| I agree that the starting hit point bonus is a good thing. It is well targeted at helping characters survive at lower levels, which is a desirable effect. The other hit point increases like the larger hit dice, however, are less desirable, as they only provide significant amounts of hit points at higher levels and thus fail to help survivability at low levels, yet contribute to hit point inflation.
The power creep involved is very significant in some cases. Consider our 3.5E and PF Wizard duo outlined above. The Pathfinder Wizard has almost 100% more hit points and that's assuming maximum hit points per hit die for both - if we take mean hit points per hit die, it would actually reach a full 100% hit point difference.
But yes, hit points are not the only area of power creep, but I think they are merely the most egregious.
For me, power creep is an issue, but is counterbalanced by the positive changes Pathfinder is making. I know some people, however, for whom power creep is an important enough issue that they refuse to convert to Pathfinder on that basis. |