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So many who now play PFS may remember Living Greyhawk. The world started out great, with interesting and diverse characters; and a fair-but-easy-to-get into challenge level.
Then the splat books came. With them came amazing magic (we all talk about "CoDzilla" and the use of divine metamagic), incredible classes, etc. Suddenly the modules had to ramp up in power level, and it began to block newer players from playing (since most newer players didn't read or optimize through all of the SPLATbooks), and everyone group in power. The world eventually became a mess and collapsed.
Now let's look at what is happening in today's world of PFS. APG was a pretty big "power burst", with Summoners and Witches outpowering the melees somewhat; and the addition of Kits giving a good, but still more powerful, variant to the base classes. It was a minor enough bump though, and the Ultimate books succeeded in adding more options without overly affecting balance. Life continued to be good.
Now I'm starting to get a little worried. The main issue I have is with Advanced Races, and specifically with the allowance of "variant" Tieflings and Aasimir. The Tiefling and Aasimir alone were considered "powerful enough"; Aasimir especially had 2 positive stats, no negative ones, great "favored class options", and the unheard-of ability to start with 2nd or 3rd level daily spells. Now you add the ability to actually place those stats (almost) wherever you wan. These days it's becoming more and more rare to see non-Planar players (I played at a table with 4 the other day, and the only non-planars were myself (playing a also-overpowered-but-not-quite-as-much Tengu; and a new plaer). And why not? Aasimir and Tiefling characters are insanely powerful.
We've talked about options of bringing CR-4 monsters to low-tier campaigns in the thread "Battle Cattle". We're starting to see something Pathfinder was attempting to avoid... those weird "multi-class monsters" from 3.5 that cherry-pick abilities from several front-loaded classes to get insane number of attacks. And the modules are increasing the challenge to make up for this; I would be concerned about any newer-player base that tries to go into a Season 4 module, and expect the power levels to increase at Season 5.
So what are thoughts here? Should Paizo start locking things down, restrict the "alternate" planestouched, and make some rule that prevents the animals from joining the party if their CR is above the class level? Should they just let things be and increase the power of the campaign? Should they let it be but assume newer players won't access these books and keep the power level low (essentially making most "advanced" players cakewalk modules)? Should they reinforce the boon requirements for races like Tengu, Aasimir, and Tieflings (or at least require boons for Aasimir and Tieflings to have any but the "base" setup)?
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Here's what I have observed: the "extra power" of non-core races is really only a big deal to newish players. They get interested, find out the ways to work the system and build something to take advantage. But once players get a lot (30-40+) scenarios under their belts, the pendulum swings back the other way. They become more interested in role-playing characters. Not necessarily original but definitely having a personality. A halfling former slave. A Keleshite princess. A self-loathing tiefling cleric of Asmodeus. These characters are still very well built. But it's not "watch all the awesome stuff I can do." They often pass up a "powerful" feat because it would not fit with the character (or choose a less-optimal feat path because it meshes with the character idea).
From a Paizo-side (design) level, there's two big things that keep power creep down. The first is PFS specific and that's faction missions. Unless you are playing in an area where the GMs always give out full Fame regardless of results (no, they are not supposed to do that but some do) or in the same group all the time who share the same faction players start to realize that they need skills. That extra skill point makes humans incredibly desirable. The second is that multi-classing is usually weaker than single-classing in the long run. At low levels multiclassing can definitely increase combat power. And if you are building for one scenario at one level only, multiclassing rules. But I can't tell you how many times I've heard in 7-11 scenarios "that wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't taken the two-level dip in Master of Many Styles Monk" or "if I was a full cleric I would have that spell by now." Always from players with character xxxxx-1 or -2.
So my argument: At low levels with new players it definitely can be an issue. With experienced players, not so much.
As a counter example: The group I played in last weekend had 5 humans and an elf.
Indeed. I played in one group (of 7) and GMed two (of 6) over the weekend. A total of one Aasimar, one elf, and a ton of humans.
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Before the final blow-because-of-4th edition, we were starting to empower a lot of collapse. It started becoming a power race; meaning the module designers started to say "All right, you want to use Divine Metamagic? We'll show you what it can do". There was a cleric who used a trick to increase level of blasphemy (then a no-save spell) to a level where anyone playing on-tier would instantly be rendendered helpless unless they had thought to deafen themselves before the encounter.
