ciretose |
Whenever a new product comes out, the discussion of power creep emerges. Some have ever gone so far as to say power creep is inevitable, as if the next generation isn't better than why would anyone buy it.
I disagree.
What most of us want are options. When you make new classes "better" than old classes, you tend to narrow what people will play by making old classes and options "suboptimal".
The goal should be different. New classes and feats don't need to be superior to old ones, as long as they give interesting options that allow for more concepts to be viable.
When you sit down with the books, you want to be able to convert ideas in your head onto the game table.
Back in the late 3.5 day each book seems to be trying to one up the next, and few seemed to consider how they interacted with each other. Balance flew out the window and DMs had to heavily police broken options and poorly conceived classes.
Having more options doesn't mean power creep has to happen. Having new classes doesn't mean old classes stop being viable. I know where the fear comes from, I saw it in 3.5 with each new book trying to one up the one before it, base classes becoming second class citizens in the game world, and new magic systems being plugged into incompatible worlds not meant to deal with them (I'm looking at you psionics...)
Paizo's goal is to make new material people want to buy. Without new material, Paizo's business model is fail. But adding new doesn't mean you abandon the old (I'm looking at you WOTC). Adding new means expanding the world that exists and exploring areas not previously discussed.
We can have new options without outshining the old. We can have new choices without obsoleting the old ones.
zmanerism |
I could not agree more with the power creeping problem. I just joined a game that is using the Advance Players Guide and the book is so totally broken. There are ways to make the old classes nearly obsolete. It would be fun to have more classes that can complement each other instead of replacing or bettering the old ones. the archytpes did a better job at doing this then the new classes. Having different classes of the same power can just add more role-playing potential without reworking the whole game.