Game Balance issues
I've found that it is important to vary the threats characters face, and the things threatened. This does two things: it prevents characters from being optimized to face known threats; and it insures that characters with different skill sets will profit from working together. It also avoids boredom setting in, when the PC's have figured out there tactical doctrine and pretty do the same thing against similar enemies all the time.
For example, in one game I was having a lot of trouble with a very tough rune lord equivalent. Since he was a Yanafali, I kept things interesting for him by having a subplot be people attempting to administer his resources away {transferring troops to other commanders, getting his armor assigned to someone else, etc}. It was amazing how quickly he decided he needed an administrative specialist. {I was working for NASA at the time, and they had something called Zero-Based budgeting, which made an appearance in the game}.
Also, in a game like RQ where a tank is heavily dependent on magical spells, adding some Dispel capability to the enemy mix can make a big difference. Players who thought their characters were invincible often feel less certain when their Shield spells go down. Also, in RQ and BRP {snd Fire and Sword} a fair amount of a character's defense is "active". Overwhelming them with numbers, so that they cannot parry all of their foes, is often an effective tactic. Offbeat forms of combat, such as spirit combat, can also be a problem for the PC's. As you might imagine, when facing high level parties I often use all three techniques, plus a demon or other large monster
In short, by keeping the threat mix unpredictable and sometimes using non-lethal obstacles, it is possible to go a long toward balancing an inherently unbalanced game. On the other hand, by facing the PC's with pretty much the same type of opposition using the same tactics all the time, it is possible to go a long ways towards wrecking the balance of a fairly well balanced game. Game balance is much more a GM issue than a game designer issue, though the game designer should help the GM by making it easy to formulate a wide variety of challenges for the players.
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