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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Acid_crash" data-source="post: 1329040" data-attributes="member: 16278">I've always wanted to know how SCHMALANCE was spelled.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />That said, discussions about balance are as good as discussions about alignments...nothing really gets solved and everybody gets pissed.  The best way to handle discussions like this and not get too upset about it is to not get involved in the first place.  But that wouldn't just be any fun.What kind of balance are we talking about?  game mechanic balance.  If that's the case, then we are talking about the wrong game.  is it play time balance amongst the players.  IF that's the case, then its a non-game issue and more a people issue which each group must figure for themselves, especially the GM.  We can talk about balance until each of us is tired of it, nothing will get resolved because this game, and most rpg's, are just not all that balanced.  There isn't anything we can really do about it.  We all know that once the wizard gets to 5th level then he's gonna pick fireball and begin to blast the battlefield, now suddenly making the fighter type seem weaker, unless the fighter gets some cool magic weapon to make up for the sudden disadvantage.  We all know that the rogue will do less damage then the barbarian, unless the rogue gets some nifty magic item to help with the difference, or a mage casts buff spells on the rogue to help.   We all know that the balancing issue boils down to power scaling in the classes, and magic items the GM must dish out to keep the pace up as the monsters power scales up around them.  Being a GM with D&D is like walking a fine line...too many magic items and the characters are powerhouses and walk over everything, and too few items will allow the wizards to walk all over the other characters.  The other thing that throws balance out the window are player actions during the game, and how often players make stupid decisions that then make it seem the world is a more dangerous place than it really is.  The example of the characters in a small town overhearing the rumor that there is a dragon in the countryside rampaging a few farms.  As players go (thinking of the majority, not all of them), most will think the DM will tailor this to the characters and will automatically think that they can handle it.  Then they go investigate, see that it's three times their size, and still attack it because they think the DM wouldn't really attack them with it.  Then there is a TPK, and they blame the DM for unbalncing the game against them by attacking them with a creature that is too powerful for them to handle.Another example: I had a group just exit a cave in the hillside that a wizard teleported them into.  After a brief fight inside the cave, they exited it and heard some rocks being moved above them.  Over a small crest they see a Hill Giant, minding its own business, playing with some rocks.  Then they see the Hill Giant playing with a goblin, and see him toss the goblin into its bag of rocks.  This group of characters, 5 in all, averaged 3rd level.  The Hill Giant had a CR of 8.  As players go, they flat out attacked the creature because it was there.  By the end of the battle, there were two survivors, one at -HP, the other three were dead, the Hill Giant was dead, and the two survivors had no way of carrying the 3 dead bodies with them to the nearest town, which they didn't know where it was anyways.  Then this group got pissed at me because they felt I was unfair.  I told them that their characters live in a WORLD, and in this WORLD things beyond their capacity to handle do exist.  Plus, I told them I was testing their intelligence and see if they would actually run from something than attack it.  They didn't like that too much.  So, after attacking a Hill Giant that had absolutely no knowledge of their existence, the campaign ended right there.  Was that my fault that they acted rashly and didn't think about it?  I don't think it was.</blockquote>

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