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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7469720" data-attributes="member: 20564">You have a great point that balance will vary by table.  I am not aiming for some mythical "perfect balance provided by mechanics".  However, it's fairly easy and within consensus to be able to trend more toward the positive.  I'm going to use weapon damage to illustrate.  If I changed great axes to do d100 damage, I'm pretty sure that most people would say I have increased imbalance.  On the other hand, I wouldn't even attempt to argue either way that rapier should be a d6 weapons - there's so many variables around how it gets played by any particular table will be completely lost in the noise - everything within error rates.Which brings us back to encounters per day.  Encounters per day feel like a d20 battle axe.  Not nearly d100, but noticeable enough.  My experience, anecdotal from gaming friends, and wider forum consensus indicates that there is a change in inter-class balance when you reduce encounters per long rest sharply downward from there.  1-2 is quite noticeable, 3-4 is still noticeable.My personal opinion is that some classes have a more-flat-than-not effort output in regards to number of encounters per rest, while others are able to boost their average output dramatically if they know they are acting over smaller total.  Primary spellcasters come to mind as a good example, but even the paladin can do a lot more if they can Divine Strike on every hit without running out because the encounters per day will be low.  But really, if that's part of the root cause or not is less important to this particular post then that there does seem to be a wide feeling that that is a problem.Can this be moved in the right direction by how the DM runs the game?  Absolutely.  You gave some great examples of that.But that doesn't mean that it could not also trend in the right direction if the mechanics were done differently.  I gave some examples from other systems, but having run both 5e and 13th Age, the simple numerical change of balancing around at-will, 1/encounter, and ~4 encounters per full rest (regardless of time passed) gave me more freedom as a DM to tell the stories I wanted to while still having strong support from the mechanics.I see the purpose of the rules to help the whole table tell the best stories and have the most fun.  That is enhanced when the mechanics and the narrative are in sync.  I can do a narrative with any rules are none, but when I have rules that present the feel we're going for that makes it all flow smoother.I see no problems in both improving game running skills and addressing mechanical rules issues to make the game even better.  It isn't an either-or.</blockquote>

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