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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RoryN" data-source="post: 5315342" data-attributes="member: 94451">I'm like many who have already replied here:  started out playing the boxed sets, then moved to 1E, and then on to 2E.  When 3E came out, it had been some time since I actually played, but I got into a group and had fun with it.  I felt that a lot of the feats could possibly get out of hand at higher levels, but we never played long enough for me to see if it would happen or not. One thing I always got in to was the "why" of characters abilities/traits/feats/etc.  If a fighter had certain feats or abilities to allow extra damage or attacks, I would ask the player why.  It helped flesh out the character as well as let me know where this player's head is as far as adventuing goes and what they're looking for. Most of my experience was with 2E, and the only times we ever really had anything that might be a "balance" issue was with a player's high level monk.  Sure, the fighters could wade into a battle with a huge monster and hack their way through after a few rounds, the wizard could blast it with fireballs or lightening bolts, but if a monk could get in and just touch the thing (delivering quivering palm), you could save all those spells from the wizard (and the healing spells for the fighters).  Another issue we had occassionally was with a player's assassin, but I think that was more a player issue than any balance issue. I always felt (and still do) that the whole act of balancing the game was upon the shoulders of the DM.  Afterall, the DM was the one witnessing the rolling up of characters, was the one stocking the adventure world with critters and treasures, so he/she was the one that should be aware of anything that could possibly put things out of balance.  Did you stock that cloak of invisibility in the chest that the party shouldn't have found behind the hidden door?  Then you're the one that needs to compensate for it during the following encounters, whether it's by means on a magical item used by a villian or powerful monster, or something else. One thing we used to do was to automatically give monsters maximum hit points per HD as we became more experienced with the game and the races/classes as that seemed to make things more balanced as far as most combat went.  Characters were allowed max HP at 1st level, but after thatt, it was all random.  I recall several fighters with less than 20 HP at 3rd level, which I believe is rather rare in any edition. I never really saw a balance problem with magic because those of us who DMed for our group were pretty good at keeping the threats against the party challenging, which included equipping the more powerful villians with magical items and/or spells to challenge the character's power.</blockquote>

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