Can somebody explain the bias against game balance?

[Neonchameleon]

I say homogenized, you say forced through very small holes under very high pressure.

And I say much more flexible than it first looks.

Why should a Paladin be a tank?

He needn't. The names of classes are correlated to the way people act in game. But they are not the same. Any DM who would say that a properly built Fighter, Warlord, or Cleric (especially with the multiclass feat) can't be a member of an order of Paladins and thereby a Paladin for in character purposes (even without the divine blessings) is either running a very odd world or is an idiot.

Why should a rogue be a trap remover?

You'd have to ask Gygax that.

Why can't the Paladin be an embodiment of his faith's wrath?

He can be. You just take the Invoker class, file the serial numbers off and call him a Paladin when in character.

Or a mysterious grizzled old general who leads a village in over throwing the bandit king tyrannizing them?

He can be. You just take the Warlord class, file the serial numbers off and call him a Paladin when in character. Or simply have Charismadin and say that's what he is.

Why can't the rogue be a con artist, or a second story man, or swashbuckler who don't know anything about traps?

There's nothing saying you need to use all the abilities on your character sheet. And there's nothing saying you need to play the rogue class to play a con-artist. (A non-implement using bard makes a better one as they are based round charisma and flexibility).

Why do they all have to be awesome in combat?

Because Dungeons and Dragons is and always has been a game that has a very strong basis in combat. And characters that can get beaten up by housecats are just silly.

Why can't we have a courtier who can defend himself, but really doesn't do much in combat, but can manipulate the system and call in favors and speak with a silver tongue out of combat?

You can. You take a bard. Give him a mix of coincidental powers and mind effecting ones (e.g. Vicious Mockery, Blunder), and social skills through the roof. At no point are you any good with a weapon or directly doing anything obvious in combat. But you still hold your own. (There's also a Warlord build where all you do is shout advice and warnings and let everyone else do the actual attacking). And outside combat you do have a silver tongue - very high charisma, all social skills trained, and some nice utility powers. "The system" and the ability to call in favours is game-world specific.

Or a physician and scientist who, while not helpless is not a combatant, can patch anyone in the party up, identify every plant under the sun, and knows pretty much everything about everything?

You can. Take a Bard. Multiclass feats and skill picks to get Religion, Nature, Dungeoneering, Arcana (which you get for free anyway), Streetwise (arguably), and Heal (shouldn't take much multiclassing). Take the Bardic Knowledge feat.

Any more things you supposedly can't be that are sensible to RP?

 

[BryonD]

This is not a 4e "balance goal", and never has been. The goal is for all characters to be basically competent at a variety of things that allow them to participate and feel useful for the majority of the game, as well as be excellent at a handful of things that vary from character to character in which they can shine.

Could you explain exactly why you feel your perception to be the case? It's pretty clear that a Paladin, for instance, is much better at things like holding a really tough monster at bay than a Rogue, who is in turn much better at eliminating the threat posed by traps than the Paladin is. This seems obvious to me. Am I incorrect, here?

Compared to any other game I know of, the Rogue is far better at holding a tough monster at bay and the Paladin is better at eliminating the threat posed by traps.

Characters can be experts in something, but everyone is at least clearly competent in practically everything.

It has been praised by 4E fans many times that the game no longer "grinds to a halt" because the party wizard has no chance to climb a wall that is a challenge to a rogue. To those of us who never had an issue with anything grinding to a halt, the simulation aspects of being in a complex world with unlimited challenges is lost to the math working constraints of conflict-resolution board game balance.

The range of skill level is present in areas of focus. But it is muted. The range of skill level in average areas or weak areas is deeply diminished.

I went through a long debate on this topic before. Someone ended up posting their mid level 4E character sheets to show me wrong. I pointed out that the primary attacks of each character all ended up in the same tight range. This is obvious really, since it is 1/2 level plus prime ability (which is going to be nearly the same), plus a handful of other similarly regulate bonuses define the amount. Even selecting the weakest of skills, ones for which a character was of minimal ability, the chance of success against an "average" challenge was better than 50/50 and even "very difficult" challenges were around 10% chance of success.

People praise page 42. To me the idea that the parameter ranges for correctly balanced can be captured in a single page is deeply undesirable.

It has been explained to me that a blackguard in full plate and a pirate in a torn shirt have the same AC because they are appropriate challenges this way. I'd rather they be a pirate and a black guard first and this includes mechanically realizing them appropriate mechanical elements, not starting with the mechanics determined before the npc is defined and working backwards to show horn the skin over the same frame.

