D&D 5E Balance of Power Problems in 5e: Self created?

[Nagol]

None of those are remotely guaranteed to tell you the precise location of an unknown BBEG's lair. Do you have some explanation for one of them you think would work really superbly well?

They're useful spells, but they aren't a panacea for finding information. None of them is actually as effective as, for example, finding a map to your target location.

The nice thing about hypotheticals is I don't need to come up with a fully-fleshed adventure off-the-cuff. I can conceive of situations where any or most of those spells, combined with other non-casting information gathering can provide sufficient information to move the situation forward.

Fly lasts 10 minutes. Word of Recall is a 6th level spell, and it takes the caster back to his sanctuary, which helps... how? Planar Binding... what are they binding? What group mount? Planar Binding doesn't do anything useful for them by itself.

Fly is my bad. WoR could act like a teleport back to a locale closer to the end point of the adventure.

Control Weather is an 8th level spell.

You're just grasping at straws at this point.

Longer than a couple hours? For our intrepid heroes? Please. How big is this complex? They'll be in and out in under an hour, just like the time they stole the Frozen Crown from the Dead King on the day of his wedding.

Edit: And they aren't taking a ship, they're taking Cyclops-trained Griffons!

No. Not really though I am away form my books. Look, I can build an adventure that a well-balanced party can do that requires their medium to higher level abilities to pull off. I can adjust that adventure to support a martial-only group. By and large the martial-only group is the only one that specifically requires DM largesse to keep things moving forward. The other class types typically have sufficient breadth to keep momentum going for themselves. Your own example shows that with its convenient potions appropriately stashed for the group to find and use to move to the next stage.

If you run a sandbox playstyle, as I do, then it is up to the PCs to acquire the resources and capabilities that provide success in their adventuring careers. It doesn't mean the PCs can't find and raid the local villain hangout, but the PCs should not expect to find a solution to their problems whilst on the adventure.

This is not a issue 5e suffers in isolation, but 5e does suffer it. In most editions of D&D, there are really three main ways a martial an expand 'sideways': magical items, cohorts/henchmen, and factional support. Of those three methods, two have been offered official support in various editions. 5e offers the least amount of support for these three areas. Magic item collection is deemphasized, cohorts have no mechanical subsystems, and no version of D&D has offered factional support (though many DMs do).

 

[Nagol]

Look, I get your point, [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION].

Some stuff is harder for a party that lacks magic. That's the point of magic. That's a feature of the game, that you can have a game with a bit of a more low-fantasy feel with difficult environmental challenges, where assaulting an underwater frozen base requires a sophisticated strategy and preliminary resource gathering.

But you're going so far overboard on the other end, in painting non-spellcasters as fundamentally inept adventurers. It's pretty silly, in my view.

Non-magic-users aren't inept adventurers: they are more constrained; the adventures they can accomplish are a small spectrum of the adventures a magical group can accomplish and there are few adventures the magic-using group can't accomplish the non-magic can. Analogues to the divinatory, travel, and environmental resistance/survival abilities don't exist in D&D and the systems that existed historically to provide secondary support (specifically henchmen and the skewed magic item tables) don't exist in RAW.

In effect, non-magic-using classes are support specialists that make one game pillar slightly easier.

 

[Hathorym]

In our game, we make what we want, allow MC and feats, cheer each other's successes, comfort our failures, drink beer, have a good time. We aren't worried about balance because we get ourselves into some many different situations we're happy that one of us can help us out of it. I can't recall a time where someone felt they were weaker than another character for mechanical reasons, only story.

We've played this way for 11 years through 3.5, Pathfinder, 4th, 5th, Star Wars, and Champions.

The bottom line is that if you constantly fret about imbalance, you'll find it everywhere. If you just chill, have fun, and tell great stories, you'll be more worried about what's going to happen TO your character, rather than what someone else's character can do that you can't.

 

[dco]

All problems are self created since you have the power to choose whether something is a problem, or not. If feats are viewed as something that breaks balance, it will. Feats are not a problem in my games because I have not chosen to view them as a problem. This is not to say that something should not be improved if it can be but allowing something within your game to simply be as it is can go a long way to maintaining harmony in your game. So, in that regard, I agree with the OP suggestion that balance of power/imbalance issues are indeed self-created.

