My least favorite thing about D&D is balance.

[Mishihari Lord]

Y'know, for me, I've come to detest balance in D&D.

Please hear me out.

Let's take 1&2e - Class balance was uneven, but it was felt that having XP charts unique to each class was a way to balance things, but IMO, they didn't. Racial balance was handled via level limits, which every group that I'm familiar with tossed.

And y'know, looking back on it I'd say that those editions were unbalanced.

But I had fun with 1/2e.

I'm totally with you on all this. Current RPGs are certainly more balanced than AD&D, but I can't say I've has any more fun with them than I did with the old games. I'd much prefer that all the effort that goes into balancing things precisely be directed instead to more important tasks. It's been my experience that any half-decent DM can compensate for imbalance with very little effort anyway.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I wouldn't want to play in a game where because I'm playing Class X it means that I am basically a non-entity in combat, or in social encounters. At the same time, I don't want to play a game that requires slide-rules to tweak Class X or where I look over at a player playing Class Y that outshines everyone and am told that they have role-playing requirements that are supposed to reduce them down to the level of mere mortals.

Well then, you don't hate balance. You actually rather like it.

 

[Elf Witch]

I read the word balance and my teeth immediately start grinding. I do think a game should strive for balance but I don't think most people can agree what that is.

I play 3E it my far is my favorite and my groups favorite and we find it to play very well and allow all the classes to have fun. Yeah I know I am going to have someone say we must play our casters with our hands tied behind our backs, what ever. BTW I am a woman and you know what ,what ever means when we say it right.

I played 4E for a little while and I found it mind numbing boring I hated it.

So when I read 4E fans talk about balance I cringe because what they see as balance I find boring and to be fair I know that people who don't like 3E see it as unbalanced and may dislike it as much as I dislike 4E.

So I find discussions about balance often end up as a way to bash an edition with defenders of that edition trying to defend it.

 

[enrious]

Well then, you don't hate balance. You actually rather like it.

"I don't want to play a game that requires slide-rules to tweak Class X..."


I disagree.

 

[Oni]

Balance is fine right up until the point it starts to take precedence over flavor. If you start altering flavor in the quest for perfect balance then you've gone too far. Balance shouldn't be an afterthought or a non-thought, but neither should it be the driving factor.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If balance means nothing to you, consider playing RIFTs then! Then tell me if you changed your mind afterwords...

 

[Banshee16]

I read the word balance and my teeth immediately start grinding. I do think a game should strive for balance but I don't think most people can agree what that is.

I play 3E it my far is my favorite and my groups favorite and we find it to play very well and allow all the classes to have fun. Yeah I know I am going to have someone say we must play our casters with our hands tied behind our backs, what ever. BTW I am a woman and you know what ,what ever means when we say it right.

I played 4E for a little while and I found it mind numbing boring I hated it.

So when I read 4E fans talk about balance I cringe because what they see as balance I find boring and to be fair I know that people who don't like 3E see it as unbalanced and may dislike it as much as I dislike 4E.

So I find discussions about balance often end up as a way to bash an edition with defenders of that edition trying to defend it.

You summed up my thoughts pretty much exactly.

The "balance" of 4E (and some parts of 3E) ruined the game for me. Not because I hate balance so much as how it was done.

They ruined polymorph in order to fix abuses. And in 4E it wasn't really a factor. To keep characters from turning into storm giants they nerfed polymorph other. You coudn't turn an opponent into a horse or cow or manatee because of their size. But they created that problem by getting rid of system shock and the mind change thing. It became a long term buff spell instead of an attack spell. Restore elements like that and PCs would stop using it on their friends.

Similarly polymorph self could be limited by leaving a chance the character forgets their identity (like Sparrowhawk almost did). Paizo figured a good way to make those spells work, by making them a level appropriate chain.

Similarly....WotC wanted to balance spellcasters and melee characters. So we got Book of Nine Swords which was cool....but maybe a little too powerful. But then they took a cool mechanic and applied it to EVERYTHING in 4E. Since 1ed when a Dragon mag intoduced combat maneuvers for the first time I've thought they should be included for fighters et al. But not at the expense of ruining the spell system.

I just hope they realize that having different characters do things differently is not a bad thing.

Banshee

 

[enrious]

If balance means nothing to you, consider playing RIFTs then! Then tell me if you changed your mind afterwords...

If this was addressed to me, my response would be to re-read the OP.

In some ways, RIFTS wasn't as balanced or unbalanced as D&D.

 

[MichaelSomething]

If this was addressed to me, my response would be to re-read the OP.

In some ways, RIFTS wasn't as balanced or unbalanced as D&D.

So you hate balance arguments! That makes sense

Balance is like good spell checking/grammer. Doing it right makes something easier to enjoy the project but it can get annoying if you over focus on it.