Okay, I apologize in advance for the rant, but it's about something that is infuriatingly common in this community for a reason unknown to me. Today my rant is about a type of person that many of you have probably come across on this site and other sites that focus on D&D and other TTRPGs. For the purpose of civility, I will not call out any specific person and instead speak in generalities based on my experience on the matter.

This thread is about a category of people in this community that I have dubbed "Designer's Advocates", and the purpose of the thread is to discuss your experiences with these types of people and how to deal with them before they destroy a discussion and end up giving infraction points to other members of the discussion.  

Part 1: What are Designer's Advocates?

In order to know how to identify a Designer's Advocate, you first have to know what one is and how they behave. Designer's Advocates don't have a hard definition and come in many different varieties, but typically act in similar manners and argue for the same purpose. They generally seem to use the same debating tactics and make uncannily similar claims and statements. Although Designer's Advocates do fit into the category of an internet troll, they generally seem to go unnoticed because they don't always troll in threads of different topics. 

This type of person starts out seeming mostly harmless, seeming to just be a person that has a different view than you on how well designed a mechanical aspect of the game is. They don't appear to be much of a threat at first, but after awhile they end up derailing the discussion, ending any constructive debate, and begin trolling the members of the argument. The best way to describe this type of person is as a Designer's Advocate. Here is my definition of a Designer's Advocate:

Designer's Advocate - 

A person who passionately supports the mechanical choices of the game designers of a TTRPG (such as D&D 5e, Pathfinder 1e/2e, or any other TTRPG), even in the most extreme cases, using the most egregious statements to support their claims. 

In summary, a Designer's Advocate is someone who vehemently argues with all others without end against the mere suggestion that a spell, subclass, class, race, or any other part of the game is poorly designed. To a Designer's Advocate, Wizards of the Coast and other official game designers can do no wrong when designing the mechanics of a TTRPG, typically having this opinion due to having a positive personal experience with that specific mechanic. IME, examples of mechanics that a Designer's Advocate may support to the point of trolling are the following: 

• The Monk, Ranger and Sorcerer Classes and features granted to them. 
• The Alchemist Artificer, Battlerager/Berserker Barbarians, Arcane Archer/Purple Dragon Knight/Champion Fighters, Kensei/Four-Elements Monks, Crown Paladins, PHB Beastmaster/Hunter Rangers, Storm Sorcerers, Undying Warlocks, Order of the Scribes Wizards and features that they get.
• Poorly designed spells, such as Blur, any Conjure X spell that takes more than an action to summon, Elemental Weapon, Mordenkainen's Sword, True Strike, Witch Bolt
• Poorly designed races, such as Yuan-Ti Pureblood, Dragonborn, Kobolds, and so on. 

Keep in mind, though the most common argument used by a Designer's Advocate is that a mechanic can't be underpowered, they are not limited to that viewpoint. They often also support the "balance" of overpowered features. If distilled to its purest form, they believe that if someone can have fun with a mechanic, the mechanic can't be poorly designed.

(Side Note 1 - The reason this last statement is incorrect is because balance does not always determine the fun of a game. Most people can have fun playing a Dragonborn Way of the  Four-Elements Monk with a 10 for Wisdom and 13 for Dexterity, but fun=/=good design. If everyone at the table is having fun, you're playing the game correctly, but the fun of the game is not determined by the balance of the features. Plenty of people had fun playing 3e/3.5e, but those games were much worse in terms of balance than 5e.)

(Edit: Side Note 2 - I do not mean to offend anyone with the examples listed above. I am just giving examples of debates that I have seen Designer's Advocates be active in. If you think that any of the subclasses/classes/races/spells listed above aren't unbalanced, don't take it personally, as I am not calling you out. These are merely examples of what discussions that have been trolled by Designer's Advocates. Furthermore, if you do think one of the things listed above isn't unbalanced, this thread isn't the place to discuss the balance of them. There are other threads for that, or you can make another thread for that, and this one is to discuss the cause of the derailing of those threads, not the topic of those threads.)

Part 2: How to Identify a Designer's Advocate

In order to deal with a Designer's Advocate, you have to be able to know one when you see one. This can be difficult to do at first, as they generally start out arguing reasonably, but further down the discussion it eventually becomes evident that they have no interest in doing anything other than crushing those who disagree with them on this matter. 

