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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alphastream" data-source="post: 5806856" data-attributes="member: 11365">A person can only make a best guess given what they see. Me? I believe every edition ends up with broken cheese if you add enough rules. But that doesn't mean the core of a game can't give you great feelings about balance. I like many things about Shadowrun (any edition) but I wouldn't say that the forte is balance nor that any edition has achieved great balance. When spirits can't be hurt by normal weapons... Similarly, Legend of the Five Rings 3rd edition had serious flaws in balance in the basic book. If I look at 4E, balance was one of its really strong aspects... though later releases (notably Adventure Vault) would change that. Again, we can make predictions based on what we see. They may not be right, but they can be informed. When looking at Mike's comments on balance, keep in mind that very few people see Epic play in any edition. He has really good experience with 4E high level play. He wrote a book about running Epic what, more than a year ago? He has a pretty good feel for the balance issues that took place and his perspective is probably one of looking to see whether the edition points to future balance. While some people think Epic runs fine, many see issues and are unsure of how to preserve the balance. Mike regularly hears from people asking for his advice for dealing with this. His suggestions that D&D Next has positives in this regards... I am very sure he's speaking to that rather than insulting anyone for having a powerful PC. Is Mike right? I doubt the designers of any RPG truly know if their game will be balanced at the highest levels of play. But that's his first take and not an attempt to slam the game he loves to play or to slam 4E players. I've met Mike - he's a very nice person.As for 5 minutes, I've seen level 1 4E PCs take down a 180 HP elite in a surprise round and before the foe acted. I think Mike is speaking less to alpha striking, though, and more to a cinematic combat at low level. What was taking place? You will have to playtest to see. The only thing I can say as a playtester is A) be a part of the process and B) that everyone at my playtest tables has had a lot of fun.An NDA is an agreement not to disclose, meaning not to share what isn't known. If something is publicly known to be true, then you can state that you also saw this. Technically you can't actually even say you playtested unless that is public knowledge. Example: In the seminars they discussed a flatter progression and featuring attributes. Greg Bilsland shared pictures of Mike Shea playing. This allows Mike to say he playtested and liked how attributes and flatter progression worked. I think Mike took great care not to exceed the NDA. I'm guessing he actually looked at the disclosed information carefully and then spoke to that.</blockquote>

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