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

[shadowmane]

More to the point, planning around the PCs all goes to hell when 3 of the 7 PCs die partway in to the adventure and are replaced by 3 others whose classes, abilities, etc. are completely different than the first lot who you've already tailored the adventure to.

It's easier to just have the adventure be what it is and let the players/characters figure out how to tackle it based on whatever they've got at their disposal.
What this tells me is that if the encounters were all about the same relative difficulty the second one was a pushover and the rest took a bit of work.

Lanefan

That's where you begin adaptation. As they are rolling up their new characters, you're tweaking the adventure to account for it. If you can't adjust and overcome as a DM, why are you DMing?

 

[GreyICE]

Asymmetrical balance is the most elusive concept in all of game design, to the point that I don't think anything other than maybe Starcraft has ever achieved it.

Certainly it's nearly axiomatic that D&D will not.

 

[Victim]

Asymmetrical balance is the most elusive concept in all of game design, to the point that I don't think anything other than maybe Starcraft has ever achieved it.

Certainly it's nearly axiomatic that D&D will not.

Starcraft is symmetric by DnD standards, since while the different races have very different units, their resources management is extremely similar - you make workers to mine minerals and gas. Evidently, for DnD classes to not all be the same, they need radically different resource systems. Instead of different starcraft races, they need starcraft worker management versus DoW capture points versus fixed unit drops ala Ground Control.

 

[Recidivism]

Asymmetrical balance is the most elusive concept in all of game design, to the point that I don't think anything other than maybe Starcraft has ever achieved it.

Certainly it's nearly axiomatic that D&D will not.

Even Starcraft's balance only works in strictly controlled competitive environment designed to foster that balance. You can't just play Starcraft on a random map and have a balanced game. I don't think that's a realistic model for D&D design.

 

[slobster]

Asymmetrical balance is the most elusive concept in all of game design, to the point that I don't think anything other than maybe Starcraft has ever achieved it.

Certainly it's nearly axiomatic that D&D will not.

In addition to what other posters have already said, Starcraft is also unlike D&D because it has a very strict and obvious metric by which to judge whether the sides are balanced (namely, how likely they are to win a skirmish). In D&D it's not at all clear that there is a similar metric.

Are classes balanced if they have the same overall damage potential? Healers and buffers/debuffers are interesting for some people to play, but would be utter failures by that metric. So would wizards who focused on action denial or crowd control, or who cast death spells but never deal a point of damage. And how should that damage potential be measured? Over the course of an adventure? A long rest cycle? A game? A combat? A round?

Then of course D&D isn't just a game of combat, so any balance attempt that takes only the combat numbers into account isn't seeing the whole picture. How do you decide if something is balanced in skill resolution or social interaction?

Balance is a good goal in the sense that you want everyone at the table able to contribute, and nobody should be able to "win" the character creation minigame and dominate the entire game. But it shouldn't be a design target in the same way that it is in, for example, a computer RTS. No amount of number crunching can create a balanced tabletop RPG. That is something that game designers do.

 

[pemerton]

The only thing the GM is deciding is what situations are present. If you're running a dungeon with 2 fighters, 2 thieves, 1 MU, and a Cleric (just as a for instance). All I'm saying is that you will design the encounters with the players in mind. You'll have a few traps and secret doors for the thieves. You'll have rooms full of mooks for the fighters. You'll have a magical threat for the MU to take care of, and throw some undead in for the Cleric to help with. That's designing the adventure for the players. You're not railroading them by doing this.

That gives me a clearer sense of what you have in mind, thanks.

But my response (which you may be able to predict) is that the MU can take out the mooks (with a fireball, or a cloudkill, or a deathspell, depending on level of play and how mook-ish the mooks really are) and the cleric can find the traps and secret door (find traps, locate object, true seeing, etc). It may be rational for the MU and cleric to hold back and let the non-casters do their thing, but that is a holding back - whereas the fighter can't deal with the magical threat or the traps and secret door, and the rogue can't deal with the magical threat or the mooks or (in 3E) the undead.

