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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5537776" data-attributes="member: 2067">We've all got our kinks. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> One of Mearls's big themes in his Legends &amp; Lore column is that there's a lot of types of people who play D&amp;D, who are looking for different (and often incompatible) things from it. I think it's important to pay attention to balance, but I also think balance is bound to be subjective to a huge extent, so you can't proof your rules against imbalance without dictating how people are to play the game. Which goes against what D&amp;D is about, to a large extent (that is, playing the game how YOU want to play it). I agree with &quot;tweaking the dial&quot; rather than &quot;removing the kitchen.&quot; But this ties into what I said about subjectivity in balance. In a heavily player-driven game, that wizard might functionally, in play, be able to always prep and always roll until they succeed, making the thief feel really boned. In another game, that might not happen, so everyone's happy. It might be balanced in theory, and in practice in some games, but without telling people that they HAVE to play in a way that challenges the wizard, you're going to see a possible abuse at some point. Which is why, for me, codifying each of the four main challenges for a heroic adventuring party is one step toward the solution. If all of them have a consistent way of being addressed, it's easy for a DM to judge the power of the tools used to solve them. It was mentioned by one of the designers themselves in a play session. It was also used rather consistently by my DM when I was playing a pryomancer to avoid me pulling stunts like &quot;setting this forest on fire.&quot; Which was probably a smart use of it. That might not be how many people mostly actually play, especially under adroit DMs, but it's part of the thought process behind 4e's power design: to narrowly define a specific, limited implementation. Which, IMO, isn't nearly as fun as an open-ended toolbox.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5537776, member: 2067"] We've all got our kinks. ;) One of Mearls's big themes in his Legends & Lore column is that there's a lot of types of people who play D&D, who are looking for different (and often incompatible) things from it. I think it's important to pay attention to balance, but I also think balance is bound to be subjective to a huge extent, so you can't proof your rules against imbalance without dictating how people are to play the game. Which goes against what D&D is about, to a large extent (that is, playing the game how YOU want to play it). I agree with "tweaking the dial" rather than "removing the kitchen." But this ties into what I said about subjectivity in balance. In a heavily player-driven game, that wizard might functionally, in play, be able to always prep and always roll until they succeed, making the thief feel really boned. In another game, that might not happen, so everyone's happy. It might be balanced in theory, and in practice in some games, but without telling people that they HAVE to play in a way that challenges the wizard, you're going to see a possible abuse at some point. Which is why, for me, codifying each of the four main challenges for a heroic adventuring party is one step toward the solution. If all of them have a consistent way of being addressed, it's easy for a DM to judge the power of the tools used to solve them. It was mentioned by one of the designers themselves in a play session. It was also used rather consistently by my DM when I was playing a pryomancer to avoid me pulling stunts like "setting this forest on fire." Which was probably a smart use of it. That might not be how many people mostly actually play, especially under adroit DMs, but it's part of the thought process behind 4e's power design: to narrowly define a specific, limited implementation. Which, IMO, isn't nearly as fun as an open-ended toolbox. [/QUOTE]

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