I see the criticism of the playtest package's difficulty rating from a lot of people, and a lot of discussion about it.
Do people really believe that there is much to be gained by WOTC attempting to balance the internal dynamics between monsters/PC's before the combat system is fully developed(or at least close to publishable?). Does anyone, really, believe the power imbalance isn't completely intentional and by design?
How do you balance this sort of thing when basic combat mechanics are still in such flux? It would literally be wasted work as the system changed and evolved through the design process. Any internal balancing is going to be instantly undone by even a moderate modification of a PC or monsters 'damage out-put'.
Does anyone think WOTC released this set of rules thinking the monster/pc damage balances were functioning like they would be in a published polished product? There seems to be a common consensus that damage is too high, and monsters are too easy in the current play-test, but for me, that just sounds like things are working as they're suppose to. This is an opportunity for WOTC to test a lot of different design waters, and get pretty much instant feedback from the community. Do people think they would be better served by not pushing the combat system in extreme directions and getting feedback on it? Now they've got 'data' to work on, but without the initial testing of that 'high damage' scenario, there's little 'data' to move forward with, just more designer intuition.
