All Powers Should be Balanced ?

[ways and means]

Should all powers be balanced with each other in terms of power per point of refresh or should some refresh point be more powerful than other if they are limited to only very powerful templates or to NPC's? Does the per-requisites of refinement justify it being more powerful per point of refresh than most of the other powers for example? Is balance a good thing or should the game not be balanced and favor some concepts over others (wizard, fp) because they fit in better with the setting ?

[Malraza]

Yes, powers should be at least roughly even with each other on a refresh cost. Powers seem to me that they are just things you can use to give rules to back up character and creature traits, with templates just being guide lines to give people ideas on what their character can be and how the system works.

A fair bit of effort seems to have gone into explaining what makes a balanced stunt and how to create new ones. Logic seems to follow that powers should be the same way. Refresh spent on stunts and powers is also how the GM section tells you to balance encounters and threats.

[Tedronai]

Given that the Refresh allocations assigned to NPCs are wholly at the discretion of the GM, and moreover, that NPCs can freely exceed those allocations, delving into the negatives, Refresh costs on NPCs' powers exist solely as a guide for how powerful the abilities are, and thus how powerful the NPC will be made by given them those powers.
Having imbalanced Refresh costs on NPC powers, then, undermines that sole usefulness.

If a powerful template is available to PCs, then having imbalanced Refresh costs results in having imbalanced PCs.  This is bad for multiple reasons, several of which include (but are by no means limited to): sowing discontent among some players who will resent their character concepts being 'punished' relative to other concepts, incentivising some players away from character concepts that would otherwise be interesting because they see the potential for the above before or during character creation and would rather simply avoid it, (if the gap is wide enough, as seen in certain other systems) causing substantial difficulty creating opposition that will challenge the higher-powered characters while not utterly crushing the weaker ones.
If a powerful template is available only to NPCs, see the first problem re: the entire point of having refresh costs on NPCs' powers.

[Sanctaphrax]

Everything should be perfectly balanced.

That's not possible, but it's a worthy goal.

Sometimes balance conflicts with another worthy goal and you have to choose which to compromise, but this is actually pretty rare.

PS: Restricting a Power to specific Template is terrible, but giving a Power another Power as a prereq is a reasonable way to balance it. It's not always appropriate, but it can work.

[UmbraLux]

Should all powers be balanced with each other in terms of power per point of refresh or should some refresh point be more powerful than other if they are limited to only very powerful templates or to NPC's?

What's your goal?  Seriously.  I think Evil Hat's primary goal was to create a game based on the Dresdenverse.  I tend to think they've done an excellent job - possibly the best fiction to game conversion I've read or played. 

Any power balancing had to come second to keeping it in the Dresdenverse. 

Does the per-requisites of refinement justify it being more powerful per point of refresh than most of the other powers for example? Is balance a good thing or should the game not be balanced and favor some concepts over others (wizard, fp) because they fit in better with the setting ?

The question above can also be applied to individual games - is your goal balance or maintaining Dresden tropes and flavor?

I don't know your goals and there's no reason you'd need to prioritize the same as I do.  Personally, I don't need a true balance of powers.  Rock-paper-scissors bores me.  What I do look for is vulnerability and a balance in screen time / narrative importance.  I don't care about how powerful a given power is until it becomes the 'go to' power and starts to sideline other players.  (Casting does come closer to being a 'go to' power than I'd like.)

So no, power balance is not the primary goal for me.

[Silverblaze]

Can't balance everything.  I am all for game balance, more than most, I'd wager.  I think thaumaturgy kinda throws that out the window though.  We can try to get and stay close to a strictly balanced system. The problem withtaht is though... Getting the following things to happen however....not possible:

1) Completely balance all powers in terms of a cost ---> efficiency ratio
2) Completely balance all powers when stacked with other powers or stunts
3) Completely balance powers and stunts to the satisfaction of all people in a gaming group (let alone everyone on this forum)

Still, no reason not to try and get things close.