You may be arguing against a Designer's Advocate if they do the following:

1. Support their argument with only/mostly logical fallacies.
2. Make many personal attacks when you merely disagree with them (typically about the intelligence or creativity of those they are arguing against).
3. Stubbornly refuse to admit any fault on their end of the argument.
4. Never stop arguing, as if their honor depends on them having the last word.
5. Support the game designers merely because of the fact that they are the game designers.
6. They argue that as long as someone can have fun with a feature, it can't be poorly designed. (See the side note above.)

To give an example of how a debate with a Designer's Advocate typically goes, see the spoiler below (there may be some minor generalizations and exaggerations, but IME, this is fairly accurate).

I have only experienced discussions about D&D 5e online, so I am not sure if this type of person exists in forums for other TTRPGs, but I imagine that if they exist here they exist elsewhere. 

Part 3: How to Deal with a Designer's Advocate

Now that you have learned what a Designer's Advocate is, and how to identify them, you now need to know how to deal with them. They are tricky to deal with, like all internet trolls, as they do not care about having a constructive conversation, they only care about winning the conversation and getting people unreasonably angry and upset. 

From my experience, here are the best ways to deal with a Designer's Advocate, with listed Pros and Cons. 

First, one of the most effective ways to "deal" with a Designer's Advocate is to just leave the discussion. Here are the pros to this option:

• It's simple
• It's easy
• If the troll isn't fed, it doesn't get to troll. 
• In most circumstances with an internet troll, no conversation is better than the inevitable negative conversation. 
• You don't waste your time. 
• There's no chance of getting infraction points. 

Here are the cons to this option:

• You aren't a part of the conversation.
• You let the troll "win" the conversation (have the last word).
• Someone in a bubble will never change their viewpoint (essentially, if the person doesn't have any challenge to their opinions, they will assume that their opinion is the correct one), causing the troll to go on to troll in other threads. 

Overall, this option is good, especially if you want to be neutral and not anger anyone. Essentially, you're the Switzerland. 

Second, you can engage in the debate and try to prove them wrong. Here are the pros to this option:

• You get the vain self-satisfaction of arguing with someone and telling them that they're wrong.
• You have the slight option of changing the other person's mind (very, very, very, very, very, very uncommon).

Here are the cons to this option:

• You are feeding the troll and will probably end up being trolled.
• You may end up getting infraction points. 
• You are most likely wasting your time. 

Third, you engage in the discussion and try to reveal them as a troll. The pros to this option are:

• You possibly get the self-satisfaction of exposing a troll, protecting the community from being trolled (probably temporarily).
• You engage in the conversation and try to make it positive (emphasis on try). 

The Cons of this option: 

• You are at risk of being trolled. 
• You may end up wasting your time. 

Fourth, you report the person for trolling whenever they do so, but don't engage in the discussion. The pros of this option are:

• You may end up protecting the community from the troll if they get banned (most likely temporary). 
• You aren't at risk of being trolled. 
• You have a low risk of getting infraction points if you report in good faith. 

Cons of this option: 

• None of the vain self-satisfaction (minor and petty con). 
• You don't engage in the discussion, possibly giving the troll the last word (also, minor and petty). 
• You don't get to see the results (unsatisfying). 

Of these options, #2 is the worst one in the majority of circumstances and is probably going to be discouraged by the moderation on this site. #1 and #4 are the best for minimal risk, but #3 is effective if you are adept in exposing a troll, but is morally gray and is probably discouraged by the moderation of the site. 

Part 4: How to Argue Against a Designer's Advocate

You now know what a Designer's Advocate is, how to identify them, and the different ways to deal with them. Now, if you ever find yourself in a debate with one, here are some basic and effective ways to argue with them. 

First, it is in the nature of a Designer's Advocate to use logical fallacies, as they argue with emotions and personal experiences, instead of evidence and good-faith arguments. To prepare to argue against a Designer's Advocate, you need to familiarize yourself with logical fallacies. The most common ones used by them (and in general) are strawmen and ad hominems, sprinkling in other red herrings and bad faith arguments. In case you didn't know, here are the definitions of those fallacies:

Second, once you're familiar with the commonly used logical fallacies, you need to know how to counter them. When you see a logical fallacy being used, you need to make others aware that the fallacy is being used. However, if you call them out for making a fallacy, you can't end there, or you're using the "fallacy fallacy" (which basically means that you are pointing out a fallacy instead of arguing against the opposition). If you want to have a truly strong argument, you need to point out the fallacy and explain why its use is bad for the argument. For example, using our example in the spoiler above, if someone responded to you stating "Your weaknesses are your strengths and anyone who wants another bonus to an ability score from the race is a spoiled whiner", you should reply with something like "That's both an ad hominem and a strawman argument. I don't want everything handed to me on a platter, I just want what the other races get. Every other non-variant race in the game gets at least a total of a +3 to their ability scores, so it's just not fair for a kobold to only get a +2. You are both personally attacking me and making up a position for me that I don't have."

