Gradine
🏳️⚧️ (she/her) 🇵🇸
Well, I was responding to someone talking about poor balance in what, I think at least at the time, was a reference to 5e. I agree that 5e is the most balanced version of D&D. Especially the 2024 version. That's a really low bar, and one it doesn't clear by a lot, but I definitely think it's true.Really?
I would say 5E reaches far above that.
Assuming you put your highest stat as your primary, and increase that from time to time, D&D's worst combination of race/class/subclass is probably like, a 5.5/10 where the best is probably a 10/10 (excluding multiclassing for now). And that's abnormal. If you only include likely/PHB races/classes/subclasses it's more like between 6.5/10 and 10/10, or even 7/10 and 10/10 if you're being generous.
And I don't even like 5E all that much. I preferred 4E, but it was nowhere near as balanced, even with constant balance updates. Worst was easily 3.XE, where you could make a totally legit sensible lore-appropriate, right stats in right place character and they'd be like 2/10 on a good day, and someone else could do the same, and be like 10/10 easy by comparison or like 12/10 if PrCs got involved.
I mean, you're necessarily making a relative comparison by talking about "poorly balanced", so what's your point of reference? I'd say "mainstream traditional RPGs over the last 30 years" is mine, and by that reference point, D&D 5E is one of the most balanced RPGs on the market, and thus cannot, for me, be defined as "poorly balanced".
If, however, I was comparing D&D to like, big, successful MMORPGs, D&D would not be particularly well-balanced, sure. But that seems to a questionable comparison to me.
Of course, I also don't happen to think that D&D needs to be well balanced. I don't think any TTRPG particularly needs to be well balanced. My point is that such lack of balance isn't, or at least doesn't have to be, a bug, and might even be a feature, particularly as a response to the types of "don't mix the player types" "truisms" that lead to things like the 3.X tier list-style "never have a fighter and a wizard in the same party" mantras that are, I would hope we could agree, absolutely ludicrous in retrospect.
So, imagine that the quote you're responding to is actually saying "There has never been and will likely never be a D&D game that reaches above "poorly balanced" (positive).