Hate to share from the site we definitely don’t think about anymore, but I think this is too interesting to miss. If true, it’s a big insight into the design of the game. All credit to that OP of course.
Summary is that WotC’s balancing decisions seem to make sense if they balance the classes like they balance monsters, using max damage output over a three-round fight. Basically they overvalue that, especially for certain nova classes (the OP suggests those classes are Fighter/Wizard/Sorcerer) and undervalue utility.
TLDR. WoTC seems to value Single Target Guaranteed DPR in a Nova over 3 rounds, and balances the game around that not too dissimilar to how they calculate the power of CR. And that seems to reflect every design decision and choice they have made when viewed this way, and what they gauge class power around. The core resource management of the game is about novaing now or later, and how can classes recover their novas.
Based on the way they’ve reigned in nova damage with 1D&D but have left utility spells basically untouched, I think the theory has merit.
I think it’s a fine way to balance combat. Utility outside of combat should be, I think, considered entirely separately. Even if you can be the most useful, active character in the party in an RP scenario, being ineffective in combat just straight-up sucks. So I don’t think out-of-combat utility is something that should be considered when balancing classes.
That’s not to say that I think the out-of-combat utility balance should be ignored, just that it should be considered distinct.
Well, I don’t entirely disagree, but if you’re making classes equal in combat (roughly), you’ll need to make them equal out of combat as well (roughly), or else the classes with the best out of combat utility will just be the best overall too, right? And that’s pretty difficult, and really not something they seem to be trying to do.
I do agree all classes should be able to contribute to all the general pillars of the game at least somewhat, but also some specialization is inevitable and necessary or else classes would feel too samey. There is always going to end up being one class that’s the best at social encounters or exploration, so they need to trade off in other areas for it to be fair.