Examples of Power Creep?

Felix · Feb 22, 2005

Re: the Sorc v Warmage discussion.

I find it funny that a Warmage can be taken virtually out of comission simply by plopping a Wall of Force or two in front of him. When that happens, he loses his line of effect, and then his spells can't do butt.

Crothian · Feb 22, 2005

Felix said:
Re: the Sorc v Warmage discussion.

I find it funny that a Warmage can be taken virtually out of comission simply by plopping a Wall of Force or two in front of him. When that happens, he loses his line of effect, and then his spells can't do butt.

ya, but that can be said about a lot of the classes. Wall of Force is a tough thing for many of them to deal with. And the Warmage does get a few extra spells so he could potential pick one to help out in these situations.

Rasyr · Feb 22, 2005

Been reading through this thread -- interesting discussion even though I have not read all the posts.

Power Creep, to me, is defined as having more options available that increase the overall power of the PCs/NPCs at given break points. Is a first level xx created using only material from the PHB as powerful as a first level xx created using the options available in one or more supplements. If the answer is yes, then you have power creep.

IMHO, D&D 3.5 does indeed have power creep. No, it is not as blatant (in most cases) as it is for some systems (like the power creep for RM2 from all the RM Companions because the editor never checked for balance, only typos), but it is there. From some of the comments I have seen on this thread, I would say that WotC is trying to keep the power creep to a minimum (at least for their books), but it is still happening.

Example:

Take a 2nd level character (Cleric 1/Monk 1), and compare him against a 2nd level Cleric/Monk Gestalt Character from Unearthed Arcana. Are they about the same comparable power level? Nope, the Gestalt is more powerful, the book even tells you that they are. There you have power creep.

MoogleEmpMog · Feb 23, 2005

Rasyr said:
Been reading through this thread -- interesting discussion even though I have not read all the posts.

Power Creep, to me, is defined as having more options available that increase the overall power of the PCs/NPCs at given break points. Is a first level xx created using only material from the PHB as powerful as a first level xx created using the options available in one or more supplements. If the answer is yes, then you have power creep.

IMHO, D&D 3.5 does indeed have power creep. No, it is not as blatant (in most cases) as it is for some systems (like the power creep for RM2 from all the RM Companions because the editor never checked for balance, only typos), but it is there. From some of the comments I have seen on this thread, I would say that WotC is trying to keep the power creep to a minimum (at least for their books), but it is still happening.

Example:

Take a 2nd level character (Cleric 1/Monk 1), and compare him against a 2nd level Cleric/Monk Gestalt Character from Unearthed Arcana. Are they about the same comparable power level? Nope, the Gestalt is more powerful, the book even tells you that they are. There you have power creep.

But that's a totally invalid comparison. The book also suggests that gestalts should face CR +2 encounters, which implies that the Gestalt monk/cleric, if you did indeed include him, should be Cleric/Monk 2 only when the regular character was Cleric 2/Monk 2, which is considerably better. It's more balanced at, say, 8th level (Cleric/Monk 6 vs. Cleric 4/Monk 4), and eventually gets better because even Cleric/Monk multiclassing is normally quite bad.

Really, though, gestalt is an alternate, meant to be used for all PCs (and, presumably, major NPCs) or not at all.

Everything in UA is pretty much internally balanced, and the options that are just meant to be included in a normal game, like the racial paragon classes, are quite average. But when you start mixing class defense and armor as DR, or gestalt and non-gestalt, and so on, it gets wonky.

It's better to look at the Monster Manual series, the Races of series, the Complete series, the environment series, the Monster Type series, and perhaps the Faerun and Eberron books, not at a set of optional rules.

Psion · Feb 23, 2005

Rasyr said:
Take a 2nd level character (Cleric 1/Monk 1), and compare him against a 2nd level Cleric/Monk Gestalt Character from Unearthed Arcana. Are they about the same comparable power level? Nope, the Gestalt is more powerful, the book even tells you that they are. There you have power creep.

How so? They aren't meant to be used with the same rules. It's not like Palladium books where stuff in the earlier books feel into disuse when newer, better, OCCs/RCCs came along. Since they exist in a whole different campaign-space, I fail to see how it can be pointed at as power creep.

Rasyr · Feb 23, 2005

Psion said:
How so? They aren't meant to be used with the same rules.

Doesn't matter if they are or aren't "supposed" to be used together. The point is that Gestalt characters are more powerful than normal characters of a comparable level.

MoogleEmpMog points out how they say that Gestalt characters ARE more powerful and that your should make encounters for for them tougher.

All I am saying is that this is an example of power creep, as I defined it. If you look back at my post, I also said that I think that WotC is trying to control the power creep. Sometimes it will be successful, sometimes it won't. However, the fact remains, that power creep does exist.

Remember the definition that I give above, and then look at it from THAT perspective. WotC does not introduce as much power creep as other publishers sometimes do, but they do introduce some.

Rasyr · Feb 23, 2005

Oh, btw, here is another example of power creep, at least what I consider to be power creep... Added just to make something cooler or more desirable...

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=121737