Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder RPG: No XPs for magic items!

[Wulf Ratbane]

A large enough playtest wouldn't have caught it.

Yes, it would, absolutely. The defining common feature of the Big Six is that they are all applied directly to math of the game-- the d20 system itself.

It's not at all like trying to figure out the unexpected impact that an Endless Decanter or Wings of Flying may have on the game.

The Big Six are pure math.

Mainly because the Big Six themselves didn't become codified until a couple of years AFTER 3E's release when everybody had played enough games at mid to high level.

That's what people mean when they call it "emergent."

Anyhow, your two statements are in direct contradiction. You can't say that a large enough playtest wouldn't have caught it and in the next breath admit that actual play caught it.

The only logical conclusion is that a playtest large enough to approximate a couple of years of actual play would, in fact, have caught it.

That doesn't mean you need to actually perform a playtest of that size. It simply means that you need to iterate to that size. It should be a matter of course for the designer to look at the numbers behind the system and figure out what bonuses, applied in what specific mechanics, give you the most bang for the buck-- and then to apply that learning to Item Creation.

In fact, when the 4e designers assert that they have "fixed the accident of math" that is exactly what I assume they mean: They've properly studied the underlying math this time, and they've put that math through as many iterations as necessary to prove to themselves that it works (now).

You can see this in the CRs of creatures in 3.x. Many of the lower CR creatures are perfectly fine but the high end CR creatures had to be reduced in the switch from 3.0 to 3.5 as the designers realized that high level adventurers were walking around with the "optimum gear".

The failure to recognize that players are always going to optimize is a common failure of designers. You see it most frequently in MMO design-- both because the playerbase is so large and because the feedback is immediate. An MMO designer who screws this up is looking at a subsequent nerf or-- God forbid-- a rollback.

 

[BryonD]

In fact, when the 4e designers assert that they have "fixed the accident of math" that is exactly what I assume they mean: They've properly studied the underlying math this time, and they've put that math through as many iterations as necessary to prove to themselves that it works (now).

I disagree with you here.
I think what they mean is that they have constrained the variables so that at any given level the range of DCs and Bonuses are controlled. Maybe you'd say that this just reduces the number of iterations required to the point that your standard has been met. But it is a different thing in my mind.