Poll: Power creep in 3.5, how significant?

[blargney the second]

We've limited power creep in our games by banning all spells outside the PHB. Feats, PrCs, and all the rest are fair game. It works quite well as far as I'm concerned!

 

[FireLance]

It depends on how you define "power creep". I personally do not consider new game elements that bring a character concept that was mechanically sub-optimal under the core rules only to about the baseline expected power level to be "power creep", although it technically would be under a "anything more powerful than the equivalent character using core rules only" definition of the term.

It is certainly possible to create a character than is more optimized for specific situations than core rules only characters (usually at a cost in flexibility or being less optimized for other situations), and DMs who enjoy running scenarios involving those specific situations may see that as "power creep".

I've picked option 3 for the poll, but what I really think is closer to 2.6. There are some game elements that are balanced in ways that I don't like, don't fit in with my style of play, or the way I like to run my games (e.g. Frenzied Berserker - might attack party members, sudden metamagic feats - makes combats too unpredictable), so I don't use them.

 

[Ron]

Voted for option #1. Theres a significant power creep once you start adding the non-core books from WotC. It's only understandable but the designers could have done better to balance them out.

I wonder if the power creep wasn't a design goal. Releasing supplements that allow more powerful characters, and thus with an incentive to purchase, is exactly the strategy developed by WotC to their collectable card games. Why they wouldn't apply it to their roleplaying line?

 

[Shroomy]

While there are some unbalanced items, I don't see systematic power-creep. In fact, most of the time, when the numbers are actually run, new items usually come out to be only slightly better at best (and then only in specialized situations), equal, or actually sub-optimal.

 

[prosfilaes]

I wonder if the power creep wasn't a design goal. Releasing supplements that allow more powerful characters, and thus with an incentive to purchase, is exactly the strategy developed by WotC to their collectable card games. Why they wouldn't apply it to their roleplaying line?

A lot of people who worked on this stuff have posted here, and I don't think anyone has said it was a design goal. Realistically, if you produce stuff that's weaker than the core stuff, nobody bothers buying your books. So you have to make stuff that's as powerful as the core stuff, which balance being hard in and of itself, sometimes means you produce stuff that's better than the core stuff, and sometimes is as powerful as the core stuff on its own, but happens to interact with something else to be much more powerful than intended.

 

[WhatGravitas]

I wonder if the power creep wasn't a design goal. Releasing supplements that allow more powerful characters, and thus with an incentive to purchase, is exactly the strategy developed by WotC to their collectable card games. Why they wouldn't apply it to their roleplaying line?

Actually, that is not true! As you can read here (that's an article by Mark Rosewater, the Head Designer), they're very aware of the problem of "Power Creep" and while they know that's an incentive, they also try to keep it in check to lengthen the life duration of the game.

This said, I also think, that the RPG-department is well aware of this problem, hence I don't believe that WotC uses "Power Creep" as a strategy.

However, I still think there's a kind of power creep: Barring some completely broken things (i.e. loop holes), the increase of sheer versatility increases the number of new possible effective combinations. While this is countered by better rules knowledge of the designers (IMHO the new bunch of Complete-books is more balanced than the first swath) the "increase-in-combinations"-effect is impossible to avoid, hence we see (barring loopholes) minor "Power Creep".

 

[The Lost Muse]

I refer all who are interested to this (http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue7/scenarioinflation1.html) article, written by Johnny Nexus.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I went for #1, significant. The two games I play in are core-only; if my casters had access to supplement spells, if my other characters had access to supplement feats and items they would all be significantly more powerful and capable IMO.

One of the factors of the games I play in being core-only is that I'm often astonished by spells and feats that get talked about in the rules forum, and the character 'builds' that are put together around them. Certainly more powerful and capable than most (any?) of our core-only characters!

Cheers

 

[DaveyJones]

I went for #1, significant. The two games I play in are core-only; if my casters had access to supplement spells, if my other characters had access to supplement feats and items they would all be significantly more powerful and capable IMO.

One of the factors of the games I play in being core-only is that I'm often astonished by spells and feats that get talked about in the rules forum, and the character 'builds' that are put together around them. Certainly more powerful and capable than most (any?) of our core-only characters!

Cheers

I had a similar experience.

 

[Nifft]

Complete Mage, Bo9S, PHBII

Ironically, I think those last two do NOT particularly contribute to power creep. Not nearly so much as the various setting books did.

Complete Mage? Not quite sure. Gotta give that one a harder look.

Cheers, -- N