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<blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 5750380" data-attributes="member: 3424">Alas, poor balance! When did you get such a bad reputation?It used to be that balance was seen as a good thing, or at least, that the lack of balance was a bad thing. Balance was the reason that in the early days of D&amp;D, magic-users had low hit points, poorer AC and were limited in the number of spells they could use per day. Balance was the reason that paladins and rangers, who had more abilities than basic fighters, required more XP to gain a level. Niche protection was a form of balance, as it ensured that different classes were good at different things.Somewhere along the line, balance acquired <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron" target="_blank">Harrison Bergeron</a> style connotations of &quot;every character must be exactly the same&quot;. IMO, that is a straw man caricature. Such dystopian corruptions of the idea of balance actually result in the opposite of what balance in an RPG is intended to achieve, namely, to create more (not fewer!) viable choices.It is a simple fact of human nature that the more unbalanced (powerful) option A is compared to option B, the more likely a player will pick option A even though he would rather have option B. Balance simply ensures that option A and option B, though different, are still approximately the same in terms of viability.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FireLance, post: 5750380, member: 3424"] Alas, poor balance! When did you get such a bad reputation? It used to be that balance was seen as a good thing, or at least, that the lack of balance was a bad thing. Balance was the reason that in the early days of D&D, magic-users had low hit points, poorer AC and were limited in the number of spells they could use per day. Balance was the reason that paladins and rangers, who had more abilities than basic fighters, required more XP to gain a level. Niche protection was a form of balance, as it ensured that different classes were good at different things. Somewhere along the line, balance acquired [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron"]Harrison Bergeron[/URL] style connotations of "every character must be exactly the same". IMO, that is a straw man caricature. Such dystopian corruptions of the idea of balance actually result in the opposite of what balance in an RPG is intended to achieve, namely, to create more (not fewer!) viable choices. It is a simple fact of human nature that the more unbalanced (powerful) option A is compared to option B, the more likely a player will pick option A even though he would rather have option B. Balance simply ensures that option A and option B, though different, are still approximately the same in terms of viability. [/QUOTE]

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