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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 4447197" data-attributes="member: 12731">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.The most constructive way I can use to show this is to talk about the proper way of doing things like this.Any character who wants a background like this must pay for it by giving up something else. Whether that is his or her free feat at first level, 50 gp, or by taking a permanent decrease of your highest attribute by two points I don't know.The point is that 1) this will provide a definite baseline to compare all the backgrounds against (instead of trying to balance background A against all of backgrounds B, C, D... Z) as well as 2) it will (theoretically) preserve game balance - new monsters and adventures don't have to take into account the possibility of the PCs being given cool stuff like this, because they have paid for it by a corresponding decrease in power elsewhere.David Noonan is flat-out wrong in that his article isn't for power-gamers. And he shows an alarming lack of insight into game balance for a designer.Simple as that! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />ZPS. Either that, or introducing backgrounds which give no tangible in-game powers. Yes, I realize that Wizards can't do that, because the believe their customers will only buy stuff that gives them extra bonuses for their characters. But in the rest of the rpg world, that would be a real option, that would enhance roleplaying possibilities just as much, and would have avoided the thorny concepts of balance and creep altogether!</blockquote>

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