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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 6240063" data-attributes="member: 2525">I agree with you that things that vary from the baseline should not be labelled optional.  We don't need actual balance between various character building choices.I's better to help inform readers more fully about the choices presented, so they don't inadvertently choose something that isn't what they really intended to choose.  And it's better to encourage them to work with the DM and other players concerning their choices.What I'd like to see is simply more discussion in the players handbook about these issues.  Better guidelines on character building, communication between you and the DM and the other players, and how some options are more combat-focused while others are more non-combat focuses, and how you should work with your DM to make sure your expectations for the game and how your choices will interact with the world matches (or doesn't match with) your DMs views and plans for the world and the game and the other players.Then, for various choices within the character building process, it wouldn't hurt to mention things like "This ability is likely to come up more often when negotiation, rather than combat, is the more likely or desired result of the challenge".  Or "This ability is more useful for wilderness-based travel, as opposed to dungeon exploration".  Just things like that to help inform players of the typical (but not only) types of challenges the ability is most likely to be used with. If players make informed choices to choose non-combat options, that's fine ("good" even).  I think most of the complaints about this topic are people making choices they didn't mean to make, because it was an uniformed choice.  Either the choice didn't work like they think it does, or it doesn't come up very often in the game because the DM isn't aware it's important to the player, or because the player wasn't aware the DM was presenting a setting where that choice wasn't like to come up very often, or because the preferences of their fellow players are so different than the player's choices that it becomes a struggle on where the party goes and what they do so frequently (and in a lopsided manner) that the player's choices never come up.  Like, for example, if the player chooses negotiation abilities for his character, and several other players just heedlessly charge into battle no matter what the circumstances making negotiation difficult or impossible.Bottom line, better advice and guidelines in the Player's Handbook, and DMG, can help with this issue more than actually trying to perfect balanced choices against each other.  Some level of balancing I think is helpful, I don't think it should be ignored by the authors of the rules, I just don't think it should be the highest priority or the greatest focus for their time.  Some of that time I think is better spent on better guidelines.</blockquote>

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