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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5517675" data-attributes="member: 996">I'd be interested to hear in what ways you find it an improvement in balance.  I've been saying that, too, yes.  There's a number of threads to this debate, and misgivings about what Essentials implies for the future of 4e is certainly one of them.  Balance is another.  Concerns about the future, are, obviously a matter of perception and intuition and even whether you tend to be an optimist or pessimist, trusting or skeptical.  (I obviously tend towards pessimisim and skepticism.)That classes make roughly equal contributions and share 'spotlight time' more or less equally over as many levels, situations, and play styles as possible.  As opposed to fragile class balance, which might exist for a given range of levels, or among some sub-set of classes, or when certain play styles are encouraged or excluded.  3e, for instance, had rather fragile class balance.  While AD&D had a more primative aproach to 'balance' that, well, really wouldn't make a lot of sense to modern gamers... it was more about balance among players than among theoretical constructs like classes.  If everyone had the same chance of rolling a given stat combination or random psionic power or picking up the object coated with XX poison, there was 'balance' or perhaps 'fairness.'  AD&D still had some of the competative spirit of wargaming, I guess.  Some folks even called DMs 'referees.'  The modern concept of balance is almost more like an exercise in nurturing self-esteem.If you found AD&D balanced, there are few games you could find imbalanced - certainly 3.x and Essentials are paragons of flawless balanced compared to AD&D.  I take it you mostly played in the single-digit levels?  The 'sweet spot' that kept getting mentioned as something 4e was trying to expand.  If fighters are still important, you're at relatively low levels, if magic-users are having stand-out moments, you're probably at least 3rd... and if a theif is, also, then you have to have gotten out of the low-level doldrums where his skills are just pathetically low...</blockquote>

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