From what I understand the OP’s suggestion is actually a bit different from how D&D does it, as they’re suggesting that per level bonuses from stats not be retroactive.
In at least 3.5 and Pathfinder if you increase your Con modifier the bonus HP applies to every level you’ve gotten thus far. So getting +1 at level 5 means getting 5 more HP.
The suggestion in this thread is that they not do that, and getting a +1 at level 5 would mean getting no immediate per level bonuses until you get to level 6 where you’d get +1.
Which honestly creates more of a newb trap more than it does any sort of compelling character customization. It means I would likely mess up my first character because I don’t have the numbers figured out yet, and characters #2 and onward will all be built to the optimal specifications without any variance.
“Skill will always imbalance an otherwise level playing field” You can quote me on it, because I’ve said it several times in my contributions to this forum.
The ability to use the sniper rifle has nothing to do with the mathematical parameters which determine the balance of the sniper rifle in an FPS. Those parameters include rate of fire, rate of recoil(the time it takes before you can fire it again), the damage it does, how many times you can fire before you have to reload it, how much ammunition you can hold for how many times you can reload it when the chamber is empty, etc, all in comparison to the other weapon types, and the mathematical parameters of those weapons. There are other mathematical parameters that are taken into account to determine the balance of the sniper rifle. Maximum health and armor of any player, which determine how many times the weapon will take to eliminate a player at various health and armor levels. That they’re most powerful at long range and much easier to strafe at point blank, the hitboxes, etc. That’s the mathematics that determines balance, not how the pro player with 999 ping loses to the new player with 0 ping because “the game/weapon is not balanced.” Latency imbalances an otherwise even playing field to a greater degree than skill. Again, nothing to do with the mathematical parameters by comparison to other mathematical parameters that determines the balance of the gameplay, not how a person plays the game.
You jumped genres on me twice. First to try using FPS and the significance of latency, then to turn based strategy to try and emphasize the significance of being white (going first) in chess. I’m finished here. You clearly are more interested in having your opinion heard than anything else. Happy New Year.
The point of bringing up chess and FPS games are to use them as examples of scenarios where math alone can’t result in perfect balance. Most people understand the concept of a sniper rifle being a weapon in a FPS that requires a higher skill level to pull off.
but since that apparently went completely over your head:
Take a glass cannon build in a Diablo game where the character deals immense amounts of DPS but has very little HP. The character’s survival primarily relies on the player’s ability to not get hit.
Such a build would be terrible in the hands of an unskilled player, because they’re not very good at dodging. To most players in the game, this is a trash tier setup because they simply lack the skill to be able to pull it off. However to a higher skilled player, this might very well end up being the strongest build in the game.
It’s not a matter of a pro out skilling a newbie. It’s a matter of literally the exact same setup(even if you had the same latency on the same computer) is significantly worse in the hands of newbie because the build has what we call a high skill floor. The minimum skill required to pull the build off is significantly higher than normal builds.
Such a build is underpowered at low skill levels but potentially overpowered at higher levels. This isn’t a problem that math alone can solve.
If you don’t get it at this point, then there is nothing I can do for you.
Obviously no every decision in real life can be reverse or corrected.
But most things in life can be. The point being correcting mistake isn’t some unrealistic or extraordinary thing to do in game.
I game, for example, if you killed someone critical to a mission, you have a tougher time in completing a quest than someone that doesn’t kill him or you lost some reward that you otherwise get. So its a middle ground that you try as good as possible to make good decision but that so extreme that you have to restart a new chat if you make a wrong choice.
I think, the problem here is, there is no way to “fix” a build and respec some decisions. You might be able to respec but some points allocations, that had a permanent effect on your character, are still having an effect that you can’t undo by any chance. That kinda locks you in, irreparably. And I actually don’t support such a system. I am for expensive respecs, so you are “forced” to stay in a build that you made up for your character and you can’t just “switch it”. But I support the possibility to adjust and repair that build if you failed to do it right in the beginning of the game.