D&D General Is power creep bad?

[Micah Sweet]

Because people hate their existing toys being taken away. It feels bad.

You can get away with it in a new edition (sometimes).

 

[DND_Reborn]

You can get away with it in a new edition (sometimes).

True. They got away with it by adding concentration to so many spells in 5E it nerfed casters fairly significantly...

 

[Helldritch]

I think attempts to constrain power creep harshly have more negative impacts on games than accepting power creep, or best of all, accepting it and bringing older stuff up to spec.

This applies across a wide variety of games, not just D&D. As such "meh".

I mean, we knew the modularity was dead from the later bits of the playtest. They'd obviously given up and gone full "apology edition". What was released was essentially a game that leaned pretty hard in a specific direction.

But that wasn't how people played it. As you can see from Critical Role and so on. People don't play 5E the way it was designed to be played, and because the influence of the modular concept stayed with 5E until fairly late in the design process, 5E actually played pretty okay when not being played "as intended".

What 5E is doing now is a course-correction in the way it was an apology edition earlier on. Having realized the majority of players are new, and aren't really looking for a 6-8 encounters/day dungeon crawl experience with a rather trad D&D setting and but rather something more lively and varied WotC are once again aiming at the largest possible body of players. The reason the other elements are being "left out" is is solely that they're incompatible with neo-trad. It's notable that WotC don't seem to be going after a lot of cruft or clumsy design that isn't incompatible with that (though perhaps I will change my tune when we see DND2024 in its full glory).

May I remind you that they tried a similar approach with with the so called course correction in 4ed which I loved and we all know where it got them?
As it is, the game can support many playstyle, though clumsily when the DM and Players do not adjust their playstyle a wee bit toward the 6-8 encounters per day. Using alternate rest rule helps a lot with that. Now the encounters are spread over a week. Which helps the narrative side a lot for some tables.

 

[James Gasik]

Though I would argue concentration just made casters less likely to share their toys with the non-casters.

"What, I can only give flight to one of you guys and then I can't buff myself or use a good crowd control spell? Sorry, you're on your own, buddy."

At least in groups I play with. YMMV.

 

[MichaelSomething]

The power creep would here be in comparison to the core books of earlier editions.

For example, any 1st-level 4e or 5e character would almost certainly wipe the floor with a 1st-level 0e or 1e character.

Power creep isn't restricted to only happening within an edition.

Remove cantrips! Remove hit dice! Bring back save or die!

 

[Reynard]

Remove cantrips! Remove hit dice! Bring back save or die!

Thos are all really good ideas for a specific kind of game and would make excellent optional rules in the DMG if accompanied by a discussion on the consequences.

 

[James Gasik]

Save or die is a little too extreme, but I did like how [previous edition to not be named] handled those effects, so that one failed save gave you a minor penalty, and then a future failed save killed you, like the Wood Wose's lignification.

That's when spells like Guidance would be used correctly in combat, I bet.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Remove cantrips! Remove hit dice! Bring back save or die!

Welp. I'm out.

Like all of those are hard no's from me, chief.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Instead of raising the floor, though, why not lower the ceiling?

Because games initially start out fairly conservative. Improvements have more room to grow rather than shrink.

 

[James Gasik]

I think the game would be fine without the Hit Die healing mechanic. We could make actual healing spells more powerful and make healers great again.

Cantrips providing you with magic you can use without burning spell slots is a neat idea, but I could see making them something other than infinite. Or on a delay, so you don't spam the same one turn after turn and have to get a little more creative?