Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 3204919" data-attributes="member: 42582">As a long-time RM player, I can confidently say that balance is an issue, at least with my playing group. And indeed, I have spent the last few days in a long dispute on the RM forums about whether or not a 1st level spell is too good (<a href="http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=2729" target="_blank">http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=2729</a>).I do think balance does not come up as often in RM as in D&D, however. RM character development is very fine-grained: characters have between 40 and 100+ points per level (depending on rules-set used and other factors) to spend on character building, which allows a very precise pricing of abilities; spells are ranked from 1st to 20th or higher level, and most spell-using characters have access to several dozen spells at least; characters have well-defined abilities relevant to a range of non-combat activities; bonuses in both combat and non-combat spells range from +5 to +150 or more; combat combines a series of attack tables which make damage highly dependent on skill with a series of crit tables that make additional damage, ranging from a handful of extra hits up to instant death, depend to a signficant (but far from total) extent on luck.The combination of fine-grainedness in development, bonuses and spells, with the capacity for character development in a number of different areas of expertise, and the role of luck in determining  critical damage, means that direct comparisons of character effectiveness are nowhere near as common as in D&D. For example, it is very hard to precisely compute a character's combat effectiveness in a typical scenario, given the number of considerations and variables that can come into play. And even a character who is clearly weaker in a given situation than another can still play a meaningful role - the difference between a bonus of +130 and a bonus of +150, when added to a d100 roll, is often not that great.D&D differs from this in almost every respect. Character development options are extremely coarse-grained: there are skill points, feat slots, level gains and PrC pre-reqs. Spell slots and levels are coarse-grained also. The mechanical function of attack bonuses and damage dice makes average damage exteremely easy to compute and compare, and the fact that combat is won by attrition of hit points makes such comparisons crucial to rational character design. The net outcome is that a combat that is a challenge to the best fighter in the party has a good chance of being one in which a sub-optimal fighter can make next-to-no impact; this is compounded by the all-or-nothing effect of such mechanics as Armour Class and Spell Resistance.I therefore conclude that, to the extent that balance is more of an issue for D&D players than RM players, this is not because of a flaw of temperament on the part of D&D players, but rather a rational concern that results from clearly identifiable features of the D&D mechanics, that are (I believe deliberately) absent from RM.That is not to say that RM has better mechanics. D&D mechanics are in many respects easier to learn, and simpler in play. It is only to say that different mechanical choices in system design can have distinctive and identifiable implications for the significance of balance as an issue.</blockquote>

Verification