[RPG] What do we need to do to enjoy 3.5e-like Portal Magic in Pathfinder

conversiondnd-3.5emagicpathfinder-1espells

In 3.5 play, WotC published a bunch of game-mechanic rules for portals and portal magic. You could find them in Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook, some of the F.R. sourcebooks and even spell reprints/cleanups in the Spell Compendium.

Now that my group is fully transitioning into a homebrew hybrid Pathfinder-&-3.5 system (3.P?) and kicking it off with Golarion as our new campaign world, we'd like to bring over a lot of the those portals mechanics to our new system and campaign world.

Golarion's Elf Gates are probably the closest corollary to 3.5's portals.

Do any of you know if Paizo (or reputable Pathfinder 3PP company) has published any good rule systems, magic spells/items or cultural info on these Elf Gates? And if so, where would we find them?

Also, we loved using 3.5 spells like Scramble Portal, Analyze Portal, Seal Portal, etc. Will we still be able to use these spells as is … or will they require some mechanical or flavor tweaking to make them usable for Golarion's Elf Gates?

Best Answer

James Jacobs (Paizo's Creative Director) has once declared that there are as many ways to create gates as necessary for the adventure being written:

Are there other ways to create portals?

Yes. There are as many ways to create portals as the writer of an adventure or supplement that requires portals to play a role can make up.

With that said, there is really nothing that prevents, or will cause trouble, when making a direct conversion from 3.5's rules for creating portals to Pathfinder. If Paizo does release some rules about creating portals, those will not be the only acceptable method for creating them, but just another method.

And this is, in fact, explored in the setting. There are dozens of portals created by different races, from aboleth to elves, using magic or technology. One thing they try to make sure is that the methods are not common knowledge, the knowledge of making portals is either kept secret or is a lost knowledge from an ancient civilization.

The Second Darkness adventure path explores the elf gates to a certain extent, but most of that information is available on the wiki. It is worth checking the second book though, Children of the Void, as it precedes the book about the other planets and shows us the first information about using gates and planetary travel in the setting.

James Jacobs words are confirmed on the Distant Worlds setting book (page 53):

From a game perspective, portals are the easiest means of travel for GMs to manage, as it allows them to control when such travel is possible and where on a given world a party appears, as well as creating natural adventure hooks. Whether they’ve been carefully searching for such a gateway or simply stumble upon it in the center of a dungeon, it’s hard for PCs to resist stepping through a portal and seeing what’s on the other side.

Every planet on the book has a short list of adventure hooks, nearly all of them have at least one entry related to the gate on that planet.

Related Topic