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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6794408" data-attributes="member: 996">Pretty close, yes.&nbsp; And, for a game balanced like 5e, 'close enough,' probably is.&nbsp; I mean, have you really noticed the classes being all that mechanically 'balanced' at 6-8 encounters?&nbsp; It's the theoretical balance-point, but spotlight balance remains something that is very responsive to the challenges and situations the DM presents.&nbsp; However much a rogue might be disadvantaged relative to a caster in a 'too short' day, for instance, if the party frequently faces challenges that day which require his Expertise skills, he'll get to shine.I'm guessing the issue here is that these are higher-level abilities, and if they're not up-to-snuff, players will avoid those levels of those classes via multi-classing.&nbsp; That might happen, but it's a more important concern if you were writing guidelines that many DMs were going to use.&nbsp; Since you're just doing this for your own campaign, it's more personal.&nbsp; It doesn't matter if the barbarian class presents enough meaningful/viable choices in the context of you campaign, it matters if the guy playing the barbarian is enjoying the campaign.&nbsp; That might be he'll MC out of barbarian or make other choices tailored to your style, and it might not - and, if there are issues, you can address them case by case rather than with documented house-rule changes.OK, that's not nothing.&nbsp; You could allow that 'waves' count as new encounters for some purposes.&nbsp; That could allow you to have 6-8 'Encounters' in the mechanical sense, while still having 3 or 4 in the story sense.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6794408, member: 996"] Pretty close, yes. And, for a game balanced like 5e, 'close enough,' probably is. I mean, have you really noticed the classes being all that [i]mechanically[/i] 'balanced' at 6-8 encounters? It's the theoretical balance-point, but spotlight balance remains something that is very responsive to the challenges and situations the DM presents. However much a rogue might be disadvantaged relative to a caster in a 'too short' day, for instance, if the party frequently faces challenges that day which require his Expertise skills, he'll get to shine. I'm guessing the issue here is that these are higher-level abilities, and if they're not up-to-snuff, players will avoid those levels of those classes via multi-classing. That might happen, but it's a more important concern if you were writing guidelines that many DMs were going to use. Since you're just doing this for your own campaign, it's more personal. It doesn't matter if the barbarian class presents enough meaningful/viable choices in the context of you campaign, it matters if the guy playing the barbarian is enjoying the campaign. That might be he'll MC out of barbarian or make other choices tailored to your style, and it might not - and, if there are issues, you can address them case by case rather than with documented house-rule changes. OK, that's not nothing. You could allow that 'waves' count as new encounters for some purposes. That could allow you to have 6-8 'Encounters' in the mechanical sense, while still having 3 or 4 in the story sense. [/QUOTE]

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