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

[hawkeyefan]

Exactly? As in 'exactly the opposite?'

Well you said:
Maybe in the sense that any imbalance can be fixed (or, more likely, compensated for), so failure to do so is self-inflicted. Similarly, no matter how robustly balanced a system, it can be broken - so, again, self-inflicted.

And that is what I was agreeing with. Sorry that was not clear. Exactly....self-inflicted as you said.

'Most games' of course, is a pretty broad sweep - most games are probably at least fair (even if they're imbalanced, the same choices are available to everyone).
D&D has never been so well-balanced that you'd have to work /that/ hard at breaking it, especially from the DM side. And in most versions of D&D, including 5e, you have to make an effort (rulings/variants/manufactured situations/'DM Force'/etc on the DM side, and/or restraint on the player side) or stick to a prescribed mode of play (6-8 encounter/2-3 short rest 'day' &c) to get it to much balance at all. Sure, many of us make that effort as a matter of course and after decades of playing the game we may not even notice it anymore, or, if we do, just consider it a fact-of-life rather than a flaw that could be corrected.

But don't you think that the effort to "break" the game, so to speak, requires some level of familiarity with the game system? Do you think that the options available to players are that mismatched compared to one another as-is? Or do you think that it takes someone who recognizes the implications of combinations and so forth in order to start bending things their way?

You talk about experience allowing folks to adjust for imbalance....and that is true. But isn't that also a requirement of bending the rules?

The working definition I prefer is maximizing the choices available while also keeping as many of those choices as possible both meaningful & viable. So, examples of 'imbalanced' would include having many classes of which only a handful are 'Tier 1,' or having many possible EL n Encounters some of which would likely be rollovers for a level n party, while others would be possible TPKs, and the rest a range between, with very few actually being the intended level of difficulty.

So where do you think that the imbalance among choices comes into it? Classes? Feats? What choices are you talking about specifically?

That's a possible consequence. Another would be having a party where everyone is playing the same class with very similar build decisions, because it's just that much better than all the other possibilities (as opposed to because we just all feel like playing thieves).

Sure, that could happen. I haven't really seen it. Certainly not in 5E, and not in any other system that I know of....with the possible exception of a campaign designed around members of a class (like a thieves' guild campaign or similar).

Min/maxers and new/casual players routinely play in the same groups, while 5 year-olds are rarely allowed to play professional sports. So that's a pretty bad analogy.

It's a fine analogy. A beginner versus a veteran. Make the beginner a 25 year old who is athletic if you like....you got the point of the analogy, so it worked.

Sounds like shifting it in a purely semantic way. The DM /could/ avoid imbalances by always running in a carefully-calculated way to spotlight each player's PC in turn, even though one of them can do everything the other two can, and one of the remainder is for more powerful than the other. That would mean using very different, tailored challenges, possibly resorting to implausible circumstances and even railroading. That /is/ always challenging the party in the same way, as opposed to running the world 'status-quo,' or just running whatever you like, as you could with a better-balanced party.

I wouldn't say it's a matter of semantics. We all know that the game functions differently for each group of gamers....anecdotal evidence here on these boards is pretty prevalent.

And I do think that things should be tailored to the group in play. Not always, and no to the extreme....but I don't think it's strange to expect a DM to adjust things to account for a deficiency or abundance of a certain type of resource. No healer? Okay, maybe potions are more common. Things like that.

D&D generally has lent itself to imbalance enough for imbalances to occur as a matter of course unless the DM and players approach it 'just so' (something many of us have been doing automatically for decades, thanks to playing it so darn much). 5e is certainly less imbalanced than 3.5/PF (intentionally designed to 'reward system mastery,' which makes a virtue of imbalance). 'Balance' relative to the quixotic classic game more debatable. (Really, 5e and the classic game are presented in such a way that even definitively defining their systems in an objective way is iffy, let alone evaluating them for any trace of balance). Obviously, 4e is the outlier, being the most robustly balanced (though far from perfectly balanced - look at all the 'chaff' in the list of feats, for instance).

Sure. I'm not saying that 5E or any edition or game for that matter is perfectly balanced. But if I had to say if I find the game to be the cause of imbalance or the players/DM, then I tend to place the responsibility for that on the players/DM.

Would you agree with that? Or would you say it is the system that is indeed to blame?

 

[Lanefan]

Reasonable enough. Or like the Leadership feat in 3e.

But you weren't suggesting that the players reject one or more of their characters and say 'come back with a healer,' right?