The player didn't create a problem, he experienced an unbalanced design and didn't like it, subsequently problems arised. He can not choose what he likes, there is no choice there, the choice comes later when he has to think how to spend his time.

 

[Celtavian]

So eliminate game options that make the game more fun for likely the vast majority of players to make the game easier? One of my players is already bored with the limited options in 5E. He's bored with every character having some ability to gain advantage, get damage resistance, and do some damage within a very narrow range. I'm supposed to take away what limited customization exists in 5E to make the game easier to play as the answer to the balance problems? That will make my players want to play less.

When you come from a game like Pathfinder/3E with a near endless number of character building options, 5E runs out of character building options real quick even with the limited feats and customization options they have now.

It doesn't help that certain classes are better than others by quite a margin, paladins being one of the main culprits. You can play a solo paladin and be great. Multiclassing paladin is amazing. Paladin is a class that stands heads and tails above the others for providing powerful options for victory that overshadow many other martial classes. So if you have a desire to play a fighter or barbarian and another guy has the desire to play a paladin, relative player skill being equal, the fighter or barbarian player should be prepared to be overshadowed most of the time whether it's making key saves, novaing on damage, having a cool mount, healing, and numerous other nifty abilities. And that is a problem since it creates a narrowband problem for the DM when crafting enemies and encounters if one class is better at a wide variety of very important things like saving throws, spike damage, immunities, combat healing, and adds in spells and other nifty little abilities.

I don't consider this self-inflicted when the players choose the best options based on observable, measurable success defeating encounters. That means there is a meaningful statistical balance problem in the game between classes or player versus environment. Can you smooth some of this out as a DM? Sure. It doesn't mean those mechanical issues don't exist. It just means you found a way to ameliorate the problems when running the game.

 

[MostlyDm]

No. Not really though I am away form my books. Look, I can build an adventure that a well-balanced party can do that requires their medium to higher level abilities to pull off. I can adjust that adventure to support a martial-only group. By and large the martial-only group is the only one that specifically requires DM largesse to keep things moving forward. The other class types typically have sufficient breadth to keep momentum going for themselves. Your own example shows that with its convenient potions appropriately stashed for the group to find and use to move to the next stage.

If you run a sandbox playstyle, as I do, then it is up to the PCs to acquire the resources and capabilities that provide success in their adventuring careers. It doesn't mean the PCs can't find and raid the local villain hangout, but the PCs should not expect to find a solution to their problems whilst on the adventure.

In a sandbox environment, the entire issue is moot. They would engage with events on their own terms, and the idea of there being some highly time sensitive quest that they are expected to complete doesn't really wash.

Having run many sandbox-style low-magic games, I just don't see the need for DM largesse you describe. In my experience, spells simplify solutions to problem, or obviate the need for certain solutions (e.g. teleport obviates the need for good mounts)... but non-magic classes can still solve a huge variety of problems by doing things "the hard way."

And for the record... I don't think the water-breathing potions thing is actually largesse or deus ex machina or anything like that. If a BBEG has an underwater base, and has humanoid minions, they need some way of accessing it. It's totally logical that his outposts in humanoid lands would include caches of such potions.

This is not a issue 5e suffers in isolation, but 5e does suffer it. In most editions of D&D, there are really three main ways a martial an expand 'sideways': magical items, cohorts/henchmen, and factional support. Of those three methods, two have been offered official support in various editions. 5e offers the least amount of support for these three areas. Magic item collection is deemphasized, cohorts have no mechanical subsystems, and no version of D&D has offered factional support (though many DMs do).

Magical item collection is de-emphasized as a requirement, as a player entitlement that the DM is required to maintain... but there's tons of support for magic items. And if anything, the game is more encouraging of magical wondrous items, and is primarily cautious about magic weapons, armor, flat pluses, etc.

The only reason they de-emphasized magic items is so that magic items actually feel meaningful and beneficial, and so that running a low magic game doesn't hurt the game math. You're spinning these as downsides, but they're pure positives compared to 3e and 4e, and precisely the same approach taken in earlier editions.

