This is part of my RPG series of entries here at SOB. See the inaugural entry in the series for more details.

I’ve been getting a little attention here for my early review of PRPG, PPR: Pathfinder RPG (First Impressions). For instance:

At the official Paizo Blog, Lead Designer Jason Buhlman posted The Reviews are Coming In!. In addition to mentioning both my review and a Pen and Paper Games review of the new Pathfinder RPG, he also provides an embedded YouTube video review from “Game Geeks”. For those who want the actual YouTube page for the video, it’s located at the following URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdBv_9Eiq-o

He also mentioned that there’ll be a free PDF conversion guide for people who want to convert characters from D&D 3.5 to Pathfinder RPG. Before anyone complains that you shouldn’t have to convert characters for something that’s supposed to be “compatible” with D&D 3.5, I suggest you check out my previous ramble on the subject: What does “compatibility” mean for Pathfinder?

I don’t know what they’ll say about experience point totals, considering that experience points for advancement have been somewhat altered between D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG. I know what I did when converting characters during the playtest period, though, and what I’ll be doing if necessary in the future: I’ll use the pfconv utility I wrote specifically for this purpose. You can get a copy of the current form of this Ruby script for yourself, or you can use the Web interface for it:

pfconv – Web Interface

It turns out that the experience point advancement table, called Table 3-1: Character Advancement and Level-Dependent Bonuses, has not changed between the playtest versions and the release version for Pathfinder RPG, so if you have an old copy of the script it’ll still work. I have, however, changed the license under which I’m distributing it from the Public Distribution License (now deprecated) to the Open Works License. For the vast majority of users who download the script, this won’t really affect you — and it shouldn’t affect you at all if you just use the Web interface.

Once I see what’s in the free conversion guide PDF, I may automate more stuff via pfconv options (if there’s more to automate, of course). In the meantime, I don’t really see a lot of conversion guidance needed other than for experience points. The rest can be handled by just basically doing a mid-campaign rebuild. I actually like having the excuse to do a mid-campaign rebuild here, anyway, as it allows me to tighten up the character concept a bit. It’s fun, and helps with character development, at least as long as I don’t violate continuity by throwing away capabilities that my character has been using all along.

At any rate, the pfconv script is still there, and still useful for converting XP totals between 3.5 and PRPG without changes. You’re set for the official Pathfinder RPG release date (or whenever you get your hands on the book).