Characters of War up at Wizards

[Cadfan]

Of course it is powercreep. You're getting something for nothing.

And of course it is a problem. Just think about when we have ten or twenty similar articles, all granting free bonuses that stack.

Its not power creep because its not in competition with regular play.

Look, I don't know how clear I can make this.

Suppose I wrote a campaign setting where everyone started at level 11. That wouldn't be power creep, because it doesn't affect games in other settings where characters do not start at level 10.

Suppose I wrote a campaign setting where everyone received an extra psychic power at level 1. That would not be power creep, because it doesn't affect games in other settings where characters do not receive that psychic power.

Suppose I wrote a campaign setting where everyone started with half regular hit points. That wouldn't be power... uncreep (?) because it doesn't affect games not taking place in that campaign setting.

Get the idea?

If WOTC wrote an article that began, "ERRATA! EVERYONE GETS A BACKGROUND BONUS FROM NOW ON FROM THE FOLLOWING LIST!" then THAT would be power creep.

But that isn't what happened.

And of course that's leaving behind the entire issue of power creep being bad because it renders old material obsolete and underpowered, whereas a "power creep" which applies equally to all characters in a particular game doesn't actually have that negative effect.

 

[MyISPHatesENWorld]

The more things that can stack, the higher they stack.

Which doesn't make the problem which things can stack. If it only breaks because of how high, you fix what breaks, make a limit on how high, or create drastically diminishing returns as you go higher rather than reducing options.

The dragonborn fighter is "optimized" already. He's optimized to be good at thumping people. The warlord is optimized to be good at social skills. Why should the fighter be good at social skills as well as his thumping skills?

Because characters shouldn't be one-dimensional and because you shouldn't have to be good at all aspects of social interaction to be exceptional at one. Two of the fighter's five class skills are social skills, including Intimidate. The warlord also has two social skills as class skills. The fighter in this case, can by virtue of this background, be nearly as frightening as the Warlord (who is optimized to get benefits from his class abilities and powers and not exactly shabby at thumping people), which considering he thumps people better, and might have relied pretty heavily on the threat of thumping people as a way of getting what he wants since he isn't going to get a lot of help through diplomacy, isn't unreasonable. It's also nice for the dwarf or human fighter that is trained in Intimidate and would like to be more frightening (and with a Skill Focus feat as well, significantly more frightening) than the untrained halfling artful dodger.

 

[keterys]

Hmm. If all of the backgrounds allowed for a campaign were roughly equivalent to the value of a feat and designed in such a way that they did not stack with other equivalent feats and were flexible enough that you weren't penalized for taking the stereotypical one for your class because you already had the benefit... it would still be power creep, but only one feat as a background for a campaign... would that be sufficient?

For example, if the article were instead:
(Predefining a feat
Skill Consistency
Prerequisite: Training in chosen skill
Benefit: Choose a skill in which you have training. You may reroll any check made with that skill, but you must take the second roll.
Special: You may take this feat more than once. Each time you select this feat, choose a different skill.)