Hireling support doesn't need mechanical subsystems, in my opinion. But you can look at published adventures like Out of the Abyss to see that 5e still encourages and supports the use of NPC allies.

Also worth mentioning that even the "martials" often have magic and supernatural abilities. There's only 1 class, 2/3 subclasses of another class, 2/3 subclasses of another class, and 1/3 subclasses of another class that fundamentally lack spells. A tiny fraction of the overall class pool.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Scenario 3: the group is composed only of arcane casters. Discovery is a bit harder. Travel and assault are fine. Secondary tactics like summoning prove very useful during the assault to limit damage. The final assault fails because the environmental damage takes its toll. The PCs manage to escape with the last of their spells rather than TPK.
!

Arcane casters include Bards (support, skill expertise), wizards, sorcerers, warlock (sustained DPR), and, for that matter EK & AT. Even without the last two (which can probably be excluded on the grounds they're defacto multiclass), that could be a pretty diverse set of capabilities...

The only reason they de-emphasized magic items is so that magic items actually feel meaningful and beneficial, and so that running a low magic game doesn't hurt the game math. You're spinning these as downsides, but they're pure positives compared to 3e and 4e, and precisely the same approach taken in earlier editions.

I quite like leaving out magic items all but entirely in 5e, but it's very nearly a new thing, and only applies to items. 3.5, at some point, (I think, I haven't been able to find the source, someone who remembers 3.5 better than I can chime in, perhaps) introduced 'inherent bonuses' which tracked the expected magical bonuses the game expected from wealth/level, 4e retained that option (and also had more power/versatility concentrated in class relative to items in the first place), so they could both run relatively low magic in theory (no magic remained out of the question for 3.x which required it for healing and the like, 4e did no-magic - or even all-martial pretty in an otherwise normal setting - seamlessly thanks to the presence of the Warlord). But neither /assumed/ no items, they could just be adapted to it. 5e was at least purported to be designed w/o considering items, in the playtest communications. I'm not sure it entirely came through on that - but it can't really handle a no-magic setting & party, HD and other non-magical healing resources help out of combat, but it's not enough).
As to the classic game, it assumed magic, it assumed the Cleric for healing and wizard for spells and so forth in the classic 'niche protection' scheme, obviously, and it assumed items to keep the non-caster viable at higher levels - at least, Gygax came right out and said that it did in the DMG when discussing the magic items tables, FWTW.

So gunning for no assumed items was actually kinda a new thing with 5e. Not a huge thing, not entirely new, but a thing.

 

[Lanefan]

I've runs monolithic groups before. A lot of the time our play circle generates characters separate and blindly. Each person brings what they want to play and we see how well the group does.

Wait...does your party, on meeting each other and seeing the group is comprised of 5 [warriors/wizards/rogues/clerics - pick one] and nothing else, not realize they're short a few key elements and go out and recruit some people to fill the gaps???

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

When you come from a game like Pathfinder/3E with a near endless number of character building options, 5E runs out of character building options real quick even with the limited feats and customization options they have now.

To you, a bug. To me, a strong feature; improved further if the DM drops feats from the game.

I'd rather spend my time playing the character than building it, meaning I want character generation to be smooth, simple and fast*...as in 15-minutes fast once I've done it a few times.

* - PF/3e were - let's face it - none of those.

Lan-"characters can be very, very different in play even if their underlying mechanical numbers are exactly the same"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

Wait...does your party, on meeting each other and seeing the group is comprised of 5 [warriors/wizards/rogues/clerics - pick one] and nothing else, not realize they're short a few key elements and go out and recruit some people to fill the gaps???

What, and 'metagame?' ;P

Seriously, though, a party /could/ be comprised of common-origin-story types - not a lot of fighters in a party of Hogwarts alumni, for instance. I mean, could in genre/fiction/theory, in D&D, not until 3e at the earliest... And, really, in 5e it's only the 'martial' party that's non-viable. (Though, /really/, in 5e the DM has the latitude to tailor things to the party - any party, no matter how far ahead of or behind the expected curve).