D&D 5E How much should 5e aim at balance?

timASW said:

He was undoubtedly trying to solve a problem that didnt really exist. Which is bound to create all sorts of difficulties for a person who attempts it...

Click to expand...

I'd appreciate it if you didn't pass judgment on the DM without knowing any details. You may love the system, but that doesn't mean it isn't considered irrecoverably broken for some. For example. I was playing a druid, and the DM had effectively nerfed wildshape to make it useless for offensive combat (it didn't pass the ability scores of the animal onto the druid). It was in that "sweet spot" you all love to talk about in level ranges, if I recall, around level 6 or 7.

In every combat, I summoned an animal, buffed it and my animal companion, and then cast maybe a single support spell such as Entangle or Fog Cloud. To look at it from a very generous point of view, I contributed about equally to front-line combat when compared to the fighter, fully decked out in WBL magical gear. I of course had no need for most of that, and spent my gold on metamagic rods, scrolls, and wands. At a rate of only spending 2-3 spells per encounter, I could last around 4 before worrying about running dry, and I think it's the rare adventuring day that goes beyond that. Of course, out of combat my contributions were many times those of the fighter, as I could heal and cure afflictions with my collection of magical items and consumables that the fighter couldn't afford, because he spent his gold on magic items just to compete with my summoned animals on the front-line. Not that he'd be able to use most of those items by RAW anyways. I also naturally had better skill checks, I could scout by using wildshape to turn into small animals... and I had gimped myself somewhat by picking the subpar half-elf as a race. And that is just one example. For more ways in which full casters break the game, I direct you to this link.

The problems do exist in the rules, and the core rules are perhaps the worst offenders of it (try comparing the stats of a level 1 druid's war-trained riding dog companion to that of a level 1 fighter sometime, I believe the fighter only comes out ahead by a very narrow margin). And you might be able to solve them with dozens and dozens of house rules, but why do that when you can design the system from the start without those massive imbalances? If your only defense is "well we can have fun with it," people can have fun playing any system, or without a system altogether. That is not the best sell for the game. We need more than that.

One of DnD Next's stated design goals is to have appeal for everyone. And I am saying that if it wants to appeal to myself and the kinds of people like me, it desperately needs real class balance. It needs to be easy on the DM as well, that means there are limits to how far I'll tolerate needing to fix the problems of the system as the DM (far less than 3rd edition, closer to 4th). I do not feel it is impossible to make the classes different and fun, yet balanced.

shadowmane said:

You can't achieve that without making the game so boring, nobody would want to play it. The beauty of this game is that the fighter is powerful at lower levels and the MU is powerful at higher levels. Somewhere in the middle, there is balance. But to try to have the fighter and the MU have the same amount of power at each level is a trick that even Gigax didn't achieve. Balance, as I said before, is over-rated. It breaks the game. Its found at the table between DM and players, not in the rule book.

Click to expand...

A simple question for you. Have you played an RPG other than D&D? Because you've just declared outright that any which doesn't operate in the way you like is "so boring, that nobody would want to play it." That {balance} "breaks the game". That there are a large number of RPGs that people do not find too boring to play despite not following your preferences and do not think are broken because they're balanced would suggest you might be mistaken.

timASW said:

/snip

A smart fighter also poisons his sword, or since we're using splats, uses drugs on it that affect mental stats. Meaning each hit has a good chance of draining the hell out of your casting stat.
/snip.

Click to expand...

Umm, level 11 druid is immune to poison. Just sayin'.

Does anyone HONESTLY think that an 11th level fighter and an 11th level druid are playing in the same league? Really?

Because, Round 1, Druid's Polar Bear Companion hits you, improve grapples and now your fighter cannot make any sword attacks. Fighter dies.

timASW said:

Its fairly simple, round 1, you cast summon crap monster spell. Fighter ignores crap monster and takes about half your HP. Maybe a third with his power attacking, improved crit range feat, weapon specialing, great sword.

Click to expand...

Assuming your 11th level fighter...

First the Druid was either Wildshape (tiny)'d and flying so the fighter had a fun time getting to him, or was Wildshape(large)'d and probably has reach.

The Improved Dire Bear promptly tears into the back of the fighter, getting the first full round attack due to being summoned in the right place. Two claw attacks at +21 both of which start a grab - and the fighter's AC isn't going to be hard to hit. Grapple check +25 with Improved Grab - your fighter is at +18 or taking -7(!) on a d20 vs d20 roll. I think we can say that the fighter ends up grabbed and therefore unable to use his greatsword.

