torjones wrote:drewkitty ~..~ wrote:Here is an extreme VP: ALL weapons that were not in the RMB are broken due to power creep.
Can you give an example of the creep you're referring to? Because I don't remember many units more powerful than the glitterboy. the NG-P7 remains the most powerful, cost effective hand held energy rifle in the game, and the number of GMs that won't let you start at level one with one are rare. The number of vehicles that make better mobile bases for an adventuring party than the Behemoth can be counted on one hand, like the hover hospital from Triax, so that might make a valid case for "power creep", but I'm not sure what else might.
Fair question. I'm not Drewkitty, but I'll try to give a good answer.
Okay, so an important distinction to make is that Power Creep is about new updates to a game/setting making older parts of the game underpowered or obsolete, and that this applies at EVERY level of the game, not just the high-end.
When the Vagabond OCC got updated to have MDC armor at creation, that's power creep, even though other OCCs start with even better gear. What makes it power creep is that this new version of the Vagabond is significantly more powerful (i.e., capable of taking MD and surviving) than it was before (dead at even 1 MD in most case).
The NG-P7 might arguably still be king of the battlefield*, BUT take a look at the pawns for a moment instead of the Kings.
In the RMB, the average damage for a laser pistol was somewhere between 1d6 and 2d4 MD.
Over time, though, new laser pistols were introduced that could inflict 2d6 MD per shot, making the older weapons underpowered or obsolete.
That's TWICE the firepower in some cases, like Wilk's.
Moreover, 2d6 MD was the average damage for laser RIFLES in the RMB. So you have newer laser pistols matching the damage of earlier laser rifles.
Again, that's power creep, because older parts of the game are being rendered obsolete or underpowered by the newer material.
The fact that there are other weapons that are more powerful doesn't affect things here, because the Boom Gun (for example) is not a laser pistol. It fills a different role, and it doesn't make other weapons obsolete or underpowered. Same deal with the NG-P7.
Make sense?
*Let's look at the NG-P7 for a moment...
It's always been an effective high-damage energy rifle, a staple of the setting.
But very quickly its status as King was endangered by power creep, starting with the Wilk's 457 in SB1, which could fire up to 13 pulses at 1d6x10 MD per pulse, compared to the NG-P7's 8 single shots at 1d4x10 MD each.
The Wilk's 457 not only inflicts roughly 50% more damage per attack, but also can fire 5 more times (a 60%+ increase?).
Granted, the NG-P7 inflicts full damage to laser-resistant targets, and that helps even things out a bit... but it was pretty out matched in other ways early on.
Also compare the NG-P7's 1600' range to the Wilk's 457's 2000' range.
The 457 outperforms in most ways.
(Of course, another factor complicating comparisons is that the exact workings of many early guns is ultimately unclear. The NG-P7 was listed originally as a ROF of Standard, which indicated that it could use the burst/spray rules on page 34 of the RMB, BUT that's something that's always been argued over, and many people interpret differently.
Similarly, in the RGMG the NG-P7's damage was listed as 2d4x10 MD per shot, and that was later retracted as a typo, but many people still play with that damage.)
Now open up Juicer Uprising or the RGMG, and take a look at the FIWS (Forearm Integral Weapon System).
-The weapon weighs 5 lbs, compared to the NG-P7's
21 lbs. Keep in mind that 21 lbs is quite a lot for a rifle; that's in the range of belt-fed machine guns like the BAR, where most assault rifles weigh a lot less: the AR-15 weighs 7.9 lbs, and the heavy AK-47 weighs about 10.5 lbs: HALF the weight of an NG-P7.
-The FIWS has a range of 500' compared to the NG-P7's 1600', so the NG is the clear winner there.
-The FIWS has a damage of 5d6 MD per particle beam blast, BUT it can perform a dual blast for 1d6x10 MD, which gives it 50% more damage per attack than the NG-P7.
-The FIWS also has built-in vibro claws that do 3d6 MD (also keep in mind that vibro claws in the RMB only do 2d6 MD, so the FIWS does 50% more damage than the previous standard, another example of power creep).
-The FIWS can be used single-handed, which means that it can more easily be used Paired than NG-P7s. If you have paired FIWS, and you fire a dual blast from each weapon, that's 2d6x10 MD. If you use the Sharpshooting skill to be able to fire rifles single-handed, and you pick up two NG-P7s, you'll still only do 2d4x10 MD, roughly 33% less damage than paired FIWS.
-The FIWS has a payload of 30 single shots or 15 double shots. So even if you dual-blast every time you shoot, you'll still get 15 rounds compared to the NG-P7's 8 rounds: nearly twice as many shots.
-The FIWS costs CR 24,000. The NG-P7 costs 22,000. NOT enough of a price difference to really justify picking one over the other. They're basically the same price.
So with all these factors, I'd generally go for the FIWS in any situation where I was expecting combat to take place at 500', or where I expected to be able to close that distance in relatively safe and short order. Range is pretty much the ONLY advantage for the NG-P7 under most rule interpretations, and range isn't typically all that much of an advantage the way most people play, considering all the melee fighters out there. From what I can tell, realworld warfare typically sees combat occur at ranges of around 300' or less, and the FIWS has plenty of range for that kind of distance.
So while I wouldn't necessarily say that the NG-P7 is obsolete compared to the FIWS, I would definitely say that it's nowhere near the king that it once was. The FIWS makes the NG-P7 relatively less powerful and less useful.
That's power creep.
