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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fuzzlewump" data-source="post: 5985213" data-attributes="member: 63214">Yes! Somewhere along the line, balance became synonymous with 'boring.' Which is nonsense. Your point is readily apparent when you look at non-d20 games like Mouse Guard for example. In that game, your skills (which encompass all of the game, fighting is a skill as well) are rated 2-6. A mouse with a rating of 5 in Pathfinder, and another with a rating of 5 in Fighter are absolutely balanced (same or similar chance of success at appropriate tasks). But they are completely different in the types of tasks they can accomplish.That said, I think in a game like D&D, people are looking for mechanical asymmetry between classes. That's fine with me, and it can be balanced, or come close to it. First you just make assumptions using the adventure experience tally. Over the course of a 1000 XP day in a 2 man group made up of a wizard and a fighter, which we'll say is 2 fights, the fighter earned 500 using his martial prowess. The wizard earned 500 XP using magic. After that they are both ready for a long rest. The first assumption is that both should be able to contribute the same amount, just in different ways, so they both earn their share of the 1000 XP. So, some people want big special magic, such as one spell trouncing a combat. That means that you give the wizard one very good spell, and then the rest of the time he can't do anything at all, he's totally exhausted. The fighter instead earns his 500 XP by killing 5 orcs in the first encounter, (but is totally exhausted and beaten down), and the wizard earns his 500 xp by neutralizing 5 orcs with a sleep spell in the second encounter (leaving him out of spells and with nothing else to do.)Basically, balance is just taking that baseline and shifting the numbers around it. If you want to give the Wizard at-wills to use, then maybe that means the wizard could kill one of the orcs in the 1st encounter. The DM still gives the fighter enough orcs to chew on, 5, with 1 extra for the wizard to deal with for a total of 6 orcs. That means the wizard is earning 600 XP over the day and the fighter only 500 XP, since he's totally exhausted after 5 orcs. So, you need to make a balance decision here. Tone down sleep so that it realistically would only work on 4 orcs? Or, tone up the fighter so that 6 or 7 orcs would have been a balanced threat for him? (thus making the one the wizard is able to kill worth less proportionally). Regardless of the approach, it can (and should) be balanced.</blockquote>

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