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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4715034" data-attributes="member: 40961">Ok, two things. 1. Level 11 is a little low. That's where the decline started, but it didn't kick in until you got to the levels where spells broke too many rules with absolute effects that could only be negated by other spells or items of gear that created spell effects. You know how it goes- Forcecage! I counter with my Cloak of the Montebank! Wall of Iron! I counter with my flying shoes! Invisibility! I counter with my Goggles fo See Invisibility! Etc! 2. 3e was broken. As a result, any class could be built to be at least somewhat balanced, by exploiting aspects of the game. So your vanilla 3e Fighter was pretty useless at level 12, sitting there with his cleave and his weapon focus and his longsword and his shield. Meanwhile his friend with the spiked chain machine gun build was still relevant if not the best in the party (assuming the spellcasters didn't also have a build they got online), etc, etc, etc. For any given class, there was at least one build that didn't suck. Its just that some of them got REALLY edge case and specialized. Bards, Hexblades, Spellthieves, Monks... they all had at least one way to really tweak them until they became powerful or even broken. This has one good effect, and two bad effects. The good effect is that you really can play any class in 3e all through 20 levels, if you know what you're doing. You might not be able to happily play any particular character for 20 levels without retraining rules (ie, the things you need at high levels may have to be taken at low levels before they do you any good, resulting in many functionally dead levels of advancement [ie, and the opposite, of course, the things you need at low levels may be useless at high levels]), but the class as a whole should work for any given level.  Of course, this really didn't help as a balancing factor, since anyone with the skill to break the Monk class could break the Psion far, far worse. The first bad effect is that it makes discussing class balance really, really hard. Someone will say something like, "bards are underpowered in 3e," and immediately the bard's fans will pipe up to remind them that the bard can cast Haste and perform Inspire Courage and then stack some other buffing spells from some splatbook and turn the whole party into monsters. Which is technically true, but ignores that the vast majority of the class's options weren't very good. The other bad effect is that... well, this one isn't inherently bad. But I think its bad. You know the game Warmachine? Its a table top wargame that, at least in how it advertises itself, takes the approach that if everything is broken, nothing is broken. If every single unit in the game has some power that's like WOAH, THAT'S TOO GOOD! then isn't it like saying that every unit is equal? Well, maybe. But there's an aesthetic to that sort of play that doesn't appeal to me. It creates a high level environment where everyone has one superpower feat/item combo that demolishes a few types of foes, and is worthless against others. The spiked chain machine gun tripper? Almost automatically wins against certain encounters. Pointless against others. Etc. Meanwhile, spellcasters get a larger variety of superpower feat/item combos because they're really running feat/item/SPELL combos, and they get a lot more spells. In my opinion, this type of play really overdoes the whole strengths/weaknesses thing for each character, making it almost a binary atmosphere instead of one with a gradient.</blockquote>

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