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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 7913992" data-attributes="member: 87792">There are so many unexamined assumptions in this post that I thought I'd break it down.First, the reason balance is needed is because a balanced game is one in which the game behaves as it describes itself as behaving. No one complains when Ars Magica is a game about magic users and muggles because Ars Magica is very open about this and it is woven into the background. On the other hand D&D makes the implicit claim that the classes are approximately equal (more so in WotC era D&D than TSR era because they normalised the XP curve and have things like Challenge ratings). But even TSR produced its modules for specific level ranges. Which means either TSR thought that level was a measure of approximate power or it was deliberately lying to you. And to be blunt it's not nice to lie to people.Further you make the assumption that RPGs are purely cooperative and that you never have characters with their own agendas or motivations, or with incentives to get across the group. You are tightly narrowing down what sort of stories can be told using D&D in a way that is neither necessary or, in my opinion, desirable. And all to criticise those who want games to do what they say on the tin,Once again this is nothing but a strawman of the pro-balance argument. 4e D&D is not and has never been even close to being symmetric even if it's closer than oD&D. And neither was oD&D  - but Gygax strived for balance and even went on the records on these boards saying that added things like weapon specialisation and classes like the cavalier because playtesting and having Rob Kuntz as the main fighter player lead to an underpowered fighter.Another game with exceptional asymmetric balance is Apocalypse World. The Hocus, the Hardholder, the Gunlugger, the Brainer, and the Maestro d' all have extremely different resources available - but the game is pretty well balanced because each playbook/class presents itself as being what it is and having its own advantages and challenges.First, if you want a "less powerful" character in a balanced game then volunteering to play a level or two down or the equivalent is trivial. Balance does not prevent you doing this. On the other hand if you don't want to play a less powerful character and the game has told you the characters are balanced it is very difficult to balance it.As for the Unbalanced Cleric, it's ironic to look at a post-mortem where someone is saying "my bad" and say that maybe it was the right decision. The simple fact is that Tweet says something is impossible when it was done by 4e - and I don't believe too many people complained about the balance of the oD&D cleric. It did its job and had its niche. They might have complained it was boring - but that's a different matter entirely.If you want different character power levels in a balanced game then volunteer to play a couple of levels behind everyone else. This isn't hard, and it isn't complex. Balance doesn't mean that you can't make weak characters. It means that it's harder to make weak characters by accident. And once again we can refute your claims with a simple example of the warlord from 4e. A warlord normally has two abilities - the ability to enable people to dig deep and spend their own reserves of energy to stay in the fight (mechanically modelled as spending a healing surge - a resource of the character being healed), and the ability to hand their attacks over to someone else - so instead of the warlord making an attack the barbarian gets to make one of their own. Now I'm not disputing that it's harder to make support characters that feel good and can play their part without being overwhelming - but good game design is hard work. Even 3.5 managed a solid Tier 3 one that could work in a low magic group - the Bard (although of course the learning curve for the bard was steep). So many unexamined assumptions here.The first is that magic use will only dominate if and only if magic is fast, reliable, and consequence free the way it is in D&D. I'm playing a game where we are all playing mages but in combat my character is normally using a spear because only the weakest spells can be cast in a single turn, but a spear through the gut is fast and often fatal. Also it's less likely to blow up in my character's face than a spell would be even if magic is ubiquitous in the setting. Warhammer is a great example of a system where spellcasters don't want to cast spells because they will blow up in your face.The second is that the Wheel of Time demonstrates two things. The first is that the initial party of Lan, Perrin, Mat, and Egwene was done by giving the non-casters really cool stuff (luck in Mat's case, werewolfery in Perrin's) so they aren't left behind in the first few books. The second is that you can level-cap characters - with the non-casters becoming NPCs later on in the campaign. If you present a fighter as being equivalent to a spellcaster then have it as equivalent. If not, don't. No one complains in either Ars Magica or Mage: the Ascension that spellcasters are more powerful than non-casters because that's how the game is set up. But that's not D&D and has never been D&D. Instead D&D presents the fighter as being on the level of the wizard at the same level. If you want to do that then follow through. If not, don't.But combined arms are relevant because everything helps everything else. When the fighters get out-fought by the clerics and druids we aren't talking combined arms so much as trying to use obsolete hardware.If you haven't made your class useful and able to contribute significantly without it being overwhelming then you've designed a bad class and shouldn't present it as being on the level of the other classes in the game.</blockquote>

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