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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AmerginLiath" data-source="post: 7476411" data-attributes="member: 777">Reading through this, I wonder if the wrong question is being asked. Instead of munchkinism, I wonder if there’s instead an issue of where 5e’s defenses against power creep (something that occurs in every edition of every game) begin to break down. While there are legitimate arguments about (for example) the ranger, this edition did a good job overall of using its play test process to smooth out the imbalances in how different parts of the game felt — that’s a different issue than “balance” in any mechanical sense, rather a sense that different options each feel like valid choices in their own way. Part of that meant sanding down cool ideas from early on that stood out a bit too strongly in the play test and couldn’t help but be too powerful in their implementation without being rendered incompatible with the vision of the idea.By comparison, the material in XGtE also went through playtesting via UA (and internal tests), but not in the same complete-game version that the original PHB material did (and not necessarily against all the same material released up until then in other products). That’s something that’s going to happen inevitably at this point in an edition’s release cycle, but it also makes it harder to compare elements to the whole and see whether something interesting in a class is either too strong/weak or too standout/duplicative versus playtesting limited elements within a complete-to-then game. When the result is cool-but-powerful stuff slipping through, that begins the process of “power creep.” We think of 1st Edition’s Unearthed Arcana as a book of powerful editions, but recall that it was mainly a compiled collection of material from Dragon Magazine articles — cool stuff that wasn’t tested against each other either in its day.I note that people are especially pointing out some of the spells that weren’t in previous UAs, and that’s especially a case where we can see this, because that material especially has gone through fewer channels of comparison. The “problem” as it were is that this material is now all established as extant in the edition canon and will be what new material is tested against. That’s really where power creep comes into play, when the cycle of New and Cool meets Newer and Cooler as the canon further enlarges (consider the rapid enlargement of the 3.5 line and what it’s later classes and subsystems looked like versus the PHB). Since 5e continues to involves open playtesting through UA and the like, it’s key that we as players recognize these structural issues when testing and reviewing material so as to help keep material in line — its how we keep the specter of 6e at bay!</blockquote>

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