Wandering Duelist: You gain one of Skill Training, Skill Focus, or Skill Consistency in Intimidate.
Scorned Noble: As written, but a +2 feat bonus.
Redemption Seeker: For both Diplomacy and Insight, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Seeker for the Lost Clan: For both History and Dungeoneering, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Warsmith: You gain the Enchant Magic Item and Disenchant Magic Item rituals, but working only on weapons and armor and usable from level 1 without the Ritual Caster feat. If you are also a ritual caster, you may perform them in half the time on weapons and armor. In addition, you may craft and repair normal weapons and armor at twice the normal speed or two days for a weapon or four days for armor, whichever is faster.
Brother in Battle: You gain one of Skill Training, Skill Focus, or Skill Consistency in Endurance.
Seducer: For both Bluff and Insight, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Magic Scholar: For both Arcana and History, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Eldritch Harlequin: For both Arcana and Thievery, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill. (Note: Bluff instead of Arcana in article, but given Con Artist and “Eldritch”, replacing Bluff with Arcana. Could swap Thievery for Bluff instead, but that would duplicate Cult Escapee)
Silent Hunter: For both Stealth and Perception, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Forest Warden: For both Nature and Perception, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Explorer/Guide: Gain one of Linguist, Skill Focus in Nature, or learn one language of your choice, add Nature to your class skill list, and gain a +2 feat bonus to Nature checks.
Merchant Prince: Gain one of Linguist, Skill Focus in Insight, or learn one language of your choice, add Insight to your class skill list, and gain a +2 feat bonus to Insight checks.
Detective: For both Insight and Perception, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Wandering Mercenary: As written.
Con Artist: For both Bluff and Thievery, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Street Urchin: For both Intimidate and Streetwise, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
River Smuggler: For both Athletics and Streetwise, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Cloistered Priest: You gain one of Skill Training, Skill Focus, or Skill Consistency in Religion.
Gritty Sergeant: You gain one of Weapon Proficiency, Weapon Focus, or Quick Draw.
Noble Scion: You gain one of Jack of All Trades, or either Skill Training or Skill Focus in a knowledge skill.
Scion of an Ancient Bloodline: You gain one of Skill Training, Skill Focus, or Skill Consistency in History.
Cult Escapee: For both Arcana and Bluff, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Young Cutthroat: For both Intimidate and Thievery, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Auspicious Birth: As written it is similar to toughness, but more frontloaded. It may be used as written, or alternatively: ‘Gain additional hit points equal to your highest ability bonus. At paragon tier, increase this amount to 4 + Bonus. At epic tier, increase this amount to 8 + Bonus.’ If more sources of hit points offend, consider ‘You gain one of Durable, Toughness, or a +3 feat bonus to death saves.’
Traveling Missionary: Gain one of Linguist, Skill Focus in Religion, or learn one language of your choice, add Religion to your class skill list, and gain a +2 feat bonus to Religion checks.
Recent Convert: As written.
Former Gladiator: As written. Duplicates Wandering Mercenary.
Haunted Veteran: As written.
Former Barbarian: You gain one of Skill Training, Skill Focus, or Skill Consistency in Nature.
Prison Conversion: You gain one of Skill Training, Skill Focus, or Skill Consistency in Streetwise.
Crusading Zealot: You gain a +2 feat bonus to saving throws until you fail a saving throw, and then the bonus is gone until you take an extended rest. (Note: +1 in article and only requires ‘a rest’)
Trained From Birth For A Specific Prophecy: You may reroll any initiative check. If you do so, you must take the second roll.
Last of the Breed: For both Endurance and Perception, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Monster Hunter: As written.
Fugitive from a Vengeful Rival: For both Bluff and Stealth, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Assassin: For both Arcana and Stealth, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Cat Burglar: For both Athletics and Thievery, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Political Rebel: For both Diplomacy and Streetwise, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
On the Run from the Devil: For both Bluff and Perception, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Apprentice of Sinister Cabal: For both Arcana and Dungeoneering, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Born Under a Bad Sign: See Auspicious Birth, which it amusingly duplicates.
Vet Who Can’t Let Go: For both History and Intimidate, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Noble Bred for War: You gain one of Weapon Proficiency, Weapon Focus, or Skill Focus in Diplomacy.
Officer Who Came Out of Retirement: You gain one of Improved Initiative, or either Skill Training or Skill Focus in History.
Arcane Student Who Saw Too Much: As written, but a +2 feat bonus. (Note: I realize some will object this as too powerful, but to be worth a feat it should at least not look like 1/10th as useful as Human Perseverance)
Missing Master: For both Insight and Perception, you either add the skill to your class list or gain a +2 feat bonus if it already is a class or trained skill.
Imbuer: You gain the Enchant Magic Item and Disenchant Magic Item rituals, but working only on implements and wondrous items and usable from level 1 without the Ritual Caster feat. If you are also a ritual caster, you may perform them in half the time on implements and wondrous items. In addition, you may craft and repair normal implements and wondrous items at twice the normal speed or two days for an implement or four days for a wondrous item, whichever is faster. (Note: Four days for any wondrous item? That seems odd, given the unbounded nature of wondrous items)

There are some of those backgrounds that feel too specific, not closely enough associated, and/or might be better not being a duplicate, such as Wandering Mercenary, Haunted Veteran, Trained from Birth for a Specific Prophecy, or Born Under a Bad Sign. I’d consider putting more options or work into each until it felt like there was a real choice associated, but my goal was to simply do a quick pass and reduce or improve each to be worth a feat. If backgrounds are about a feat in value, a DM can decide to let everyone have a bonus feat, allow people to pick up backgrounds later for the cost of a feat, and/or allow them as level 1 feats.

