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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5943407" data-attributes="member: 996">Balancing power with risk or cost is difficult.&nbsp; Cost turns the game into an accounting exercise, which, while I'm sure I'm not alone in finding such things engrossing to a degree, can't have too broad an appeal.&nbsp; Risk, OTOH, gets very swingy, at best.&nbsp; When you bet and win, the payout is huge and the consequence minimal, when you bet and lose, there's no payout, and you're hosed.&nbsp; Since the idea is to pull out the big guns in desperate situations, that can turn a difficult, dramatic encounter into a cakewalk or a TPK.&nbsp; Either way your game can be spoiled - a lose-lose.&nbsp; Further, there's almost certain to be ways of minimizing that risk.&nbsp; Investing in some skill or attribute or feat or ability, for instance, or getting the right item or whatever.&nbsp; If such things are not in core, they'll eventually see the light of day in a supplement or something - the demand for them would just be too strong to ignore.&nbsp; And, once there are ways around the risk, powergamers will erase it.Balancing what magic does is a much firmer foundation than balancing how often, easily, or economically it does broken things.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 5943407, member: 996"] Balancing power with risk or cost is difficult. Cost turns the game into an accounting exercise, which, while I'm sure I'm not alone in finding such things engrossing to a degree, can't have too broad an appeal. Risk, OTOH, gets very swingy, at best. When you bet and win, the payout is huge and the consequence minimal, when you bet and lose, there's no payout, and you're hosed. Since the idea is to pull out the big guns in desperate situations, that can turn a difficult, dramatic encounter into a cakewalk or a TPK. Either way your game can be spoiled - a lose-lose. Further, there's almost certain to be ways of minimizing that risk. Investing in some skill or attribute or feat or ability, for instance, or getting the right item or whatever. If such things are not in core, they'll eventually see the light of day in a supplement or something - the demand for them would just be too strong to ignore. And, once there are ways around the risk, powergamers will erase it. Balancing what magic does is a much firmer foundation than balancing how often, easily, or economically it does broken things. [/QUOTE]

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