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Message: <blockquote data-quote="knasser" data-source="post: 4655605" data-attributes="member: 65151">I disagree with the above because I have found in practice, that the quest for balance in all things reduces the difference between options, making them the same things with different names. The Beast Master was a good example earlier, but there's an even more obvious one: racial attributes. I find it absurd that no-one has any penalties to any racial abilities and that no-one gets more than +2. Minotaurs are slightly stronger than halflings and no larger than elves. In fact normal distribution means that a lot of halflings will be stronger than a lot of Minotaurs. The distinction between options has been lost for the sake of "balance." That no-one can actually have a low stat because it would lead to a lack of balance is another issue. Attributes don't seem to have much distinction of meaning either. Someone who is extremely learned and a scholar (high Int) becomes a nimble-footed dancer when it comes to ducking sword blades due to it adding to AC. The 4e designers had this notion that weakness wasn't fun, and therefore had to be eliminated. Smearing away everyone's areas of weakness to the same baseline strength is another component of achieving balance which I think has cost something.Basically, I think the 4e designers came at the game with the dogma that players wouldn't find it fun if their character wasn't exactly as good as everyone else's character in any given circumstances. So in addition to everyone being carefully pegged at the same level in combat (which I don't have much of a problem with - I think the idea of roles contributes quite a lot), you get things like how you can use almost any skill to achieve the same result. Need to sneak out of the town but don't have Stealth? Use Religion to know that the guard will close her eyes and pray to Pelor for two minutes at sunrise.Whilst there are players who do get upset if their character is weaker than another player's, these are often the same players who get their kicks out of being good at something, but there's less opportunity for that if everyone is carefully kept equal. But that's a minor point, I think a lot of players are actually pretty tolerant of a little disparity, else many games, including previous editions of D&D, wouldn't have survived. Besides, disparity doesn't have to mean unequal. Look at Shadowrun 4e. It's a game filled with disparity of ability between players. But it works extremely well because the Street Samurai who shines so brightly in shooting down the security guards, bloody well knows that she needs the charismatic "face" to negotiate with their employer or the hacker to keep the guards from calling up reinforcements. I had a Shadowrun game recently where almost everyone had a pretty combat-focused character. None of them were any good at negotiation and they kept working for peanuts because of it. Then a character who wasn't much good at many things, but was half-decent at talking joined and despite being grossly underpowered compared to the rest, was adored by his team-mates. And everyone had fun despite power-levels being all over the place."Bah!" to balance, I say. At least where it interferes with my groups belief in the world.</blockquote>

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