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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr. Prunesquallor" data-source="post: 4725565" data-attributes="member: 51176">A player who is less invested in the game may be willing to accept a less powerful/optimal character as the price of ease of play, and therefore be less concerned about balance. For example, I started playing in a small AD&D 2e group with a 12th-level mage and some sort of Kaz the Minotaur clone. I played a basic fighter, rescued naked from a dungeon in mid-campaign. The DM played support characters. I had a great time playing because the character was so simple to run it was like playing with house money, compared to the effort the other players were putting in. We added another player and eventually converted to 3.0, retiring the active characters and creating new characters as their sons or grandsons. This is where balance became an issue for us. My high-investment mage-playing friend decided to try a fighter when he saw the new options, and the Kaz guy decided to do Artemis Entreri. I, in all innocence, I promise, picked a dwarf druid, and the fourth guy, also a lower-investment player, took a bard. That campaign could be divided into before and after Wildshape. Before it, my high-investment friend was somewhat unsatisfied and took a dip into sorcerer to pick up magic missle. After Wildshape, even after getting to use a Wish spell from an NPC, he was just bitter. He was too proud to retire the character, though, and played him until the campaign broke up. It soured him completely on 3E. Could my friend ever be satisfied with a fighter? I'm not sure. I know it got to him that he was putting in effort to pick feats when he felt like he had nothing to show for it while I got benefits as class and race features. In contrast, the bard player put most of his effort into seduction and seemed to amuse himself immensely while contributing very little in combat.  I guess the point of these maunderings is that perception of balance depends a lot on the tenor of the game as set by the DM and what the player, personally, brings to the game. Any player with a substantial investment of effort who feels he can't realize a reasonable return on that investment might get testy, while a player with no or little investment might accept that he'll have a smaller return.  I feel that 4E has tried to equalize investment of effort and realized returns between the classes by standardizing class structures to some extent while retaining differences in powers. I can appreciate that this level of balance is a sweet spot for some, but I miss the old "no-investment" fighter that 3E took away. "I hit it with my sword. What? That doesn't work? Right. I insult it."</blockquote>

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