This relates to [MENTION=78]Victim[/MENTION]'s post a couple above yours. If the crucial choices are made predominantly by the spellcasters, and the determinative action (even if that action is "forebear and let the fighter and thief do it") always comes from the spellcasters, there is (it seems to me) a structural imbalance in the game which is probably not desirable.

 

[Lanefan]

That's where you begin adaptation. As they are rolling up their new characters, you're tweaking the adventure to account for it. If you can't adjust and overcome as a DM, why are you DMing?

I can hit the curveball, if that's what you mean. But the game world doesn't change itself to suit the party; it is what it is and the party, as with explorers everywhere, simply have to deal with what they find.

If a 1st level party ignores the legends and warnings and wanders up to the front door of the lich's tower should there still be a lich in there? Of course there should.

If the party has no Thieves (or has all its Thiefy types die early in the adventure) should I take all the locks and traps out of the adventure? Of course not. They'll either realize they need to get on back to town and recruit a locksmith, or they'll make do some other way probably involving hammers and axes and hobnailed boots.

And if that makes me a bad DM then I suppose I'm guilty as charged. However, in this case the law would be an ass.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

But my response (which you may be able to predict) is that the MU can take out the mooks (with a fireball, or a cloudkill, or a deathspell, depending on level of play and how mook-ish the mooks really are) and the cleric can find the traps and secret door (find traps, locate object, true seeing, etc). It may be rational for the MU and cleric to hold back and let the non-casters do their thing, but that is a holding back - whereas the fighter can't deal with the magical threat or the traps and secret door, and the rogue can't deal with the magical threat or the mooks or (in 3E) the undead.

Ah, but now you're into resource management territory...which, all things considered, is right where we should be.

Does the Cleric use a "Find Traps" now or save that slot for a "Silence" later, or a cure? Does the MU use "Knock" on this door or just let the hammer-and-axe crew take care of it, saving the "Knock" against the potential of something later that neither the Thieves nor the bashers can deal with?

This relates to [MENTION=78]Victim[/MENTION]'s post a couple above yours. If the crucial choices are made predominantly by the spellcasters, and the determinative action (even if that action is "forebear and let the fighter and thief do it") always comes from the spellcasters, there is (it seems to me) a structural imbalance in the game which is probably not desirable.

Depends how you look at it. If I'm the Fighter I see the casters as a resource I can draw on when needed: "Get the soldiers out of my way and I'll deal with the commander."

Lanefan

 

[nightwalker450]

Ah, but now you're into resource management territory...which, all things considered, is right where we should be.

Does the Cleric use a "Find Traps" now or save that slot for a "Silence" later, or a cure? Does the MU use "Knock" on this door or just let the hammer-and-axe crew take care of it, saving the "Knock" against the potential of something later that neither the Thieves nor the bashers can deal with?
Depends how you look at it. If I'm the Fighter I see the casters as a resource I can draw on when needed: "Get the soldiers out of my way and I'll deal with the commander."

Lanefan

So the wizard save Knock for when he can best show up the ones whose specialty it's supposed to be?

But either way, I don't think tossing a trap or a locked door into the mix fully compensates the thieves for fighters and wizards being awesome in combat. Rogue rolls a couple dice while the other players take a drink of their soda.. Now onto our combat that'll cover the next 15 minutes, rogue player pulls out the Gameboy.

 

[Cybit]

This is why I'm happy that in the upcoming edition, MUs will never be able to do something as effectively with magic that another class can do with their innate abilities (IE, not outsneaking the rogue, or out-fightering the fighter).

Also, resource management is going to become a much bigger issue for magic users. Per PAX, the ability for parties / spellcasters to get rest easily is going to be taken away; and it's going to be much harder to "burn spells, use last spell to rest for 8 hours, come back".