This also became the time when all mid-level module writers began scripting in Invi-flyers everywhere. Suddenly parties who did not have the abilities to deal with these started reporting TPKs.
My big issue comes from power-creeping players leads to power-creeping modules. I'm starting to see that same trend here; where splat books have made players extrodinarily powerful, and Season 4 / Season 5 are starting to ramp up on the monsters. I just fear for keeping the newer players happy in this world, and don't like the trend of seeing more and more powerful combos coming out and putting gaps between "experienced" and "non-experienced" players more than there already were.
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I agree that LG had to ramp up it's scenario threat level although it could be debated whether this was just the natural evolution of the game as scenario writers had the same access to the new books as the players.
I have no clue whether this was a barrier to new players. Anecdotally I'd say no as from what I saw in my area, new players played and stayed.
I strongly disagree that power creep had anything to do with LG's demise. 4th Edition came out and Greyhawk was no longer the default setting. Living Forgotten Realms was created to replace LG. That was the end of LG in a nut-shell.
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If someone thinks aasimar and tieflings are overpowered, or that aasimar are more powerful than tieflings, they haven't done their homework.
Explain? I do a lot of builds, sometimes for power, sometimes not. And when building for power, it seems two stat bonuses with no penalties is huge; and their favored class bonus to move up an ability by 1/2 a level (oracle and bard) is starting to garner a lot of steam. How does that feel like "not powerful" relative to any other race?
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Explain? I do a lot of builds, sometimes for power, sometimes not. And when building for power, it seems two stat bonuses with no penalties is huge; and their favored class bonus to move up an ability by 1/2 a level (oracle and bard) is starting to garner a lot of steam. How does that feel like "not powerful" relative to any other race?
First, please note the smiley-of-lighthearted-tone that I've edited into my post, lest I come across poorly. :)
The thing with aasimar is that yes, they get two stat bonuses, but the combos are usually not that great. For instance, they're almost all +2 CHA. If you're a typical martial or a non-CHA-based caster, that's nearly worthless. If you're a CHA-based caster, then in most cases the other stat boost is nearly irrelevant. Basically, the vast majority of PCs are going to put one aasimar bonus into their primary stat, and the other is going to go into something so far down the priority list that the advantage is negligible.
Probably the best aasimar heritage is musetouched, with +2 DEX/CHA. Perfect for a ninja or bard, but nothing special for anything else. And even for ninjas/bards, it's competing with the halfling, who gets the same bonuses, a nearly-irrelevant penalty, and +1 to attacks and AC.
There's also the angel-blooded (+2 STR/CHA) that fits standard paladins, and not much else. Similarly, the vanilla aasimar fits approximately one build: a casting/channel-focused cleric.
So even with Blood of Angels, it's still just a race that's a decent pick for a couple of builds - just like races are supposed to be.
Tieflings have a much better array of ability adjustments, supporting far more concepts than the aasimar options. The default tiefling supports DEX-based magus or EK builds, and one or two STR-boosting heritages can be good for certain melee builds, and again, that's about where it stops. Tieflings have more variety than aasimar, but still are only the "right" choice for a limited number of concepts. Even for those concepts, the default tiefling is still competing with the elf, who gets a fantastic weapon familiarity (if the EK wants to do damage, he's an elf, not a tiefling) and some other nice magic-related features (which the EK or magus will definitely be interested in). For the STR-based builds, they have to decide whether the other stat adjustments are worth the human's bonus feat - and STR-based builds usually want feats.
In summary: there are some builds for which an aasimar or tiefling would be perfect, but far more for which a core race (usually human, but possibly elf, halfling, or another) is probably the stronger choice. They're right where a race should be.
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Ultimately Spells = power.
Spellcasting classes have limited feats, and need feats.
Spellcasting classes are generally "one-stat" classes.
Spells can fix/overrite most racial abilities.
Favored class bonus' are the exception, however very few of them are as powerful as a hit point.
Human gets a bonus feat, gets an extra skill every level, and can easily start 20/14/14/11/7/7 (not in order)
If a human is a class that needs two stats (generally not as feat taxed) they can use Dual-Talent and increase 2 physical attributes, as the only race in the game with that ability, that's pretty sweet.
