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<blockquote data-quote="Siberys" data-source="post: 5791824" data-attributes="member: 30619">In that case, I'm not sure most of your examples follow through. In chess, each side as as whole is balanced, because they have the same pieces; each soccer team is balanced because they have the same number of players in the same positions; et cetera. Player skill is not at question here; of course someone skilled at chess will beat someone that isn't. That's not a balance question, that's a skill question.Let's use that soccer example; you seem to be coming from the POV that a D&amp;D character would be presented as an individual soccer player. I would rather think of the character as being the whole team; individual players on a team are not going to be balanced, but each team as a whole has access to the same positions in the same numbers. No one would think it fair if one team had twice the number of players on the field as the other.As to the point about RPGs not being like most games, yes, that's true. But the point of balance in D&amp;D is different from its point in other games. In other games, it's there so that opposing players or groups of players have a roughly equal chance of success, barring skill level differences. In RPGs, it's there so that the player's choices are meaningful. If the classes are unblalanced, at some point one player's choices could become functionally meaningless because another player's choices override theirs. That's the problem people had with pre-4e casters - some players felt worthless by comparison if they were playing anything different.TL;DR - The argument isn't &quot;important things should be balanced&quot;, it's &quot;balance is important&quot;, in the context of a game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Siberys, post: 5791824, member: 30619"] In that case, I'm not sure most of your examples follow through. In chess, each side as as whole is balanced, because they have the same pieces; each soccer team is balanced because they have the same number of players in the same positions; et cetera. Player skill is not at question here; of course someone skilled at chess will beat someone that isn't. That's not a balance question, that's a skill question. Let's use that soccer example; you seem to be coming from the POV that a D&D character would be presented as an individual soccer player. I would rather think of the character as being the whole team; individual players on a team are not going to be balanced, but each team as a whole has access to the same positions in the same numbers. No one would think it fair if one team had twice the number of players on the field as the other. As to the point about RPGs not being like most games, yes, that's true. But the point of balance in D&D is different from its point in other games. In other games, it's there so that opposing players or groups of players have a roughly equal chance of success, barring skill level differences. In RPGs, it's there so that the player's choices are meaningful. If the classes are unblalanced, at some point one player's choices could become functionally meaningless because another player's choices override theirs. That's the problem people had with pre-4e casters - some players felt worthless by comparison if they were playing anything different. TL;DR - The argument isn't "important things should be balanced", it's "balance is important", in the context of a game. [/QUOTE]

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