You in chapter 2 are send on valley of mines to SCOUT!!! Not to try to be the hero and kill all orks. If you try that, you will gonna die. Even if you have the Beliar's Claw as a warrior, you have no chance. Your mage, able to cast only circle 2 spells too. Not much chance against then.
I don't quite understand the relevance of this example.
I thought it was a good example. Not to speak for SorcererVictor but I took his point to be that a tunnel visioned pursuit of balance works against the rule of cool and specifically against the "god among ants" playstyle.
Some of us just like building overpowered characters. For me that's part of the game, figuring out the cracks in the foundation of the ruleset and widening them. It's just fun to build an overpowered character to walk through battles -- especially battles that you once had to run from.
Take the BG1 kobalds vs the POE1 Xaurip. In BG1 the kobalds were a real challenge at level 1 but by the end of the game you could eliminate a horde of kobalds in a few rounds. A fireball, few arrows you've defeated enemies you once ran away from. In PoE1 the xaurips on the beach were a real challenge and later when you meet the xaurips guarding the drake . . . they turn out to be even
greater challenge. For lovers of balance that just good design -- both encounters had equivalent challenge ratings. But I felt robbed -- I never felt the satisfaction of feeling stronger because my toons had leveled up.
For apostles of balance, players should never be confronted with encounters that don't challenge them. The rule of cool says sometimes absurdly imbalanced encounters are fun.
