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General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
What makes us care about combat balance in D&D?
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<blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 6657074" data-attributes="member: 6696971"><p>I've been doing some thinking as of late on the question in the thread title. There are lots of possible reasons. Amongst them are:</p><p></p><p>1) Because of the severe impact of two wargaming facets of D&D combat: Initiative and the action economy.</p><p></p><p>2) Because D&D's PCs, monsters, and combat resolution mechanics have a lot of complicated intersections that can go wobbly if perturbed.</p><p></p><p>3) Because of the high stakes nature of D&D combat.</p><p></p><p>4) Because a high percentage of the conflicts in the adventuring day are expected to be resolved by violence.</p><p></p><p>5) Because D&D has historically had more robust or intensive rules for combat than it does for noncombat.</p><p></p><p>6) Because I don't want to have to fudge die rolls in order to keep things interesting or from turning into a TPK because I miscalculated the potency of the challenge I set up.</p><p></p><p>7) Because I want each character to be able to effectively (meaning with a reasonable level of parity) contribute to such an important (in both frequency and fallout) pillar of play.</p><p></p><p></p><p>What has made me ponder this question as of late is because I've been running Dungeon World (and some Cortex + Heroic Fantasy) almost exclusively over the last bit of time here. DW doesn't have encounter budgeting. However, 1-7 above either outright don't exist at all in Dungeon World (eg 1, 2, and 6), are muted, or the paradigm has shifted somewhat (or entirely). Consequently, I'm not worried about balance and the lack of having and form of encounter budgeting has no impact on play (or my nerves).</p><p></p><p>Thoughts (and a poll)?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Manbearcat, post: 6657074, member: 6696971"] I've been doing some thinking as of late on the question in the thread title. There are lots of possible reasons. Amongst them are: 1) Because of the severe impact of two wargaming facets of D&D combat: Initiative and the action economy. 2) Because D&D's PCs, monsters, and combat resolution mechanics have a lot of complicated intersections that can go wobbly if perturbed. 3) Because of the high stakes nature of D&D combat. 4) Because a high percentage of the conflicts in the adventuring day are expected to be resolved by violence. 5) Because D&D has historically had more robust or intensive rules for combat than it does for noncombat. 6) Because I don't want to have to fudge die rolls in order to keep things interesting or from turning into a TPK because I miscalculated the potency of the challenge I set up. 7) Because I want each character to be able to effectively (meaning with a reasonable level of parity) contribute to such an important (in both frequency and fallout) pillar of play. What has made me ponder this question as of late is because I've been running Dungeon World (and some Cortex + Heroic Fantasy) almost exclusively over the last bit of time here. DW doesn't have encounter budgeting. However, 1-7 above either outright don't exist at all in Dungeon World (eg 1, 2, and 6), are muted, or the paradigm has shifted somewhat (or entirely). Consequently, I'm not worried about balance and the lack of having and form of encounter budgeting has no impact on play (or my nerves). Thoughts (and a poll)? [/QUOTE]
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