Is this balanced? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Is this balanced? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
On_the_wings_of_TPK
02-16-07, 11:30 AM This is more of a response to all those "Am I over/underpowered?" Threads.

Disclaimer: This has nothing to with the Stormwind falacy, as the role-playing merits of anything are irrelevant to this conversation. And while it may come up I am not in fact advocating that anything is or is not specifically broken, or "unbalanced".

Firstly though let’s start with a little game to break the ice and get the juices flowing. I call this, overpowered, under powered, or normal. Below are four characters, each are being accused of being unbalanced by their DM/players Your job is to decide if the characters are in fact over powered, under powered, or just right and something else is wrong with the campaign.

Her we go:

A) OMFG MY DM suxours. He say I is broken and ****. I'm playing a sword sage, and at like 8th level I can do 8d6 points of damage. I can do this like every round, and he is freaking out. He even told me that I have to build a new character, and it has to be from the PHB only. The PHB Suxours, and he is stupid. What should I do?

B) Hey all:
So me and my DM got into a bit of a dispute last night. We were making new characters for his game, I presented him with a stone child ranger 2. I have ranged combat style, and took TWF as my first feat, and EOP bastard sword as second feat. I'm planning on using the oversized two weapon fighting feat in the CAv when I qualify for it. I'm not broken, am I?

C) Hey all what up?
So like my party says I'm useless, and that I am slowing them down. they want me to make a new character. I'm playing a cleric to Saint Cuthbert. I have the strength and destruction domains. For feats I took extra turning, extend spell, persistent spell, MWP great sword, and divine meta meta-magic persistent spell. I usually buff myself and wade into combat, and then lay the beats down. It is a hack as slash campaign so I don't understand what’s wrong. They say I'm useless to them and can't do anything.

d) Hey boards:

I posting this on behave of the entire group. Our DM is having a rough time putting up encounters against use. They all seem to be too easy. He is like trying desperately to challenge us and it is just not working. Our party make up is:

Aasimar Warlock 8, took, improved initiative, weapon focus ray, and mobile casting.

An invisible blade.

A fghtr 2/ranger 2/ swashbuckler 3/rogue 2. Focuses on weapon finnesse, and TWF. I think he's planning on taking champion of Corlethon, and wild runner.

And lastly we have a shifter druid, who took their first level in moon dancer. We aren't broken at all. What should we say to our DM?

Answers:

A) The party consists of 4 players. 2 of which are brand new to the game, and the other hasn't played since 2ed. the DM wanted things to be simple to start with. So that he could teach the new players how to play, and give the 2ed guy a chance to ease into the new rules. To that extend the DM wanted core only. the rest of the party consists of:
Monk 8,
sorcerer 8, (didn't learn fire ball. Instead is focusing on illusion and divination spells)
And Cleric 8 (healing and good domains.)

The player is overpowered for the campaign.

B) The DM for this group wanted everyone to make ECL 6 characters. The player miscalculated his ECL, by not adding his racial HD. He is +2 ECL form everyone else in the party.

Overpowered.

C) The rest of the party is:
Wizard 3/Druid 3/ Cleric 1/ Arcane hierophant 2
His domains are healing, and summoning. the DM allowed him a couple of variants from the UA, these allow him to swap out arcane spells for summon monster spells like a druid does for summon nature's alley. He also gave up the ability to scribe scrolls for augmented summoning. His feats are: Practiced caster, Practiced caster, ash bound summoning, natural spell, and leadership. His cohort is a wizard 3/ cleric 3/ Mystic theurge 1. focusing on summoning, and healing.

Bard 7/virtuoso 2 Focuses of diplomacy and social interactions. Also has leadership, and his cohort is a frenzied berserker.

Wizard 5/Incantatrix 4. Enough said.

The play in questions is trying to fill a combat roll that he just doesn't need to. Most of the time they are healing him for wading into melee and getting in front of the bards cohort. What the party really wants is a rogue to find and disable traps. They had to have wizard raised twice because of traps in their last dungeon.