"The math works" is a stated goal of 4E. And the math *does* work. For good and for bad. The paladin being different than the rogue because we are only talking about the paladin's specialty is true. But so is saying that two 16" pizzas are different because one has a slice of pepperoni sitting in the center and the other has an olive.

I'm glad 4E works great for a lot of people. But there are a lot of good reasons to find other approaches preferable. The OP seems to think that the only possible reason is min/maxing, which he has no sympathy for. I have sympathy for not being able to see the other opportunities that are out there. After all, it may be that you would still prefer the total rule of balance, but how do you know if you don't know what the alternatives are?

 

[BryonD]

Any more things you supposedly can't be that are sensible to RP?

Unskilled in some areas .

 

[Raven Crowking]

Balance can frequently remove any flavor.

Balanced dosent automatically mean things are fun.

Add in that my definition of stronger and weaker are probably very different from yours, and your idea of balance may not even be the same as mine.

So reducing everything down to the point where everything is mechanically identical may be balanced, but it will be just as fun as a conformist utopia

This.

Also, creating balance requires reduction of options. As options increase, so does imbalance. This doesn't just mean options in terms of character builds, but means options in terms of how the system is used.

For example, say I wanted to run a traditional megadungeon campaign, using actual longterm resource management using 4e. Players will not get treasure parcels; they will get whatever treasure they find. The simple inclusion of longterm resource management and "treasure by finding it" will create imbalances.

Likewise, there have been many threads here on EN World where folks have been told that it is "bad DMing" to only allow PCs to use their powers when it is "realistic" for them to do so. The argument is that it creates imbalance by penalizing certain character choices.

These things created imbalances in all editions; but not all editions were so very concerned about it. In some editions, imbalance was the reward (or penalty) for good (or poor) play. Players sought imbalance that favoured them, just as players do in any other game.


RC

 

[Krensky]

He needn't. The names of classes are correlated to the way people act in game. But they are not the same. Any DM who would say that a properly built Fighter, Warlord, or Cleric (especially with the multiclass feat) can't be a member of an order of Paladins and thereby a Paladin for in character purposes (even without the divine blessings) is either running a very odd world or is an idiot.

Missing the point. Why does a class have to be starkly limited in combat role. Why do classes even need combat roles? Why does everyone have to be a combatant?

You'd have to ask Gygax that.

Gygax wrote a thief, not a rogue. Also, why do we need to slavishly follow design decisions over thirty years old?

He can be. You just take the Invoker class, file the serial numbers off and call him a Paladin when in character.

He can be. You just take the Warlord class, file the serial numbers off and call him a Paladin when in character. Or simply have Charismadin and say that's what he is.

Ah, the old 'just re-skin it' argument. Why should you have to re-skin it? Why can't choice of faith, skills, feats, and abilities have the same effect? And an Invoker doesn't fill the mark because I said a paladin, not an divine wizard.

There's nothing saying you need to use all the abilities on your character sheet. And there's nothing saying you need to play the rogue class to play a con-artist. (A non-implement using bard makes a better one as they are based round charisma and flexibility).

Again, misses the point.

Because Dungeons and Dragons is and always has been a game that has a very strong basis in combat. And characters that can get beaten up by housecats are just silly.

Who said anything about housecats. There's a big gap between that and not having any combat focused abilities.

You can. You take a bard. Give him a mix of coincidental powers and mind effecting ones (e.g. Vicious Mockery, Blunder), and social skills through the roof. At no point are you any good with a weapon or directly doing anything obvious in combat. But you still hold your own. (There's also a Warlord build where all you do is shout advice and warnings and let everyone else do the actual attacking). And outside combat you do have a silver tongue - very high charisma, all social skills trained, and some nice utility powers. "The system" and the ability to call in favours is game-world specific.

And if I don't want a boatload of semi-magical combat powers? I said non-combatant. Also this seems needlessly complex and fiddly. All game worlds will have a system to work. It's human nature.

You can. Take a Bard. Multiclass feats and skill picks to get Religion, Nature, Dungeoneering, Arcana (which you get for free anyway), Streetwise (arguably), and Heal (shouldn't take much multiclassing). Take the Bardic Knowledge feat.

Again, more build fiddling. What if I want that at 1st level?

Any more things you supposedly can't be that are sensible to RP?

