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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mach2.5" data-source="post: 1060806" data-attributes="member: 12834">You've never met some of the people I've had both the fortune as well as misfortune of gaming with then <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=";)" /> Most of my groups have tended towards a mix of those who power game and those who don't. Personally, that's why I like using rule systems that maintain a sense of internal party balance, especially between classes and races (or skill trees, or whatever the system uses). I can't stand when, especially fairly early in a campaign, it becomes painfully obvious that a particular PC is going to be show stealing from the other players because of flaws or faults that are inheirent within the system and not simply due to making good or bad choices. Yes, some class/race combos fair poorly in certain types of scenarios, but assuming that your overall campaign runs the full spectrum of playing styles, if there is still one class or race that simply out does every other in too many regards, then there's a problem. And I agree that the PHB classes are not perfectly balanced against one another, but at least their fairly close. The 3.5 revisions that I've seen, but not yet playtested, seem to bring them a touch closer, but still no bullseye. Even so, that is the standard. That's why the DS races use level adjustments where appropriate; that's why spellcasting is being weighed against the core wizard; that's why tembo still devour egotistical and overzealous muls, thri-kreen, and half-giants alike . . . err, well, you know what I mean. Also, and maybe its just a case of the silent majority, but I've not heard in the past year and a half that I've been following the conversion, a lot of people stressing that the core doc 'must', 'should', or 'has' to be imbalanced for it to work.  Not sure I get the gist of this last part. Abstract or absolute? Since their are near opposites, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Here's a scenario as an example. PC mage is doing a walkabout in the city-state and gets accosted. He cast a flashy spell and is seen. What happens then? Do the people around rise up and tear him to bits? Do they flee in terror, shouting for the templars? Is magic so feared and misunderstood that even the templars won't just come rushing in? Does the city's SK come down and smite the offending wizard? Does the veilled alliance jump in and snatch the PC away with a reprimand? Does the veilled alliance hide in the shadows and toss a disentigrate spell at the foolish mage for giving himself away? If there was only one other person who saw the mage cast a spell, how does that alter all of the above? Or even, if no one saw the mage cast a spell that he ahs a great mechanical bonus in, where's the offset? Is the clapper a really good purchase at only $9.95 +s/h? Will Prince Edward really decide to become a go-go dancer? Tune in next time.That's why its not necessarily a good idea to balance mechanics with arbitrary RP advanatages or disadvantages. I know, most people have enough of a brain to run their game well and make the RPing disadvantage just that, a hinderance. But some people simply need things spelled out in very clear cut black and white tangible aspects. Also, if you balance mechanics against RP, then try and port that class or race into another region where the RP makes no difference, chances are that the mechanics still will. Is that a balanced class then? Assume someone designs a region where wizards face absolutely no persecution, but the rules gave them tons of mechanical advantages to offset the normally severe RPing penalties. Do I a: strip away the mechanical bonuses since now the class is overpowered?; or b: do I wrack my self comming up with some other way to penalize the class to 'keep it in line' with the group?; or c: leave it as is and let my players whine about it till I shove their PCs into another den of tembo and force them to pull a 48 hour straight Rolemaster game (oh the humanity)? Balance doesn't matter to everyone and that's perfectly fine. It does matter though to the people who designed 3e (and who are generously letting the DS team develope this conversion), the core team (who have shot down thousands of wonderful ideas that were broken or imbalanced too much to be of use, even if they sounded way cool), and well, to me I guess.</blockquote>

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