While technically the next party member to die auto play a rogue, and every player should play what they want, this particular player is trying to fill a niche that is already over covered, and can't compete with the creature swarm, diplo-monkey, blasting power of the wizard, and smash faceness of the frenzied berserker. I agree with the party, he is underpowered.

D) The DM is a brand new DM, and only owns the PHB, DMG, and MM1. He met his players at a local gaming store, and wanted to try his hand at DMing. The store owner lent him a prefab adventure for 8th level characters. Now that it is finished he figured he'd try his hand a designing an adventure of his own. It's not working to well, and the poor kids getting frustrated. he wants his players to like him, and they knew more about the game then he did. So he didn't put up too much of a fight when they all asked about their splat book material.

The whole party is overpowered for their DMs experience, and resource, level.

I know, it wasn't fair that you didn't have all the information on the rest of the parties before you had to decide if anyone was particularly over powered. But that is what I'm trying to demonstrate.

Balance is a relative thing. In order of it to mean anything it has to be measured in context to something else. So when some says "I'm playing X, or I can X damage a round is this broken?" the first thing people do is try and compare it to something. Since the original poster rarely gives details on the rest of the party, most people compare it to the average on the CO boards. I would doubt very much that the player in question games with the CO board.

It would be like if said hey it's -5 degrees outside right now. Is that warm?

Well compared to what Temperature it is in Texas probably not. However compared to the average seasonal temperature for my region, -30 degrees, it is actually quiet warm.

When someone is asking if their blank is balanced, it must be compared in context with two things:
A) What is the power level of the rest of the group?
&
B) what is the power level of the campaign.

Without doing that your essentially saying that it is always cold in Canada because they aren't as warm as the tropics. While that is technically true, it means nothing especially on a day like today, were the temperature is 25 degrees warmer then the norm.

The next issue I want to touch base on is people expecting everyone to balance their campaigns off their, or the boards, standard for power level.

This is when some has the information to compare power level, and chooses to ignore it because either it more powerful than their game, or less so. Statements like, “You’re not over powered because I can make X." are really stupid. First off unless X is being played in the campaign it means nothing at all, as it serves no comparison. "The average temperature in space is -200 degrees, that means Texas is really, really hot." Secondly it is extremely arrogant to expect someone who has never met you to run their campaign to a power level were you X of doom is balanced.

Refusing to acknowledge the campaign as balanced because it isn't as high as the boards average is just as arrogant, and stupid. It would be like a person flying through a 40 zone at 60 and slamming into the back of another vehicle who was going 40. then blaming that drive for going too slow, because the speed limit is higher a few blocks over.

When will people realize that each campaign is different, and that theirs is no-one’s is better or worse then anyone’s else’s, just different. And that to gage anything in a campaign it must be measured against everything else in the campaign in order for the measure to mean anything.
stabs
02-16-07, 11:47 AM Yeah. Agreed. I'm glad you raised the point that it has nothing to do with role-playability of any character, though I half wish you'd limited your post to just:

When someone is asking if their blank is balanced, it must be compared in context with two things:
A) What is the power level of the rest of the group?
&
B) what is the power level of the campaign.

But hopefully the length won't scare off the people who really need to read that. Good show, old chap.
StormKnight
02-16-07, 11:50 AM Sound advice and interesting examples!
:thumbsup:
Ryusage
02-16-07, 11:57 AM Very well put. The boards need to wake up on this topic, especially since the release of tome of battle (warblade, anyone)? Hopefully the thread won't degrade into an argument what classes/races/feats/skills are overpowered, and focus on what overpowered really means.
Solian
02-16-07, 01:52 PM seconded, i've seen way too many topics on this recently, and some people need to understand this topic.
Deekin
02-16-07, 02:19 PM Needs a New name, and then needs to be sticked.
Archangel62
02-16-07, 03:51 PM While I may argue with TPK sometimes I do have to agree with this. While I might argue general ability the quesiton of the overall group ability is a worthwhile question.
Novabomb
02-17-07, 04:31 AM All I have to say is that you hit the nail on the head this time.
johnkretzer
02-17-07, 04:44 AM When someone is asking if their blank is balanced, it must be compared in context with two things:
A) What is the power level of the rest of the group?
&
B) what is the power level of the campaign.

