Originally Posted by Stabbey
Originally Posted by SorcererVictor

The excessive focus on balance is what is killing modern RPG's, but that is another discussion. The main point of a game is to be fun and entertaining. Balanced or not, seeing all your cool weapons/spells being ineffective against an enemy is not fun IMO.


That's a silly thing to be saying in your own thread which is literally complaining about balance.

I wasn't using balance in the sense that everything has to be perfectly symmetrically equal, but that the more "options" that get put in, the harder it is to test properly, and the more likely things like what you are complaining about end up in the final game.



Hit points are a abstraction of how much an creature can "take" before going down. An elephant for eg, can probably survive a .22 LR rifle shot but a Rabbit probably won't, hence, this increased durability is translated to higher hp to the elephant. Seeing Goblins at low level with more HP than Ogres is just silly cuz defeat what HP are meant to represent.

The same happens to damage numbers. An Arbalest does more damage than a light crossbow, cuz and heavier crossbow can throw a heavier projectile and higher speed. Simple as that. Other mechanics like AC, are also abstractions of combat. The entire role playing game was born from war gaming. And game mechanics needs to "simulate" the fictional universe.