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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 4592949" data-attributes="member: 22779">Jack, I'm not sure that you can separate those two though.Balanced classes are not balanced by being equally likely to kill each other in a 1:1 fight.&nbsp; That kind of balance is meaningless.&nbsp; The only balance that actually means anything is your second kind, where it's a question of whether each player, playing any given PC, has equal opportunities during the game.&nbsp; Not that that has to occur every possible second, that would be stupid.&nbsp; But, over the course of a reasonable stretch of time, they have to have equal chances of doing something meaningful.I strongly disagree with the idea that unbalance=more unique and that balance=bland.&nbsp; That's a fairly easy one to disprove actually.&nbsp; Unbalance=less unique.If Option A is clearly better than Option B, then any reasonable person will choose Option A every time.&nbsp; That's basic human nature.&nbsp; Deliberately gibbling yourself is not something people generally do.&nbsp; In an unbalanced system, you will always have these dichotomies, where a given choice will be heavily weighted towards a single output.&nbsp; Thus, more often than not, you will wind up with more people making the same choice than if both options were equal.In your blog, I left a note about two weapon fighting in 2e.&nbsp; It's a textbook case.&nbsp; TWF in 2e was head and shoulders better than Sword and board or Two Handed.&nbsp; You doubled your attacks per round in a system where you didn't get many extra attacks, you doubled your potential damage output because your strength bonuses were not penalized on the off hand.&nbsp; And, for the cost of two weapon proficiencies, AT WORST, you gained all this at first level.&nbsp; Players were deliberately handicapping themselves if they didn't do this.&nbsp; So, IME, every fighter type in 2e that I ever saw used two weapons.&nbsp; Might be two axes, or longsword and shortsword, but, it was almost always two weapons with very, very few exceptions.If your point that unbalanced=more unique were true, then my experience should not have occured.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 4592949, member: 22779"] Jack, I'm not sure that you can separate those two though. Balanced classes are not balanced by being equally likely to kill each other in a 1:1 fight. That kind of balance is meaningless. The only balance that actually means anything is your second kind, where it's a question of whether each player, playing any given PC, has equal opportunities during the game. Not that that has to occur every possible second, that would be stupid. But, over the course of a reasonable stretch of time, they have to have equal chances of doing something meaningful. I strongly disagree with the idea that unbalance=more unique and that balance=bland. That's a fairly easy one to disprove actually. Unbalance=less unique. If Option A is clearly better than Option B, then any reasonable person will choose Option A every time. That's basic human nature. Deliberately gibbling yourself is not something people generally do. In an unbalanced system, you will always have these dichotomies, where a given choice will be heavily weighted towards a single output. Thus, more often than not, you will wind up with more people making the same choice than if both options were equal. In your blog, I left a note about two weapon fighting in 2e. It's a textbook case. TWF in 2e was head and shoulders better than Sword and board or Two Handed. You doubled your attacks per round in a system where you didn't get many extra attacks, you doubled your potential damage output because your strength bonuses were not penalized on the off hand. And, for the cost of two weapon proficiencies, AT WORST, you gained all this at first level. Players were deliberately handicapping themselves if they didn't do this. So, IME, every fighter type in 2e that I ever saw used two weapons. Might be two axes, or longsword and shortsword, but, it was almost always two weapons with very, very few exceptions. If your point that unbalanced=more unique were true, then my experience should not have occured. [/QUOTE]

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