Lots of people talk about how such and such spell, class feature, etc. is "overpowered," and often there is a lot of back and forth about it. But what even is "overpowered"? What is "balanced"? What does that mean? Is one person's idea of "overpowered" or "balanced" the same as another person's idea of it? Do we even use the same metrics to gauge it? So many people argue about it, but rarely does anyone define what they actually mean by that.

So, how do YOU define "overpowered" and "balanced"? What makes a given part of the game overpowered or balanced? I'm sure there are plenty of different answers out there, I'm curious to see what y'all think.

And on that note, because there are so many different ideas about what is overpowered and what is not, does it really even matter if something is overpowered in one person's opinion or another's? Different groups play different ways, and some features are more effective in some campaigns than others. But as long as everyone in the group is having fun, who cares what other people outside the group think?

In previous editions, Wizards were unquestionably overpowered, because they could out perform other classes in their own speciality.

If a caster can swing a sword better than a fighter or Barbarian, it is unbalanced.

If a caster can do so much damage with a single spell that other characters don't even get a chance to take a turn, it's overpowered.

Magic is inherently reality breaking, so "realistically" a Wizard _would_ be more powerful than a soldier, however, as a _game_, players ought to be able to meaningfully contribute regardless of the class/race they choose. Further, a player should not wield abilities that trivialize encounters designed for their level.

If a healing spell makes it impossible to kill a player party, then it undermines the excitement of combat and adventure.

To me overpowered is when one choice becomes the only choice to make. If, for example you level and are looking at feats and every person feels like they would need to take the same one, that one is overpowered. 

Overpowered is when you have one class that's dramatically more effective than other classes, especially if they can do so without special preparation and regardless of what the situation is.

There is an acronym, called the M.E.T.A. It stands for Most Effective Tactic Available. The rule is for all strategy-based games, is that when there is a singular META that vastly out-performs all other tactics, then the makers of the game have lost the meta-game.

For all strategy or choice-based games, the objective is to either not have a META (which, kind of like a perfect thermodynamic system, is probably impossible), or to have a META that is not infallible to other strategies, or significantly outclassing other strategies.

A META is not necessarily bad, but is considered bad if it's presence invalidates a major part of the game's other options. (If a more minor part of the game's other options are invalidated, they are likely underpowered rather than overpowered)

A balanced game is a game where, among all of its possible strategies and tactics, more than 95% of them are viable (viable: "a decent chance of success"), and if a META is present, it does not outperform the others by a significant margin, or alternatively, has multiple effective counters.

Thus, "overpowered" refers to tactics that harm the game's integrity by invalidating other gameplay styles, while "underpowered" refers to tactics placed in the game but cannot be viably used for its high failure rate compared to other tactics. 

Overpowered is never a strict black and white, it is more shades of grey, varying in shade depending on how balanced they are. This is always going to be an issue, as the standard for how balanced or unbalanced is always varies from system to system, and certain systems will have more problems with balance than others. In 5e, even the most "underpowered" or "overpowered" build/combo/class/subclass/race is way less unbalanced than most unbalanced parts of previous editions. 

For example, in 5e the Moon Druid is generally considered overpowered. However, its issues are primarily at lower levels, where they can give themselves tons of hit points, and be the best tanking character in the game (other than bear totem barbarians). They plateau a bit and stop being OP in the middle levels of play, but when Moon Druids reach level 20, they can turn into an [Tooltip Not Found] an infinite amount of times as a bonus action, making them again be the most powerful subclass in the game. Although Moon Druids have balance issues, they are not game-breaking at all, IME. They are certainly very, very powerful at certain levels, but it is nowhere as broken as certain classes or combinations in previous editions. 

In 5e, even the most powerful combinations, subclasses, and builds aren't game breaking (with very few exceptions). 

IMO Overpowered is situational and (most of the time) applies party to party. I mean, if all your players have META builds then are they overpowered anymore? To me, its only during the imbalancing of a party this becomes any issue.

Look at third level wizard spells.

There are 5-6 key ones (some argue about the last three):

Hypnotic Pattern, Counterspell, Fireball, Haste, Fly, and Dispel Magic.

I don't think I have ever seen a Wizard build that does not have at least 1 of these, because they are significantly more powerful than other such spells.  There are even good arguments to be made for Hypnotic Pattern, Counterspell and Fireball to be made 4th level. 

But they are not overpowered because there are six of them.  There is a real choice among them.  If you can't take one or two (for whatever reason) then you won't be too weak as you can take the other 4.   

But there is another, more important point.   What is wrong with having something overpowered?   It makes the game less fun and harder to DM.   Players want to feel like important parts of the game, not the side-kick that collects the treasure for the other players.  So if the Archer does 40 points of damage a round while the Swordsman does 15 points, it ceases to be fun for the Swordsman.  There is some protection against this via different rolls (Tank, Healer, Melee, Sneaky, Ranged, Problem Fixer)  but people eventually realized that the Melee guy does 100 points and the Sneaky guy keeps getting caught.

When the players are Overpowered, then the DM has a harder time giving them appropriate challenges.   All the DM instructions on how many creatures of X level need the players to be regular powered for their level.     If you go overboard and boost the bad guys, you get a Total Party Kill.  If you don't do enough then the players no longer feel involved. 

Quote from Technovore >>

There is an acronym, called the M.E.T.A. It stands for Most Effective Tactic Available. The rule is for all strategy-based games, is that when there is a singular META that vastly out-performs all other tactics, then the makers of the game have lost the meta-game.

For all strategy or choice-based games, the objective is to either not have a META (which, kind of like a perfect thermodynamic system, is probably impossible), or to have a META that is not infallible to other strategies, or significantly outclassing other strategies.

A META is not necessarily bad, but is considered bad if it's presence invalidates a major part of the game's other options. (If a more minor part of the game's other options are invalidated, they are likely underpowered rather than overpowered)

A balanced game is a game where, among all of its possible strategies and tactics, more than 95% of them are viable (viable: "a decent chance of success"), and if a META is present, it does not outperform the others by a significant margin, or alternatively, has multiple effective counters.

Thus, "overpowered" refers to tactics that harm the game's integrity by invalidating other gameplay styles, while "underpowered" refers to tactics placed in the game but cannot be viably used for its high failure rate compared to other tactics. 

 

This is a really good explanation.

Quote from Technovore >>

There is an acronym, called the M.E.T.A. It stands for Most Effective Tactic Available. The rule is for all strategy-based games, is that when there is a singular META that vastly out-performs all other tactics, then the makers of the game have lost the meta-game.

For all strategy or choice-based games, the objective is to either not have a META (which, kind of like a perfect thermodynamic system, is probably impossible), or to have a META that is not infallible to other strategies, or significantly outclassing other strategies.

A META is not necessarily bad, but is considered bad if it's presence invalidates a major part of the game's other options. (If a more minor part of the game's other options are invalidated, they are likely underpowered rather than overpowered)

A balanced game is a game where, among all of its possible strategies and tactics, more than 95% of them are viable (viable: "a decent chance of success"), and if a META is present, it does not outperform the others by a significant margin, or alternatively, has multiple effective counters.

Thus, "overpowered" refers to tactics that harm the game's integrity by invalidating other gameplay styles, while "underpowered" refers to tactics placed in the game but cannot be viably used for its high failure rate compared to other tactics. 

 

 Excellent explanation! Very thorough.

An overpowered feature is one that outshines other players or warps the game- and it is relative. 

Having a Staff of the Magi at first level is overpowered. However, if it is an extremely how magic campaign and enemies and players have similar items, than it is not.