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How much should 5e aim at balance?
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<blockquote data-quote="SKyOdin" data-source="post: 5984837" data-attributes="member: 57939"><p>What is so absurd? 3E D&D was horridly imbalanced with classes that simply didn't work, Pathfinder is loaded with design traps, and from what I heard, BESM isn't very well balanced itself.</p><p></p><p>Did you miss the Druid example from a few pages ago?</p><p></p><p>As another example, the Truenamer class in 3E's Tome of Magic literally doesn't work. The class is so busted that it isn't even playable. Someone who liked the concept would be walking a true trap if they tried to play the class without paying close attention.</p><p></p><p>In a less extreme example, there are some pretty nasty differences in ability score dependance between 3E classes. A Wizard can get by using nothing but Intelligence. A Paladin has to dump stats into Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma in order to use its core abilities. Considering that it isn't possible to have four good stats normally, right off the bat a Paladin is at a disadvantage compared to a Wizard.</p><p></p><p>And, yeah, the old 3E Char Op forums got <em>bored</em> of creating infinite power combos and started looking for nigh-infinite power combos to mix things up.</p><p></p><p>I mean exactly that. A balanced game <strong>cannot be min/maxed</strong>. Min/maxing is mostly a game design problem. If the variance between minimum and maximum power in a game is extremely limited, then an optimizer cannot eek out an advantage, and the problem disappears. This is one of the many fundamental advantages of game balance.</p><p></p><p>And yeah, go ahead and list some of the min/max builds in 4E. They exist, but the amount you gain from doing so is much less than in 3E.</p><p></p><p><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" /></p><p></p><p>...</p><p></p><p>...</p><p></p><p><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/worried.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":-S" title="Uhm :-S" data-shortname=":-S" /></p><p></p><p>Ooookaaaaay.....</p><p></p><p></p><p>Did you really compare min/maxing in a game to drunk driving related deaths and drug abuse? I'm not touching that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Actually, min/maxing is stupidly easy. This is the internet age. All someone has to do is Google up one of the myriad high-powered builds created by people in a place such as the various official and unofficial Character optimization forums. I've only played Pathfinder once, for example, but I bet I could track down five broken builds for it in twenty minutes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="SKyOdin, post: 5984837, member: 57939"] What is so absurd? 3E D&D was horridly imbalanced with classes that simply didn't work, Pathfinder is loaded with design traps, and from what I heard, BESM isn't very well balanced itself. Did you miss the Druid example from a few pages ago? As another example, the Truenamer class in 3E's Tome of Magic literally doesn't work. The class is so busted that it isn't even playable. Someone who liked the concept would be walking a true trap if they tried to play the class without paying close attention. In a less extreme example, there are some pretty nasty differences in ability score dependance between 3E classes. A Wizard can get by using nothing but Intelligence. A Paladin has to dump stats into Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma in order to use its core abilities. Considering that it isn't possible to have four good stats normally, right off the bat a Paladin is at a disadvantage compared to a Wizard. And, yeah, the old 3E Char Op forums got [i]bored[/i] of creating infinite power combos and started looking for nigh-infinite power combos to mix things up. I mean exactly that. A balanced game [b]cannot be min/maxed[/b]. Min/maxing is mostly a game design problem. If the variance between minimum and maximum power in a game is extremely limited, then an optimizer cannot eek out an advantage, and the problem disappears. This is one of the many fundamental advantages of game balance. And yeah, go ahead and list some of the min/max builds in 4E. They exist, but the amount you gain from doing so is much less than in 3E. :erm: ... ... :-S Ooookaaaaay..... Did you really compare min/maxing in a game to drunk driving related deaths and drug abuse? I'm not touching that. Actually, min/maxing is stupidly easy. This is the internet age. All someone has to do is Google up one of the myriad high-powered builds created by people in a place such as the various official and unofficial Character optimization forums. I've only played Pathfinder once, for example, but I bet I could track down five broken builds for it in twenty minutes. [/QUOTE]
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