To explain what Jiggy is talking about, I'll start with the simple. Some Stats are much better than other stats. Simply look at the mechanical benefits of stats.
Str; Climb/Swim, Hit with melee, damage with melee, damage with some ranged
Dex; acro, DD, fly, ride, stealth, SoH, EE. Initiative, AC, Ranged attacks, melee attacks* with a feat. Reflex saves
Con; Harder to kill, More HP, fortitude saves. (short list, but EVERYONE needs all those things)
Int; More skill points/level, Appraise, Knowledges, crafts, spellcraft
Wisdom: Will saves, survival, perception, professions.
Cha: Diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, handle animal, use magic device
Stat bonuses to skills are generally not worth the stat points. Magic items for +5 to a skill are only 2500.
Str and Cha are among the weakest stats in the game. Sure they are great if you're doing the thing they are doing, but if you're NOT they are worthless garbage. Dex, Wis, Int, Con ALWAYS benefit you.
Also Tieflings have a lot of very powerful feats available to them, one of the strongest being fiend sight.
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So in regard to the original question, is everyone's answer that power creep is NOT occuring, and that everything is business as normal? That the recent modules are not increasing steeply in difficulty and more powerful combos are not being made available?
Are other areas not experiencing the influx of Aasimirs and Tieflings that online play and the Atlanta area have recently been getting? Is it just the tables I have been with?
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Thalin, there are diferent types of power creep.
With just the Core Rulebook, we can get a couple-three overpowering builds. Fighter-archers. High-charisma enchanters.
More than making those builds even stronger, different products have opened up other avenues to new twinkie builds. So there's a wider variety of very strong characters. There's also a wider variety of general-strength builds.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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We have some aasimar and tieflings locally, but they are far from overpowering. Season 4 is certainly more difficult, but I feel that it's because the scenarios are built for a table of 6 rather than a table of 4. Also, the Sesaon 4 scenarios are far from impossible for an optimized party, especially at lower levels. Severing Ties is widely considered to be a killer, but a canny party can easily clear it with no deaths so long as they play smart and nobody tries to solo it.
The options in the most recent books have been far from game-breaking. People of the North gave us Snowball, which, while a powerful spell, was also necessary because low-level sorcerers and wizards are rather weak, and the very interesting winter witch archetype had a dearth of low-level cold spells. The Blood books have been out for a while and aren't really all that new. Chronicles of the Righteousness gives us the interesting Obediences and Mystery Cultist prestige class - it's not all that broken, just flavorful. Thus, I don't really see a problem here. Does anybody have a specific example of a feat, trait or spell printed in a recent book that is absolutely game-breaking?
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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So in regard to the original question, is everyone's answer that power creep is NOT occuring, and that everything is business as normal?
I'm sure there's *some* power creep, but not an egregious amount, and certainly not primarily as a result of aasimar/tiefling options.
That the recent modules are not increasing steeply in difficulty
They intentionally are, but as a result of 6-player tables being the norm, as well as consistent player feedback requesting it. Not as a response to player options.
and more powerful combos are not being made available?
I'm still looking for something more powerful than a Core wizard or archer. Most of the power creep in PFS is really just those other things starting to catch up - which seems like a good thing to me.
Are other areas not experiencing the influx of Aasimirs and Tieflings that online play and the Atlanta area have recently been getting?
They exist here in the Twin Cities (Minnesota), but I don't think either of them outnumber the dwarves yet, and the two together don't outnumber the humans (not even close, I imagine).
Is it just the tables I have been with?
Isn't regional variance an interesting thing? :)
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We have some aasimar and tieflings locally, but they are far from overpowering. Season 4 is certainly more difficult, but I feel that it's because the scenarios are built for a table of 6 rather than a table of 4. Also, the Sesaon 4 scenarios are far from impossible for an optimized party, especially at lower levels. Severing Ties is widely considered to be a killer, but a canny party can easily clear it with no deaths so long as they play smart and nobody tries to solo it.