 

[keterys]

Its not power creep because its not in competition with regular play.

This is only true if the campaign's rules for skill challenges account for the skill changes made by the backgrounds. Since this is almost guaranteed to not be true, the simple addition of 'feat' before the word bonus in all of the skill bonuses would at least address the changes within system expectations.

You then potentially want to look at the save bonuses, since you might quickly have people who almost never fail saves if they add in unrestricted save bonuses from a couple different sources.

That said, I do think it's perfectly acceptable to say 'Everyone in this campaign gets an extra feat that has to be spent on one of these background options'.

 

[silentounce]

Its not power creep because its not in competition with regular play.

Fine, I'll play semantics with you. By your definition it is not power creep. Great! But that does not mean that it isn't problematic to deal with or not flawed.

Btw, I think many here define power creep as follows: "Power Creep refers to when the power level of ANY game begins to slowly rise over time."
Definition found here in first post: http://forums.gleemax.com/archive/index.php/t-337392.html

Saying "it's not power creep!" and "it IS!" back and forth doesn't really mean anything when people don't define the word the same way. Maybe we should start a "What is Power Creep?" thread for that.

And, as I said earlier, regardless of how you label this article it could definitely cause gameplay issues. It can't just be dropped into a campaign without work from the DM to determine what may be broken or not. He may have to spend more time adjusting DCs, etc. That didn't come out quite right, let me try this. A DM won't be able to add this to his game without changing other things to adjust for it. IMO, effective, well thought out supplemental material can simply be dropped into a campaign without the DM having to work to hard to balance things. When they talk 4e up on its balance and then do something like this... And Noonan's commentary that accompanies this article is just ridiculous. A lot of things like this have already been mentioned in this thread so I won't repeat them here.

 

[Mezzer]

The dragonborn fighter is "optimized" already. He's optimized to be good at thumping people. The warlord is optimized to be good at social skills. Why should the fighter be good at social skills as well as his thumping skills?

So he can have a interesting character instead of a one-size-thumps-all? If anything, all of those bonuses give people who do things which aren't mainstream for their class cool bonuses, or a way to balance themselves out a bit.

The other side of the coin is the skill monkey, who can have +15 at first level even without this, and giving him that extra +3 is oh so horrible, as if he's already not totally useless. Having a skill that high means your DM is either gonna go with high DCs, thus negating any need for having a high skill bonus (not the 4E thing to do), or rarely use stuff which would allow it to come into play, since there's no point.

 

[Mad Hamish]

Mr Noonan, is that you?

Anyway - the article does effect the other end of play. Putting an ability that allows you to craft weapons, for instance, suggests that such is not possible without that ability. No longer can you simply say "My character was a blacksmith's apprentice, so he can make his own weapons": Now he has to be a dwarf and get the background ability to go with it, or it's good bye roleplaying with no mechanical benefit!

a) You don't have to be a dwarf to pick up the background
b) If you want to make normal gear the way that those rules do it (pay full price and get the gear) I can't see a DM having a problem with it.

 

[Mad Hamish]

What do you mean, getting something for nothing is power creep?

Seems to me that each of these backgrounds is worth about 2-3 feats. If you had to pay your first two feats towards them, maybe they'd be ok. Maybe.

There are very few of these backgrounds that are worth 2-3 feats.
Most of them add skills to your class skill list, they do _not_ give you training in the skill.

Some of them give +3 to a skill which is equivalent to Skill Focus (and would stack with it) others give you +1 to 2 skills which is worse.

The substitute highest ability score for con for hit points is commonly going to be better than toughness (depending upon the class & build)

 

[Runestar]

So he can have a interesting character instead of a one-size-thumps-all? If anything, all of those bonuses give people who do things which aren't mainstream for their class cool bonuses, or a way to balance themselves out a bit.

