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Message: <blockquote data-quote="happyhermit" data-source="post: 7218551" data-attributes="member: 6834463">Longer combats (as it relates to # of rounds, # of dice rolls, etc. but not time spent making decisions, overhead, etc.) are easier to balance and make encounter guidelines more effective though, primarily because they reduce the weight of individual rolls and give things more of a chance to average out. More symmetrical systems are easier to balance too; A system with every class on AEDU is simply easier to balance than one where everyone has fundamentally different resource schedules. Systematically limiting the effectiveness of utility magic in combat (particularly non-standard uses of such) makes encounter building systems more reliable. Having hardcoded expectations for magic items and wealth by level makes encounter guidelines more accurate if followed.So, if the primary goal is to have a balanced game with reliable encounter building guidelines, then it's much easier to do things like AEDU for all classes or even the original ideas of everything being at will with refresh that the designers abandoned because it "didn't feel like D&D to them". But it should be obvious that these things aren't without consequence, some of which are simply going to be a matter of preference such as classes being fundamentally similar, some are going to make the game less flexible, and some are going to be more generally considered a negative, "longer" combat.I don't have any need for non-balance in a system (though admittedly it has rarely caused me any issues), but some of the things that are obvious to sacrifice for ease of balance like asymmetry are the reasons I go to play D&D to begin with vs. a whole host of other games that are more symmetrical. So, it isn't that I am against balance by any means I just don't want to sacrifice things in it's name and a game that fits my preferences is not going to be able to have a perfect encounter guideline system.</blockquote>

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