Congratulations. Unless your fighter escapes and stays escaped he can't use his greatsword. Almost half of his worth in magic items is now useless. He's locked in a grapple with the Dire Bear he was foolish enough to ignore. The druid then walks off and leaves the bear to mop up the fighter.

And this is a fight that was rigged in favour of the fighter. One in favour of the druid would start off with the Druid Wildshaped into the form of an eagle or other tiny bird. And then dropping a dire bear onto the fighter.

A smart fighter also poisons his sword, or since we're using splats, uses drugs on it that affect mental stats. Meaning each hit has a good chance of draining the hell out of your casting stat.

Click to expand...

You might be using splats. I don't see why I need to bother.

Add in greater cleave and most of those sorry monsters from your natures ally spell just act like a bag of rats giving him extra attacks against you and them.

Click to expand...

That's why he's not using Summon Monster 1.

You could really make it ugly and do away with the idiotic rule that allows casters to use concentration to cast defensively.

Click to expand...

5 foot step.

But this isn't why a druid punks a fighter. Not only can his summoned bear just sit on the fighter while the tiny Druid does whatever the hell he likes, we look at the fighter's job.

Melee damage? The Druid brings it by breaking the action economy. He's either a bear with a bear companion who summons bears (level 8) or an eagle who drops bears on things (level 11)

Toughness? The druid can heal. And brings lots of HP from his summons. Oh, and a will save that doesn't suck.

Control? The Druid's been entangling fights since level 1. And can be in several places at once and break the action economy.

The core parts of what the fighter contributes to the team? The druid does them better.

And out of combat? Not even close.

As for class balance in duels, Giant In The Playground had several - 13th level Wizard vs 20th level Fighter. They came out about even, mostly because the fighter had a ridiculous collection of items thanks to the wealth by level rules.

Edit: [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], that assumes the polar bear hits. It's only at a default of +13 which ... probably isn't enough unless you buff it. (Greater Magic Fang and Animal Growth come to mind).

Neonchameleon said:

I don't know.

Click to expand...

That much I believe.

It's written into the rules that the druid brings far, far more to the party than the fighter.

Click to expand...

I don't see that anywhere in the rules. Oh, wait, there it is:

SRD said:

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the druid, which can totally own the fighter any day.

Spells

A druid casts divine spells, which are drawn from the druid spell list, and always casts overpowered spells that ruin the game.

Animal Companion (Ex)

A druid may begin play with an animal companion selected from the following list: badger, camel, dire rat, dog, riding dog, eagle, hawk, horse (light or heavy), owl, pony, snake (Small or Medium viper), or tarrasque.

Wild Shape (Su)

At 5th level, a druid gains the ability to turn herself into any Small or Medium animal and back again once per day. And, like all Small or Medium animals, he now owns the world.

Click to expand...

How did I miss those lines?

If the druid isn't overshadowing the fighter then either the druid is being played technically very badly or the fighter is being played incredibly well - or there is some factor going on that you don't mention.

Click to expand...

I guess I didn't mention common sense.

My suspicion is that it's buried somewhere in the massive amount of prep time you put in.

Click to expand...

Well that was out of left field. How do you know I put in massive prep time? In parlance I suspect I would be called an 'improv DM'; I never have anything in writing other than a few stat blocks and lists of magic items. I would guess I spend considerably less time than average on session prep. Certainly less than I spend actually running games.

Most of my prep time these days relates to non-rules aspects anyway; worldbuilding and coming up with plot ideas. I certainly never had to spend much time worrying about one PC overpowering the next. Even the time I've spent on rules is more about simplifying the game or letting people do what they want than it is about balance.

Hussar said:

How? How could those two characters possibly be considered balanced?

Click to expand...

Well, let's see.

The druid has more skills than the fighter - is better in any non-combat situation.

Click to expand...

This is pretty much true of any class and the fighter. There's definitely room for improvement there. Then again, I would expect the fighter to be about fighting.

You have, however, ignored all the issues created by a druid and his animal companion being out of place in many social situations.

The druid probably has similar HP to the fighter - slight advantage fighter.

Click to expand...

Okay.

The druid's animal companion (lessee, 11th level druid - Polar Bear is straight from the SRD - potentially 48 points of damage/round (without any buffs) plus improved grab) plus the druid's own BAB of +8 means that the druid is going to be doing far more damage per round than the fighter. - advantage druid.

Click to expand...