That's an option, of course, but what I was getting at is more when a party finds itself lacking a significant function (e.g. healer, trap-finder, arcane blaster, whatever) they go and find one (usually, an NPC) rather than just bemoan the fact they don't have it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well you said:
Maybe in the sense that any imbalance can be fixed (or, more likely, compensated for), so failure to do so is self-inflicted. Similarly, no matter how robustly balanced a system, it can be broken - so, again, self-inflicted.

And that is what I was agreeing with. Sorry that was not clear. Exactly....self-inflicted as you said.

Sorry, improper use of irony on my part.

But don't you think that the effort to "break" the game, so to speak, requires some level of familiarity with the game system?

When any effort is required at all, yes. The less balanced the game, the more likely it is to break without any intent to do so (or even inadequate attempts to avoid breaking it).

Of course, that's still 'self inflicted,' in the sense, above (that is, to put a fine point on it, in the sense that you can never ever blame a system for anything, it's always all your fault), that you didn't put in enough effort to preserve/fix the game.

Do you think that the options available to players are that mismatched compared to one another as-is?

In D&D generally, yes. Most so in 3e, where the mismatching was to some degree intentional to reward system mastery; least so (but still not entirely absent) in 4e where balance was an unprecedentedly high design priority.

Or do you think that it takes someone who recognizes the implications of combinations and so forth in order to start bending things their way?

That can certainly bring it into bold relief.

You talk about experience allowing folks to adjust for imbalance....and that is true.

Might even say gaining experience /requires/ folks to learn to adjust for imbalance - if they don't figure that out, eventually the game won't feel much like it's worth playing.

But isn't that also a requirement of bending the rules?

Intentionally trying to fix or further break an imbalanced game requires some understanding of it. Breaking a balanced game, OTOH, just requires fiddling with it unadvisedly - breaking it to order, say, wanting to make this or that class OP, but only to a certain degree, might require some thought.

So where do you think that the imbalance among choices comes into it?

Classes, Feats, Races, combinations of the same in a single character or a party, and, pacing (a tension among DM and player choices), monsters, numbers and mixes of same, item placement, pillar emphasis, etc...

Sure, that could happen. I haven't really seen it.

An extreme example, of course.

Certainly not in 5E, and not in any other system that I know of....with the possible exception of a campaign designed around members of a class (like a thieves' guild campaign or similar).

I ran a thieve's campaign once, it didn't last long, because, well, 1e thieves (kinda the opposite problem), everyone very quickly wanted to play something else.

And I do think that things should be tailored to the group in play. Not always, and no to the extreme...

That'd be another factor that could reduce the importance of balance (and perception of imbalance even when it manifests) for you.

But if I had to say if I find the game to be the cause of imbalance or the players/DM, then I tend to place the responsibility for that on the players/DM.

I got that, yes.

Would you agree with that? Or would you say it is the system that is indeed to blame?

Balance is a system quality, so, logically, 'blame' the creators of the system if it lacks that quality to an excessive degree.



TL;DR: You're blame'n the victim, dude.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sorry, improper use of irony on my part.

No, I got it.

TL;DR: You're blame'n the victim, dude.

Nah. There is no victim.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There is no victim.

Hey! The game's not that unpopular!

 

[pemerton]

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???

Yeah. I seem to recall reading a story a long time ago, I think they even made a movie about it, where a bunch of warrior dwarves realized they had no burglar. So they "recruited" a [halfling] that could help with the stealthy stuff they planned to do at a dragon's lair.

Even a bunch of thick-headed dwarven warriors can see when they are short a necessary skillset.

But as [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] mentioned, this is not universally enjoyed. Even back in the day not everyone used henchmen (or hirelings) as part of the game; and I think it's even less common to use them in contemporary D&D play.

Sorry, you lost me here. What henchmen (or hirelings)?

I'm a bit confused by the confusion.

Lanefan talked about the PCs recruiting "key elements" to fill expertise gaps. You (Corwin) said "yeah", and then mentioned The Hobbit as an example of such recruitment.

My reply was to point out that recruiting NPCs was not universally popular even back when it was a big part of the game as written (via henchmen/retainer and hireling rules).

It's true I was assuming the recruitment would be of a NPC. I took that to be a given, because Lanefan's scenario beings with the players already having established their PCs ("your party, upon meeting each other").

If you were suggesting that the players, upon discovering their PCs lack some necessary skill set, should go out and recruit another player, so that the PCs can recruit another PC; or were suggesting that the PCs recruit another PC by eg having one player run 2 PCs, or having one player retire his/her current PC and bring in a new one with the needed expertise; then I don't think these suggestions will be universally popular solutions either.

Or full-ride party NPCs, whatever.

