D&D General D&D 3.5 - splatbook power creep or no?

[koumpou]

I thought most of the splatbook alternate classes were weaker compared to the core. I was always looking for ways to buff up options like swashbucklers, soulknives, etc. Conceptually I loved the new classes, but in practice, they were weak. That said, a lot of the feats were over-powered, many of the prestige classes no doubt were, and ability to create broken combinations increased with everything that was added. I dunno. I never gamed with a bunch of power gamers, so it wasn't much of a problem for any of the tables that I frequented.

some classes were weak some just didng get enough love, but scout was strong, ninja was strong, marshal gets real strong in epic for a dip, duskblade/knight/hexblade/spellthief and warmage were playable but most of the others were meh or very situational with the exceptional of warlock being very strong on low magic campaigns and very situational with his infinite spell like abilities

 

[Alzrius]

I think there were a lot of things which seemed overpowered until you actually put them into play, which a lot of people didn't.

For instance, the Battle Blessing feat from Complete Champion seemed like it was wildly overpowered, as it let paladins cast any spell on their spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action as a swift action (and cast any spell with a full-round action as a standard action), essentially letting them use Quicken Spell on all of their spells with no level adjustment. Crazy overpowered, right?

Actually no, as it turns out. You see, paladin spellcasting in 3.5 was ridiculously weak for several reasons. For instance, their caster level was half of their class level, which meant that it became progressively more difficult to get past enemies' spell resistance as you gained levels. Likewise, their spellcasting was Wisdom-based; paladins already needed a high Strength and Constitution to be front-line combatants, and Charisma for a significant number of their class abilities, which meant that they tended to tank Wisdom, meaning that their spell DCs tended to suck. And of course, their reduced spell progression meant that they were casting spells like dispel evil at 14th level while the party cleric had gotten it back at 9th level.

All that Battle Blessing really did was let paladins use buffs and supplementary healing without having to give up their full attack actions, which was an overall minor increase in their power by making what was effectively a worthless ability (i.e. their spellcasting) slightly less worthless. In other words, it was a minor band-aid of a patch in the form of a feat, rather than being the massive boost in power is appeared to be at first glance.

 

[koumpou]

I think there were a lot of things which seemed overpowered until you actually put them into play, which a lot of people didn't.

For instance, the Battle Blessing feat from Complete Champion seemed like it was wildly overpowered, as it let paladins cast any spell on their spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action as a swift action (and cast any spell with a full-round action as a standard action), essentially letting them use Quicken Spell on all of their spells with no level adjustment. Crazy overpowered, right?

Actually no, as it turns out. You see, paladin spellcasting in 3.5 was ridiculously weak for several reasons. For instance, their caster level was half of their class level, which meant that it became progressively more difficult to get past enemies' spell resistance as you gained levels. Likewise, their spellcasting was Wisdom-based; paladins already needed a high Strength and Constitution to be front-line combatants, and Charisma for a significant number of their class abilities, which meant that they tended to tank Wisdom, meaning that their spell DCs tended to suck. And of course, their reduced spell progression meant that they were casting spells like dispel evil at 14th level while the party cleric had gotten it back at 9th level.

All that Battle Blessing really did was let paladins use buffs and supplementary healing without having to give up their full attack actions, which was an overall minor increase in their power by making what was effectively a worthless ability (i.e. their spellcasting) slightly less worthless. In other words, it was a minor band-aid of a patch in the form of a feat, rather than being the massive boost in power is appeared to be at first glance.

for the most part you are right but battle blessing was very cool for buffing yourself as a paladin especially with some paladin spells from spell compendium for example Righteous Fury, also i found out that the best way to play a paladin with spells is to deny your spells as a paladin to take the extra feats and then go pious templar to regain your paladin spellcasting on top of dr/- bonus feats and mettle and lvl 4 paladin spells at lvl 12 instead of 14 for pure paladin

 

[Teemu]

Definitely power creep but mainly because the splats gave more options for the most powerful PHB classes. The splatbooks didn't have power creep per se, in isolation, but overall the game did end up a bit unwieldy if everything was available.

Some years ago, during the first years of 5e, I ran a levels 3-14 campaign in 3.5, but the players were restricted to non-PHB classes that were considered tier 3 and 4 in the community rankings. The party was actually surprisingly balanced within itself, all things considered. No PC overshadowed the others and no one was left behind, even at levels 10+. It was a fun experiment.

 

[Silam]

Not going to get in the fray (yet) but I think this was a good thread on what constitutes power creep: D&D General - I'm a Creep, I'm a Powergamer: How Power Creep Inevitably Destroys Editions

 

[Pedantic]

The most impactful splatbook content was new spells, especially Cleric/Druid spells. More flexible/targeted solutions to problems and stackable effects caused the most increased player power.

 

[Blue]

The issue with late 3.5 stuff was that while a lot of it was balanced against the PHB/DMG content, very little of it appears to have taken into consideration all the other supplemental stuff. So you got power creep when you started grabbing bits from multiple pieces that had unintended interactions.

There was a discussion about this at one point. Because the material was being doing by freelancers with overview by the internal team, material was never really playtested against other material in the pipeline at the same time. Since a hardcover was a significant amount of time to produce, that meant that things really only were checked against the core book.

A clever player with a good memory for where stuff was (or just the Giant in the Playground forum bookmarked) could quickly stack up feats and spells and prestige classes and templates in a way that absolutely was more powerful than what someone just using the core three books could do.

The difference between a fully maxed out character (even the non-joke ones) and a regular character was huge.

This was my experience as well.

 

[Blue]

I thought most of the splatbook alternate classes were weaker compared to the core. I was always looking for ways to buff up options like swashbucklers, soulknives, etc. Conceptually I loved the new classes, but in practice, they were weak. That said, a lot of the feats were over-powered, many of the prestige classes no doubt were, and ability to create broken combinations increased with everything that was added. I dunno. I never gamed with a bunch of power gamers, so it wasn't much of a problem for any of the tables that I frequented.

Again, some, even the majority of the stuff being weaker is immaterial to the question. Because optimization is already only looking at the stronger options.

If 5% of the material was more powerful than the core books either in total or cherry-picking low level abilities from, another 5% of the material could have overpowered synergies with the core book material, and 10% could have OP synergies with other splatbook material (the larger number because they said they couldn't playtest material in the pipeline against other material in the pipeline), you've got plenty of picking for someone trying to optimize.

 

[GrimCo]

Yes and no.

There was so much options. To put it in perspective: 55 core classes, 750 prestige classes, 2800 feats spread across 60+ books. Good chunk of feats were weak, situational or pure trap options. PHB big 3 are by far most broken/powerfull classes overall (wizard, cleric, druid). Sure, you can sift trough all the splatbooks and cobble some feat/prestige class combo and it would in game be maybe 10-20% better than just playing straight up phb Cleric (i'm mostly familiar with them since it's full caster i played most).

Great deal of prestige classes were trap options. They had bonkers pre requisits (feat/skill/ ability) that most of the time weren't even usefull to the build.

When it comes to base classes, only 4-5 were on par with core 3.

But, to be fair. Bo9S is one supplement that made martials finally almost on par with casters. I will forever stand on my opinion that Warblade is best version of Fighter class in any edition.