# Balance Pass

> Change one number for a stated reason, and find out what it actually did.

- Skill: `tinyhumansai/balance-pass` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add tinyhumansai/balance-pass`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tinyhumansai/balance-pass/raw
- Safety review: pending (external: skill-scanner PASS, skillspector PASS)
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: tinyhumansai (https://skillmd.com/u/tinyhumansai)
- Updated: 2026-09-22
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tinyhumansai/balance-pass

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# Balance Pass

Tuning is where studios lose whole projects to work nobody recorded: the same
value moved back and forth by people who each remember only their own pass.

## When to use

- A system is dominant, ignored, too easy or too hard.
- Playtests show a difficulty spike or a dead choice.

## Steps

1. **Read `balance-changes` first.** This number has probably been moved before,
   possibly in the direction you are about to move it back from.
2. **State the problem as a player experience** — "players skip the bow entirely
   after level three" — not as a number that feels wrong.
3. **Change one thing.** If a system already has an open trial, wait; two
   changes at once means you learn nothing from either.
4. **Record the change with old and new values.** "Nerfed the bow" is not a
   record and will not help anybody in a month.
5. **Get it in front of players.** Telemetry or a playtest — a balance change
   judged from the designer's own play is judged by the person least able to see
   it.
6. **Close the row** as kept or reverted, with what it actually did. Frequently
   not what was intended, and that is the entry worth having.

## Output

A `balance-changes` row with the values, the reason, and the observed effect.
One open trial per system, closed before the next.