Are mortals from after the God-Machine rules update more powerful than before?

Question

What is colloquially being termed nWoD 2.0 makes a few changes to the rules system, some systematic some not.

For instance, buying points in traits is now linear not arithmetic. As well as this various merits have changed cost.

Has this introduced power creep to the new 'edition' compared to previous version of nWoD? E.g. is it easier to get much more powerful in nWoD 2.0 or is it balanced in some other way?

I'm more concerned with the base level changes across the board, so specific reworkings of Vampire options are not relevant.

An example answer might look like, say:

"Merits across the board are cheaper, but now buying them with XP is harder. Beats make getting XP easier in general so this does not balance out. Further you can get XP from new rule A, B, C which exacerbates this....

In conclusion, after the rules update the base level human got more/less powerful.

Answer 1

They're not, and "power creep" isn't really the issue here.

"Power creep" means "characters made using the new rules can do more effective things at a cheaper cost than those built using strictly older rules in the same system" -- that slow progress is the "creep," making older source material (cards, rulebooks) less useful. This doesn't apply to the shift from The World of Darkness Core Rulebook to the God-Machine Chronicles rules. Most groups are going to either implement GMC in full or not as a new edition, making any "creep" moot, as all the characters will be on the same page, power-wise.

Changing the XP metric from algebraic to linear doesn't do anything to the power level; it only smooths out some of the irregularities that otherwise come with progressive XP expenditures. It's a player-side math fix. The more variable system for Integrity (as compared to Morality) means that the challenges for which they'll earn beats will be sufficiently affecting as to slow down any runaway XP trains.

Lastly, characters made using the GMC rules won't be doing vastly different things from characters made using the nWoD rules. There's a limited palette of things mortals do, and those things haven't gotten in themselves more powerful; the one difference is that the use of Conditions makes mortals more able to survive in situations that might otherwise give them the condition "Dead."