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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7139127" data-attributes="member: 996">We could call this 'table' or 'play' balance, too, I suppose, because it only happens as the game is being played.  It's the kind of balance the DM has the most control over, because he can choose the kinds of challenges that confront the party, tailoring the mix of challenges to give each character a chance to shine.  The DM can even resort to an arbitrary spotlight - an item only one of the PCs can use or foe only he can defeat, not because of any choice the player has made or statistic on the character sheet, but simply because Fate has decreed it so - it needn't always be quite so obvious, either. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> There's whether an option is viable compared to other possibly numerically superior alternatives, yes. There's also the number of options available, and the number and timing of decision points.   A game can be balanced or it can be balance-able.  If it's a matter of finding the 'balance point' or managing balance over time, it's the latter.  With 4e (as usual) the outlier, D&D has always been balance-able, and 5e is probably the edition that's tried the hardest to telegraph to the DM just were that balance point might be, and give him the latitude to impose as much or as little such balance as he cares to.  The 6-8 encounter 'day,' that we hear so much about, for instance, is guidance to help the DM find that balance point.   Perfect balance is impossible, of course - 4e may have been much better-balanced than other editions of D&D, could be characterized as balanced rather than balance-able, even, but it was nowhere near perfect.\ Sure, spellcasters have fewer slots than they did in 3.x - though a lot more than they did in comparatively-balanced 4e - but they also have more flexibility in how they can use those slots than ever before, so fewer of those slots are likely to be 'wasted' (on a spell that's poor for the situation, or sitting un-used at the end of the day).  Ritual casting and at-will cantrips also reduce the pressure on spell slots, so that casters 'need' fewer.  Even other nominal restrictions, like Concentration (which limits stacking many spells together), also happen to reduce the number of slots casters need to expend to be optimally effective.  Any caster has the option of learning/prepping some non-combat spells and casting them as rituals or using slots on them, and even the Fighter can be a spellcaster.  So the non-combat options are open to the class, as to all classes.  Non-combat skill can also come from Background as well as class.  1st level stands out as being pretty random and thus poorly balanced in a number of senses, but you can always start at third, and the exp to get to second is quite low.   Nothing stands out, specifically - if you look at relatively balanced game, the imbalanced bits stand out and ways to hammer them into place are often pretty obvious.  With a balance-able game, it's a more dynamic, and champaign-specific exercise.  You don't need to change or 'fix' specific game elements, you just have to put the campaign together and manage it as it goes to keep all the characters relevant and maintain a sense of challenge and interest.DPR, presumably because it's so easy to check.  Striking a balance among level-scaling cantrips, Extra Attack, and rogue SA can't have been easy, but it seems to hold up moderately well.  But, what really stands out and is well-done in 5e is DM Empowerment.  The DM can impose balance of the sort he likes, whether he re-writes the game or tailors his campaign to do it.</blockquote>

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