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Message: <blockquote data-quote="swrushing" data-source="post: 1643404" data-attributes="member: 14140">My take on "balance" is that actual, real, "as seen in play" balance is going to be or not be based on the GM.The game system can, if the Gm is not paying attention, screw up balance, but it cannot ever create it, foster it, or insure it. The reason is fairly simple. The merit, value, worth, power, efficiency etc (whatever adjective/noun you want to use to convey "measure of worth") of a trait, of any trait, is dependent completely on the challenge presented to it. If i had the first level character +10 plate mail and he needs to sneak past some guards, that plate mail does him no good. The game system, no game system i have ever seen, dictates the scenario, the challenges, the campaign flavor to any significant degree. In DND all of the following are reasonable campaign themes and stories and all three profoundly affect the "balance" between classes.1. undead invasion where the primary antagonists at high. medium and low levels are undead. (Rogues... tough. Clerics...wahooo!)2. Giant invasion... (Mages cool... rogues still tough... others vary)3. Drow invasion (mages tough... others vary)Its going to be primarily up to the GM to judge and implement his view of balance and this is going to come primarily from how well he gauges the interaction of "the threats capabilities" vs "the party's capabilities" in each and every given encounter. odds are, most encounters favor one or two players over the other and how much he recognizes this and makes the encounters balance out overtime... the spotlight balance... will determine whether his game plays out as balanced. if every player is satisfied his character gets enough opportunities, or at least as many opportunities as everyone else, at making "meaningful choices", at being the guy who "makes it happen" etc, he will do fine.So what does the system do for you? Well it can screw you up. See the Gm doesn't need "balanced" from the system. A lot of effort is spent on creatiung "a balanced DND" but that DND is not one anyone every plays. Its a theoretical thing supported on a deck os cards that basically assumes "the challenges are presented in balanced manner". What the Gm needs the system to do is to provide him "BALANCEABLE" elements. The system needs to provide him with PCs that are "balanceable in play", not "balanced on a theoretical stage." To accomplish this, all the system needs to do is to provide that no combo is going to be so far out of whack that the Gm cannot with "reasonable" scripting provide the mixture of scenarios that makes one guy "the guy" one session and the other guy "the man" the next.As an example, if a longsword is better than an axe in literally "every way" then the Gm cannot easily create a reasonable scenario that makes the axe guy better than the longsword guy. So really, what the game needs to do is just get you close, or maybe even not go totally off its rocker, but most importantly, provide that everything has drawbacks. Every class needs strengths to be sure, but they also need weaknesses. Thinkl of it this way, you should be able to list three "reasonable scenarios" where any given class/character should be at a serious deficit and three where he would be "on top of the world" when compared to the others.If you cannot do this, you might have balance problems in the system.If you can, you probably will be fine, if you have an adequate GM.I mean, the old adage of "if everyone in your game would take it means its probably unbalanced" is fine but that might be because the thing itself is unbalanced OR it might mean your scenarios too frequently emphasize that thing as a key or vital element.IMX, playing and GMing, the vast majority of the actual in play imbalances have come from script, not system, and thats regardless of system... though complex point buy games tend to have a higher % of systemic ones, IMX.</blockquote>

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