Pathfinder 1E PaizoCon 2010 News

[MichaelSomething]

Personally, I don't think we need to worry about feat overload yet. As long as the number of feats don't exceed the number of spells, then it should be fine. I think a fighter should have as many feat options as a wizard does spell options.

 

[BryonD]

I'm just pointing out that this one item that someone thought was a great idea is power creep with so many people in therthread scared that we will be getting power creep.

It may be power creep and it may not be power creep. We don't know yet. I watched the banquet video and they said this was gained at "high level". (maybe he even said "very high" ). It depends on what was traded out.

I agree that lots of new bits brings the very real threat of power creep. But again, in theory, there is no automatic power creep. If the feats are balanced, then you have a lot of new options at the same power level.

It is certainly easy for 3 feats out of 163 to become the "no brainers" and suddenly you have power creep. And you can also get more and more threat of unforeseen combos giving rise to power creep. So it is certainly a fair concern.

But lets see.

From my point of view PF still has vastly less fiddly bits than 3X did and my home game proved quite immune to power creep. I had some max/min types in the the group. But we also had good communication within the group. A handful of times something crazy would come together, and we would compliment the player for the cool power and the player would gracefully work with the group to make things fun. That is my group. I'm sure not all groups are that way.

But, since I didn't have creep issues in 3X, I have zero fear that PF has creep issues anywhere on the horizon. So I just have more toys to better realize my reality with. I'm hugely looking forward to this product.

Also, I believed back when I was buying WotC 3X stuff that a kind of power creep arms race was part of the marketing strategy to keep books moving. Maybe I'm a bit over cynical there, but I think it was part of the plan.

I don't think Paizo sees it that way. Not that I'm predicting they never will, but I am very confident that is not part of their market strategy here in 2010.

That doesn't mean it won't still happen incidentally. But removing a driving force from the equation will help.


Lastly, I find the entire PF power creep issue overblown so far. So I find fear of future creep likely to be overblown as well. Yes, the classes are a bit more powerful and a mid level character will have 1 - 2 extra feats. But, all-in-all, I find it rather mild. Certainly if you take into account that official guidelines say to subtract 1 from the recommended levels of any 3X modules and classed npcs have all had their CRs reduced by 1, then the issue has at least been canceled out. When all is said and done, building a good set of characters and a good set of exciting challenges to throw at them works just fine in PF. I see the move from 3X to PF as a refined calibration of power far moreso than power creep. It is simply a new baseline.

Do we creep from this new baseline? Perhaps. And I hope not. But I'm happy and confident for now. I know that the 3X foundation rocks and Paizo has tweaked it into into the most flavor focused re-tooling of the core system I've seen so far.

imo

EDIT: BTW, Crothian, only the first couple lines was intended as direct response. Apologies if I sounded like I was going on and on over one thing you said...

 

[wakedown]

160+ new feats = great thing. I trust the Paizo guys to print 160 feats worth taking versus Wizard's approach of printing 80 new feats in a Complete book where only 10 were worth the ink used.


Feat chains = increased motiviation for the players in my games to create new characters.

Motivation to create new characters = more engagement in the game, more desire to play more adventure paths = more gaming

As I DM, I personally love it if a player reads some feat and gets inspired to roll a new character. If the feats in the APG mean my players start to roll PFRPG swashbucklers or skald-bards or unarmed-brawling-barbarians where they didn't feel comfortable pursuing those concepts previously, then this book is a blessing.

Right now, the quantity of feats and abilities really leaves you with maybe 2-3 "good ways" to play most classes. Sure you can slap any personality you want on a barbarian (untrusting/suspicious, courageous/noble, bloodthirsty/savage) but mechanically they start to feel redundant quick. Optional rules buy players (where probably 75% of them in the world lack deep insightful creativity) chances to use the class to make the unarmed brawlers, or thuggish pirates, or wolf/tiger nomads.