The options in the most recent books have been far from game-breaking. People of the North gave us Snowball, which, while a powerful spell, was also necessary because low-level sorcerers and wizards are rather weak, and the very interesting winter witch archetype had a dearth of low-level cold spells. The Blood books have been out for a while and aren't really all that new. Chronicles of the Righteousness gives us the interesting Obediences and Mystery Cultist prestige class - it's not all that broken, just flavorful. Thus, I don't really see a problem here. Does anybody have a specific example of a feat, trait or spell printed in a recent book that is absolutely game-breaking?
It's not usually just one feat/ability/trait that breaks the game, it's the combinations you can create with them. For example, a Wizard that takes a level dip into Crossblooded Sorcerer for Draconic and Orc bloodlines to gain +2 damage per die on their spells. We have a player in our local games level 7 I think who's fireball does around 50 damage on an average roll and uses the evocation school power to change the energy descriptor if they are resistant/immune to fire. Combats are typically over in round 1 or 2.
There are definitely legal game breaking builds out there, this is not just a perceived problem.
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The Living Greyhawk campaign did not "collapse". It was ended by a mandate from WotC, because they decided that they did not want to deal with a campaign conversion such as they had once done with Living City during the change from D&D 2nd Ed. to 3rd. I also suspect (but have no proof) that the copyright of the Greyhawk world was about to revert to the Gygax estate, thus making the WotC owned Forgotten Realms the game world of choice for the new campaign.
(Former Living Greyhawk Triad member from the Bandit Kingdoms)
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So in regard to the original question, is everyone's answer that power creep is NOT occuring, and that everything is business as normal? That the recent modules are not increasing steeply in difficulty and more powerful combos are not being made available?
Are other areas not experiencing the influx of Aasimirs and Tieflings that online play and the Atlanta area have recently been getting? Is it just the tables I have been with?
The wave subsided here.
From what I can tell, people started one planetoucbed character when they were released. Newer players also gravitate toward them, as they somehow think they're inevitably better. For example, I've seen a few upset melee who suddenly realize that enlarge person doesn't work on them.
From playing some online in two different organized campaigns, online play seems to be a whole different animal. The community tends to read more online about the game, even the newer players. So more players show up with the new shiny the forums are talking about or with positions entrenched in whatever debate is going online. For example, last time I GMed online I had two players berating me because I was giving the two rogues type characters combat advantages for being hidden, which was a niche topic in the forums at the time. I was right in my ruling and the forums eventually came around, but it struck me as extremely unusual how persistent they were in insisting that the characters hiding should not be given any advantage in combat whatsoever. This was especially odd given both common sense and RAW were on my side, and there were clearly two stealth focused characters in the party.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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We have some aasimar and tieflings locally, but they are far from overpowering. Season 4 is certainly more difficult, but I feel that it's because the scenarios are built for a table of 6 rather than a table of 4. Also, the Sesaon 4 scenarios are far from impossible for an optimized party, especially at lower levels. Severing Ties is widely considered to be a killer, but a canny party can easily clear it with no deaths so long as they play smart and nobody tries to solo it.
The options in the most recent books have been far from game-breaking. People of the North gave us Snowball, which, while a powerful spell, was also necessary because low-level sorcerers and wizards are rather weak, and the very interesting winter witch archetype had a dearth of low-level cold spells. The Blood books have been out for a while and aren't really all that new. Chronicles of the Righteousness gives us the interesting Obediences and Mystery Cultist prestige class - it's not all that broken, just flavorful. Thus, I don't really see a problem here. Does anybody have a specific example of a feat, trait or spell printed in a recent book that is absolutely game-breaking?
It's not usually just one feat/ability/trait that breaks the game, it's the combinations you can create with them. For example, a Wizard that takes a level dip into Crossblooded Sorcerer for Draconic and Orc bloodlines to gain +2 damage per die on their spells. We have a player in our local games level 7 I think who's fireball does around 50 damage on an average roll and uses the evocation school power to change the energy descriptor if they are resistant/immune to fire. Combats are typically over in round 1 or 2.
There are definitely legal game breaking builds out there, this is not just a perceived problem.
I'm looking at Draconic and Orc and just don't see anything that does that?