Your right we can't answear with facts if you don't get all the details. Um...but this all opinions and conjecture anyway the D&D game is very open. Hell you don't even know if these post describe a real situration.

Also I play in a variety of different game with different DMs and really no two DMs run their exactly. They might agree on somethings and disagree on others. For instance I have a DM who is drooling over the new Dungeonscape book because of the new traps and such. Me when I DM, players very rarely run into traps because I find them....boring as both a player and a DM.

So really all we can do is offer a opinion based on our experiences unless we get mult. people from the group posting.

What is your goal here I am wondering?
danielinthewolvesden
02-17-07, 04:56 AM I often come in and ask those very questions.

Oftimes they are ignored, esp when some "posters' have taken the thread off into some hijack tangent or the Original Poster was a troll.:mad:
kelvinaw273
02-17-07, 07:08 AM This should be read by every would-be poster who posts on the Player board. Time and again we see semi-literate burble about 'My DM Suxx' and 'I'm not overpowered' with no mention of what the general power level is, why the Dm said what he said, or anything.

So I will add:

1) Write clearly. If English is not your first language there are programs on the web that can help you translate.

2) Place your probem in context. Try to put what you see as the other side of the argument as well as your own (often this may lead to you seeing a solution without using the boards at all).

3) Be prepared for people to back the other guy. Sometimes you are wrong.
Hack and Smasher
02-17-07, 09:05 AM A. Still not overpowered 8d6 damage at level 8 is still below the curve even a core only enviroment. Play a druid or a twfing rogue and do way more.

B. A bad example stone child is fairly weak for it level adjustment so might actully be ok.

C. Even with the listed examples he should be doing about the same damage as a FB with that set up at level 9 and be useful outside of combat.

D. Actully doesn't have much to do with power only DM experience.

Just nitpicking. While balance is clearly measured against either the rest of the group, the campiagn in genral or something else, balance can't measured in a void of asking is this over/underpowered which is why everytime is x over powered people ask for more information.
On_the_wings_of_TPK
02-17-07, 10:12 AM A. Still not overpowered 8d6 damage at level 8 is still below the curve even a core only enviroment. Play a druid or a twfing rogue and do way more.

Lets take the class names off of that for a second. Actually while we're at lets remove all the non important information. Dia damage and level. That leaves us with, "Player A is playing a class that is not in the allowed source material outlined by the DM for the campaign."

This becomes really simple, it is DM porogative as to wether or not any suplement material is permitted into the game. It says as much at the begining of each book.

Now we'll add back the Dia damage, and the level.
8d6 isn't that much damage for a wizard or sorcerer with evocation spells. But we see here that the sorcerer isn't focusing on those, in fact the rest of the party is rather unoptimized. That would becuase they are focusing on learning the rules, and not optimizing away. Again an optimized anything, let along splat material class, would be over powered in this group.

The trick with these, and with all is blank balanced is not to compare it your camapign, or your standard, or even the boards consensus or average. Again it would be like comparing a Honda civic to Toyota carola to see if the Dodge ram is better. It just plain doesn't mean anything, as those standards are irrelevant to the campaign in question.

B. A bad example stone child is fairly weak for it level adjustment so might actully be ok.
Again the power of the stone child is not what matters here. The player made an ECL 8 character for an ECL 6 group. if I were to play in your group would you give me +2 ECL above every other player for free? How do you think the rest of the group take to that?

