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<blockquote data-quote="Lacyon" data-source="post: 4593424" data-attributes="member: 63046">In a very abstract and average sense, encounter level (which I assume is what you're talking about) measures the amount of resources a party will use up overcoming a given challenge (and whether or not they're likely to have any chance to do so at all).&nbsp;&nbsp;Balance, IMO, is not a thing to be &quot;achieved&quot; in play at all. There's a design goal in trying to ensure that things you want to see during play are actually reasonably likely to happen (and things you want to be memorable and rare are reasonably unlikely to happen).&nbsp;&nbsp;The part that lets a party or DM gauge how likely an encounter is to be survivable or winnable is like a weather report (or an ejection seat). It lets a party know that the sailing will be easy (or that discretion is sometimes the better part of valor).&nbsp;The part that lets a party or DM gauge what level of resource expenditure is likely to be required for victory is like a fuel gauge. It lets you know how far you can expect to get against that headwind (or with that nice tailwind) before you're going to need to land.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lacyon, post: 4593424, member: 63046"] In a very abstract and average sense, encounter level (which I assume is what you're talking about) measures the amount of resources a party will use up overcoming a given challenge (and whether or not they're likely to have any chance to do so at all). Balance, IMO, is not a thing to be "achieved" in play at all. There's a design goal in trying to ensure that things you want to see during play are actually reasonably likely to happen (and things you want to be memorable and rare are reasonably [I]unlikely[/I] to happen). The part that lets a party or DM gauge how likely an encounter is to be survivable or winnable is like a weather report (or an ejection seat). It lets a party know that the sailing will be easy (or that discretion is sometimes the better part of valor). The part that lets a party or DM gauge what level of resource expenditure is likely to be required for victory is like a fuel gauge. It lets you know how far you can expect to get against that headwind (or with that nice tailwind) before you're going to need to land. [/QUOTE]

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