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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7014636" data-attributes="member: 20564">Okay, let's talk combat for a bit, because of lot fo game systms want peopel to be balanced in combat so everyone feels they contribute and not at all balanced in other things - a party can make do with one party face, or one ranger/explorer.Balance is a nebulous term, especially since you're often comparing apples and oranges.  If we only want to look at the incredibly narrow world of white room combat DPR, you have a metric.  But if you are good at that, and I am an excellent healer, are we balanced?  You could say that that it's whomever causes the DM to adjust what they are doing more.  But that's often very dependant on synergy.  You could talk about stealing the spotlight, but that's often out of control of the mechanics.  You can talk about not feeling overshadowed and having fun, but now we're back to subjective metrics.In the 13th Age game I've been running for the past 3 years, probably the most efficient character is the dwarforged fighter, who's a pure defender.  I say he's that much more effective than anyone else judging from combats he's missed.  But he does a fairly thankless and non-spotlight job of allowing all the others to shine.  End result - no complains that he isn't balanced.I'd rather look at balance not on a character level but on a much more focused level where we really can do apples-to-apples.  If there were two feats, and one gave +d4 to damage and another gave +5 damage and a bonus action attack, it's pretty clear that they both have the same goal - so -it's apples-to-apples - and are vastly different in the power level they grant in fulfilling it.  That's a very useful balance evaluation.So balance is a useful fiction but not everything.</blockquote>

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