The merchant with no combat abilities beyond swinging a sword (or shooting a bow) and harsh language.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Balance is an important thing to have. Especially in combat. You can play without roling any dice out of combat. But once you get in, it is more fun for everybody if the system works.

2nd edition worked well. 3rd edition on a certain level too. 4th edition also. In 4th edition balance was more or less achieved by giving all classes a similar base structure. In 2nd edition balance was achieved with very varying base structures but a system where everyone can shine in the right circumstance.

In 2nd edition it was a lot harder for the DM to make the game fun for everyone, because you had to check constantly that everybody can expoit its strengthes from time to time. Even in combat.

It is however a very bad thing to think that you can remove the DM from the equation. Every decision the DM makes is affecting balance, no matter if he uses fiat or rules. It is just a bit faster for an experienced DM to make good calls. For newer DMs it is better when the rules are balanced well enough.

For more experienced players it can also be nicer when the rules are not too uniform, because it can get boring. But everything that, as pointed out already in other posts, is not uniform is unbalanced by definition.

I can use the most balanced game system and make a fight where the archer is much more efficient than the melee guy and vice versa.

@class limit to combat role:
Maybe the next iteration of D&D can cose between race, combat class and social class seperately...

You could mix and match them as you wish and it doesn´t interfere with each other.

You can have the rogue/thief or the bully/thief

right now with 4e you can achieve this with multiclass training at 1st level. And it works well enough.

 

[Obryn]

I'm still perplexed why I'd want to use D&D for a skill-based game, when there are actual skill-based RPGs out there.

If I want to run a game with rat-catchers, courtiers, field medics, and so on, I'm much more likely to pull out WFRP2 than any edition of D&D. GURPS would probably also be a great fit, though I'm frankly about 15 years out of practice on it.

And one quick note...

Ah, the old 'just re-skin it' argument. Why should you have to re-skin it? Why can't choice of faith, skills, feats, and abilities have the same effect? And an Invoker doesn't fill the mark because I said a paladin, not an divine wizard.

It's not really reskinning, though - it's just respecting a strong class/level system for what it is. While 4e is a lot more class-focused than 3e was, it's not as class-focused as 1e was. You need to consider the class as what it can do, not what philosophies it holds. It'd be like saying, in a 3e game, "I want a Fighter who casts fireballs and throws magic missiles." Not a multiclassed Fighter, not a Duskblade - just a Fighter. Obviously, the DM should steer a player towards either multiclassing or playing a different class entirely; this is no different.

In this case, you'd figure out what the player wants out of being a Paladin, and what they want to be able to do; if those abilities don't match, you pick a different class. Roleplaying a code of conduct is the player's job.

Again, more build fiddling. What if I want that at 1st level?

Then again you're not respecting the class/level system. What if I want my Wizard to cast Stinking Cloud at 1st level? What if I want my Fighter to be specialized in Bastard Swords at 1st level?

-O

 

[UngeheuerLich]

@Krensky:

roll stats, 10 + con hp, +4 per level, 4 +con modifier surges
8 skills chosen as you like. Chose skill powers instead of class utility powers. Scratch combat powers altogether. Give out martial practises as a feat.

done.

@Obryn:
3.5 skills worked very well. Only those skills that had a direct effect in combat overshadowed all other skills and made non.maxim them a bad idea.
Other skills were perfectly viable at 5 ranks etc. Taking 10 and taking 20 frequently was the reason.

 

[Garthanos]

This is not a 4e "balance goal", and never has been. The goal is for all characters to be basically competent at a variety of things that allow them to participate and feel useful for the majority of the game, as well as be excellent at a handful of things that vary from character to character in which they can shine.

This. There I go making one of those yeah "what he said" posts.

 

[Obryn]

3.5 skills worked very well. Only those skills that had a direct effect in combat overshadowed all other skills and made non.maxim them a bad idea.
Other skills were perfectly viable at 5 ranks etc. Taking 10 and taking 20 frequently was the reason.

It's still tied into levels, though. Your Level 1 character can't have a +18 skill check on something, even with a Skill Focus feat.

Highly skilled characters must be high-level, per the mechanics. Along with that increase in level comes an increase in HPs, saving throws, and combat skill.

Mind you - I actually run a d20 variant that emphasizes skills (Call of Cthulhu d20), so I kinda know of what I speak. My solution is to basically ignore those rules for NPCs, and it works great. But if I can ignore the rules to get what I want in a d20 game, it's disingenuous to say that I can't also ignore the rules in a 4e game.

-O