Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Runestar" data-source="post: 4775588" data-attributes="member: 72317">Not that it was all that successful. Broken cards (and consequently degenerate combo decks) still got through, and a sneak peak by Zvi into the playtest procedure showed that the designers were not entirely sure what to look out for in cards themselves. One of them even suggested making the life loss (a drawback from some card) optional without realizing the implications (why would you ever voluntarily take damage if you could avoid it?) <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/blush.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":blush:" title="Blush    :blush:" data-shortname=":blush:" />Which as 3e and M:TG showed, is vital to balance. But ultimately more of an ideal than a practical design goal. Which is why it rarely ever gets adhered to.For 3e, you had the problem where every new splatbook released simply increased the number of options for spells such as polymorph or shapechange. Now, dnd designers had to keep track of one more variable - how well a monster interacts as a polymorph choice. But then they probably realized it was more trouble than it was worth, so they largely ignored the polymorph line of spells (probably resigning themselves to the fact that such a spell could never be balanced, and that the more they tried, the more they would neglect other more crucial aspects of dnd).As for M:TG, to cite a famous example, it had this card called donate, which gave one of your permanents to your foe. Underpowered on its own (and intended more for fun than serious play). The designers then realized their folly a few expansions later. When they designed cards that confered strong benefits but with hefty drawbacks, they had to take into account the possibility of an enterprising player giving it to his foe using Donate, and winning the game when the opponent could no longer contend with the drawback. The issue here was that those drawbacks were meant to balance out the card, not be used as an offensive tactic. In fact, the card became the cornerstone of one of the most degenerate decks in M:TG history - the infamous necro-donate. But was otherwise useless outside of it.But the latter is the way people are going to play the game. They are not going to select feats and powers in a vacuum. They are going to want to optimize their choices (how much is irrelevant here), and select feats and powers that synergize particularly well together. Those they don't need, will just stay unused.If fire spells get more support than any other element, common sense dictates that people are going to want to opt for fire-oriented powers over the rest, simply because they are getting more return on their investment. DnD optimization isn't about abusing the heck out of a single overpowered ability. It is more about the stacking of multiple smaller effects, each fairly minor on its own, to achieve a much greater result overall.For example, many minor pluses to skills seem fairly harmless on its own. But together, they allow an elf cleric to get up to +15 on his perception check at 1st lv (+5 trained, +4wis, +3focus, +2racial, +1background). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /></blockquote>

Verification