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It's not usually just one feat/ability/trait that breaks the game, it's the combinations you can create with them. For example, a Wizard that takes a level dip into Crossblooded Sorcerer for Draconic and Orc bloodlines to gain +2 damage per die on their spells. We have a player in our local games level 7 I think who's fireball does around 50 damage on an average roll and uses the evocation school power to change the energy descriptor if they are resistant/immune to fire. Combats are typically over in round 1 or 2.There are definitely legal game breaking builds out there, this is not just a perceived problem.
No one is arguing that there aren't game breaking builds. It just is that most of them aren't new, or have only gotten marginally better.
For example, I believe that that dragon and orc bloodlines are from the core rulebook and admixture wizard is from the APG, and crossblooded from Ultimate Magic. These are not from new spatbooks.
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My opinion is that there isn’t any power “creep”, but rather there was a power “surge.”
It came in two phases.
- 1) The players got all these extra books to build characters from, and the authors were either inhibited or reluctant to use those sources based on word-count (they had to create an entire stat-block instead of using the short stat blocks we see in Season 4 for anything outside of the Core Rule Book or Bestiary 1). The scenarios from season 0 to 2 for core-built characters were reasonable (although some were ridiculously easy, and some had spikes of hardness that were sorta unfair like Dalsine Affair and Darkest Vengeance). But with the surge of new options from the Advanced Players Guide through Ultimate Combat and all the splat books, and the authors not using them much, characters were making core-designed scenarios look silly, where the +1 APL for 6 players was not enough to account for character power. This allowed folks to play up almost always for those earlier seasons, which created a WBL power issue.
- 2) The second surge happened when everything in the PRD was made core for GMs. This allowed authors to use all the same new toys the players got to use, without wasting valuable word count on stat blocks. Additionally, with the change in season 4 to writing for 6 player tables instead of 4, the power amped up with that. As long as you don’t have too many ridiculous builds at the same table, I’m finding that everything seems to be leveling off nicely. But one other thing to consider, is that the level of competency in designing challenging encounters by both the Authors and Developers (Mark Moreland) has increased since about halfway through season 2. We aren’t seeing anymore CR 9 encounters that are 8 CR 3 creatures, as we know that it doesn’t matter how many CR 3 creatures there are, a level 7 character is not going to be challenged overly by it.
The first power surge could have created power “creep”.
The second power surge was necessary to maintain the challenge based on the options player characters had and the fact that most tables actually do play at 6, not 4. And the increase in competency in authoring and developing was just straight up necessary, otherwise you do wind up with the little tricks that we did start to see a lot in early seasons (swarms), season 3 (deeper darkness), or Living Greyhawk (invisible fliers everywhere).
So I’m not seeing any power “creep.” Just necessary changes to make sure the campaign stays challenging with all the options players have.
The real problem is a certain sub-set of players choosing to use options irresponsibly and creating characters that aren’t challenged no matter how hard the scenario. Remember, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. I don’t think the campaign is going to design itself around this small sub-set of players.
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I don't think a Zen archer has better dpr than a fighter archer.Granted, the core-only fighter archer gets a number of really nice things, including Weapon Training, but Zen archers can do a LOT of things that core fighters can only dream of doing.
As someone with a twinked out Zen Archer-Qiggong 7/Inquisitor 1 that's Wisdom SAD, it may take me 1.5 rounds to destroy something that a Fighter Archer or Ranger Archer can kill in 1 round...but my sky high saves, robust suite of skills and general utility is ridonkulous.
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So I’m not seeing any power “creep.” Just necessary changes to make sure the campaign stays challenging with all the options players have.
And Andrew, this is the current problem (in my eyes) with the campaign. It wasn't necessary. It was necessary to make the crazies with crazy builds happier, but it certainly wasn't necessary.
I consider myself a pretty hardcore PFS player, I've been playing since the beginning, I've sat in the VO chair, yet I'm finding the scenarios in Season 4 to become complete slogs. Season to me tends (not always, but certainly more often than not) to be challenges of endurance in a 5 hour session, not a fun get-together they used to be. Rather than a fun day of gaming, I'm finding myself exhausted after participating (and this is either playing or running). I'm finding we survive only because of these crazy builds, which makes them more and more popular.
In other words, I'm finding myself having less fun.
I'm one side of the coin. The other side is far more problematic.
