Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Gimby" data-source="post: 5042315" data-attributes="member: 49875">&quot;eighth level&quot; is just a number picked out of a hat.&nbsp; The point is (simplified), if one class is designed to start weak and become rapidly stronger and another class is designed to start relatively strong and advance slower, then the basic balance is that the first class does well at high levels, while the second does well at low levels.&nbsp; This is all very simple.&nbsp; This is a balancing mechanism, seemingly designed to ensure that both players get spotlight time (as derived from their mechanics, as player/character personality is independant of that) over the course of a campaign that goes from low levels to high levels.&nbsp; Again, this is very simple.&nbsp; If your campaign does not go from low levels to high levels, then this doesn't work.&nbsp; I'm going to assume that your answer to this will be that it was assumed that all players had multiple characters spread over a wide level range and that the idea of a &quot;level 8&quot; campaign was bunk.&nbsp; All this does however, is demonstrate another design assumption that limits DM design - that you are going to use a wide population of characters which must be tracked and developed.&nbsp; If you don't want to do that? Well, too bad.&nbsp; Balancing factors broken down again because you violated the game design assumptions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gimby, post: 5042315, member: 49875"] "eighth level" is just a number picked out of a hat. The point is (simplified), if one class is designed to start weak and become rapidly stronger and another class is designed to start relatively strong and advance slower, then the basic balance is that the first class does well at high levels, while the second does well at low levels. This is all very simple. This is a balancing mechanism, seemingly designed to ensure that both players get spotlight time (as derived from their mechanics, as player/character personality is independant of that) over the course of a campaign that goes from low levels to high levels. Again, this is very simple. If your campaign does not go from low levels to high levels, then this doesn't work. I'm going to assume that your answer to this will be that it was assumed that all players had multiple characters spread over a wide level range and that the idea of a "level 8" campaign was bunk. All this does however, is demonstrate another design assumption that limits DM design - that you are going to use a wide population of characters which must be tracked and developed. If you don't want to do that? Well, too bad. Balancing factors broken down again because you violated the game design assumptions. [/QUOTE]

Verification