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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5518808" data-attributes="member: 996">Sorry, should have said giving up /some/ class balance. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  'Experimental design' is an interesting way of putting it.  I've been wondering if maybe 4e really needs to formally split into a simplified 'Essentials' and an 'Advanced' version.  Maybe it really needs to settle into an 'Essentials' on-ramp, a 'Standard' balanced version, and an 'Extended' version with many more novel or experimental mechanics, the most workable of which eventually get added to the 'Standard.'  A little much, maybe, but it might go a way towards satisfying a broader fan base.   That's a truth that many seem uncomfortable admitting.  It's clear, for instance, that a lot of 4e hate was from 3e fans who loved 3e for the very flaws 4e fixed.  The 'sacred cows.'  Doesn't mean the sacred cows weren't flaws or that they hadn't been holding the game back for decades, but it's worth recognizing.  Joy..  Surges are certainly a good indicator for when it's time to rest.  (They could also be said to be a 'daily' resource - so if classes with dailies consistently had fewer surges than those without, maybe there could be some 'balancing' there, too?  Meh, probably not.)  But a DM whose story calls for a very long adventuring 'day' would have to scale back encounters, which would mean the surges would be burned through more slowly.  And, if daily resources become a source of class imbalance, some players may well be tempted to emphasise the situations that make thier class overpowerform - by insisting on resting frequently if they have dailies, for instance (certainly a very common thing in 3e). Nod.  Since some sources of imbalance are unavoidable - or 'worth it' in some way - it only makes that much more sense to avoid it when possible.  Aside from the desire to have casters be superior (OK, 'feel different') from non-casters, I don't think any of essentials other goals (simpler to build/play classes, being the big one) would have been any harder to accomplish while retaining AEDU as an underlying commonality for all classes, even if some builds put it 'behind the curtain' in some way. Even if they're not worse, if they're /in addition/, they're still making the game worse.  If Essentials had degreaded class balance a little, but fixed the 4e issues with encounter balance, for instance, that might be judged desireable or a wash.  The things that Essentials improved, however - like the different format or the more mechanical differentiation of classes -  have been highly subjective, and could have been done without messing with class balance.  A good hypothetical example would be eliminating dailies:   Eliminating dailies /entirely/ from the game would improve encounter balance.  Assuming the class's various remaining powers were still balanced (or adjusted to be balanced), that would be an improvement in balance.  But, it would come at the cost of the much more subjective feel of 'narrative control' or 'drama' that dailies bring to the table.Often, a new class is noticeably sub-par, like the Seeker.  If a new class isn't made pretty butch out the gate, the lack of potential synergies in its smaller power list will make it less effective than older classes with more support.  One direction Essentials seems to be moving in that might not be all bad, is towards more builds of existing classes, rather than more new (and harder to balance) classes.  Which is a good idea, as long as the new builds can leverage enough of the existing content for their class. We'll know for sure, years down the line.  When people are forming a consensus that this or that class 'was always a bad design....'  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />   Ah, 'experiment' again.  It's a nice idea, but we need a secure location for these experiments, so no innocents are caught in the blast radius. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  I certainly agree about the odd solution to the complaint that Expertise feats were too 'must have' and therfore flavorless non-option 'taxes.'  Make them /even better/.  (!?!?!) I remain unconvinced that 'reamaining fundamentally balanced' /is/ part of the goal.  I think that balance was knowingly sacrificed.  Either as a trade-off to meet other design goals, or for it's own sake, to woo the fled-to-pathfinder set (or both).</blockquote>

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