My GF has gone from being open about PFS to completely uninterested. Why? Because she's a more casual player. The stories of what's happening at game days (all perpetuated by the 6-player table decision) have turned her off entirely. Her idea of fun isn't the "challenges" being introduced now. She wants to play a fun and creative character she can get into, which she's not feeling she can.
I think PFS needs to be careful. While the OPs call that this was the end of LG is certainly not entirely true, it's something to worry about, because like it or not, it's happening. Maybe not to all of you, certainly not to the handful of hardcore players who post on these forums 24/7, but it's happening.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I agree with Andy that it's not so much power "creep" as it is that there was a surge of new stuff (of varying power levels) as the first few hardbacks came out, but then kind of stayed put; and then from the campaign side there was a single big adjustment for 6-player tables and player demand for harder scenarios.
We're not creeping along, we had one big surge on the player side (which has pretty much stopped) and then one big surge on the campaign side. Both were discreet instances of change, with neither indicating an ongoing trend or "creep".
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So in regard to the original question, is everyone's answer that power creep is NOT occuring, and that everything is business as normal?I'm sure there's *some* power creep, but not an egregious amount, and certainly not primarily as a result of aasimar/tiefling options.
Snowball
A good example of power creep.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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So in regard to the original question, is everyone's answer that power creep is NOT occuring, and that everything is business as normal?I'm sure there's *some* power creep, but not an egregious amount, and certainly not primarily as a result of aasimar/tiefling options.Snowball
A good example of power creep.
I'll definitely give you that one. Fortunately, I don't think it's part of a trend.
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Here is my opinion.
Of course the player base for the Pathfinder Society (PFS), like the player base for Living Greyhawk (LG) before it, is forcing the power level in the living campaign to ramp up a bit.
If people were more keen to make Pathfinders it probably wouldn't be going that way. Just like the regions in LG who didn't have the brutally over engineered characters tended not to have mods designed to challenge them.
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I'll definitely give you that one. Fortunately, I don't think it's part of a trend.I wouldn't and I don't think it's even close. It's a close range single target spell capable of doing all of 5d6 damage and maybe staggering the target. Even with no SR it's hardly impressive.
Whereas shocking grasp is the same damage, same spell level, but shorter range (touch) and no possibility of debuffing. Plus the SR thing.
5d6 touch
vs
5d6 at range plus possible debuff and no SR
But again, it doesn't seem to be part of a trend, just a single overdone spell.
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Ear-Piercing scream is better than snowball for most classes.
there are exceptions, though I do have to admit (even if I don't want to) that the no SR part is strong.
There are 2 major contributors to PFS seeing "power increases". one of them is more material, that certainly creates the opportunity for more powerful characters.
the 2nd, and probably more important, is player experience. More people are playing, more people are talking about it, and as a group we're all getting better at the game :)
Also more people are switching over from 3.5, and those players have YEARs of system mastery, a lot of things really haven't changed :)
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So I’m not seeing any power “creep.” Just necessary changes to make sure the campaign stays challenging with all the options players have.And Andrew, this is the current problem (in my eyes) with the campaign. It wasn't necessary. It was necessary to make the crazies with crazy builds happier, but it certainly wasn't necessary.
I consider myself a pretty hardcore PFS player, I've been playing since the beginning, I've sat in the VO chair, yet I'm finding the scenarios in Season 4 to become complete slogs. Season to me tends (not always, but certainly more often than not) to be challenges of endurance in a 5 hour session, not a fun get-together they used to be. Rather than a fun day of gaming, I'm finding myself exhausted after participating (and this is either playing or running). I'm finding we survive only because of these crazy builds, which makes them more and more popular.
In other words, I'm finding myself having less fun.
I'm one side of the coin. The other side is far more problematic.
My GF has gone from being open about PFS to completely uninterested. Why? Because she's a more casual player. The stories of what's happening at game days (all perpetuated by the 6-player table decision) have turned her off entirely. Her idea of fun isn't the "challenges" being introduced now. She wants to play a fun and creative character she can get into, which she's not feeling she can.
I think PFS needs to be careful. While the OPs call that this was the end of LG is certainly not entirely true, it's something to worry about, because like it or not, it's happening. Maybe not to all of you, certainly not to the handful of hardcore players who post on these forums 24/7, but it's happening.