C. Even with the listed examples he should be doing about the same damage as a FB with that set up at level 9 and be useful outside of combat. Unless the FB has a low will save smashes the cleric at the end 90% of the combats. Or maybe it is becuase everyone elses character is stronger for damage dealing, and the player may want to focus on something else, that role is covered. Again this is a group game, not a try and mash your way into whatever nich you want regardless of party make up.

D. Actully doesn't have much to do with power only DM experience.

True, but DM experience has everything to do with balance. And that is the topic of todays discussion.
Ryusage
02-17-07, 10:22 AM *snip*

This is exactly what we're trying to avoid in this thread. It doesn't matter what you or anyone else thinks is overpowered! We're simply discussing how power level is measured by the relative power level of the group and the campaign.
danielinthewolvesden
02-17-07, 02:37 PM 1) Write clearly. If English is not your first language there are programs on the web that can help you translate.
.

The Caps key is called the "shift key" and it should be a large key on the next to bottom row. It will say "shift" and maybe have a upward arrow. Use it- the first word of a sentence is a good place to start.
Hack and Smasher
02-17-07, 03:12 PM Wow for someone who writes alot you don't really read much, balance is the issue as pointed out, not DM vs Play on source books, and theres no way 8d6 should overshadow even a core only monks full attack even with little or no equipment.

Again the power of the stone child is not what matters here. The player made an ECL 8 character for an ECL 6 group. if I were to play in your group would you give me +2 ECL above every other player for free? How do you think the rest of the group take to that?

Actully since as your own point is "balance" is measure against the other players and the world in genral, the relative power of the stone child actully is a vaild point, as at no point did you give any information about the party its in other than the DM got LA wrong and what bad feats the player wanted to take. If there rest party was using simliar LA characters or were particuly well constructed or "powergamed" it would fit right in.

The standard in which CR is used is assumed to be 25 point buy or standard array using just the core rules, if anything that is the assumed bench mark.

Also on the FB i'd be more worried on for the FB than that particuler cleric build since Divine meta Brokeness is way stronger (assuming moderate spells for persisant) than the FB until +10 when it gets access to improved power attack.