I'm optimistic and expect the new feat and variant abilities to support "fluff" concepts and not be a series of charing/leap attacking/power attacking/undying combo-moves. Wizards had some gems of options (i.e. a barbarian who was a "trap killer") that makes characters more interesting, giving them more build options to round out parties and didn't break the game.

It only takes 3 specific feats to break a game, so as long as those 3 don't exist in the 150, the 150 are welcome to improve game flavor, variety and encourage players to get passionate about pursuing some concepts they were on the fence about.

 

[Alzrius]

So long as Paizo keeps doing what they've been doing, I'm honestly not too worried about "power/option creep."

Largely, they seem to be sticking to a model that's - quite surprisingly - similar to WotC. That is, they release something along the lines of three major hardbacks a year; one for players (Advanced Player's Guide), one for GM's (Advanced GameMastery Guide), and a monster book (Bestiary II). After that, it's a high volume of small product, such as stand-alone adventures, Adventure Paths, Chronicles, Companions, etc.

Really, that seems like the best way to do it, particularly since nobody seems to accuse these smaller books of presenting creep, since their options are spread over so many different supplements/adventures.

 

[Azgulor]

Another thing to remember is that the Advanced Players Guide is an option book. It is not considered a core rulebook, would/should be subject to GM approval.

Specific to the power creep issue, in earlier blogs & posts on the Paizo boards, they had stated they were specifically wary of splatbook for splatbook's sake model and were guarding against power creep in splats nerfing core options. So although power creep could certainly occur, I think Paizo is actively trying to avoid the problem.

 

[dm4hire]

One should also look at the division of those feats. 163 seems like a lot of feats, but when you consider that some of those are team feats. Which means they won't work unless more than one player has the feats. The Cavalier might be king of the team feats, but you still have to convince other party members to give up vital feat slots to take one. Granted not all team feats may work that way, but a large portion do. Racial feats will be limited to the race in question so that also puts a cap on it.

 

[ancientvaults]

Another thing to remember is that the Advanced Players Guide is an option book. It is not considered a core rulebook, would/should be subject to GM approval.

Specific to the power creep issue, in earlier blogs & posts on the Paizo boards, they had stated they were specifically wary of splatbook for splatbook's sake model and were guarding against power creep in splats nerfing core options. So although power creep could certainly occur, I think Paizo is actively trying to avoid the problem.

Quite true on it being an option, and I am fearing that it will be or that this book will become the game-breaker and we will just go back to simpler games.

Despite the current clatter on the Pathfinder forum at the Paizo website, more rules and more structure aren't necessarily an improvement, nor a better way to play. I am not going to get into edition wars because I am a staunch supporter in playing the game that your group has the most fun with, but more and more rules are starting to feel like a slow, strangling death. It is amusing that a few posters on the Pathfinder messageboard have pointed that houserules aren't necessary with Pathfinder as they were with previous editions, but the APG will cause things to be houseruled out unless one is running a kitchen sink game. And as someone who had run RIFTS in the past, kitchen sink games are impossible to keep up with. Well, and there is a houserule section on the Paizo forum for Pathfinder.

I am keeping a wary eye on this product. We will probably just continue without this book as it seems a bit bloatish and unnecessary at first glance.

 

[dm4hire]

As has been pointed out by various Paizo staff members it is an optional book and not considered core. I will probably add some, if not all of it, to my campaign, it depends I guess on how I interpret it and if it will fit. I will at least accept the new base classes.

 

[Crothian]

As has been pointed out by various Paizo staff members it is an optional book and not considered core. I will probably add some, if not all of it, to my campaign, it depends I guess on how I interpret it and if it will fit. I will at least accept the new base classes.

So were all the non core books in 3.5 that didn't stop them from being problems for DMs.

 

[BryonD]

So were all the non core books in 3.5 that didn't stop them from being problems for DMs.

I'd argue they were only problems for DMs if the group made them be problems. And if the group is making problems then there isn't much a book can do about it either way.

If your group is good enough, but has zero self control, then just declare that the game is core only and leave it at that.

If the game isn't appealing enough that a player won't be satisfied without an APG feat, then, again, you have a problem that is outside the book.