[Rainbow]

Keir wrote:
>Order3/misfortune3 is the engine that provides the necesary gold and design points.

Eh, whut? That would be –120 design points for order and +120 design points for misfortune, resulting in a big fat zero. I have to assume that these “provided” design points you refer to are the ones from misfortune, which you think of as free points, since you have max. order, and are thus somewhat protected from too many bad events.

Anyway, to get to the heart of the matter, you are both right, and you both have the exact same concern, but you are not listening to each other. Keir is saying that there is a game balance issue because a lot of things are not viable options IF the order/tumoil and fortune/misfortune scales were not as they are. Zen is saying there is a game balance issue because these scales are so strongly biased towards one configuration that it leaves no viable alternative configurations of the scales themselves.

So you both want game balance and to be able to play in a game rich in diversity, with unlimited viable combinations of choices. You just have different perspectives on how to approach the matter.

That said, I have to add that Zen has nailed the real problem. If there is only one viable choice between the scale settings, then the scales are imbalanced (pun not intended).

If there is a design point problem that makes some play styles unviable, then that is a separate issue.

When I learned that there were pretender bless effects based on starting magic paths I was thrilled. The possibilities! But I think that these bless effect are meant to be flavour, or a feature, another option, rather than something to build an entire dominion on. I would love to discuss how to make the most of bless effects as they are however.

/Rainbow

[ November 24, 2003, 12:07: Message edited by: Rainbow ]