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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 3114138" data-attributes="member: 545">I will step forward as a game design Balance Nazi!Balance in game design boils down to a tool to give the DM some measure of predictability.  If you are arguing against balance in general, you are arguing against the DM having the slightest clue about what is going on now or what will go on in the future."Gee, I wonder what that magic item that I just gave the PC does?"Is that the mark of the pinnacle of DMship?Balance is not about telling the DM or the players how to run their campaign in detail.  Balance is not about preventing the DM from changing rules.Balance is about creating a useful (even if imperfect) baseline.A solid baseline makes bending and tweaking rules both less often necessary and more easily accomplished when the DM chooses to do so.In this day and age I can easily dig up 10,000 pages of free fan created material.  So why should I give WotC one red cent?The reason is that 9,998 of those 10,000 pages require too much work to be worth the trouble of using.  I am more than willing to pay a professional game designer a few bucks to bring the in balance with previously published material.Even if my campaign departs significantly from the guidelines in the DMG as a practical matter it is easier to adapt material that generally adheres to the baseline than it is to adapt material that is all over the map in its design philosophy.</blockquote>