Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 2989447" data-attributes="member: 40961">I agree that balance is important.  However, to a certain degree, balance is a player's responsibility as well as WOTC's and as well as the DM's.First, lets clarify that balance refers to all around balance of fun, not damage.  Look at a recent article on adventure design on the WOTC main site.  It discussed a rough guide of how they try to vary encounters.  Not all encounters in a large adventure ought to be combat encounters.  Some should be, for example, skill encounters.  Some should be solvable with roleplaying.  Some should involve knowledge to make them easier (Kn. Religion to find a new monster's weakness), some should require mobility skills to make them easier (balance checks to stay standing during a fight).So, this means that a character which has advantages in things other than combat needs to be weaker in combat.  Because we're balancing fun and not damage, a character which excels in, say, the social solutions, can trade off some damage and combat power in exchange.  Hence the reason the Swashbuckler (excels in social skills and mobility besides just fighting) is balanced, and also the reason people hate it: its balanced with non combat abilities, and people who just want combat ignore the skills, dip three levels, and move on to another class.Now, THAT BEING SAID.  I don't think WOTC should, or even can, balance all characters.  I think there's a basic power level that a single class character tends to achieve when played in a casual manner, and I think it is the player's obligation to respect this power level when crafting their character.  It is easy to exceed this level if one creates a character by carefully dipping 2 to 3 levels of multiple prestige and base classes in a finely crafted build, but I think the basic ethics of being a player are to avoid doing this.  WOTC should do its best to avoid making this too easy, but most likely its impossible to completely shut down.  As such, the player has a duty not to violate this aspect of the game.There aren't any hard and fast rules about this.  Its not always dipping PRCs that is the problem, even.  Sometimes dipping a PRC can be a fun and flavorful way to enhance a character.  Sometimes it is pure cheese.  Sometimes the problem is just a feat: divine metamagic?  I can't give a Commandment on how to follow or enforce this ethical rule, but I do think that, as watery as it is, a mature player can follow it easily and still have fun with the game.</blockquote>

Verification