Thanee said:
I agree that balance should be examined with a more centralized campaign style than ours (after this discussion I am feeling that perhaps we are in a campaign with a power level that is lower than the average).
My original question was one of why the Arcane Archer was underpowered, but from our continued discussion it seems like "Underpowered" depends upon the campaign you are playing.
I will leave you with one last thought. You say "By the book D&D". In all of my years playing which is from red box D&D till now I have never found what I would consider "By the Book".
I have dozen of campaign settings that I have accumulated over the years each with a different power level built into them. So which will we use to do our by the book comparison?
Every campaign I have played in, every convention game, and even every RPGA event have had different power levels. Power level has varied by edition of the game (with some of the most abusive combinations occuring in 2E IMHO - The bladesinger was a great example of this), campaign world, and GM.
I am only saying this to show that every persons perception of "Power Level" will be different based upon their experience, and until I started reading these forums extensively I would have said that a more moderate magic level was the norm in current campaigns.
I would really like to know what you would consider the average power level of ongoing campaigns using the 3.5 ruleset. Our current campaign is running in the 6-9th level range what would you expect for a campaign of that level?
Of course I also originally laughed when the Epic level handbook came out because all of the campaigns I was playing in were no where near that level.
Thanks for all of the great comments and feedback.
It is very interesting to learn how others run their campaigns and gain new ideas and insights.
TTYL
Scott
