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

IMO all this "balancing" nonsense is making up solutions for problems that dont exist anywhere but internet forums.

I've been DM'ing 3e and now pathfinder since they first came out and what i've noticed is that most actual players dont care about all being equally good at every single thing. Most of them want to do one thing, very well. And their happy with that.

For instance my current group has got a cleric, a mage, cleric/rogue, barbarian, ranger/rogue and a paladin.

Its been wilderness heavy so the ranger gets a lot of spotlight time scouting and such, he's found a few beasties and led them into ambushes for the rest of the group. He's been only mediocre in the actual fighting but ruled the skill challenges. He's enjoying the hell out of the game and formulating long term plans for his character in the world.

Could the mage use invisibility and silence to scout? Maybe, but only for a few minutes a day. So unless the party wants to move about 2 miles a day thats not a real option. It might be an internet forum option, but its not a real option in play.

The pure cleric has a high CHR and lots of diplomacy. He's a decent fighter but excells when dealing with NPC's. How do i know he enjoys this? Because he created a character specifically to do it and jumps to the forefront everytime that comes up. He's happy. Not ruling combat by any stretch but happy.

Could casters use charms? Sure, but that severely limits the amount of people you can talk do each day, plus no one likes to be mind raped, so as soon as it wears off those NPC's are going to be pissed. Not a good option. So sure, an internet forum option, but not a real one in play.

The barbarian.... is a barbarian. He smashes stuff with power attack. So far he's done the most actual enemy killing and some pretty solid RPing as well as assisted the ranger with wilderness stuff.

Could casters also kill bad guys? Sure, they do it too. But they cant and dont do it consistently, round by round, fight after fight, all day, each adventuring day.

The caster has fireballed a few but all in all he hasnt nearly kept up the meleer's in combat effectiveness.

Maybe its because I dont play the monsters as total morons so when the caster throws some area control spell out they just back off and get out of sight until the spell wears off or the party comes chasing them and then that spell was effectively wasted.

But for whatever reason in many, many years of playing I have never seen the caster dominance in actual play that you see people getting all worked up over online.

IME most people have wanted to play some sort of martial or skill monkey character. Its not too hard to find at least one caster player, but sometimes filling that cleric slot is really hard.


Long story short I hope that 5e doesnt worry too much about it and lets us DM's handle it. At bare minimum I hope for damn sure they dont worry about everyone contributing equally in every single fight they way they did in 4e.

Just give everyone a Niche, let them be the best at it most of the time (they dont need to be the best all the time) and back away.

timASW said:

IMO all this "balancing" nonsense is making up solutions for problems that dont exist anywhere but internet forums.

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Just give everyone a Niche, let them be the best at it most of the time (they dont need to be the best all the time) and back away.

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Just because your group didn't experience it, doesn't mean no one's ever did. The problems DO exist in the rules. They may not exist in your GAME, but the position that most of us hold is that they should not exist in the rules. And yes, I would imagine that many of us did run into these problems in our games--my former DM tried several fixes before finally just giving up and deciding to ban wizards, clerics, and druids altogether from his 3rd edition campaign. You seem to be trying to sell us the game that 3rd edition sets out to be, but usually fails to live up to if your players are at all competent.

The idea that "these issues don't come up in play" is a dangerous myth to perpetuate.

Magil said:

Just because your group didn't experience it, doesn't mean no one's ever did. The problems DO exist in the rules. They may not exist in your GAME, but the position that most of us hold is that they should not exist in the rules. And yes, I would imagine that many of us did run into these problems in our games--my former DM tried several fixes before finally just giving up and deciding to ban wizards, clerics, and druids altogether from his 3rd edition campaign. You seem to be trying to sell us the game that 3rd edition sets out to be, but usually fails to live up to if your players are at all competent.

The idea that "these issues don't come up in play" is a dangerous myth to perpetuate.

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It's not a myth but a playstyle conflict. Because of your (former) group's playstyle you were unable to play with spellcasters. I have no idea what playstyle could force a DM to "ban wizards, clerics, and druids altogether from his 3rd edition campaign" but I have a feeling it's drastically different from any D&D game I've ever played.

Magil said:

The problems DO exist in the rules. They may not exist in your GAME, but...

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I think you've got it backwards. The problems don't exist in the rules. They may exist in your game, but that doesn't mean that they are a natural, expected, or obligatory consequence of using that rules system.

Whatever anyone says on the internet, it's hard to believe that a game that has been and continues to be as successful as modern D&D (including 3e and earlier editions that had similar takes on class design, as well as Pathfinder and a variety of other d20 offshoots) could be as fundamentally flawed as you are implying that it is.

The real story is this:

timASW said:

Long story short I hope that 5e doesnt worry too much about it and lets us DM's handle it.

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Balance is created by the DM and the players, not the rules.

Ahnehnois said:

The real story is this:
Balance is created by the DM and the players, not the rules.

