books you'd have to spend a considerable amount of time (probably including playtesting) converting them from scratch. The rules are, for this purpose, utterly different. Other things (like feats) would be even more difficult to convert. As pretre the magnificent has advised, you should just go with D&D Insider or use 4E books. Stuff from 3.5 converts much more easily to Pathfinder but there is still a need for conversion, by the way.

I get a title now? Sweet.


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And back on topic, I think D&D insider is a pretty great deal. You can pay by the year and it is like $70...

I haven't bought books in a while because everything is auto-updated in there, you get access to the Character Builder, the Rules Compendium, Monster Editor and the complete library of adventures, articles and rules from Dungeon/Dragon.

Think of how many books you might have bought a year in 3.5 days and how much that'd cost.

pretre wrote:And back on topic, I think D&D insider is a pretty great deal. You can pay by the year and it is like $70...

I haven't bought books in a while because everything is auto-updated in there, you get access to the Character Builder, the Rules Compendium, Monster Editor and the complete library of adventures, articles and rules from Dungeon/Dragon.

Think of how many books you might have bought a year in 3.5 days and how much that'd cost.

$70 bucks doesn't sound too bad... plus its right up my alley with it being accessible online. I'm mostly at my computer alot anyway.

I would do the $15/month thing for the first month to try it out before you go whole-hog. But yeah, being a desk-jockey myself, I love that I can look stuff up and screw around without lugging 50 pounds of books around with me.

djphranq: Are you already playing a lot of 4E?

You can easily copy stuff over and convert. Just use your 3rd and 3.5 books for reference when creating things, there is a section in one of the books for 4th on how to make characters and monsters.

If you do have the insider sub there are DM tools that make it easy to make monsters and then scale them for the appropriate level as well as calculating xp.

Manchu wrote:djphranq: Are you already playing a lot of 4E?

I have yet to play. I'm not even that deep into PHB1 yet. No characters made so far. I haven't found a group to play with yet.

Ahtman wrote:If you do have the insider sub there are DM tools that make it easy to make monsters and then scale them for the appropriate level as well as calculating xp.

OMG, I just ran into this and started playing with it. The slider is kind of hilarious. "Look, my Kobold is now level 50."

That is a kobold you don't want to mess with it would seem.

djphranq wrote:I have yet to play. I'm not even that deep into PHB1 yet. No characters made so far. I haven't found a group to play with yet.

Are you more familiar with 3.5 then? I'd definitely recommend sitting down and reading 4E PHB1 before subscribing to D&D Insider.

Manchu wrote:

djphranq wrote:I have yet to play. I'm not even that deep into PHB1 yet. No characters made so far. I haven't found a group to play with yet.

Are you more familiar with 3.5 then? I'd definitely recommend sitting down and reading 4E PHB1 before subscribing to D&D Insider.

Will do. I'm on the chapter that discusses the races.

The two games have a pretty different philosophy. As has been said, porting setting stuff is pretty easy. A lot of systems may not port over without a lot of work.

A big difference is how fights are built In 3.0, a 'big fight' might be a half dozen Orcs with spears and a shaman. The shaman is a 'one-off' because he's got a bunch of spells and such. In 4th, the GM is encouraged to build encounters that have 4-6 Goblin Minions (1 HP cannon fodder), 3 Orc Soldiers, an Orc Shaman, and an orc Crossbow and each Orc sub-type has it's own specials, etc. The Shaman now has 2-3 special powers (Unique, not PC-class spells). Monsters are balanced with the expectation that they'll generally be in one fight and done.

OTOH, a lot of the Eberron 'stuff' like Warforged, is in 4.0, which makes things easier.