Well people in the fighter vs wizard thread where saying that it's ok for the wizard to be uber at high levels because they suck at low levels. I was just taking them at their word.
I'm sure they did say that, because they tend to. But my problem is not with whether they're right or not. My problem is that their statement - and therefore you're taking of it at face value - doesn't actually address the question whether or not their original statement is actually true. Because if it isn't, then your point is also groundless. So we're back to Square 1: In the case you mention, is the wizard ACTUALLY weak at low levels, Y/N? Is the Thief? Is the Cleric?
I never said that the spotlight has to shine on everyone equally no game can achive that. I was just saying that just because you need all the classes dose not make them balanced.
Now that I could agree with (and only don't because I reject your notion of necessary balance in the first place.) But then, one ought to amend that by saying that needing all the classes does not make them unbalanced, either (if one accepts the notion of necessary balance in the first place, which I don't.)
If there is no such thing a level appropriateness why are there levels.
"Level appropriateness", contrarily to its name, has nothing to do with levels. It's simply a WotC buzzword to describe the notion that certain problems or situations might be really hard or really easy for a given party and that is wrong for some reason. Now, that, at least in the dogmatic and formalized way WotC game design uses it, is false; but for argument's sake, let's accept the existence of it.
Now, you imply that "levels exist BECAUSE level appropriateness exists". That's wrong on two counts. One: levels existed for several decades BEFORE WotC coined their concept of level appropriateness. An earlier thing cannot be the consequence of a later thing.
Two:
You don't need levels for that notion to exist. You can have a game like Traveller, which is not only level-less, but the PC's don't even improve the skills and abilities after character creation. Now, assuming for argument's sake that level appropriateness is not bullshit, let's ask ourselves some questions:
- Is it possible in Traveller to put the PCs in a really tough situation? YES, it is.
- Is it possible in Traveller to put the PCs in a really easy situation? YES, it is.
- Assuming that the above two are somehow "inappropriate", is it possible in Traveller to put the PCs in a situation of inappropriate difficulty? YES, IT IS.
See? The concept of "level appropriateness" does not NEED levels to exist. Therefore, levels are not there BECAUSE of it.
But to answer your question, levels are there to represent
improvement over time, which is an important notion in D&D. (It's not necessarily an inherent quality of all RPGs; the aforementioned Traveller, for instance, doesn't have the same type of improvement.) And the concept of your characters' getting better has
nothing to do with how hard or easy the going is.
If a DM has no way of eyeballing what characters of x level can do than why.
This is part of WotC's fallacious logic behind Challenge Ratings and the like:
"If there isn't an objective mathematical formula to determine combat power, THEN the DM has no way of eyeballing the characters can do and why." But that's just not true. DM's could eyeball exactly that for decades without Challenges Ratings and Level Adjustments. And no, it wasn't hard. At least it wasn't harder than WotC's methods, where no amount of CR calculations is going to make for a fair encounter if two of the PCs have some ridiculous exploit build that multiplies their actual combat efficiency while leaving their CR intact.
And that's not even going into the wider context of how the concept of level appropriateness has turned a roleplaying game into a miniatures tactical combat game. With everything levelled approprately, the notion of thinking outside the box has disappeared completely, since it couldn't be crammed into the CR algorithm. In old-school thinking, if you have a low-level party and need to take out a high-level dragon, you start looking for creative solutions. Maybe you can convince the nearest king about the threat to his kingdom and have him send his army, his champions and his court wizard against the reptile. Or maybe you can convince the nearby dwarf clan to undermine the dragon's lair and collapse it on its head. Or contract mercenaries to help you. Or arrange for another powerful monster to clash with the dragon, so you can take out the weakened victor. Or you reconsider whether you REALLY need to take it out, and maybe realise you can achieve your actual goals some other way. All that makes for interesting, original, varies and FUN roleplaying and problem-solving. And you can't model problem-solving with your notion of level appropriateness.
That is why level appropriateness is a false conception in the first place. And since the new-D&D notion of balanced is directly based on the notion of level appropriateness, it too is false.