Do You Feel The Need For Balance (Not In Terms of Power)?

[victorysaber]

When I say "balance", I don't mean all CR 3 monsters must be equal, or all Fighter 16/Wizard 4 characters must be of equal power as Fighter 4/Wizard 16 characters.

I mean that everything must have an equivalent elsewhere. I have this obsessive need to find or create the equivalents for all factions. The following examples show what I mean.

1)Take Tieflings and Aasimar for example. They are evil and good outsiders. My kneejerk reaction was "where are the lawful and chaotic equivalents", found later in the Axani and Chaond in one of the MMs.

2)The same goes with Half-Fiends and Half-Celestials. How about Half-Lawful and Half-Chaotic templates? Eventually, with the help of the community here, I settled on Half-Anarchs and Half-Axioms, and Half-Equilibrants for the neutrals.

3)Obyriths and Baernaloths? How about all the other alignment-themed outsiders? Why don't they have a progenitor race? Where are the other progenitor races?

4)Psionics? How come there is only one "flavour" of psionics, while there are two "flavours" of magic (arcane and divine)? Solved by the coming of Complete Psionics and the Divine Mind, but only... partially. In the end I have intrinsic psionics to match arcane magic, and exoteric psionics to match divine magic. Psionic counterparts to rangers, bards, paladins, all exist in my world, making psionics truly on even footing with divine magic.

5)The Far Realm? Mapping them to the three levels of outsider templates/races (Half-Fiend, Fiendish, and Tiefling for example), I had to dig to discover: Half-Farspawn, Pseudonatural, and Kaorti as the equivalents.

6)The uneven number of super-powered outsiders (Asmodeus, Orcus, Primus, etc...) for each faction kills me.

Am I the only one who requires that everything be so perfectly balanced? Equal and opposite reactions? Similar equivalents for all possibilities?

Or am I alone in this incessant need for balance?

 

[Nifft]

You are not alone! People of similar mind write and buy a lot of books! (Monster books, feat books, spell books, etc. -- books to fill all niches with all combinations of thingies.)

I often find it's better to keep some things unbalanced, though. It adds a lot to a setting's complexity when not all factions have all the same basic parts, and it adds to your player's senses of wonder when they can't just say, "Oh, that's just a Chaotic X... remember, we fought the Lawful X last week?"

Cheers, -- N

 

[Klaus]

...



Yes.

Oh, and Psionics = Arcane + Divine

 

[Kunimatyu]

I think you are. Having every single grouping be balanced by another grouping creates a "more of the same" mentality that really doesn't add much to the game.

To cite one of your examples, having every outsider race linked to mysterious progenitors is unecessary and, well, makes things a whole lot less mysterious.

 

[Drowbane]

Or am I alone in this incessant need for balance?

Face it man, you're Lawful.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Face it man, you're Lawful.

Or Abstract-Obsessive-Compulsive.

My opinion is that it's not necessary. Sometimes it would be nice to have some more "balance." I see the large number of "female only" PrC's and wonder "Why can't my male character do this?"

But, as Nifft said, there are people out there writing to fill the perceived gaps. I'm in favor of that.

 

[Ry]

edit: didn't get what you meant, now I do, but have no smart comments to make

 

[jdrakeh]

Ah, you mean "Do you believe in the principle of cosmic duality?" and, no, I don't. Why? Because absence of gravity isn't the same thing as anti-gravity and, to the best of our knowledge, an actual force that is the equal and opposite of gravity does not exist. Not every cosmic force (or deity, or race of beings, etc) has to have a polar opposite.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

When I say "balance", I don't mean all CR 3 monsters must be equal, or all Fighter 16/Wizard 4 characters must be of equal power as Fighter 4/Wizard 16 characters.

I mean that everything must have an equivalent elsewhere. I have this obsessive need to find or create the equivalents for all factions.

I think you can medicate this problem into submission.

I don't feel the need for symmetry, especially when it comes to the planes, which are meant to be strange and alien.

 

[Nyeshet]

Oh, and Psionics = Arcane + Divine

Actually, I tend to think that Psionics, Divine, and Arcane should be considered one of those 'rule of three' things from the Planescape setting.