While i agree with your arguement, in that balance is relative to what your measured against, your examples were badly choosen.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
On_the_wings_of_TPK 02-16-07, 11:30 AM	This is more of a response to all those "Am I over/underpowered?" Threads. Disclaimer: This has nothing to with the Stormwind falacy, as the role-playing merits of anything are irrelevant to this conversation. And while it may come up I am not in fact advocating that anything is or is not specifically broken, or "unbalanced". Firstly though let’s start with a little game to break the ice and get the juices flowing. I call this, overpowered, under powered, or normal. Below are four characters, each are being accused of being unbalanced by their DM/players Your job is to decide if the characters are in fact over powered, under powered, or just right and something else is wrong with the campaign. Her we go: A) OMFG MY DM suxours. He say I is broken and ****. I'm playing a sword sage, and at like 8th level I can do 8d6 points of damage. I can do this like every round, and he is freaking out. He even told me that I have to build a new character, and it has to be from the PHB only. The PHB Suxours, and he is stupid. What should I do? B) Hey all: So me and my DM got into a bit of a dispute last night. We were making new characters for his game, I presented him with a stone child ranger 2. I have ranged combat style, and took TWF as my first feat, and EOP bastard sword as second feat. I'm planning on using the oversized two weapon fighting feat in the CAv when I qualify for it. I'm not broken, am I? C) Hey all what up? So like my party says I'm useless, and that I am slowing them down. they want me to make a new character. I'm playing a cleric to Saint Cuthbert. I have the strength and destruction domains. For feats I took extra turning, extend spell, persistent spell, MWP great sword, and divine meta meta-magic persistent spell. I usually buff myself and wade into combat, and then lay the beats down. It is a hack as slash campaign so I don't understand what’s wrong. They say I'm useless to them and can't do anything. d) Hey boards: I posting this on behave of the entire group. Our DM is having a rough time putting up encounters against use. They all seem to be too easy. He is like trying desperately to challenge us and it is just not working. Our party make up is: Aasimar Warlock 8, took, improved initiative, weapon focus ray, and mobile casting. An invisible blade. A fghtr 2/ranger 2/ swashbuckler 3/rogue 2. Focuses on weapon finnesse, and TWF. I think he's planning on taking champion of Corlethon, and wild runner. And lastly we have a shifter druid, who took their first level in moon dancer. We aren't broken at all. What should we say to our DM? Answers: A) The party consists of 4 players. 2 of which are brand new to the game, and the other hasn't played since 2ed. the DM wanted things to be simple to start with. So that he could teach the new players how to play, and give the 2ed guy a chance to ease into the new rules. To that extend the DM wanted core only. the rest of the party consists of: Monk 8, sorcerer 8, (didn't learn fire ball. Instead is focusing on illusion and divination spells) And Cleric 8 (healing and good domains.) The player is overpowered for the campaign. B) The DM for this group wanted everyone to make ECL 6 characters. The player miscalculated his ECL, by not adding his racial HD. He is +2 ECL form everyone else in the party. Overpowered. C) The rest of the party is: Wizard 3/Druid 3/ Cleric 1/ Arcane hierophant 2 His domains are healing, and summoning. the DM allowed him a couple of variants from the UA, these allow him to swap out arcane spells for summon monster spells like a druid does for summon nature's alley. He also gave up the ability to scribe scrolls for augmented summoning. His feats are: Practiced caster, Practiced caster, ash bound summoning, natural spell, and leadership. His cohort is a wizard 3/ cleric 3/ Mystic theurge 1. focusing on summoning, and healing. Bard 7/virtuoso 2 Focuses of diplomacy and social interactions. Also has leadership, and his cohort is a frenzied berserker. Wizard 5/Incantatrix 4. Enough said. The play in questions is trying to fill a combat roll that he just doesn't need to. Most of the time they are healing him for wading into melee and getting in front of the bards cohort. What the party really wants is a rogue to find and disable traps. They had to have wizard raised twice because of traps in their last dungeon. While technically the next party member to die auto play a rogue, and every player should play what they want, this particular player is trying to fill a niche that is already over covered, and can't compete with the creature swarm, diplo-monkey, blasting power of the wizard, and smash faceness of the frenzied berserker. I agree with the party, he is underpowered. D) The DM is a brand new DM, and only owns the PHB, DMG, and MM1. He met his players at a local gaming store, and wanted to try his hand at DMing. The store owner lent him a prefab adventure for 8th level characters. Now that it is finished he figured he'd try his hand a designing an adventure of his own. It's not working to well, and the poor kids getting frustrated. he wants his players to like him, and they knew more about the game then he did. So he didn't put up too much of a fight when they all asked about their splat book material. The whole party is overpowered for their DMs experience, and resource, level. I know, it wasn't fair that you didn't have