Thank you, Mister Slanky, I think you did an excellent job of stating the concerns of some of us. I'm concerned that the opinions of the 'hardcore miniature table top skirmish' focused players are disproportionally (highly) represented on these boards (as opposed to the 'character personality/motivation' focused players or casual players). That would be fine, if I didn't think that Paizo might be deeming that the cross-section of the opinions on this board are a valid sample to represent the entire player base. Things like Bonekeep being made a special (and given a lot of hoopla publicity) by Paizo make me think that they do.
That said, I'm fine with the difficulty level of season 4. I like that my ~80% optimized characters are in very real danger of dying in many scenarios. I just don't want the difficulty to ramp up further, making characters that aren't built on every optimal power choice less and less viable.
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I'm concerned that the opinions of the 'hardcore miniature table top skirmish' focused players are disproportionally (highly) represented on these boards (as opposed to the 'character personality/motivation' focused players or casual players).
I'm curious where you're getting your information that any significant number of posters are "focused" on a "miniature tabletop skirmish" playstyle, or for that matter, have even played those games. I don't recall anyone mentioning such games, or making comparisons, or saying they came from that background, or anything else. Did I overlook something? I may well have, since I have no interest in those games; I could easily have glazed over posts discussing them.
That would be fine, if I didn't think that Paizo might be deeming that the cross-section of the opinions on this board are a valid sample to represent the entire player base. Things like Bonekeep being made a special (and given a lot of hoopla publicity) by Paizo make me think that they do.
For what it's worth, Mike has commented before that he gathers data from more than just the messageboards (like regional feedback from VOs, for instance). And things like Bonekeep might instead be an indication that the powers that be would like to keep "hardcore" outlets outside the realm of "normal" scenarios. :)
That said, I'm fine with the difficulty level of season 4. I like that my ~80% optimized characters are in very real danger of dying in many scenarios. I just don't want the difficulty to ramp up further, making characters that aren't built on every optimal power choice less and less viable.
I too find Season 4 to be pretty okay overall. I rejected an early-entry Mystic Theurge build in favor of a plain-Jane sorceress for concept reasons, and played her in Rivalries' End alongside a paladin, a 13STR rogue with a longsword, a druid (with no AniComp) and a bard. Never did find myself in extreme danger (personally, never took a point of damage).
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I'm concerned that the opinions of the 'hardcore miniature table top skirmish' focused players are disproportionally (highly) represented on these boards (as opposed to the 'character personality/motivation' focused players or casual players).I'm curious where you're getting your information that any significant number of posters are "focused" on a "miniature tabletop skirmish" playstyle, or for that matter, have even played those games. I don't recall anyone mentioning such games, or making comparisons, or saying they came from that background, or anything else. Did I overlook something? I may well have, since I have no interest in those games; I could easily have glazed over posts discussing them.
Perhaps I was being too indirect by trying to avoid a word that carries a negative conotation in some circles. Let me be more direct then. I mean Pathfinder powergamers.
For what it's worth, Mike has commented before that he gathers data from more than just the messageboards (like regional feedback from VOs, for instance). And things like Bonekeep might instead be an indication that the powers that be would like to keep "hardcore" outlets outside the realm of "normal" scenarios. :)
I semi-recall seeing a post (or two) from Mike indicating that. Thanks for reminding me of it. As far as them providing outlets for the hardcore as opposed to driving up the campaign difficulty level overall .. well, we'll see.
I too find Season 4 to be pretty okay overall. I rejected an early-entry Mystic Theurge build in favor of a plain-Jane sorceress for concept reasons, and played her in Rivalries' End alongside a paladin, a 13STR rogue with a longsword, a druid (with no AniComp) and a bard. Never did find myself in extreme danger (personally, never took a point of...
I played Rivalry's End ... don't remember it being particularly easy or particuarly difficult. And I think my sorcerer has taken no damage in about half the scenarios he's been in. He has 'people' to do that for him. ;-)
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Id like to echo Wyndsister above. LG didnt die because of power creep. It died simply because of 4e and the costs involved of converting the game to that edition.
Do I think there is power creep in PFS? Probably a little yes. I think its just far more evident that the way people create encounters (and Im looking at Rivalry's end here) are just a whole lot smarter nowadays.