Rule Zero

Recently on the Paizo blog, there were a few monk changes. These changes fixed a few issues with monks and their DR problems (along with a price reduction on the Amulet of Mighty Fists, and reverses a previous errata that made no sense in the first place), and I think that with as much love that the monks have gotten recently in Ultimate Combat, Monks should be in a pretty nice spot now. There is, however, something of a problem here.

I have this weird thought that I don’t like that a company can just go in and “patch” a class. In theory it sounds nice, but the thing that bothers me about it is that the books we all buy are suddenly outdated, and you have to hunt for the information online (and who knows when those changes get put up on the SRD). Perhaps I’ve been burned by MMOs for so long with their sweeping changes to classes, but a company being able to errata rules chaffs me. I don’t have a problem with something getting “fixed” when it’s a typo or where the rules are somewhat fuzzy on something, but class changes? I don’t know if that sits right with me.

I do think there are advantages to this, though. I was genuinely happy when monks got some love on the blog, and if they did something similar to fighter (maybe every four levels they change it so that a fighter can take a feat without meeting the prerequisites or something. I’m just spit-balling here), I would more than likely be pretty excited. Adjusting something like Summoner would be something good to see as well, or perhaps knocking wizards down a peg or something.

Them being able to fix problems is probably a good thing and maybe I’m just being too conservative with this thing. Either way, I’m not sure where I fall on this issue, I see the benefits of both ways. I just worry that the product I buy is not the product I will end up using after all the errata is out there, and that kind of bothers me; it makes me feel like I wasted my money on a product that doesn’t work like it’s supposed to.

Or maybe I’m over thinking things.  I’ll admit that errata doesn’t happen all that often, and that I’m probably more put off by the idea of the situation rather than the reality of it (in the same way that Wizards, in theory, are super crazy power monsters that can’t be stopped, but in reality almost no one plays them that way).