Anyone else tired of game mechanic freebies?

[jbear]

I can only comment on the themes I have seen in play from Dark Sun Encounters and more specifically the one my character has.

I play Yuka, a brawler fighter with the Wasteland Nomad theme.

The Encounter Power I gain lets me Shift 1 before or after the attack as long as I am not adjacent to an ally. If I have Combat advantage I do +Str damage. Otherwise it's just like a melee or ranged basic attack.

It gives me a few tactical options in a few specific situations, but nothing that makes you go ...ohhhhh ahhhhh wow! In most situations my at will powers are better than this.

As mentioned upthread Veiled Alliance Theme gives 'Excise from Sight' which is a very cool power. So I guess it varies from theme to theme (those are the 2 I know well, as I have played Barcan the Sorceror as a second character when his regular player missed several sessions).

I think it is a positive creep as well personally. Monster damage was also a positive creep. I only inplemented the new damage last session in the game I run, after the players had reached level 6. The new element of serious danger and threat was awesome. Even the Barbarian was backing up for the first time!

Reading the thread about whether or not 4e had a sweet spot, a lot of people commented they thought it began at level 3 when PCs receive their second encounter power and begin having some decent options in combat. If true, having wider tactical options without just pumping damage output right from level 1 seems like a cool idea. It also means that every fighter can be totally unique because you now choose powers not only from your class, but also your theme. Sweet.

But honestly, if anything my fighter is underpowered. Hell, he's fighting with a magical spear for goodness sakes, because that's what he found! What fighter would choose a spear as their selected weapon??? +3 Atk 1d6+1 dmg ... His normal alhuk (three headed hooked flail?) is +3 atk and does 1d8 dmg. But the spear does +1d6 on a crit ... so spear it is!!!

And the monster damage, well being the updated damage, it's very challenging. Last night we fought a creature that had 3 +8 bite attacks at will each dealing 1d6+5 or so damage ... 3d6 +15 if all three hit. And it had 2 action points. Imagine how a level 2 character can stand up to a possible 6d6 +30 dmg in one round ....
And it bit back and teleported away if you attack it ... and ... anyway you get my drift.

It's cool stuff. It's deadly and exciting. Luckily for my fighter only 3 of those 6 attacks hit so I still had 4 or 5 hps left. If anything I'm glad to have the option of being able to shift into a better position 1/encounter. I don't always use it but it comes in handy every now and again. Excise from sight has saved several lives. But I think these features are called for given the difficulty of the challenge.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

As someone who constantly complains about power creep, I'm going to defend the Dark Sun stuff. Note: I haven't played or run it yet.

1st-level combats get boring fast. No one wants to use their daily unless it's the "final" batle (and they try to make it their final battle if they've used their daily already).

Instead, they want to use their sole encounter power, then use at-wills over and over and over again. One more option is pretty cool. No more "I've used my one encounter, I'm bored now" kind of thing.

One of my players is insisting on using the Essentials Fighter in the upcoming Dark Sun campaign. I haven't seen it yet and haven't made a decision, but apparently it gives you something to do most rounds other than just at-wills.

I actually like characters having an extra option right from the beginning. Level 1 characters have to slog through about 10 battles to hit level 2, and they do all this with two at-wills, one encounter, and a daily. IME many characters have one "preferred" at-will, so 3 out of 4 encounters become "open with lone encounter power, then spam the good at-will for four rounds". This can get BORING.

What he said.

 

[Lord Ernie]

I actually like characters having an extra option right from the beginning. Level 1 characters have to slog through about 10 battles to hit level 2, and they do all this with two at-wills, one encounter, and a daily. IME many characters have one "preferred" at-will, so 3 out of 4 encounters become "open with lone encounter power, then spam the good at-will for four rounds". This can get BORING. Level 2 doesn't necessarily improve things much; it's really level 3 that spices things up a bit. It's only really at level 7 that they get close to the full variety of per-encounter options that a "normal" 4e character has.

Very much this. Used to be campaigns started at level 3 because level 1 characters are so fragile. These days, I still prefer to start at level 3, because an extra encounter power and a utility power make a world of difference in making a character more diverse.

Adding an extra encounter power that is level-appropriate (i.e. no encounter-based stun/dominates accesible at level 1) adds half of that diversity, without making the character so much more powerful that it's too unbalanced.

In short: yes, themes are power creep, but it's the good kind of power creep: instead of making the game more boring by providing overpowered elements that obsolete other game elements or otherwise make other choices suboptimal, they make the game more interesting by providing extra options.