Third, you need to use evidence to rebut their arguments. This requires you to know the balance of the game. If you don't know what is balanced or not balanced, there is no point in you arguing against someone else on this topic. If you are arguing that a specific mechanic is unbalanced, you need to be familiar with other similar mechanics in the game. For example, if you are going to argue that a Dragonborn's Breath Weapon is underpowered, you need to compare it to the dragon's breath spell and other racial features in the game that do similar things. If you use evidence and know your stuff, people are going to side with you, not the person whose opinion is based solely on emotion and anecdotes. 

Fourth, learn from your experiences. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result." - Probably Not Said By Albert Einstein. If your way of refuting an argument isn't effective against one Designer's Advocate, don't assume that it will be against another Designer's Advocate. If you got infraction points using one option of dealing with a Designer's Advocate, change tactics the next time. If a Designer's Advocate uses the same argument that you've seen before, use your knowledge of what happened last time to better counter their argument. 

tl;dr: Far too many people play the devil's advocate for badly designed mechanics in the game, and people need to be able to set them straight. 

Do you have any experiences with this type of person on this website or others? If you have, feel free to share your experiences with them and how you deal with them. Please discuss anything on topic below. 

I would like to address something mentioned in this point, as correctly pointed out by Vince; users do not give out infraction points. Infraction points occur when your post is found to be in violation of site rules by a moderator. They are also not given to the user who reports a post unless that report is an abuse of the report system.

If you are unsure about how the site rules work, you can review them here. This includes a list if all the rules, as well as the consequences for accumulating infraction points.

Thank you, and remember; be excellent to each other.

I have certainly seen this type of argument used in many discussions, but I wouldn't dismiss the person as a troll. There are a lot of different factors that can effect a discussion- mainly is both people are certain what they are arguing about. For example, when ever the Beastmaster/Four Elements/Purple Dragon Knight is discussed, there is at least one person who argues that the subclass is balanced because the roleplay is "good" (I wasn't sure how to really describe, so I chose a blanket statement.) This doesn't mean that the subclass is balanced- just fun or interesting to play. But both sides of the argument might not agree on the definition of balanced- some people might say that something balanced is something fun to play in game, other say it meets and doesn't exceed certain mechanical boundaries, so the argument has different basis. 

I don't think any of this was about the desire to hand out infraction points as a forum user. If anything, the existence of this post speaks to acknowledging that as a forum user you have no real power, and how best to deal with this type of person while respecting the rules of the forum.

What has been dubbed "Designer's Advocate" in this post is a very real attitude I have encountered numerous times since I started posting regularly only a couple months ago. I think they are well summarized. I would like to stress how this form of toxicity does not generally tip into the realm of being against forum rules. I think that's really important for understanding what to do if you ever encounter this frustration.

My solution has been to put anyone like this on ignore. I've tried to play the logical debate side and it's mostly a tiresome exercise fueled by my own ego. Calling someone out for their backhanded language is also generally futile, as the person willing to talk like that just doesn't care. The best thing to do is to cut them out of your forum experience entirely and focus on interacting with the people you do like. Not fueling the interaction is the best way to avoid turning a discussion into an unhealthy environment. There are always more threads to be a part of. 

Thank you for the post. I appreciate you tackling such a delicate subject matter and I hope it provides help to anyone else experiencing similar frustrations. In the end this is about finding a way to enjoy your forum experience in a way that is healthy for everyone else as well. Talking about the existence of a phenomenon like this is the best way to understand it, and thus interact with it in the most positive way possible for the individual and forum.

In this case I think it boils down to hitting that ignore button.

