Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pming" data-source="post: 6238778" data-attributes="member: 45197">Hiya. Overall, I think the current (re: post-2nd edition) designers WotC has had working for them have mistakenly (or ignorantly?) mixed up "character balance" with "campaign balance".  IMHO, pre-3e games had a focus on campaign balance, with character balance being perhaps second or third in terms of importance. In earlier versions of the game, a "campaign" was expected to last years, not months. It was generally held, at least in my experience, that a DM had his "campaign world" (home-brewed, or bought) and when he was DM'ing, it was assumed it was in his own internally consistant campaign. One DM's Greyhawk campaign was NOT equal to another's. This was good. Anyway, over the course of years, the "balance" of the classes and races was, well, balanced. Individual DM's would often tweak the rules to suit their particular campaigns...also a GOOD thing. So, that 3rd level magic-user did "suck"...but the 9th level magic-user certainly did not suck. The 3rd level fighter didn't suck, nor did the 9th level fighter. And all the other classes found their niche in the overal multi-year campaign structure and internal consistancy.  In that context, the game was "balanced". Yes, a 1st level 1e barbarian rocked-on-toast, and at 5th level that barbarian was a *beast* in combat and in pure survival capability; meanwhile the 1st level magic-user with 1 spell sucked donkey-snacks. This was NOT balanced in terms of 1st level vs. 1st level. But, when taking the PC's through the course of, say, a 3 year campaign, it *was* balanced.   In relation to 5th edition D&D...I also don't much care for a "class balance" focus. I don't *want* that kind of balance....I want the game to aspire to greater things than simply "a game to play for a few months then shelve" (where in the majority of the game is exeperienced; re: characters get to 20th level). I want 5e to encourage s-l-o-w advenacement, as compaired to modern day fast advencement. I want someone claiming to have an 11th level cleric to be an actual achievement to be proud of...as opposed to be an achievement that is expected. In this regard, I want 5e to have much more focus on "campaign balance", and not get hung up on "class balance".^_^Paul L. Ming</blockquote>

Verification