Okay, but that sounds more like aesthetics than principle.
You want some choices to be non-viable, like a wisdom focused, low str and dex champion fighter, but some other choices should all be viable. That preference is perfectly fine but your not ever goina be able to make a logical case for it.
What? Of course there's a logical case for it.
It's exactly the same as the logical case for "players who make unwise choices should experience failure more often than players which make effective choices," e.g. "players who blindly rush enemies without plans or preparation should have hurt or killed characters more often than characters that consistently stop and think about how to proceed before they engage."
That's the second part of the foundation of gameplay, or at least of skilled gameplay. There must be:
1. Multiple distinct paths to the desired outcome (or, equivalently, multiple distinct outcomes that are all desirable)--without this, you have a puzzle, not a game of skill;
2. Choices to be made which influence whether and how you succeed or fail--without this, you have a story or presentation, not a game of skill; and
3. The opportunity to learn from past choices in order to make better choices over time--without this, you have games of
chance, where your choices matter but the primary determinant of success is outside your control, not a game of skill.
There could be further requirements, but anything meant to be a game of skill (such as chess) rather than a game of chance (such as roulette), a visual novel/interactive story (e.g. Doki Doki Literature Club), or puzzle (such as sudoku), must have at least the above three.
"Wis-focused, low-Str, low-Dex Champion Fighter"
is an example of choices which can influence whether and how you succeed or fail. Quite demonstrably. It is a selected strategy, and anyone paying even a little bit of attention would be able to say "hmm, I don't think that's going to be very effective."
There is a world of difference between that and something like Bladesinger vs other Wizard subclasses. The only other Wizard subclasses that get bonus benefits (beyond DC/prepped spells) from Int are Abjurer (more Arcane Ward hit points which...isn't much), War Magic (+Int to Initiative, which is quite good and more maximum Power Surges, which isn't much), and Evocation (add +Int mod to one damage roll of any evocation spell you cast...which is pretty meh at the level you get it.) Bladesingers get huge bonuses from it, far and away more than anyone else (+Int to AC and Concentration checks at level 1, +Int to melee weapon attacks at level 14) under Bladesong. With the way most groups play, you can have Bladesong active in most combats each day by level 5.
Nothing is perfect, I don't expect it to be.
Neither do I. I expect things to perform within a reasonable range of effectiveness. This is something that can be measured. That's literally why the designers do math passes, why fans complain about "overpowered" subclasses (like Twilight Cleric) or spells (like
silvery barbs) or weak subclasses (like Champion Fighter or Beast Master Ranger) or...I actually can't think of any spells people actively complain about for being
under powered all that much. Probably because there are so many
good spells to choose from. I guess maybe some of the Ranger-exclusive "this is actually a class feature pretending to be a spell" things?
We disagree. Repeatedly stating that it is a positive quality, necessary at all, or even measurable, changes nothing.
Meanwhile nobody is saying balance is a bad thing either.
Plenty of people have done exactly that. We even had a thread about it. Quite recently! Balance is vilified by a vocal minority of the 5e community. It has been difficult to get people to even admit that it has any value at all. Case in point, you just denied that it has any value at all.
You claim it is, but there is no evidence at all that this is true. NONE!
There is
plenty of evidence that it is true. Shouting "none" does not make it none.
A well-balanced game achieves the goals for which it was designed. As the designers of 5e have explicitly told us, that did not happen. At the absolute least, they balanced the game around an expectation that was simply false. Folks simply do not take short rests nearly often enough, on average, and they
definitely don't fight enough combats per day. This is one of several reasons why we are getting 5.5e next year.
Balance is a positive quality.
That's why so many designers seek it. Even 5e's! Even
3e's, for God's sake. The former missed the mark to a noticeable but not horrific degree. Sadly...the latter
did miss to a horrific degree. That's also why we have PF2e now. Because the designers finally threw up their hands and admitted that
they couldn't keep working with such a broken game.