The semantic (and usually mechanical) difference between these is that a full-ride NPC is about the same level as the party and acts - and is treated - just like any other character, while a hench is both considerably lower level and beholden to whoever hired it. Hirelings are usually things like porters, mule-drivers and so forth who often don't do any actual adventuring at all.

The "full-ride" party NPC is either a henchmen in all but name, a second PC for a player, or a DMPC. Still not a universally popular solution.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think that the "default setting" of most games is that imbalanced. It takes either pretty dedicated effort or pretty crazy circumstance for things to be that imbalanced.

I mean, I suppose it may vary depending on what we mean by "imbalanced", but the most likely meaning to me is having one PC that totally outshines the others. When that happens, it's usually a case of one player knowing how to min/max and another not.

Which games are we talking about?

By all accounts, with higher-level 3E it's fairly trivial for one player to build a cleric or druid, just picking the logical stuff out of the PHB, and pretty thoroughly outclass a fighter at the same table. If the GM has chosen to run an undead-heavy adventure, there's a good chance the rogue will be totally outclassed too.

In high level 5e, a wizard seems to pretty thoroughly outclass a fighter as far as capacity to alter the strategic situation is concerned. (As per [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION]'s post 2 upthread.)

Whether or not this matters at the table will depend on a host of considerations: an obvious one is whether it is the GM or the players who principally drive the ingame situation (the more that it is the players, the more the fighter player might notice the lack of proactive capacity vis-a-vis the wizard).

If the party consists of hulk, thing and colossus, then the DM can basically throw anything at them and know that they'll all perform more or less evenly.

If it consists of hulk, thor and hawkeye, then he has to make sure that his giant flying worm doesn't eat hawkeye in a single bite and then fly around in the sky taunting hulk.

Again, this depends pretty heavily on the system in question. What you describe might be an issue in Champions; it's not really an issue in Marvel Heroic RP, though.

In this respect, I'd say that MHRP does a better job of delivering a play experience that resembles a Marvel comic.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Which games are we talking about?

By all accounts, with higher-level 3E it's fairly trivial for one player to build a cleric or druid, just picking the logical stuff out of the PHB, and pretty thoroughly outclass a fighter at the same table. If the GM has chosen to run an undead-heavy adventure, there's a good chance the rogue will be totally outclassed too.

In high level 5e, a wizard seems to pretty thoroughly outclass a fighter as far as capacity to alter the strategic situation is concerned. (As per [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION]'s post 2 upthread.)

Whether or not this matters at the table will depend on a host of considerations: an obvious one is whether it is the GM or the players who principally drive the ingame situation (the more that it is the players, the more the fighter player might notice the lack of proactive capacity vis-a-vis the wizard).

Again, this depends pretty heavily on the system in question. What you describe might be an issue in Champions; it's not really an issue in Marvel Heroic RP, though.

In this respect, I'd say that MHRP does a better job of delivering a play experience that resembles a Marvel comic.

Primarily, I am talking about 5E. Then other editions of D&D, and finally other games.

I don't know if taking high-level examples is the best way to test for balance among classes. I mean, if we're going to do that, then balance over all levels has to be a consideration, no? So the Fighter excels at earlier levels compared to the Cleric, but the Cleric is more powerful later in the game. There's balance to that.

I don't know if I agree with the example...just going off of what you said.

 

[pemerton]

I don't know if taking high-level examples is the best way to test for balance among classes. I mean, if we're going to do that, then balance over all levels has to be a consideration, no? So the Fighter excels at earlier levels compared to the Cleric, but the Cleric is more powerful later in the game. There's balance to that.

Well, this was the style that Gygax aimed for with classic D&D. It probably works better in a "Start at 1st level" game than in a "Let's all roll up some PCs of level N" game.

 

[Lanefan]

It's true I was assuming the recruitment would be of a NPC. I took that to be a given, because Lanefan's scenario beings with the players already having established their PCs ("your party, upon meeting each other").

If you were suggesting that the players, upon discovering their PCs lack some necessary skill set, should go out and recruit another player, so that the PCs can recruit another PC; or were suggesting that the PCs recruit another PC by eg having one player run 2 PCs, or having one player retire his/her current PC and bring in a new one with the needed expertise; then I don't think these suggestions will be universally popular solutions either.

Yes, for these purposes I was assuming an NPC.

A player (or more than one player) running a second character is another rather obvious option, and very common in my game.

I was not at all suggesting someone be forced or coerced into retiring their existing PC just in order to bring in something to fill a gap.

Nah. There is no victim.

Great! I'll make sure I tell that to the next tribe of orcs I slaughter.

Lan-"unless we want to recruit one or two of the orcs as meat shields; those I'll tell later"-efan