Is Power Creep Real? If so, how do you fight it?

[Remathilis]

Wait, non-core material = power creep?

Someone want to tell the guys who designed the swashbuckler, healer, samurai, illumain, PH2 Sacred Healing, and marshal?

WotCs stuff has usually been killer (a

Spoiler

roper in Forge of Fury

anyone?) so its not surprising...

 

[Nifft]

Wait, non-core material = power creep?

Good point. Core has Druids, gate and Metamagic Rods of Quickening.

Two of those require some research and prep-work to be truly broken, though.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Serious answer: be careful with allowing multiple non-Core supplements in the same character. Multiple supplements are often okay, but there are specific combos which should be prohibited, because sometimes you'll get the situation where one breaks rule X (relying on rule Y for balance), while the other breaks rule Y (relying on rule X for balance).

I'm not challenging you because I actually agree with you for the most part, but do you have a really good specific example of this?

 

[Moon-Lancer]

Possilbe spoilers
Well, I know of several encounters in Red Hand of Doom that had AC's in the "roll a nat 20 or forget it" range after we had done significant buffing.

would you believe me if i said a dm that ran this actually increased the cr of just about everything in that book?

 

[Nifft]

I'm not challenging you because I actually agree with you for the most part, but do you have a really good specific example of this?

Sure, the example at the top of the post: Power Attack + Diamond Nightmare Blade + Deep Impact.

DNB is balanced by the fact that it's replacing a full attack -- you get exactly one full attack's damage out of a single blow. It's strong because you get the damage of four attacks at full BAB, but as a drawback, you can only crit once.

Deep Impact is balanced by the fact that it can't be used with a full attack -- the assumption was that a single attack with Deep Impact would be worth giving up your iterative attacks.

But together, you can Power Attack for everything and still expect to connect with your DI+DNB. That's as strong as wraithstrike! Never should the optimal combination of an 8th level maneuver and a top-tier Psionic feat approach the value of a 2nd level Arcane spell. Never!

Cheers, -- N

 

[Felon]

Um, every one of them I've run in the past 4 years.

Sons of Grumsh
Shackled City Adventure Path (actually Paizo, but still "official")
Corymr: Tearing of the Weave

I've run Sons of Gruumsh. Not surprisingly, it is 90% orcs. They don't require 20's to hit (much less actually), they don't have DR, and they don't require special weapons.

The only thing you could call "power creep" is the sheer number of orcs you can wind up facing at once. The players have to know what they're undertaking--namely, they're invading an orc stronghold. They cannot expect to kick in the door without raising an alarm. You either need a good plan that involves subterfuge, or you need a strong offense, generally in the form of some area-affecting spell (web is ideal).

I have Cormyr: Tearing of the Weave, but I passed on running it because it was kinda bland. If anything, I found it kind of easy.

Others that I've read through and did statistical breakdowns for (what is the percentage of the group surviving these encounters) that seemed way too hard were.
Demonweb Pits
Castle Ravenloft
Age of Worms
Savage Tide

Demonweb Pits and Ravenloft can both be pretty rough, because you fight tough opponents at a fast pace. It requires prepared and experienced players, and even then they'll need to pace themselves to avoid running out of juice. Novice players need not apply.

But y'now what really makes those adventures a lot easier? Having good arcane and divine support. I find that the more experienced players in my group get caught up with building awesome warriors, and they leave the spellcasting to the newbs. I think the reasoning is that nuking with spells is broken or too easy or something. It's a big mistake in adventures that are built to scale.

 

[AllisterH]

I think its more of a case of people forgetting how stacked the WOTC adventures tend to be.

Surely I'm not the only one who suffered a TPK in every single one of the original 3.0 adventures....

 

[Moon-Lancer]

#25

But isn't that just 9 swords and phb? shouldn't that have been accounted for?

still i see what you mean now. with the x y counter balance

 

[DragonLancer]

Age of Worms is the only one I've noticed this with and I can't say that its over the top. In fact my players (who arn't powergamers) have been pleased with it as it gives them a challenge.

 

[Campbell]

But isn't that just 9 swords and phb? shouldn't that have been accounted for?

still i see what you mean now. with the x y counter balance

Deep Impact comes from the Expanded Psionics Handbook.