 

[I'm A Banana]

To me, it was this unyeildy rule bloat that helped kill 3e for me. Background feats? Racial substitution levels? Racial levels? Organization substiution levels? Added to PrC from here and new core class here?

At least the core classes seemed to have slowed down in 4e. Almost makes me glad they went the bound to fail PHB method instead of a 'power source' method.

Some people like lots of options. Like in 3e (or 2e or 1e or OD&D), you certainly don't need to play with everything the game could contain. What you have in the game is up to you. In 4e, you kind of need a whitelist instead of a blacklist, but the idea's the same.

If you'd rather play a game that just didn't have the options at all, I'd suggest (a) Essentials-Only, (b) going with an OSR game, or even (c) going with Paizo-Only Pathfinder. It is very likely that all editions of D&D from here on out will continue to upgrade the game with a wealth of options after the first books are released. This "bloat" is part of the market for D&D, it's part of how WotC continues to make money after releasing the core books, and there is (pretty clearly) a demand for it.

I don't think WotC is going to end up catering to your needs, so it's up to you to make your game the game you want to play.

 

[jbear]

As someone who constantly complains about power creep, I'm going to defend the Dark Sun stuff. Note: I haven't played or run it yet.

1st-level combats get boring fast. No one wants to use their daily unless it's the "final" batle (and they try to make it their final battle if they've used their daily already).

Instead, they want to use their sole encounter power, then use at-wills over and over and over again. One more option is pretty cool. No more "I've used my one encounter, I'm bored now" kind of thing.

One of my players is insisting on using the Essentials Fighter in the upcoming Dark Sun campaign. I haven't seen it yet and haven't made a decision, but apparently it gives you something to do most rounds other than just at-wills.



What he said.

Yep, now you get to do lots of basic attacks! Every single round!

If he wants to be able to more than just at-wills taking a fighter that is even more basic isn't probably the way to go. But live and let learn!

And in Dark Sun I haven't had the luxury to say, 'oh, let's save the big daily power for the hard fight.' Their is no NEXT fight. If you survive the one you're in at the moment, give yourself a pat on the back. Actually I don't recall a fight that wasn't a hard fight so far!

 

[JoeGKushner]

I have no problem with options. I just don't think WoTC does a good job of containing their own game system so that it remains internally consistant. I love games Like Hero, Mutants and Masterminds and GURPS in that all the options are essentially laid out in front of you from the get go and further books help clarify what exactly is possible with the system.

WoTC, both in 3rd and 4th, seems to go, "We need the class and level system or there would be anarchy!" and then go, "Well, let's add X.... well, let's add Y.... well, let's mess with..." and to be hoenst, half the time I don't think they're doing a good job or going back and errating the problems that it creates.

For example, several people here have pointed it out as deliberate power creep and others that the powers aren't that good and still others that these are only intended for Dark Sun so its not a problem. Lots of opinions, which is good, but even if I'm completly wrong, the other opinions aren't all agreeing with each other.

I'll be curious if we're going to see any more themes in Dragon or in the upcmoing books this year, and I could swear that themes were one of the ways that WoTC was mentioning for building characters in one of the Gen Con videos.

For me, the idea of themes are redundant. We've already got background feats and paragon classes and epic classes. This is going to be another venue where WoTC is going to start mining words to make up some stupid sounding crap I fear.

Some people like lots of options. Like in 3e (or 2e or 1e or OD&D), you certainly don't need to play with everything the game could contain. What you have in the game is up to you. In 4e, you kind of need a whitelist instead of a blacklist, but the idea's the same.

If you'd rather play a game that just didn't have the options at all, I'd suggest (a) Essentials-Only, (b) going with an OSR game, or even (c) going with Paizo-Only Pathfinder. It is very likely that all editions of D&D from here on out will continue to upgrade the game with a wealth of options after the first books are released. This "bloat" is part of the market for D&D, it's part of how WotC continues to make money after releasing the core books, and there is (pretty clearly) a demand for it.

I don't think WotC is going to end up catering to your needs, so it's up to you to make your game the game you want to play.

 

[Scribble]

I have no problem with options. I just don't think WoTC does a good job of containing their own game system so that it remains internally consistant. I love games Like Hero, Mutants and Masterminds and GURPS in that all the options are essentially laid out in front of you from the get go and further books help clarify what exactly is possible with the system.

And that always kind of bores me with other systems- It's just more of the same.

I think part of it is D&D's long history of sort of being built from scratch with new systems being cobbled on as they were discovered or found useful.

I think that's actually part of its charm.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not really? As a freebie of the very first theme, they get poisoned strike, primary ability vs AC where it's an encounter power, not a daily mind you, that does 1[W] plus 5 poison damage which has other abilities and the 1[W] goes up at 11th and 12th level.

