NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9174268" data-attributes="member: 6877472">It just strikes me as strange that two characters of the same level can have wildly different effectiveness and power.  Back in the TSR days, this made a little more sense since the xp tables (kind of) reflected that: Thieves didn't get a whole lot from leveling, so they went up levels faster, Fighters get the best improvements so they went up slower.  Rangers and Paladins got a little boost over Fighters, so they took even more xp.Of course, it totally broke down with Clerics and Wizards (and don't even get me started on Druids).But then WotC is like, no that's silly, everyone can level up at the same time.  And then they failed to make sure that two characters of the same level with different classes were roughly equal.But I suppose I can't be too hard on them, because what metric do you use?  If someone gives up a little combat power for more out of combat utility or vice versa, what's the exchange rate?  Is Expertise in two skills equal to Second Wind?  Or a bonus ASI?And when you look at spellcasters, it's truly apples and oranges.  You might go up a level as a martial and get more of stuff you had before (Maneuver or Expertise choices) and casters are not only getting more spell slots, but access to higher level spells.  Is Extra Attack every combat turn equal to Fireball once per day?  Or Slow?I couldn't tell you and I imagine neither can a professional game designer, lol.  It's apparently more art than science, where you have to make judgements based on feelings instead of facts.Now it's true, games can be (and have been) built with closer parity between options, but D&D has a lot of legacy content that makes this more difficult- spells in the first place, since they can do pretty much anything.  People familiar with D&D want a certain class fantasy and play style.Rogues can't Sneak Attack with great swords, for example.  Why?  Not really for any balance reason, but because most people want their Rogues to be sneaky gits with light blades, and if greatsword was an option, why, they'd be nerfing themselves for not using a greatsword!Of course, this isn't universal- a Wizard could theoretically wear full plate if they wanted to (and boy do I know that bothers some people, lol).  But a lot of the game is devoted to enforcing a certain flavor for the classes, and, at least sometimes, that's apparently a higher priority than any sort of equity.</blockquote>

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