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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 2989224" data-attributes="member: 19675">I've played a lot of RPG systems that don't have balance as their central tenet, so I'm not averse to unbalanced classes.That said, I think D&D classes should be balanced in some way vis a vis each other, since class balance is one of the key design elements to the game that lets DMs assess and design encounters.In earlier editons, balance was "achieved" by having the classes have individual XP charts.  Thieves, less powerful than other classes, advanced much more quickly.  Wizards started off relatively quickly, but then progressed quite slowly in the higher levels.In the current edition, however, all the classes share the same XP chart.  Thus, when a class is designed that looks like a "dip" class, or progresses in power inordinately quickly, issues arise.Does balance demand that all classes be equally powerful in combat?  Of course not- but those that are less powerful combatants need to have abilities that are useful outside of it.A lot of people gripe about bards being weak, but if your campaign is heavily role-play centric, bards can easily outshine their compatriots...right up to the point of bashing in heads.While that has much truth to it, there is a sense in which a certain Feat or game element may be quickly percieved to be imbalanced if there are other similarly designed game elements that the new element clearly outstrips.For instance, if you were to design a version of Power Attack for a new setting that gave a tradeoff of +3 damage per point of BAB shift, people would quickly call it unbalanced...and unless you could point to elements within the setting that justified the new Feat (tougher average defenses or larger average HD, perhaps), they'd probably be right.</blockquote>

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