His point was more that the houserule seemed more like you were rewarding players for sucking, while punishing (indirectly) other players for playing effective characters.

The fighter with 10 cha likely chose to have 10cha because he wanted or was willing to forgo intimidate and concentrate on other stats which would give him an edge in combat, such as dex or con. As such, this seems all the more reason not to give him a bonus in intimidate. Conversely, if he opted to skip cha exactly because he knew that there would be a free nameless +3 skill bonus to make up for the deficiency, that too can be construed as a form of optimization. Especially when you consider that cha is normally a dump stat for fighters.

On the other hand, the dragonborn who pumped cha for a good intimidate check is ironically, no better off than the fighter who dumped cha. Which seems to be making a mockery out of his efforts. Especially when there does not appear to be any background for the dragonborn which can compensate for the loss in stat points to his say, dex.

The other side of the coin is the skill monkey, who can have +15 at first level even without this, and giving him that extra +3 is oh so horrible, as if he's already not totally useless.

IMO, until my skill check is high enough to be able to automatically pass any challenge without having to roll at all, there is no such thing as a useless or wasted bonus/boost to the relevant skill.

Having a skill that high means your DM is either gonna go with high DCs, thus negating any need for having a high skill bonus (not the 4E thing to do)

It may also penalize other players who did not get the benefit of the skill bonus (as may be the case for skills like stealth, which everyone has to make separately). Either way, you should still have an edge over the other players from a relative POV, in that even if your chances remain the same with the new heightened DCs, their chances will now have worsened by comparison.

or rarely use stuff which would allow it to come into play, since there's no point.

That can be a good thing in itself. If for example, intimidate checks never come up exactly because one PC in the party is so good at it, then pumping intimidate has pretty much paid for itself, because by not having to make any such checks, it is tantamount to always succeeding/never failing at it. Compare this with the alternative, where you have a sub-par intimidate check, but had to make them on a regular basis, and thus had to deal with the downside of possibly failing.

In 3e sense, it is like the DM never throwing save or die spells at your party because every PC has an item granting persistent death ward. It is far from a waste, because the alternative (not having the item, and being peppered with them) is far less palatable.

And so we appear to be stuck with solutions which seem just as bad, if not worse than the initial problem...

 

[Imaro]

Its not power creep because its not in competition with regular play.

Look, I don't know how clear I can make this.

Suppose I wrote a campaign setting where everyone started at level 11. That wouldn't be power creep, because it doesn't affect games in other settings where characters do not start at level 10.

Suppose I wrote a campaign setting where everyone received an extra psychic power at level 1. That would not be power creep, because it doesn't affect games in other settings where characters do not receive that psychic power.

Suppose I wrote a campaign setting where everyone started with half regular hit points. That wouldn't be power... uncreep (?) because it doesn't affect games not taking place in that campaign setting.

Get the idea?

Not really, no. This only judges on a player vs. player scale and fails to address player vs. appropriate DM designed challenge. So lets look at it from another perspective...

If all my level 1 characters are given a boost in power to make them equal to 11th level characters... can I still use level 1 challenges against them and it be an actual challenge? Now apply this to every other example you gave above.

If WOTC wrote an article that began, "ERRATA! EVERYONE GETS A BACKGROUND BONUS FROM NOW ON FROM THE FOLLOWING LIST!" then THAT would be power creep.

But that isn't what happened.

Is this the old and tired line of "you don't have to use it"? Which actually has no bearing whatsoever on whether a rule introduces power creep. Either it does or it doesn't...under the usage there is never any power creep in supplements...ever...since even if you buy it, you don't have to use it.

And of course that's leaving behind the entire issue of power creep being bad because it renders old material obsolete and underpowered, whereas a "power creep" which applies equally to all characters in a particular game doesn't actually have that negative effect.

Powercreep= raising the level of general power against challenges...That's like saying if everyone of my level 1 characters gets 10 extra feats, there's no power creep because they all got them. Only the power level which will actually challenge them in the game has indeed gone up.

This whole "it's not creep because it increases everyone's power (even though there is math in place for DM's to determine appropriate challenges based on the range of characters numbers) actually sounds like justification for lazy design & develoopment. YMMV of course.