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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wyckedemus" data-source="post: 6261533" data-attributes="member: 1079">To be honest, I haven't seen all this incredible amount of "imbalance" you're seeing. At least not at dealbreaker levels. There are some things that are a little off that they are working through, but I have confidence that they'll work out the kinks. The one thing that they need to fix for me is monster math. I'm looking forward to seeing how bounded accuracy works at higher levels once they have the monster math figured out. I can actually see the happy middleground that is within their reach to deliver. So I'm not worried. Keep in mind that we haven't seen the final rules. (Things members of my group disagree on are things like whether monsters like golems should have serious immunities, making some classes less useful in a fight.) Here's what I can say about the current class design. Everyone's contribution feels equitable. Everyone in my group is enjoying their classes. The guy that likes wizards, likes the 5E wizard. The guy playing a fighter feels like he's kicking tail as a fighter (and as a sergeant in the town militia, he's also an influential personality despite not having a high Charisma). I'm playing a Life cleric, and I'm really enjoying it. I don't feel like a one-trick pony healbot which is nice. We as a group get through 4 encounters without a short rest. In contrast, in 4E, the group demanded a short rest (and a long rest) as often as possible. It was so weird to take so many 10 minute breaks in the context of a story that is supposed to be clipping along. With 5E we haven't been playing that way. The game allows us to take breaks as the story demands.I think that it is good that classes are different, with different strengths. Being reliable throughout the day with moderate flexibility (Fighter or Rogue) is just as valid as being very flexible on a day to day basis with less reliability (Wizard and Cleric). You don't always have the time or luxury to switch out class abilities (preparing spells), but it is nice that some classes have that flexibility when time allows. But what that flexibility really represents is a source of story progression that if the party didn't have it, they'd find another way around, or the DM would otherwise make the story work. So it is nice, but not broken.I don't want the fighter to be pigeon-holed into a power/spell-based class that can only prepare a certain number of maneuvers a day. The guy knows what he knows, and it doesn't make sense otherwise. I playtested 4E and played it through its entire lifetime, through all of last year. I even ran two epic campaigns. According to my experience and anecdotal evidence, it is not "more balanced" than 5E. What it has is "forced symmetry" between classes, which is something I think many mistake as balance. Not all the powers at their appropriate levels were created equal, and as CharOp proved, there were so many busted options vs. trap options, mingled with the levels of system mastery, that all classes did *not* have the parity that many claim. Heck, there were so many complaints and arguments about those balance discrepancies in the forums. In my 4E group, the 30th level goliath Battlemind had an AC 63 (before his enemies took accuracy penalties for other reasons) and he attacked 4 times, dealing 25 damage on a miss for each one. The changeling rogue had an AC of 44 and did maybe 40 damage on an average round (maybe 120 on a crit?) but nothing on a miss. That isn't balance.What I see in D&D Next/5E is that the classes are quite good at what they are supposed to be good at, and they are *NOT* supposed to be the primary source of abilities outside the classes' specialties. The Backgrounds/Proficiencies/Skills/Abilities system bears a lot of the weight of exploration and interaction, and that is perfectly fine by me. And it's OK for some classes that have traditionally been experts at some interaction and exploration to have some of those abilities in their class. But not all classes need to be shoehorned into needing the exact same number of abilities in each of the pillars. It feels forced and blatantly unnatural.I believe we will see more options for the classes, and more options for certain class abilities. Though I have no illusions or expectations that the Devs should be required to run every ability and design decision past the players. ... in my opinion.</blockquote>

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