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View Full Version : Homebrew-theory: Limited Vs. Unlimited Growth



qazzquimby
2014-08-24, 08:56 PM
Forgive me if I spew common sense at people.

I noticed a fundamental difference between classes which I don't think has yet been outlined or named.

Examples I am drawing from are the Artificer, Gramarist, Swarmlord, Leech (posted a week or so ago), Mythos classes, any Necromancer, and a tinker class that creates temporary weapons which only he can use (and with a name I have forgotten).

I am defining "growth" as any time a class creates something or makes itself stronger.

Growth always requires a resource, and when that requirement is small, there is usually a cap enforced. Artificer requires gold and time, Gramarist requires materials and time, Swarmlord requires creatures to fail a check and time, Mythos requires gold and xp (buying new mythos and excellencies), the Leech requires a lot of luck or grinding and has a cap Necromancers require bodies and spells and have a cap, and the tinkerer requires nothing but time and has a cap.

I am calling growths with a cap limited and growths without a cap unlimited.

Limited growths have the benefit of being very easy to balance, but are usually unthematic. Necromancers do a good job of this by making the capped element the number you can control, while the number you can create is unlimited. The leech can gain permanent boosts to ability scores with an eventual hard cap. This cap is lofty enough that players shouldn't find themselves unable to improve unless they have been allowed to farm for it in the first place. The tinker has to enforce it with multiple silly rules like "only one can exist at a time" and "only functions in your hands" in exchange for keeping it easy to balance.

Unlimited growths are significantly harder to balance. Each growth requires that the character can obtain a rough ration of the resource to stay playable and balanced with other characters. To stay balanced as they were probably intended, growths using gold as a resource requires a fairly regulated WBL, and growths using time require fairly average amounts of downtime. Being the party crafter or gramarist in a fast paced game where one thrilling venture leads into the other will crush the character, while party time commences when the story fast-forwards 6 months.

A huge positive though, unlimited growth offers the benefit that massive growth is possible. A swarmlord wouldn't be nearly as interesting if their maximum horde size was 2*level HD. In the same way, by keeping the necromancer capped and easy to deal with, a single necromancer will never assault a kingdom or country with their seemingly endless army. If gramarists could only maintain one device per class level it would be more balanced as a class, but would not exist as a world building or campaign tool.

[/ramble]

gr8artist
2014-08-24, 10:15 PM
So... what's your point? Or, are you just pointing out something that you noticed?

Qwertystop
2014-08-24, 10:32 PM
So this refers specifically to classes that acquire permanent things (items, buffs, servants)?

And yeah, what gr8artist said. Yes, you can either have an upper limit or not. If you do not then things can get out of hand (but also crazy-awesome).

qazzquimby
2014-08-25, 01:18 AM
Any point I make would be a matter of opinion, I was mostly presenting it as a thing to think about during design. My personal preference is for very uncapped, realistic wealth (rather than WBL) sandboxy games, but it seemed pointless talking from that point of view since that isn't average.

Plus this might spark other similar posts, which I would be very interested to read.