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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9611028" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Two problems:1. This means that your choice to take extra risks hurts not just yourself, but also your team. So now other classes only risk themselves, but typically benefit everyone, while spellcasters necessarily risk everyone but may or may not benefit anyone.2. This means that some archetypes are &quot;you are only allowed to follow the rules, no matter how limited that might be&quot; while another is &quot;you can decide how much the rules apply to you&quot;, usually with a side of &quot;...and you can significantly control how much risk you actually take for breaking the rules.&quot;Those two things are, precisely, why magic is so easily unbalanced. Making magic have hard-and-fast consequences usually hurts others at least as much as it hurts the user, and making it so the risks can be mitigated, even partially, immediately sets up a caster-DM arms race, to reduce the costs/risks as low as they can go while still keeping up the power as high as you can.And, to be fair, there are plenty of mechanics that have a tension like this, making them very difficult to use or rely upon. Healing via doing damage, for example, is an extremely difficult-to-balance mechanic regardless of game (even video games struggle with it), because if it's too weak to keep you alive it's borderline worthless, but if it is even slightly more than breaking even on average, it becomes nigh invulnerability and lets a character be both tank and damage-dealer.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9611028, member: 6790260"] Two problems: 1. This means that your choice to take extra risks hurts not just yourself, but also your team. So now other classes only [I]risk[/I] themselves, but typically [I]benefit[/I] everyone, while spellcasters necessarily risk [I]everyone[/I] but may or may not benefit anyone. 2. This means that some archetypes are "you are only allowed to follow the rules, no matter how limited that might be" while another is "you can [I]decide[/I] how much the rules apply to you", usually with a side of "...and you can significantly control how much risk you actually take for breaking the rules." Those two things are, precisely, why magic is so easily unbalanced. Making magic have hard-and-fast consequences usually hurts others [I]at least[/I] as much as it hurts the user, and making it so the risks can be mitigated, even partially, immediately sets up a caster-DM arms race, to reduce the costs/risks as low as they can go while still keeping up the power as high as you can. And, to be fair, there are plenty of mechanics that have a tension like this, making them very difficult to use or rely upon. Healing via doing damage, for example, is an extremely difficult-to-balance mechanic regardless of game (even video games struggle with it), because if it's too weak to keep you alive it's borderline worthless, but if it is even slightly more than breaking even on average, it becomes nigh invulnerability and lets a character be both tank [I]and[/I] damage-dealer. [/QUOTE]

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