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Mearls on Balance in D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="jasin" data-source="post: 3390015" data-attributes="member: 7531"><p>Also, relevant to this, a class system provides a framework which lets you make meaningful choices without necessarily letting you make theoretically equal choices which result in utterly imbalanced characters. Imbalanced not in the sense of being too strong or too weak, but in the sense of "I will put <em>all</em> of my advancement points in AC and none into Will, and my superpowered character will have AC 65 and Will -1."</p><p></p><p>Obviously, this feature can be subverted at least to a point, but it mostly takes an active attempt to do so. In completely freeform character creation systems, I've often seen people ending up with idiot savants without meaning to, just because they wanted to be really good at swordsmanship and simply neglected that they'll also need dodging. And they end up either coming off as overpowered because the DM avoids putting them in situations where they'll need dodging, or feeling cheated because their master swordsman who invested a bucketload of resources into being good at swordsmanship gets screwed everytime he needs to dodge something.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Bah. This is just reinventing the wheel: it's just like stance of clarity, from this book Tome of Battle that this guy Mike Mearls worked on.</p><p></p><p> <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="jasin, post: 3390015, member: 7531"] Also, relevant to this, a class system provides a framework which lets you make meaningful choices without necessarily letting you make theoretically equal choices which result in utterly imbalanced characters. Imbalanced not in the sense of being too strong or too weak, but in the sense of "I will put [i]all[/i] of my advancement points in AC and none into Will, and my superpowered character will have AC 65 and Will -1." Obviously, this feature can be subverted at least to a point, but it mostly takes an active attempt to do so. In completely freeform character creation systems, I've often seen people ending up with idiot savants without meaning to, just because they wanted to be really good at swordsmanship and simply neglected that they'll also need dodging. And they end up either coming off as overpowered because the DM avoids putting them in situations where they'll need dodging, or feeling cheated because their master swordsman who invested a bucketload of resources into being good at swordsmanship gets screwed everytime he needs to dodge something. Bah. This is just reinventing the wheel: it's just like stance of clarity, from this book Tome of Battle that this guy Mike Mearls worked on. ;) [/QUOTE]
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