Except that this disregards the main source of damage: magic items, which neither the druid nor his animal can make particularly good use out of (and who have to share whatever they can get). Animal companions also have no class features and ineffective defenses and I find most druids spend more time protecting them than attacking. The only animal companion I remember actually being powerful was an intelligent one under 3.0 rules, and even then the druid had to totally sell out himself to make that happen. The typical animal companion (and I've played and DMed quite a few, druids being popular in my games) rarely hits anything, has a high mortality rate, and is mainly useful for flavor and as a flanking partner.

Accessibility can also be a problem; animal companions sometimes can't or won't go places where adventure happens (never had this problem with a fighter).

The druid has 6th level spells. Compared to the fighters 6 bonus feats. - yeah, that's an advantage druid.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Though, if the druid chooses poorly in his spells or runs out of spells, advantage fighter.

And if the druid casts his spells on the fighter to make him better (i.e. what should typically happen if both are allies), advantage fighter.

In what way is the fighter even remotely comparable to the druid?

Click to expand...

You left out the main commodity: base attack. Every point of base attack is a 5% improvement on hit chance, and a druid is unlikely to match that with his companion or himself. There's also an enormous advantage in magic items in practice; there aren't many that are usable for druids or companions, but a fighter typically has great armor and a great weapon that shift the balance. Not saying this is the best way to do it, but magic items have classically been where the D&D fighter gets a lot of his power from. DR becomes a significant issue at high levels, and the ability of a druid or his companion to overcome material DR is limited. There are also practical issues involving the druid's unsuitability in nonwild settings and his presumed use of resources to help other party members that aren't forced by the rules, but which typically serve to balance things.

It's also worth noting that 11th level is considered high level and most characters are not played at this level, making any imbalance you do observe more of a theoretical issue than a practical one. What high level play is and should be is rather a bigger issue than the design of individual classes. Classically, D&D has made casters into superheroes and kept non-casters relatively mundane, changing the style of the game.

Do I think the fighter is lacking in class abilities and the combat system surrounding him needs improvement? Yes. But that doesn't make an unrevised game unplayable. As with most things in life, there's a natural tendency for the game to equilibrate around a point of balance and work just fine, regardless of what's in the rules.

GreyICE said:

I submit, as someone who wants balance, I do not "just want Superman and Batman in a fantasy setting." That is, frankly, completely insulting and dismissive. I don't see any reason why the settings of Middle Earth, Narnia, or Barsoom explicitly prevent balanced PCs. Or even implicitly prevent balanced PCs.

Honestly, can this be explained for me? Because I really don't grasp it.

(I'll ignore the badwrongfun implications of there being certain ways a system SHOULD be played because frankly the discussion is unproductive and pointless)

Click to expand...

You know, if you really have to have balance, go play the version that has that balance. It happens to be the version people aren't really happy with. The one that caused the rift in the D&D Community to begin with. I grew up in the 70's and 80's. No such thing as a MMORPG then. Computers were 4-64 bit things that you wrote programs on that bounced balls around the screen. Fantasy roleplaying was about recreating Middleearth, or Narnia, or Hyboria. The Japanese influence was only just beginning to make its way across the ocean. In most stories, you had a main character who was low level, surrounded by others who were more powerful than him (well, except for Conan).

Frodo and Samwise were both 1st level adventurers when they set out. But they were surrounded by higher level people in their party. No balance there. The four siblings in Narnia didn't know what the heck they were doing when they first embarked on their adventure. They, too, were 1st level. But they were surrounded by high level characters who made up for it, and those characters weren't all powered the same. Again, no balance there.

Every adventure starts out that way, and every character gains in power and experience differently. Balance is found between the characters as they relate to one another, not through game mechanics. I don't want D&D to be a MMORPG on paper. If I want an MMORPG, I'll go play World of Warcraft. What I don't want is for D&D to morph into WOW on paper, which is what you seem to be advocating for.

I saw your comparison of Superman to Zorro. I think the better comparison would be Zorro and Batman, or Punisher. They have no superpowers, but they are all good at what they do. However, if you had the three of them in a party together, you still wouldn't have balance.

Frankly I think any group of superheroes (be it DC, Marvel, or other) offers a great demonstration on how characters with radically different abilities can function well together.

Neonchameleon said:

You are missing a lot about Gygax and the design of D&D and AD&D.

