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<blockquote data-quote="SiderisAnon" data-source="post: 5749488" data-attributes="member: 44949">I think balance is vitally important.As mentioned above, it sucks fun out of a game if one or more characters radically outshine the others at the table.&nbsp; I see this a lot in class-based games where one is just better or in point-buy games where one player is better and building the character.&nbsp; A game needs to have a reasonable level of balance so that everyone can shine and feel like they're part of the story.You can see this in the extreme for some of the class-based MMOs.&nbsp; If some classes would be the only ones played and other classes only played by people who don't know the game, then those &quot;bad&quot; classes are clearly not balanced in.&nbsp; (It's not as extreme in tabletop, of course, because you can have fun with a class that is less than optimal &quot;raid&quot; material.)I like it when everyone at the table has something to do and when combat isn't about half the party hiding behind something heavy because otherwise they will die horribly very quickly.To examples that come to my mind of poor balance are:&nbsp; 1) In AD&amp;D where the fighter outshone the wizard at low levels with ease, but at high levels the fighter was mostly there to keep a few strays off the wizard while the battlefield was burned down. 2) In the Rifts game where one person could take a hit from a tank and the guy next to him would die from a single pistol bullet.Balance can be taken too far, of course.&nbsp; Sometimes all the cool gets sucked out for fear it won't balance.&nbsp; Sometimes there's really no difference between the characters because that's how the game was balanced. As an example of the latter, a friend who ran a long Scion game complained that the character sheets all looked alike after a while because it was the only way the characters could keep up with each other.&nbsp; Even a single dot difference at higher point values could mean that a foe who challenged one PC could destroy another.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="SiderisAnon, post: 5749488, member: 44949"] I think balance is vitally important. As mentioned above, it sucks fun out of a game if one or more characters radically outshine the others at the table. I see this a lot in class-based games where one is just better or in point-buy games where one player is better and building the character. A game needs to have a reasonable level of balance so that everyone can shine and feel like they're part of the story. You can see this in the extreme for some of the class-based MMOs. If some classes would be the only ones played and other classes only played by people who don't know the game, then those "bad" classes are clearly not balanced in. (It's not as extreme in tabletop, of course, because you can have fun with a class that is less than optimal "raid" material.) I like it when everyone at the table has something to do and when combat isn't about half the party hiding behind something heavy because otherwise they will die horribly very quickly. To examples that come to my mind of poor balance are: 1) In AD&D where the fighter outshone the wizard at low levels with ease, but at high levels the fighter was mostly there to keep a few strays off the wizard while the battlefield was burned down. 2) In the Rifts game where one person could take a hit from a tank and the guy next to him would die from a single pistol bullet. Balance can be taken too far, of course. Sometimes all the cool gets sucked out for fear it won't balance. Sometimes there's really no difference between the characters because that's how the game was balanced. As an example of the latter, a friend who ran a long Scion game complained that the character sheets all looked alike after a while because it was the only way the characters could keep up with each other. Even a single dot difference at higher point values could mean that a foe who challenged one PC could destroy another. [/QUOTE]

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