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Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 5784554" data-attributes="member: 3400">I think it's partly a question of what you lose by pursuing it, particularly in the 4e case. There are a variety of ways to pursue balance. 3e pursues it (or at least tries to) more than 1e and 2e did, but some of the other gamist changes built in to streamline the game ended up working against that. (Such as how much easier it is for a caster to cast without interruptions in 3e with cyclical initiatives and standard action casting times compared to 2e's round-by-round initiative and declaring your action before the initiative is rolled.)I can understand, at least partly, why 4e's design team put all PCs on the same power and action structure. It's easier to do it that way. But it's also unsatisfying for players who want their fantasy RPG archetypes to behave in different ways and feel different. But the more different the powers and abilities are, the harder they are to directly compare and be sure they are balanced. Moreover, focusing on the mechanical balance of the PCs, depending on how it is done, may alter the balance of the game between simulationist and gamist elements. For a simulationist, magic should be pretty magical and be largely open ended in what effects it can produce. It's magic after all. Put too much effort into balance and the magic gets watered down. You get the same thing if you spend too much time with character class niche protection too, so that's not a situation limited solely to 4e. This creates a certain kind of imbalance in that casters have a broader palette of options to choose from when dealing with an encounter - the more mundane ones such as negotiating, sneaking, and fighting their way through, as well as magical ones like flying, charming, teleporting, and so on. And ultimately, for someone who wants a simulation with significant magic, there's ultimately no getting around it. Casters get a suite of options the non-magical classes don't get no matter how much better a physical combatant a fighter is. Ultimately, this is even true in 4e, though 4e does offer up rituals to any character interested in investing in them.Pathfinder, for example, leaves the magical power of magic mostly in its place but tries to inject balance in other ways. They could have gone a bit farther, I think improving some saving throws would help as would bumping more spells to 1 round casting times. And there are undoubtedly more ideas as well that we'll probably see in PF 2nd edition in another 7 years or so if Paizo predictions hold true.</blockquote>

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