For comparison, an at will does [1w] plus stat damage and not of the most resisted damage type in the game. Yes, it's an extra 1-2 points of damage over an at will. (0 for a highly focussed character). But that's all. And most at will attacks have an only slightly weaker rider.

If it was a first level encounter power I'd pick something else - and the same applies to just about all the theme powers. Slightly stronger than an at will, weaker than a L1 encounter power, and allows more varied low level combats.

 

[Jhaelen]

I wouldn't shoehorn Themes into any other setting, or let a player use a Theme in a non- Dark Sun campaign.

Well:

I have no problems with themes, and I'll bet a bundle that the Heroes of Shadow will have a lot of them in there. Maybe the FR book next year will also. They are a great idea.

We'll eventually get them for all pcs, whether they're in a Dark Sun campaign or not.

In the GenCon podcasts they even mentioned a new supplement by name that will include loads of new themes for everyone. IIRC, it was the 'Player's Handbook: Champions of the Heroic Tier' coming next year.

 

[Riastlin]

Not surprisingly, it appears that this thread has now branched into a number of sub-topics. I'll try to address each as best I can (in no particular order).

1. Are themes evidence of power creep? -- I can't say for certain since I am not familiar with them, but I think its safe to say that they do add at least a little bit of power to a 1st level character. Take the above mentioned 1[W] + 5 power. In and of itself, not much of a power creep, though still a tad more powerful than a standard at-will. Granted, poison is often resisted, but what about the case where a monster has poison vulnerability or a character can give such vulnerability? (admittedly rare -- can't think of any off the top of my head -- but still a situation that definitely makes this more powerful. So for the sake of argument, I will assume that themes = power creep.

2. Is the power creep problematic? -- Yes and no. For the most part, making PCs more powerful does not bother me. If PCs become too powerful, its a fairly easy fix to address it, make the combats more difficult. Maybe party level is no longer the standard challenge but party level +1 is.

3. When is power creep a problem? -- Power creep becomes a problem when it potentially causes a noticeable power difference between PCs simply because they chose different optional elements (i.e. one theme over another or one background over another, etc.) As an example, I have no problems in general with backgrounds. +2 to a skill, or an extra class skill, is not a big deal PLUS every character has access to it. Sure, +2 Diplomacy may or may not be more important than +2 Athletics depending on a given campaign, but even then the difference is small. However, allowing your primary ability to determine starting HP is a huge difference compared to a simple +2 to a skill. This can make as much as a 10 point difference in starting HP and makes it easier for a player to min/max as Con is no longer nearly as important (particularly if you already need Str). Granted, every character still has access to this particular background, but it seems clearly superior to others.

4. Are freebies themselves a problem? -- Not really IMHO. First, its arguable whether or not they are any more "free" than say your 1st level encounter power. After all, you are still "buying" them in the sense that you are forgoing other options just as you are with your power selections. Second, I'm all in favor of anything that helps to distinguish one fighter/cleric/bard/etc. from the next. Cookie cutter mechanics suck (again in my opinion) and being able to tweak (if even in a small way) your character makes the game that much more interesting. As to the power increase, sure there is some, but again, that is fairly easily addressed as a DM.

5. Should the "freebies" come at level 1? -- In many respects, level 1 does make sense. However, I also like the suggestion of letting the character pick the freebie, but leaving it to the DM to find the time and place for the PC to gain the feature (as with the spellscar example above). I can also see merit in perhaps providing some sort of theme system to PPs. Granted, PPs in and of themselves are a means of helping to distinguish one fighter from the next (for example), but even then, I don't see a problem with coming up with methods to help distinguish one Summer Rhymer from the next. The big advantage to providing the freebies at level 1 is that while it makes creation that much more difficult, it also provides an extra option at the point in the PC's career where it is most needed.

6. The level-based system in general. -- It seems, and I could be wrong, that there are some who are displeased with the whole idea of getting new stuff simply for levelling. Absolutely there are valid arguments on both sides of this debate -- and really, its an issue for its own thread entirely. For my 2 coppers, I'll say this: I like both level and non-level based systems. Take Shadowrun for instance. One of the great things about Shadowrun is that the same corporate guard that nearly killed you on your first run is still nearly as deadly on your 20th run because characters just don't that much more powerful very fast in Shadowrun. The flip side to this is that from the player's standpoint, you do not seem to be getting much (other than credits) from your succesful missions/adventures/etc. XP/feats/powers/features on the other hand are a great way to measure character advancement even if it means that level 1 kobold is no longer a threat.