all the information on the rest of the parties before you had to decide if anyone was particularly over powered. But that is what I'm trying to demonstrate. Balance is a relative thing. In order of it to mean anything it has to be measured in context to something else. So when some says "I'm playing X, or I can X damage a round is this broken?" the first thing people do is try and compare it to something. Since the original poster rarely gives details on the rest of the party, most people compare it to the average on the CO boards. I would doubt very much that the player in question games with the CO board. It would be like if said hey it's -5 degrees outside right now. Is that warm? Well compared to what Temperature it is in Texas probably not. However compared to the average seasonal temperature for my region, -30 degrees, it is actually quiet warm. When someone is asking if their blank is balanced, it must be compared in context with two things: A) What is the power level of the rest of the group? & B) what is the power level of the campaign. Without doing that your essentially saying that it is always cold in Canada because they aren't as warm as the tropics. While that is technically true, it means nothing especially on a day like today, were the temperature is 25 degrees warmer then the norm. The next issue I want to touch base on is people expecting everyone to balance their campaigns off their, or the boards, standard for power level. This is when some has the information to compare power level, and chooses to ignore it because either it more powerful than their game, or less so. Statements like, “You’re not over powered because I can make X." are really stupid. First off unless X is being played in the campaign it means nothing at all, as it serves no comparison. "The average temperature in space is -200 degrees, that means Texas is really, really hot." Secondly it is extremely arrogant to expect someone who has never met you to run their campaign to a power level were you X of doom is balanced. Refusing to acknowledge the campaign as balanced because it isn't as high as the boards average is just as arrogant, and stupid. It would be like a person flying through a 40 zone at 60 and slamming into the back of another vehicle who was going 40. then blaming that drive for going too slow, because the speed limit is higher a few blocks over. When will people realize that each campaign is different, and that theirs is no-one’s is better or worse then anyone’s else’s, just different. And that to gage anything in a campaign it must be measured against everything else in the campaign in order for the measure to mean anything.
stabs 02-16-07, 11:47 AM	Yeah. Agreed. I'm glad you raised the point that it has nothing to do with role-playability of any character, though I half wish you'd limited your post to just: When someone is asking if their blank is balanced, it must be compared in context with two things: A) What is the power level of the rest of the group? & B) what is the power level of the campaign. But hopefully the length won't scare off the people who really need to read that. Good show, old chap.
StormKnight 02-16-07, 11:50 AM	Sound advice and interesting examples! :thumbsup:
Ryusage 02-16-07, 11:57 AM	Very well put. The boards need to wake up on this topic, especially since the release of tome of battle (warblade, anyone)? Hopefully the thread won't degrade into an argument what classes/races/feats/skills are overpowered, and focus on what overpowered really means.
Solian 02-16-07, 01:52 PM	seconded, i've seen way too many topics on this recently, and some people need to understand this topic.
Deekin 02-16-07, 02:19 PM	Needs a New name, and then needs to be sticked.
Archangel62 02-16-07, 03:51 PM	While I may argue with TPK sometimes I do have to agree with this. While I might argue general ability the quesiton of the overall group ability is a worthwhile question.
Novabomb 02-17-07, 04:31 AM	All I have to say is that you hit the nail on the head this time.
johnkretzer 02-17-07, 04:44 AM	When someone is asking if their blank is balanced, it must be compared in context with two things: A) What is the power level of the rest of the group? & B) what is the power level of the campaign. Your right we can't answear with facts if you don't get all the details. Um...but this all opinions and conjecture anyway the D&D game is very open. Hell you don't even know if these post describe a real situration. Also I play in a variety of different game with different DMs and really no two DMs run their exactly. They might agree on somethings and disagree on others. For instance I have a DM who is drooling over the new Dungeonscape book because of the new traps and such. Me when I DM, players very rarely run into traps because I find them....boring as both a player and a DM. So really all we can do is offer a opinion based on our experiences unless we get mult. people from the group posting. What is your goal here I am wondering?
danielinthewolvesden 02-17-07, 04:56 AM	I often come in and ask those very questions. Oftimes they are ignored, esp when some "posters' have taken the thread off into some hijack tangent or the Original Poster was a troll.:mad:
kelvinaw273 02-17-07, 07:08 AM	This should be read by every would-be poster who posts on the Player board. Time and again we see semi-literate burble about 'My DM Suxx' and 'I'm not overpowered' with no mention of what the general power level is, why the Dm said what he said, or anything. So I will add: 1) Write clearly. If English is not your first language there are programs on the web that can help you translate. 2) Place your probem in context. Try to put what you see as the other side of the argument as well as your own (often this may lead to you seeing a solution without using the boards at all). 3) Be prepared for people to back the other guy. Sometimes you are wrong.