[Viatos]

One should always strive for perfect balance in mechanics. Anything less is bad game design. The minute you say "it's okay that this is out of whack", you have done something wrong. It's one thing to be human and to fail in your purpose, by making mistakes and missing things; this happens constantly in pretty much every product. But when you hear a designer talk about deliberately making a shoddy product, stop giving them money and encourage others to do the same. This is one of those things that I personally think is worth spending a little effort to actively deny the designer sales and revenue and redirect would-be customers towards worthier games. Community gardening and all that. It's just such a core thing. If you can't offer me a quality product, why would I pay for it?

Same goes for homebrew. Make your stuff balanced, otherwise why should anyone accept your stuff as valid?

[Mr. Death]

Like the others, I think perfect balance is impossible. Admirable, perhaps, but not going to happen, especially in a game like this where among the important goals of the designers was emulating the feel of the novels.

That said, just point-for-point, powers aren't going to be balanced. I think the best you could try for is balancing individual powers of similar cost, because I don't see any way that, say, Claws and Inhuman Recovery (-3 cost total) is equal to Evocation, or Possession, or a Sword of the Cross.

[Sanctaphrax]

I still don't understand why people think that there's a conflict between balance and emulating the novels.

...I don't see any way that, say, Claws and Inhuman Recovery (-3 cost total) is equal to Evocation, or Possession, or a Sword of the Cross.

Those are not very good examples.

Possession is a 3 Refresh upgrade to a 2 Refresh Power. And its actual effects are so vague that it's almost impossible to say how strong it is.

Evocation is only really powerful if you have a lot of free resources to invest in it.

And the Sword's usefulness is very situational.

I could see Claws and Inhuman Recovery being stronger than any of those in some games. Not contrived games, normal ones.

PS: Well said, Viatos.

[Radecliffe]

Given the nature of this RPG system I really don't think that Powers have to be have to be perfectly balanced (even if that were possible.)  What with aspects, compels and consequences, etc. it tends to smooth off a lot of the rough edges. 

[Becq]

I still don't understand why people think that there's a conflict between balance and emulating the novels.

+1

Step 1: Create the mechanics for the power.  Capture to the best degree possible the flavor of the novels.
Step 2: Assign a refresh cost that reflects to best degree possible the overall utility of the power relative to other powers.

Poof.  Feel of the novels plus balance.  Simple, right?  Ok, I admit, it's easier said than done, of course, but its worthwhile to strive for.

Possession is a 3 Refresh upgrade to a 2 Refresh Power. And its actual effects are so vague that it's almost impossible to say how strong it is.

Actually, it's worse than that, because it also require Spirit Form [-3] or Gaseous Form [-3] (or possibly a similar custom power).  So its actually a 3 refresh upgrade to 5 refresh worth of powers!

Other notes:

A significant balancing feature of Evocation is that every use requires a mental stress (or more), which means that you have lots of flexibility and power, but only a few times per scene.  You can 'buy' a few more uses with consequences, assuming you don't have other needs for them.  Claws, by contrast, grant a much lower level benefit -- that can be used every exchange of every battle indefinitely.  Much less flexibility, but 'always on'.

Being able to use consequences to 'soak' an extra five shifts worth of damage per scene doesn't seem particularly useless to me, either.  (Baseline is a mild every other scene or an average of one shift per scene; Inhuman Recovery is two milds per scene and a moderate every other scene, or an average of six shifts per scene.)  And that doesn't even consider the significant boost to recovery of serious consequences.  Not as flashy as Evocation, surely, but certainly valuable.

[ways and means]

Evocation by far wins that balance game though only due to the fact that as well as having all the magic benefits veils, extendable block, conviction based weapon ratings you can also use the benefits it provides to give a +3 to hit (3 refresh worth powers for any non-caster not that any gm would allow a non-caster to stack stunts that high anyway) +1 specialization +2 focus.