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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6523284" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Yeah if I was critiquing the whole package, I'd have said so--"Moon Druid" means Moon (druid) to me, not Druid (who incidentally has the Circle of the Moon).Yeah again I feel you are taking the statement as dramatically more than it's actually saying. There's an excluded middle between "entire lifecycle" balance and "moment-by-moment" balance. I'm okay with, for example, the fact that getting a new level of spells means spellcasters get a (modest) jump in power. That's a simple consequence of the discontinuous nature of D&D levelling curves; it's impossible for them to be perfectly smooth. I also don't think that everyone has to be on identical resources (and certainly not "alpha strike, then barebones"). But such differences need to be planned for, and need to consider typical patterns of behavior--precisely like the "alpha strike," which is a natural consequence of having potent abilities that expend limited resources. 13th Age, for example, pushes against that natural consequence with its Escalation Die--an early nova is at a substantial risk of failure, so there is now a push back against the "early nova hits the most things hardest with less waste" logic that favors alpha striking.The only issue with having different resource schedules is making really really sure that the actual agency of players remains comparable over many sessions and a variety of common play-situations, and that the (again, actual) quantity of effect/success obtained over the course of any randomly-selected session is comparable between schedules. No matter what you do, there will always be sessions where the Fighter is awesome and the Wizard blows chunks; or sometimes summoning is stupidly useful(/OP, depending on one's perspective) and other times it's not, as keterys demonstrated. But that doesn't mean you can't prepare for commonly-encountered scenarios, nor that you can't use statistical analysis to predict the amount of various numerical impacts to some degree.And "actual" should be taken as "observed over numerous playtests with competent, non-team playtesters who know that playtesting is work and actively push to find both the system baseline and its weaknesses." The PF and Next playtests were not, in any way shape or form, sufficient--despite the volume of playtesters, the conduct of the playtests and the lack of rigor (whether in math, question design, or playtester attitude) fell...short of the mark.Part of the bigger problem, though, is what archetypes get access to that kind of thing. There really, truly are people who love tinkering and mechanical widgets, but don't care for the fluff baggage that "caster" brings.I also think that the suck now/rule later, rule now/suck later dichotomy is something of a specialized taste--IMO, a cooperative game should (more or less) keep everyone equally "involved" and equally equipped to "make a difference" (again: more or less, not perfectly), unless and until the players specifically buy into the notion that they shouldn't. That is, I see the "planned transcendence/obsolesence" style as being a bit too specific a flavor for it to be the core of the game. Something optional, easily-implemented, in no way denigrated, and present in the core books? Sure. But not the default, because people play D&D to play together, not to be Superman and His Pal Jimmy.Wait...so...you're saying you go into the "I'm a bear, rawr!" subclass with the express intention of being a back-rank spellflinger/archer?Yeah, I definitely think there's a playstyle difference here. I'm terribly confused as to why you would play a Moon Druid if you're planning to rely on your spells so heavily and avoid direct combat like the plague...</blockquote>

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