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Which is exactly what I said to begin with. Balance is not found in the rules, nor should it be. Balance is found in the gaming group where it belongs. The rules are there as a guideline, and as a trap for rules lawyers to try to challenge DM (usually to their detriment).

shadowmane said:

Which is exactly what I said to begin with. Balance is not found in the rules, nor should it be. Balance is found in the gaming group where it belongs. The rules are there as a guideline, and as a trap for rules lawyers to try to challenge DM (usually to their detriment).

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Yes, what's more D&D than Pirates of the Caribbean? "They're more guidelines than actual rules."

The misnomer of calling them "rules" when they are not rules in the same sense that chess of basketball or WoW rules are has caused innumerable problems.

hamstertamer said:

It's not a myth but a playstyle conflict. Because of your (former) group's playstyle you were unable to play with spellcasters. I have no idea what playstyle could force a DM to "ban wizards, clerics, and druids altogether from his 3rd edition campaign" but I have a feeling it's drastically different from any D&D game I've ever played.

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No, really, it's not.

When the lead designer of the next edition basically comes out and says in an official article that spellcasters can and did wield too much power and said in the interview that got him his job at WotC that clerics were the most overpowered class in 3rd edition D&D, it's more than a playstyle problem.

My best friend, the guy I trust above any other dude on the planet, basically broke my game with a wizard built with core rules only during the 3.5 era. He wasn't a jerk. I wasn't running anything remotely "fringe" as far as D&D experiences go. Still, my game was broken in half by an Illusionist with craft wondrous items.

So, when I hear from people that my very middle of the road, bog-standard D&D game was broken because of a "playstyle issue" and not because some classes were massively overpowered because of legacy elements wrong-headedly kept in to avoid causing some "long-time players" discomfort when they flip through a game book, I get mighty pissed; you're basically saying that I am playing the game wrong.

Ahnehnois said:

Yes, what's more D&D than Pirates of the Caribbean? "They're more guidelines than actual rules."

The misnomer of calling them "rules" when they are not rules in the same sense that chess of basketball or WoW rules are has caused innumerable problems.

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Oh, they're rules alright. But what determines how your game is played is which ones your DM chooses to enforce, and which ones he throws out. Each gaming table is unique, and uses its own set of rules, based on the D&D rules.

I'm a correctional officer, and its kind of like the policy book written by the State. Its State Policy, yet it is tweaked for each specific prison, which causes some confusion among inmates as they are transferred from prison to prison. Each prison's SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) is different, and interprets State Policy differently, according to the Superintendent that runs the place.

Such is the case with D&D as well. The rules are there to use as a guideline. Take what you want of them, and throw out what you don't want. House Rules are what makes the game. Its also what makes the game different at each table, AND what makes it all D&D. Because in the end, its all based on the same rules set.

The Choice said:

When the lead designer of the next edition basically comes out and says in an official article that spellcasters can and did wield too much power and said in the interview that got him his job at WotC that clerics were the most overpowered class in 3rd edition D&D, it's more than a playstyle problem.

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If that designer was hired because of a business decision to move away from the OGL and his pitch was to try to bash the OGL version of the game into obscurity and make a radically different and incompatible game that everyone would have to switch to, it's less than a playstyle problem. It's a business problem. They wanted to convince people to pay a subscription fee for a game that had been partially available for free and to buy a new edition while the old one was still warm on the press. They created reasons for people to spend money on their products. Addressing gameplay issues is not likely to have been a major consideration in any of this.

you're basically saying that I am playing the game wrong.

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Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you're playing a game you ostensibly like and you're not having fun, one which continues to dominate the rpg market (albeit partially under a different brand name), I don't get how you can conclude that it's the game's fault. No one's saying it's perfect, but those extremely negative experiences suggest that you either needed to change what game you were playing or how you were playing it. I'm guessing you did at least one of those.

Sorry I've not read the thread...

But what exactly is being 'balanced' in the OPs question? Spotlight time? In game 'effectiveness'? Contribution? Fun'?

The latest L&L talks about characters not outshining each other in a global sense while allowing them to shine at specific instances so everyone gets to participate.

What that suggests is that if those 'specific instances' happen very frequently for your character in your game and another player's time to shine never comes around that game is going to feel 'unbalanced'.

But in saying that, the balance in question has been determined by your group's playstyle relative to the system - not solely by the system.

Games like FATE and Burning Wheel - I'll call them Indie games for now - get round this by giving you Aspects or Beliefs which are the focus of the game. The GM makes sure they provide content based on every players' Aspects or Beliefs which guarantees everyone gets spotlight time (and, hopefully, fun is the result). Fiasco goes round the table giving everyone their 'scene' in turn.

Older - I'll call them traditional games - don't have these drivers, so it's very much up to the GM to ensure that each character gets a chance to feel they have contributed. It can be a lot of work and a real headache for a DM but it's the job, whether you're playing Call of Cthulhu or Champions or AD&D.

tl;dr - balance can be achieved through metagame mechanics which ensure the spotlight is passed around; in their absence 'balance' is about playstyle and system - not just system.