Hack and Smasher 02-17-07, 09:05 AM	A. Still not overpowered 8d6 damage at level 8 is still below the curve even a core only enviroment. Play a druid or a twfing rogue and do way more. B. A bad example stone child is fairly weak for it level adjustment so might actully be ok. C. Even with the listed examples he should be doing about the same damage as a FB with that set up at level 9 and be useful outside of combat. D. Actully doesn't have much to do with power only DM experience. Just nitpicking. While balance is clearly measured against either the rest of the group, the campiagn in genral or something else, balance can't measured in a void of asking is this over/underpowered which is why everytime is x over powered people ask for more information.
On_the_wings_of_TPK 02-17-07, 10:12 AM	A. Still not overpowered 8d6 damage at level 8 is still below the curve even a core only enviroment. Play a druid or a twfing rogue and do way more. Lets take the class names off of that for a second. Actually while we're at lets remove all the non important information. Dia damage and level. That leaves us with, "Player A is playing a class that is not in the allowed source material outlined by the DM for the campaign." This becomes really simple, it is DM porogative as to wether or not any suplement material is permitted into the game. It says as much at the begining of each book. Now we'll add back the Dia damage, and the level. 8d6 isn't that much damage for a wizard or sorcerer with evocation spells. But we see here that the sorcerer isn't focusing on those, in fact the rest of the party is rather unoptimized. That would becuase they are focusing on learning the rules, and not optimizing away. Again an optimized anything, let along splat material class, would be over powered in this group. The trick with these, and with all is blank balanced is not to compare it your camapign, or your standard, or even the boards consensus or average. Again it would be like comparing a Honda civic to Toyota carola to see if the Dodge ram is better. It just plain doesn't mean anything, as those standards are irrelevant to the campaign in question. B. A bad example stone child is fairly weak for it level adjustment so might actully be ok. Again the power of the stone child is not what matters here. The player made an ECL 8 character for an ECL 6 group. if I were to play in your group would you give me +2 ECL above every other player for free? How do you think the rest of the group take to that? C. Even with the listed examples he should be doing about the same damage as a FB with that set up at level 9 and be useful outside of combat. Unless the FB has a low will save smashes the cleric at the end 90% of the combats. Or maybe it is becuase everyone elses character is stronger for damage dealing, and the player may want to focus on something else, that role is covered. Again this is a group game, not a try and mash your way into whatever nich you want regardless of party make up. D. Actully doesn't have much to do with power only DM experience. True, but DM experience has everything to do with balance. And that is the topic of todays discussion.
Ryusage 02-17-07, 10:22 AM	snip This is exactly what we're trying to avoid in this thread. It doesn't matter what you or anyone else thinks is overpowered! We're simply discussing how power level is measured by the relative power level of the group and the campaign.
danielinthewolvesden 02-17-07, 02:37 PM	1) Write clearly. If English is not your first language there are programs on the web that can help you translate. . The Caps key is called the "shift key" and it should be a large key on the next to bottom row. It will say "shift" and maybe have a upward arrow. Use it- the first word of a sentence is a good place to start.
Hack and Smasher 02-17-07, 03:12 PM	Wow for someone who writes alot you don't really read much, balance is the issue as pointed out, not DM vs Play on source books, and theres no way 8d6 should overshadow even a core only monks full attack even with little or no equipment. Again the power of the stone child is not what matters here. The player made an ECL 8 character for an ECL 6 group. if I were to play in your group would you give me +2 ECL above every other player for free? How do you think the rest of the group take to that? Actully since as your own point is "balance" is measure against the other players and the world in genral, the relative power of the stone child actully is a vaild point, as at no point did you give any information about the party its in other than the DM got LA wrong and what bad feats the player wanted to take. If there rest party was using simliar LA characters or were particuly well constructed or "powergamed" it would fit right in. The standard in which CR is used is assumed to be 25 point buy or standard array using just the core rules, if anything that is the assumed bench mark. Also on the FB i'd be more worried on for the FB than that particuler cleric build since Divine meta Brokeness is way stronger (assuming moderate spells for persisant) than the FB until +10 when it gets access to improved power attack. While i agree with your arguement, in that balance is relative to what your measured against, your examples were badly choosen.