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archer vs. melee, 3.5 and all that
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<blockquote data-quote="Petrosian" data-source="post: 835111" data-attributes="member: 1149"><p>IMX the focus on balance is for two reasons...</p><p></p><p>1. for the casual gamer who does not see minmaxing his character as a goal, an art form, or a skill for which you think you ought to be rewarded, then just building a "character" to fit a concept and not a game mechanic should be a reasonable approach which gives you a reasonably enjoyable and suitably productive character. One of my first tasks when analyzing any system is to pick several common genre characters and see how well the system represents them quickly and easily without extension SYSTEM WORK. </p><p></p><p>2. Reining in the minmaxers. peventing some of the most egregious abuses.</p><p></p><p>These are very much a part of the same coin.</p><p></p><p>basically, think of it as the degree of the learning curve. How much SYSTEM WORK and SYSTEM EXPERIENCE matters in character design. HERO games for instance has a very high learning curve and the difference between a newbie building a simple character and a vateran building the same character will be seen as a drastic power difference.</p><p></p><p>So, i do understand the focus on balance,.</p><p></p><p>However, what is too often overlooked is that balance does not exist in a vacuum. DND 3e went a little ways down this road to recognition with the wealth levels and availability guidelines, but that falls far short.</p><p></p><p>Simply put, the value of any trait or skill or characteristic or power is solely determined by its usefulness in the specific challenges presented. Does your campaign feature an event driven major arc where the PCs are reacting to the spread of evil and where it is frequent that PCs are engaged in multiple encounters per day, ambushes are common as the dark hunters pursue the chosen ones, and where capture and loss of gear is not only expected but not even infrequent? Then do not look for a wizard PC to be that strong.</p><p></p><p>If the campaign story and challenges are built and ran competently with the PCs in mind, then most balance problems fade away quickly and the characters run very balanced.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Petrosian, post: 835111, member: 1149"] IMX the focus on balance is for two reasons... 1. for the casual gamer who does not see minmaxing his character as a goal, an art form, or a skill for which you think you ought to be rewarded, then just building a "character" to fit a concept and not a game mechanic should be a reasonable approach which gives you a reasonably enjoyable and suitably productive character. One of my first tasks when analyzing any system is to pick several common genre characters and see how well the system represents them quickly and easily without extension SYSTEM WORK. 2. Reining in the minmaxers. peventing some of the most egregious abuses. These are very much a part of the same coin. basically, think of it as the degree of the learning curve. How much SYSTEM WORK and SYSTEM EXPERIENCE matters in character design. HERO games for instance has a very high learning curve and the difference between a newbie building a simple character and a vateran building the same character will be seen as a drastic power difference. So, i do understand the focus on balance,. However, what is too often overlooked is that balance does not exist in a vacuum. DND 3e went a little ways down this road to recognition with the wealth levels and availability guidelines, but that falls far short. Simply put, the value of any trait or skill or characteristic or power is solely determined by its usefulness in the specific challenges presented. Does your campaign feature an event driven major arc where the PCs are reacting to the spread of evil and where it is frequent that PCs are engaged in multiple encounters per day, ambushes are common as the dark hunters pursue the chosen ones, and where capture and loss of gear is not only expected but not even infrequent? Then do not look for a wizard PC to be that strong. If the campaign story and challenges are built and ran competently with the PCs in mind, then most balance problems fade away quickly and the characters run very balanced. [/QUOTE]
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