The endgame started at levels 9-10. The highest level PC in Greyhawk was Sir Robilar at 14th level. And one of the reasons the fighter is a weak class pre-Unearthed Arcana (where the fighter gets beefed up in a move Gygax has said explicitely was for balance purposes) is that Rob Kunz was too good at playing. With Weapon Spec, fighters are more powerful at levels 1-2. Wizards just about catch up at level 3 and pull slightly ahead at level 5. Level 7, the fighter gets an extra half an attack per round - they are monstrously stronger than at level 6. Level 9-10, the wizard is indisputably ahead so they give the fighter an entire army to play with. In short, for at least six levels of a ten level game there is pretty good balance - and the first two levels are almost a lottery.

Another balance method for you. Big weapons do more damage to larger creatures. This has explicitely been called out as a buff to fighters by Gygax. And works as a buff to fighters at around levels 3-4 because that's when the enemies you fight become overwhelmingly large (in both meanings).

A third balance method for you. Different XP for different classes. This is purely a balance factor.

Gygax came up with a very well balanced game that had years of playtesting before it was launched, and playtesting by the sort of people that would stress the balance as hard as possible (rather than by people trying to play 2e as in 3e's case). He regarded it as very important and a lot of the rules in D&D are there for balance purposes. If you play 1e and don't care about balance that is because it was done for you by Gygax. You are coasting based on his hard work - and IIRC you don't play either late 2e or 3e. Which means you've only ever played a fairly well balanced system.

Click to expand...

You may very well be right about me there. I haven't played 2E. I've played 1E and Pathfinder. I've studied the rules system for BECMI. I've actually DMed Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game, which is actually based on 3E with a B/X flavor to it. Based on my experience there, I found really no balance in any of them. I do understand about the stacked experience in the earlier games. I actually like that system. But not for balance purposes. Its because it makes sense. Different classes learn at different rates. That's as it should be. But it don't balance it out. It simply slows some characters down where others are concerned. Perhaps you could call that balance if you like, but its only the differences in the classes (and races if you want to add that in too).

Mustrum_Ridcully said:

I want all classes to shine in all of their 3 pillars of the game. That doesn't require them to do exactly the same, but they should have meaningful contribution in every area of the game.

I would like to see the idea of "roles" maintained and supported in all areas of play, without necessarily requiring classes to be straitjacketed to them - just certain design features build with a certain distinct role in mind, and selecting them becoming stronger at that role (without gaining for other roles).

Part of that balance model is "niche protection". If a Rogue is stealthy, then only other classes that have "stealthy" as their niche should compete. A Wizard, for example, does not have the niche "stealthy" - so he should not be able to outperform stealthy classes. He may be able to augment them (for example, if he has a "support" role), maybe he even can, temporarily get a very limited ability to also be "stealthy" - but the "stealthy niche" character should always be better then him. Yes, that means Invisibliity must be inherently inferior to having a decent Stealth - and if that requires something like "Hide In Plain Sight" as a class feature, that's okay with me, and if it's not with everyone else, then Invisibility is unfortunately no longer on anyone's spell list, except stealthy spellcasting classes.

If the Fighter doesn't have the niche "area control", he doesn't need that 10d6 Fireball. But when his role is "melee damage", then his damage better is sufficient that it's not rendered moot by 10d6 Fireballs. If his niche is "melee range control" (aka Defense), then he better have abilities that serve this purpose and help him there and not allow the "area control" to make his shtick superfluous.

Click to expand...

Sorry quoting from the first page...

Good topic.
I would submit that niche exclusivity and balance are less important than feel.

That said, paying homage to balance is important to a certain degree really the argument is how closely do you adhere to balance not if you should attempt to balance at all. My tastes are more aligned with earlier editions (I grew up playing 1e, 2e and later played 3e). For me the sterility of 4e balance felt less organic and more rigid.

To make a game fun and enjoyable for a player, characters do not have to be balanced. Instead they have to be in the ballpark. Not because one player will be jealous of another. Instead because the challenges that the DM throws at the players will be more dramatic if all the players can pull their weight.

Example story: back in 2e, I ran the slavers modules, and we had a 2e bard in our game. I was a real hard ass about rolling HP at that time. The player had rolled a 1 multiple times for his HP, he died several times and lost CON which lowered his HP further. He was 6th level and only had a handful of HP. This actually adversely affected the game because I had to scale encounters to his HP or he simply ran away. So balance yes, the other players pulled more weight than he did in combat. And it was a design pitfall built into the system. Note he still had fun with his character!

So, good game design is key, obvious pitfalls like skill taxes and feat taxes which 3e and 4e had. Arbitrary requirements, that made things difficult to attain, or required revision via rules updates (4e halfling and a staff, 3e polymorph spell or better the 3.5e!)