Recent content by EzekielRaiden

Only real surprise is that Lucky isn't as high as I'd expected. War Caster wasn't on my mind for a top pick, but makes perfect sense. So many classes and subclasses cast spells and many want to do so without losing them. Much more surprising is that so many characters have feats. There's a...

Did I ask for perfection? Have I ever even implied perfection was desirable? Because your entire point depends on me expecting perfection, and you may be surprised to know I don't expect that. I mean, for goodness' sake, I even said, "Will they always participate at absolute peak performance...

No. If you take an action that would make anything "overdone," that isn't balance anymore. It's something else--or, you have used a tool or method intended to produce it incorrectly, and thus created non-balance. Like, take sound balance. There is no absolute "perform this action to create...

There is no such thing. To be overly balanced is to be not actually improving the quality of the work. This is like saying that an article or clothing is "overly tailored" or a musical instrument is "overly tuned." To be "overly tuned" (if such a term were even used) would actually mean being...

If something is, as you say, "overbalanced," then it isn't balanced anymore. Since I am advocating FOR balance, I am obviously NOT advocating for overbalance. As that would--literally--be not the thing I'm advocating. I grant you that things that have become sterile are bad. Show me where...

Fighter and Ranger, without question. Barbarian and Sorcerer, with some minor caveats. That is, Fighter and Ranger are, from multiple not-too-difficult analysis perspectives, designed in ways that work well with neither the way the designers intended 5e to be played, nor how it is actually...

I'll certainly grant that. But I think it shows yet another aspect of the (thorny, sprawling, everpresent) balance problem with 3.5e that the Rogue can have one of its few Special Things negated so, so easily, while it takes a Wizard hyperspecializing in specific, easily-countered options to end...

Given three of my players are my three closest friends (to the point that I spend almost all of my social time with one or more of them), and the fourth is a roommate of one of the others? Yeah, no, not gonna happen.

I actually don't--my players can be frustratingly passive. It's an issue...mostly for me, ironically. The players are having a blast. I'm frustrated, 'cause I feel like I dangle interesting, relevant plot threads, opportunities, and intrigue and it...doesn't get investigated until I force the...

Er...have you seen the variety of PbtA games? Monsterhearts is Teen Monster Romance (and, uh, other things teens do). Masks is budding superheroes. Grim World (which has lovely mechanics, but I don't like the fluff) is "dark fantasy" (possibly with just a little "weird fantasy" a la LotFP). The...

Sure. I just wish we would actually try to design games that way, instead of insisting that no-testing hobbyist game design is always the end-all, be-all. You're still talking about a spotlight. That is the very problem I'm talking about. There is no need for a spotlight when the rules...

"Spotlight balance" Is a pernicious goal IMNSHO. It doesn't work nearly as well as advertised, in large part because it's so, so easy to fool (by making, or merely being, a character worth paying attention to regardless of the rules) or manipulate (by exploiting social contracts/gentleman's...

I appreciate your calmer response here--it's not an easy thing to admit overreaction. However, this does present us with a valuable new question to ask: If I am one of those players who struggles with the ultra-creative/ultra-adaptive solutions in play, why is it a good and necessary thing that...

I'd be curious what you think the other half is. But, to answer your question: The designers have expressly said that they want this to be a game about Combat, Exploration, and Socialization (the "three pillars"). That means those are the most key, most fundamental components of the play...

It has a perfectly cromulent definition, people are just rather bull-headed about which one they advocate. Mine isn't complicated to say, but is inherently contextual to apply: "A balanced game reliably meets the expectations, and produces the play experience, for which it was designed."...