Poll: Power creep in 3.5, how significant?

[Aus_Snow]

If they wanted to embiggen the Fighter, they should have done something about the Fighter (. . .)

Ayup, as in PHBII.

 

[FireLance]

Making an existing class obsolete isn't correcting anything. If they wanted to embiggen the Fighter, they should have done something about the Fighter, not released replacement classes.

Wouldn't that be an even more blatant example of power creep? This way, the new classes can be compared against the power baseline of classes like the cleric and the druid.

People, people. The solution is to ban fighters.

NOOOO!!! My warblade wants to take two levels of fighter for the bonus feats!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Some might argue that the Book of Nine Swords was about correcting an imbalance in the core rules, and not "power creep".

See! This isn't 2e Complete Book of Elves nonsense! This is well within the terms of what I would call "acceptible" power creep. Though I disagree about the power of the fighter, even the warblade doesn't make the fighter entirely obsolete.

Power creep in 3e is definately the most mild its ever been in D&D, so far...

 

[brehobit]

See! This isn't 2e Complete Book of Elves nonsense! This is well within the terms of what I would call "acceptible" power creep. Though I disagree about the power of the fighter, even the warblade doesn't make the fighter entirely obsolete.

Power creep in 3e is definately the most mild its ever been in D&D, so far...

Without getting into edition wars...

I'd say that was true until the last 6 months or so. Bo9S and parts of complete mage (fey feats are the big one IMO) are really quite broken. Fun mind you. But broken. Still not as bad as skills and powers from 2nd edition, or even parts of unearthed arcana from 1st edition. But getting there.

I've got a swordsage and a warlock with with the fey feats. Wow, much better than the rest of the party... MUCH better.

Mark

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I don't mind the "power creep" introduced by the warblade and company, as I think the fighter as originally designed was too weak.

Agreed. The PHB2 addresses a design flaw - that too many feats were created as "punisher feats" for prc entry, and not enough as valid choices. Also, high level fighters were stuck picking low level feats - the equivalent would be a caster having to put 4th level spells in their 9th level slots.

Similarly, the BO9S also ups non caster power to caster level. Most grognards are under the mistaken impression that the casters are just supposed to be the end all and be all of the game at upper level. Thank god WOTC is moving away from the mistakes Gygax made in 1st edition design. Its not particularly satisfying to be sidelined the longer you play a character.

 

[mmu1]

I think the power creep is extremely significant.

I also don't think that releasing new, better classes is good a solution to the problem of certain classes being underpowered. Especially when some of those new classes then end up being even stronger than the classes that weren't underpowered to begin with.

 

[Alceste]

Agreed. The PHB2 addresses a design flaw - that too many feats were created as "punisher feats" for prc entry, and not enough as valid choices. Also, high level fighters were stuck picking low level feats - the equivalent would be a caster having to put 4th level spells in their 9th level slots.

Similarly, the BO9S also ups non caster power to caster level. Most grognards are under the mistaken impression that the casters are just supposed to be the end all and be all of the game at upper level. Thank god WOTC is moving away from the mistakes Gygax made in 1st edition design. Its not particularly satisfying to be sidelined the longer you play a character.

This has been my experience as well. We just hit 14th in our main campaign. Both our paladin and our crusader are a lot closer to the power level of our casters. This is a good thing. Having characters stay viable at high levels is important. Now, both types melee and casters are viable.

There are issues when you allow willy nilly multi classing but that is an issue with the core rules. There is also issues with certain feats / classes (ie Leap attack, Wraithstrike, Warblade) but these can be house ruled pretty easily.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I'd say that was true until the last 6 months or so. Bo9S and parts of complete mage (fey feats are the big one IMO) are really quite broken. Fun mind you. But broken. Still not as bad as skills and powers from 2nd edition, or even parts of unearthed arcana from 1st edition. But getting there.

I've got a swordsage and a warlock with with the fey feats. Wow, much better than the rest of the party... MUCH better.

I guess the rest of the party is playing commoners? Or could you elaborate on what the rest of the party is playing, because that makes a difference in this discussion.

 

[Aaron L]

Ayup, as in PHBII.

Exactly. Just one of the many reason PHB II is a rad book.

Wouldn't that be an even more blatant example of power creep? This way, the new classes can be compared against the power baseline of classes like the cleric and the druid.

No, that would be an example of power catch-up.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Making an existing class obsolete isn't correcting anything. If they wanted to embiggen the Fighter, they should have done something about the Fighter, not released replacement classes.

Why?

If the fighter isn't up to snuff, why *not* just write a replacement and have done with? It seems like a cleaner solution to me than going with patchwork repair.

Not that this is an endorsement of Bo9S; I'm just suggesting that replacing the fighter may not be such a bad idea. For instance, in my last campaign, I substituted the Arcana Unearthed unfettered and warmain for the fighter and it worked out fine; likewise, I removed the druid and used the AU greenbond instead, and swapped in the AU magister for the wizard and sorcerer. This seemed to do a nice, clean job of balancing the spellcasters with the warrior-types at high levels.