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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dualazi" data-source="post: 7029971" data-attributes="member: 6855537">Whether or not the game has the classes or options I/we want is sort of a tangential issue, since you can have a balanced or imbalanced game with only the four base classes. Additional options increase the chances of outliers cropping up, though.This is true when you encounter edge cases or specific rulings or contexts that require it, yes. The DM’s purpose is not to set up situations where one class can prove its usefulness because that’s its only means of doing so. Alternately, having to constantly hobble an overpowered character (whether they meant to be or not) doesn’t feel good for either party, either. I dealt with both of these recently when I tried to go back to Shadowrun, for instance, and in the end we dumped the campaign because even though the world and setting were really cool, running it was just too much of a pain.4e is probably as close of an offering as I’m going to get. Had they trimmed down combat length and expanded options in the other pillars I'd probably still be playing it now. I didn’t find that it reduced creativity at all, quite the opposite in fact, and the ease of encounter setup was a testament to its consistency. It’s also not something I view in absolutes. I wouldn’t call 5e a balanced game, but it’s balanced *enough* and it brings so much to the table in other ways that I like it all the same. And that’s all I really ask, is for the game to be ‘close enough’ such that I’m not having to go out of my way to address game-warping issues.Not really, no. Ignoring an issue is not the same as there not being an issue, as I said elsewhere. Throughout the playtest and in polling since, balance has been a recurring concern for a not-insignificant number of players, and it can reasonably be assumed that this affects their enjoyment of the game. Nowhere would this be more prevalent, I think, than in environments like the Adventurer’s League. In pre-written adventures with relatively stringent requirements in regards to house-rules, classes that reliably underperform are going to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, no matter the outcome of the adventure. Doubly so if that outcome is a failure/wipe, when they (and the team) wonder if a better class choice would have saved them.More philosophically, a well-balanced game helps bridge the gaps between tables in discussions just like this one, because it requires less work for each GM to overhaul the game to their specifications. It leads to a more common shared experience where you don’t have to list a plethora of changes when you talk to others in the hobby so you know where you stand.Lastly (and I know I go on too much here, sorry) is that the ‘essence’ of D&D itself is somewhat debatable. Some people just want to kill green men and take their stuff. Some want a riveting story with memorable characters. Balance is important to me in these regards because it’s the closest we can really get to objectivity in PnP RPGs, which are inherently incredibly different on a table-to-table basis. I see balance as the foundation for other elements of the game, aiding the implementation of those intangibles I mentioned rather than hindering them.</blockquote>

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