K wrote:I've often thought that books should just admit the power creep. Like, they should just errata all the old powers when they put out the next level of creep and power them up to match the new ones.
So you might have a Complete Arcane-type book with new classes like Warlock, and then in the back you say "Evocations +1 damage per die."
I like this idea. You might need to be cautious in implementation and it means that system maintenance gets more arduous as you go (yeah, I build software for a living) but it sounds worth exploring.
Well, the complexity of system interactions is going to increase as you add more content anyway. You might as well go ahead and update the existing stuff when you notice an imbalance. You could even consider the updates to existing material new from a marketing perspective. Just think about Unearthed Arcana.
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
You're going to want to throw down a reasonably well playtested initial product with good statistical sampling on the basic combinations of characters that can be made. I don't really care whether specifically a Laser Cleric multiclasses properly with a Brutal Scoundrel Rogue, but it's important that playtesting demonstrate that you can play a Cleric multiclassed with a Rogue and have that be playable.
With expansion material, that's just not even possible. First of all, the number of combinations you're looking at rises as a polynomial as you add new options. But secondly, you're going to be simultaneously writing expansion material with other people in the department who are basing their work on the same core materials and design document you are. You can't test your new Barbarian with the Magister, because the Magister isn't done yet when it's time to go to print. All I really care about is that the new material is playable in at least one incarnation and that what that incarnation is happened to be marked in some way. Possibly by actually putting the playtest character you used into the book or describing them in text or pictures.
Which means of course, that as you release more material, more of your game is going to be released untested. And yet, ideally the later material will actually fit in better because you'll b more familiar with how the game plays out.