Not to derail the thread or get bogged down in minutiae, but you lost me at Crown Paladin. It’s completely beyond me that the Oath of the Crown could be considered indefensibly bad, so mentioning that as a subclass that can’t be supported without bordering on trolling makes it really hard for me not to question some of the judgments made even if everything else might be sensible. And that me pointing this out would paint me as one of the people you condemn makes this awkward. Ugh.

I don't believe that the OP is implying that anyone other than moderators can give infraction points.

The main reason you might get an infraction point is that, despite your best efforts, when someone is trolling and refusing to accept the fallacies in their arguments, you may continue to get upset and flustered in your responses and break a more blatant rule yourself, likely an ad hominem attack. 

The issue here is that a troll's trolling, the ones who are intentionally trying to make people upset and derail a discussion (this is against the site's rules), can cause a person to unwittingly fall for these tactics and "break the rules" themselves. It doesn't matter that your reaction was instigated and fueled by trolls, that up until that point you have done your best to follow the site's rules and guidelines and tried to maintain an honest polite discussion while the Designer's Advocate repeatedly breaks the rules.

You crossed the line of insulting the troll, or making an off-hand remark in your attempt to explain in clear detail why the argument is a fallacy or not relevant to the discussion after many posts of hitting a brick wall.

You don't know if the moderators caught every instance of rule-breaking, which is the purpose of the report button to aid them in something they may not have caught. As the OP said, a troll will commonly use ad hominem attacks, and they will do it frequently and early. These are blatant violations but can be missed in the midst of a long discussion, especially against a troll that is clever enough in hiding their attacks on you, which is why it may seem particularly egregious for you to get a violation when you make one ad hominem attack at post 50 but the troll has been making ad hominem attacks nearly every single post since the thread started. 

Another thing you need to keep in mind is you have almost no way of knowing whether or not the moderators are calling out the troll, as most of these take place in private discussions. A troll consistently breaks the rules with their fallacious arguments and derailing a thread, but if the moderators do anything about it you probably won't see it. It will feel like nothing is being done because the troll is obviously still posting, but that doesn't necessarily mean they haven't been contacted by moderators.

Since this is a lose-lose tactic on the side of those doing their best to have an honest discussion, the advice is to simply stay calm, focus on your argument, identify the fallacies, report the fallacious post in good faith when it is clear that the troll is simply trying to derail the discussion rather than make honest arguments, or leave the discussion. 

I would not take those class/subclasses on face value. It's about a tendency of the Designer's Advocate to vehemently defend aspects of the game that are commonly maligned, using fallacies and general language that leads to miring the debate in petty arguments or derailing the thread entirely. This is not the only type of discussion you will find a Designer's Advocate, but it is probably the most common.

JoeltheWalrus: In my experience it's more akin to someone confusing their opinion on how to interact with the game with something that pertains to whatever strategy based debate being had. As in: saying XYZ is tactically superior and having someone respond "any tactic can be fun". Many interactions with Designer's Advocates are like trying to discuss the merits of different chess openings and having someone respond, "some people enjoy Checkers instead". Ultimately a true statement, but frustratingly empty when trying to discuss on any axis of optimization. It's not trolly for the Designer's Advocate to say something like this on its own. The toxicity comes from this being conflated as a debate and extended as such. The way this behavior toes the line between troll and forum safe makes it hard to quantify.

Let me start out by saying that I know the behavior you are talking about and I do find it extremely annoying. But I don't think these people are trolling. I think they just have a huge brand loyalty complex and find themselves compelled to defend everything put out by the publisher. And the reason for this is because the time and money they've invested in the brand has somehow linked their own ego and success with that of the brand. If WOTC made a mistake, then in their head that reflects poorly on them, so they must justify and defend everything to the point of absurdity in order to avoid having made a mistake. It's the exact same behavior that makes people double down on a certain soon-to-be former US president, and ignore all logic and reality in the process. It's a misplaced ego protection tool which stems from an immature inability to admit fault in themselves (and by extension things they've heavily invested time and/or money in).

Quote from MonkeyDave >>

Let me start out by saying that I know the behavior you are talking about and I do find it extremely annoying. But I don't think these people are trolling. I think they just have a huge brand loyalty complex and find themselves compelled to defend everything put out by the publisher. And the reason for this is because the time and money they've invested in the brand has somehow linked their own ego and success with that of the brand. If WOTC made a mistake, then in their head that reflects poorly on them, so they must justify and defend everything to the point of absurdity in order to avoid having made a mistake. It's the exact same behavior that makes people double down on a certain soon-to-be former US president, and ignore all logic and reality in the process. It's a misplaced ego protection tool which stems from an immature inability to admit fault in themselves (and by extension things they've heavily invested time and/or money in).

