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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 9823711" data-attributes="member: 6795602">If we assume the process goes something like this.<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Create otherwise identical characters with different point buy arrays.  (Same mechanics and personality even though stats often are used by players to inform personality and roleplay and even sometimes most effective ability choices).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Face identical obstacles (not practical unless characters are on a total railroad as the different stats should have some impact on the specific obstacles).</li> </ol>Then no, the different point buy arrays will not yield totally balanced characters as their will be many sets of obstacles where one character outperforms the other. (Though you could mean are their equal sets of obstacles where each character outperforms the other?  That's much less clear to me as it would seem to involve determining different orders of infinity which doesn't seem differentiable for a D&D game).However, for a particular set of obstacles in a campaign it will be impossible for a player to tell whether the 15,14,13,12,10,8 or 13,13,13,12,12,12 will perform better except in hindsight (as the obstacles are not known ahead of the campaign).  For example, a single encounter against intellect devourers could easily skew an 8 int instead of a 12 as much worse for that campaign than the difference in primary stats.And some might even conclude that if for a random campaign a player cannot pick for certain which point buy array will perform better that the arrays are totally balanced in some sense.Also, if one were to drop the assumption that all obstacles are identical, because as the rolls diverge one would suspect the campaign will as well.  And doubly so if we also drop the assumption that the characters with different point buy arrays will be played identically then I think those are additional reasons it is impossible to tell which is actually better.  And triply so if the GM balances encounters to the players and characters in the game.As such, I think the question about 'totally balanced' is flawed, because there are many notions of 'total balance' and it's not at all clear which notion the OP is asking about.</blockquote>

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