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<blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 7158118" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Not necessarily. The reason being that &quot;balance&quot; can mean so many things. For example, let's take weapons. Let's balance it so that all weapons do the same damage. Every weapon now does 1d8 damage. This is balanced. It also renders any choice meaningless. You could also balance things along class lines. So that damage dealt is determined by class. Same as hit dice. So a fighter would do 1d10 damage regardless of weapon, a barbarian would do 1d12 and so on. This is also balanced, and makes the choice of class matter more, and choice of weapon meaningless. Finally, you could take each weapon and give it a different damage value, along with other factors that vary from weapon to weapon, in an attempt to make each weapon have some form of appeal. This seems to be what they went for, to varying degrees of success; I think there are still some weapons that are almost never chosen, but most have some kind of appeal. So, it really depends. Balance does not automatically mean more meaningful choices, or anything else. It's a highly subjective term that gets used as if it has very specific application.I think [MENTION=57494]Xeviat[/MENTION]'s description is a good goal in general. Choices should matter, and the rules should strive to make them matter. When they don't, the DM can step in and help out. But the DM can also be the source of the issue, too, as you say.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="hawkeyefan, post: 7158118, member: 6785785"] Not necessarily. The reason being that "balance" can mean so many things. For example, let's take weapons. Let's balance it so that all weapons do the same damage. Every weapon now does 1d8 damage. This is balanced. It also renders any choice meaningless. You could also balance things along class lines. So that damage dealt is determined by class. Same as hit dice. So a fighter would do 1d10 damage regardless of weapon, a barbarian would do 1d12 and so on. This is also balanced, and makes the choice of class matter more, and choice of weapon meaningless. Finally, you could take each weapon and give it a different damage value, along with other factors that vary from weapon to weapon, in an attempt to make each weapon have some form of appeal. This seems to be what they went for, to varying degrees of success; I think there are still some weapons that are almost never chosen, but most have some kind of appeal. So, it really depends. Balance does not automatically mean more meaningful choices, or anything else. It's a highly subjective term that gets used as if it has very specific application. I think [MENTION=57494]Xeviat[/MENTION]'s description is a good goal in general. Choices should matter, and the rules should strive to make them matter. When they don't, the DM can step in and help out. But the DM can also be the source of the issue, too, as you say. [/QUOTE]

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