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Power Creep
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7724929" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Power creep in and of itself is not a problem. Someone earlier, maybe even the original poster, defined 'power creep' as being able to do at 9th level what previously required an 11th level character.</p><p></p><p>If that was the only problem, then power creep would just be a quirk. You could just change the encounters that you were expecting the party to overcome and overall gameplay wouldn't change. The real problem is that power creep is almost never so tidy. The real problem is (for example) being able to generate the damage of an 11th level character, while only being able to endure the damage of an 8th level character. </p><p></p><p>That is to say, power creep is a problem because it usually starts invalidating the overall balance of the design, changing not merely the pace of the game or encounter design, but actually changing the game. In 1st edition, because of the very hard caps on hit points (implicit in the design or actual in what was allowed for a PC) and the corresponding lack of caps on damage inflicted (implicit in the design or actual in what was allowed for a PC) as PC's leveled up, they tended to find themselves increasingly in a world of glass cannons - both themselves and their foes. This resulted in game play that shifted more and more importance to achieving surprise and winning initiative rolls, to the detriment of both gameplay, the social contract, and encounter design. Invariably though, the way power creep was observed in the game, was that over time new rules increased the damage capabilities of PC's and monsters without increasing their durability appreciably. A very good example is the 1e AD&D weapon specialization rules which nearly double the expected damage output of most low level fighters, and give a significant bump in expected damage even at higher levels, yet were paired with nothing to address either the survivability of PC's or monsters. Another example is the repeated attempts to 'fix' dragons that almost invariably just increased there ability to inflict damage, resulting in making the problem of balance worse. Yet another example is the increased potency of magical bows made available in the official or semi-official rules (Dragon Magazine). That is power creep.</p><p></p><p>Power creep hits balance in all sorts of ways. For example, weapon specialization made the already very marginal thief class too weak to be worth taking except as a 'dip' class of some sort. The problem was that after weapon specialization a 15th level thief would probably lose a fight with a mere 5th level fighter, and your already marginal utility was even less justifiable. The already problematic combat balance between fighter subclasses and everything else just got worse, meaning that unless you could bring to the table the massively potent spells that themselves scaled up with no limit, you weren't bring anything to the table worth taking up a slot in the party that could be filled by a fighter. </p><p></p><p>Power creep has to be distinguished from mere 'number inflation'. Number inflation is the tendency of all numbers across the board, both the damage inflicted and the damage capable of being sustained, to increase between editions. Every edition it feels like the maximum hit points and the maximum expected damage of monsters increases by a bit, but because everything this increasing together its not power creep. It might be fairly pointless, because if you double every number you end up with the same gameplay with just slightly more complicated math (more dice to add together, more digits in the addition and subtraction), but it's different than power creep in that it doesn't in itself change the gameplay.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7724929, member: 4937"] Power creep in and of itself is not a problem. Someone earlier, maybe even the original poster, defined 'power creep' as being able to do at 9th level what previously required an 11th level character. If that was the only problem, then power creep would just be a quirk. You could just change the encounters that you were expecting the party to overcome and overall gameplay wouldn't change. The real problem is that power creep is almost never so tidy. The real problem is (for example) being able to generate the damage of an 11th level character, while only being able to endure the damage of an 8th level character. That is to say, power creep is a problem because it usually starts invalidating the overall balance of the design, changing not merely the pace of the game or encounter design, but actually changing the game. In 1st edition, because of the very hard caps on hit points (implicit in the design or actual in what was allowed for a PC) and the corresponding lack of caps on damage inflicted (implicit in the design or actual in what was allowed for a PC) as PC's leveled up, they tended to find themselves increasingly in a world of glass cannons - both themselves and their foes. This resulted in game play that shifted more and more importance to achieving surprise and winning initiative rolls, to the detriment of both gameplay, the social contract, and encounter design. Invariably though, the way power creep was observed in the game, was that over time new rules increased the damage capabilities of PC's and monsters without increasing their durability appreciably. A very good example is the 1e AD&D weapon specialization rules which nearly double the expected damage output of most low level fighters, and give a significant bump in expected damage even at higher levels, yet were paired with nothing to address either the survivability of PC's or monsters. Another example is the repeated attempts to 'fix' dragons that almost invariably just increased there ability to inflict damage, resulting in making the problem of balance worse. Yet another example is the increased potency of magical bows made available in the official or semi-official rules (Dragon Magazine). That is power creep. Power creep hits balance in all sorts of ways. For example, weapon specialization made the already very marginal thief class too weak to be worth taking except as a 'dip' class of some sort. The problem was that after weapon specialization a 15th level thief would probably lose a fight with a mere 5th level fighter, and your already marginal utility was even less justifiable. The already problematic combat balance between fighter subclasses and everything else just got worse, meaning that unless you could bring to the table the massively potent spells that themselves scaled up with no limit, you weren't bring anything to the table worth taking up a slot in the party that could be filled by a fighter. Power creep has to be distinguished from mere 'number inflation'. Number inflation is the tendency of all numbers across the board, both the damage inflicted and the damage capable of being sustained, to increase between editions. Every edition it feels like the maximum hit points and the maximum expected damage of monsters increases by a bit, but because everything this increasing together its not power creep. It might be fairly pointless, because if you double every number you end up with the same gameplay with just slightly more complicated math (more dice to add together, more digits in the addition and subtraction), but it's different than power creep in that it doesn't in itself change the gameplay. [/QUOTE]
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