Both trolls and "brand loyalists" can exist at the same time. 

Quote from HeironymusZot >>

I would not take those class/subclasses on face value. It's about a tendency of the Designer's Advocate to vehemently defend aspects of the game that are commonly maligned, using fallacies and general language that leads to miring the debate in petty arguments or derailing the thread entirely. This is not the only type of discussion you will find a Designer's Advocate, but it is probably the most common.

 I don’t disagree, but the fact is that insisting on defending something someone else thinks is poorly designed is presented as a big red flag. I understand the type of argument used (or abused), how someone participates in the discussion, is what clinches it, but the Oath of the Crown is in my view a great subclass (for a class that maybe has no really bad subclasses to begin with, even if some are better than others) so from where I’m standing I would expect its detractors to much more likely be the ones with the spurious arguments or the inability to understand or accept reasons why it’s not a bad class than the other way around. Which makes the whole post a little bit suspect to me.

I use the ignore feature quite liberally myself.

No, I don't use it to block out people whose beliefs intrude on my own. I use it to block people who are either deliberately trolling me (or others), or more commonly, have demonstrated repeatedly they they are going to take what I say out of context to "score points" for making me look incorrect, while refusing to answer the main substance of my posts. I consider it to be unworthy of my time to try reasoning with such people, as they are clearly intent on "winning the argument at any cost" rather than having a real conversation or discussion about issues. I will not waste time with them, so they go on ignore.

My time is limited and valuable. I'd rather be working on a BBEG for my campaign or something, than try to argue with someone who is going to take one line out of a 4 paragraph thread, and use it to point out that my technical description of how some high level spell works is incorrect (especially when that spell and its description has little to do with the main thesis of my post). This kind of cheap-shot argumentation is common on many forums, and here is no exception. I am not going to debate with people who take cheap shots.

So... ignore is your friend, IMO. Use it well.

Quote from pangurjan >

 I don’t disagree, but the fact is that insisting on defending something someone else thinks is poorly designed is presented as a big red flag. I understand the type of argument used (or abused), how someone participates in the discussion, is what clinches it, but the Oath of the Crown is in my view a great subclass (for a class that maybe has no really bad subclasses to begin with, even if some are better than others) so from where I’m standing I would expect its detractors to much more likely be the ones with the spurious arguments or the inability to understand or accept reasons why it’s not a bad class than the other way around. Which makes the whole post a little bit suspect to me.

 

So you have one disagreement with one subclass. How does that invalidate the entirety of the rest of the post?

Quote from Korbin_Orion >>

Quote from pangurjan >

 I don’t disagree, but the fact is that insisting on defending something someone else thinks is poorly designed is presented as a big red flag. I understand the type of argument used (or abused), how someone participates in the discussion, is what clinches it, but the Oath of the Crown is in my view a great subclass (for a class that maybe has no really bad subclasses to begin with, even if some are better than others) so from where I’m standing I would expect its detractors to much more likely be the ones with the spurious arguments or the inability to understand or accept reasons why it’s not a bad class than the other way around. Which makes the whole post a little bit suspect to me.

 

 

So you have one disagreement with one subclass. How does that invalidate the entirety of the rest of the post?

 It doesn’t invalidate it. It just makes it seem like the writer could be on the opposite side of his own argument, to me.

Quote from BioWizard >>

I use the ignore feature quite liberally myself.

No, I don't use it to block out people whose beliefs intrude on my own. I use it to block people who are either deliberately trolling me (or others), or more commonly, have demonstrated repeatedly they they are going to take what I say out of context to "score points" for making me look incorrect, while refusing to answer the main substance of my posts. I consider it to be unworthy of my time to try reasoning with such people, as they are clearly intent on "winning the argument at any cost" rather than having a real conversation or discussion about issues. I will not waste time with them, so they go on ignore.

My time is limited and valuable. I'd rather be working on a BBEG for my campaign or something, than try to argue with someone who is going to take one line out of a 4 paragraph thread, and use it to point out that my technical description of how some high level spell works is incorrect (especially when that spell and its description has little to do with the main thesis of my post). This kind of cheap-shot argumentation is common on many forums, and here is no exception. I am not going to debate with people who take cheap shots.

