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

[Maxperson]

Well, at the very least they're a dirty, granola-chewing hippie.

My mind did that thing where you see both ends of a word and it fills the rest in for you and initially read that as grandpa-chewing hippie.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

A word of advice: I had a similar discussion with Maxperson in another thread and I realized I was wasting time when it became apparent that my experience meant squat to them.

 

[Mecheon]

I'm talking about class niches, not power levels. If you have a wizard and a cleric casting Knock, Find Traps, etc. instead of letting the rogue do it, they're being douches. Power level is a completely different issue and is only broken if you feel that it is.

I played a ton of fighters and rogues along side wizards, druids and clerics, and not once did I feel left out or useless. That sort of thing is entirely a creation of your(general you) own mind.

It is a thread about power creep, though. Power level absolutely is part of the issue at hand. Niche protection doesn't do anything with the fact that the power levels of just the PHB alone are completely off base.

The later books add power, sure, but its absolutely needed for most of the classes, just due to the massive gap.

 

[TwoSix]

My mind did that thing where you see both ends of a word and it fills the rest in for you and initially read that as grandpa-chewing hippie.

Chewing up grandpa is what a Druid has to do to get to 13th level, according to Gygax.

 

[Maxperson]

It is a thread about power creep, though. Power level absolutely is part of the issue at hand. Niche protection doesn't do anything with the fact that the power levels of just the PHB alone are completely off base.

The later books add power, sure, but its absolutely needed for most of the classes, just due to the massive gap.

Yeah. There was a niche tangent, though, and that's what this particular discussion was addressing.

 

[billd91]

If the default assumption of Dnd is that downtime is so incredibly precious that to allow players more than a few hours of it at a time is "breaking the game"....than why even include magic item creation in the first place? Either make it not cost time, or just remove it.

But it IS in the game, so the assumption is....players should get to use it. Not every moment of every day, but certainly enough to justify its inclusion.

Well, my take on this is that it shouldn't have been included in the game in that particular form. As I've said before, magic item creation and the magic item system in 3e was transformational to the D&D game and how it gets played at the table. Scrolls became cheap and easy to make, wands, staves, and potions went from being fairly quirky and limited in scope to being capable of casting anything, and other magic items became easy to create rather than than relying on a DM's whims and quests for oddball components. So it had a HUGE impact on optimization and the potential for spell casters to encroach on non-caster abilities extensively, consistently, and persistently - all for a bit of time, money, and a pittance of XPs spent in downtime.

If I ever went back to running 3e (unlikely considering 5e is my favorite edition of D&D to date), magic item creation is getting heavily restricted in scope.