So... ignore is your friend, IMO. Use it well.

 I have recently started using this feature and have found that the Forums are far less toxic as a result.

Edit for grammar 

Back when I played on MUSHes and MUXes, we would have lots of players who acted like this and they would send harassing instant messages, which in the MU* parlance were called "pages". There was a command called @page-lock (name), where it would block incoming IMs (pages) from the target player. 

A very wise admin, who is sadly no longer with us, used to have a catch phrase: "Page-lock is your *friend.*"

Translated to internet forums, if she were alive today, she'd have said, "The Ignore List is your *friend*."

The issue with blocking people who irritate you (HINT HINT: this would be a great post for moderators observing this thread to pay attention to, pretty please) is that blocking someone punishes you, not the person you're blocking.  You're actively choosing to cut yourself out of conversations involving that person, making it more difficult for you to participate in the forum.  As well, you're making it impossible for you to counter that person's toxicity in the future and granting them free rein to be awful to other users now that they've successfully driven you into your shell.  Blocking someone is not 'rising above' the desire to argue with them; it's allowing that person to "win" forever and continue their unsupported nonsensical shitposting unimpeded into the future.

There's a reason my 'Block' list has exactly one single name on it, and even that name got there only through unusual circumstances.  There are a number of people on this website whose every post makes me want to freeze them in carbonite and put them on display in humanities museums under the heading "The Face of Stupidity".  But putting them on 'Ignore' doesn't make them any less stupid.  It just means I can't call them on their stupidity when no one else is willing to.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

The issue with blocking people who irritate you (HINT HINT: this would be a great post for moderators observing this thread to pay attention to, pretty please) is that blocking someone punishes you, not the person you're blocking.  You're actively choosing to cut yourself out of conversations involving that person, making it more difficult for you to participate in the forum.  As well, you're making it impossible for you to counter that person's toxicity in the future and granting them free rein to be awful to other users now that they've successfully driven you into your shell.  Blocking someone is not 'rising above' the desire to argue with them; it's allowing that person to "win" forever and continue their unsupported nonsensical shitposting unimpeded into the future.

There's a reason my 'Block' list has exactly one single name on it, and even that name got there only through unusual circumstances.  There are a number of people on this website whose every post makes me want to freeze them in carbonite and put them on display in humanities museums under the heading "The Face of Stupidity".  But putting them on 'Ignore' doesn't make them any less stupid.  It just means I can't call them on their stupidity when no one else is willing to.

 I don't completely disagree with this, however I don't have the time or energy to waste on unreasonable people. I would much rather let them rant into the void, completely unheard. I believe that many of them are only fueled by those that just can't let it go, so I cut them off from the attention they are seeking by not even hearing them. 

I am more than happy to engage in reasonable discussion with people that disagree with my opinions, but I don't feed trolls.

To those who misunderstood my OP on this topic, I am well aware how Infraction Points work. My point was, if the debate goes south and one side does personal attack, it's common for the opposite side to do the same, causing the moderators to be forced to hand out infraction points to those who were hoping for a constructive conversation. 

Quote from pangurjan >>

Not to derail the thread or get bogged down in minutiae, but you lost me at Crown Paladin. It’s completely beyond me that the Oath of the Crown could be considered indefensibly bad, so mentioning that as a subclass that can’t be supported without bordering on trolling makes it really hard for me not to question some of the judgments made even if everything else might be sensible. And that me pointing this out would paint me as one of the people you condemn makes this awkward. Ugh.

Sorry, you appear to have misunderstood me. You're not a troll if you think a subclass isn't bad and want to support the mechanics of it. I defined a Designer's Advocate as someone who unwaveringly supports the design choices of WotC, using emotions and anecdotes to support their claims, instead of evidence and good faith arguments. Whether or not you agree with me on any of the examples I listed is besides the point, the point is that if you support a feature so much that you begin to troll, you're a Designer's Advocate. 

I don't condemn you for having a different opinion than me on the balance of the subclass, I apologize if it appeared that way. I also disagree with some people on occasion on what makes a subclass/feature balanced or not. I expressed my views on the balance of the Champion Fighter in this thread, defending the balance of the subclass, but I didn't troll the thread. If you don't troll, you're not what I have dubbed, "a Designer's Advocate".