I hate game balance!

[GnomeWorks]

I didn't say all the encounters. Casters have to have their moment, too. And I believe the inherent balance of limited high level spell slots keep wizards from dominating in a way that numerous critics in this thread suggest.

Fair enough.

As I mention in one of the spin off threads, my guiding principle in setting design is that no power remains in power without possession or aid of magic. So in my setting, this is not a problem. There is no marauding orc warlord without a shaman or a wizard or demon manipulating him from behind the throne.

Ah, see, here, you and I disagree. I don't like heavy magic like that. Some places, sure, but it shouldn't need to be everywhere.

I really liked Iron Heroes for this very reason.

Again, use selectively. This is a trick that Cordell and Cook stressed many times in their tenure. Design adventures to REQUIRE special capabilities, not to foil them. Above you alude to the classic scry/buff/teleport. I wouldn't let that always work, but when it does, is the wizard going to go alone? I hope not. Let's not pretend this is just the wizard's game.

Perhaps I just haven't designed enough encounters to know that this is a good idea, but it sounds like a good one.

As mentioned above, having encounters make sense is a guiding design principle to me. You aren't violating this principle if you let opposition leaders use magic. You are violating it if you are not.

Going with your assumption, sure. But again, I don't like a whole lot of magic flying around. Doing that is a good way to cheapen the feel of magic.

 

[Psion]

Ah, see, here, you and I disagree. I don't like heavy magic like that. Some places, sure, but it shouldn't need to be everywhere.

I really liked Iron Heroes for this very reason.

If that's your preference, I feel you are right on target with Iron Heroes. I think if you aren't practicing environment based balancing in high level D&D 3.x, you do have to do something else (e.g., lots of house ruling) to keep an even keel in the game. But as IH is already there, it seems to me you should be using that.

Or 4e, really. Though other things about it disturb me other than the way it treats magic.

 

[hong]

environment based balancing

Oh, is that what you call it?

 

[Psion]

Oh, is that what you call it?

Tell you what hong, you don't like the way I game, feel free not to play in it.

 

[Imp]

Sure, you can tailor encounters to deal with the party, and to ensure that everyone gets their chance to shine.

...doesn't that strike you as a little weird, though? I personally, as a character (say a fighter) in such a world, find it very strange that all the encounters we run into seem to foil the casters in such a way as to make me useful.

I... completely don't see the difference between this and the way 4e encounters are built. "Boy, we'd have been screwed if four of those orcs weren't minions, eh?" In any case this is finessable. The bad guys foil the casters because dealing with casters is something they've done before (or is generally known). Or whatever, it can be nice and specific.

 

[Graf]

You're not special at all, lots of other people have said it.

That make you feel better?

The classes are not the same, or particularly equal. But you have to actually play the game before you can tell that.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Then I'll say that you've had a good GM who knows when to say 'no' and played with players who don't seek to abuse the system, then. Not everyone is so fortunate.

So you're saying the rules of the game itself have to paternalistically (I may have invented a word) protect us from these abusive gamers/DMs? Even though the 4E DMG says right inside of it (and several seem to like putting in their sigs) that everyone at the table is responsible for the fun of the game? Is that about right?

Look, I've played in my share of BAD games. Like one of my first 3E games. DM knew almost nothing, and liked saying yes. We used 3.5 rules, but 3.0 items (since they were cheaper and more powerful). He thought gauntlets of strength +2 added +2 to your strength bonus. He allowed one guy to make a half dragon / half celestial / half troll, which only took real damage from fire and acid, which he was conveniently immune to. He used his starting wealth to get a ring of three wishes. His first wish was Half-Dragon without the LA cost (granted), his second wish was for a type IV bag of holding completely loaded with platinum pieces (granted). I think his other wish was for wings, cause the templates didn't qualify him for it or something (granted). He then allowed him to spend all his gold as if towns were magic supermarkets, with no caps on bonuses. The guy was a sorcerer with a strength in the high 30's. It was his dump stat. My archer had a cha of 18, and the DM claimed that with a score that "low," he was ugly. The troll guy's brother went on to also make a caster, and upon hitting epic, created a spell to transmute anything to platinum, and reverse it. He made a fortune flooding the market with platinum, then turning it back to the (now depleted) material he had used to create it all, wildly swaying the economy back and forth till it broke completely. Again, the DM allowed this, no problems. The troll player, meanwhile, went for some nice templates like Monster of Legend and became an Abomination. These epic level hi-jinks I only heard about, cause I died at level 17, before even acting, on the surprise round. See, our party was so strong, the DM was already tossing epic monsters at us, and I unfortunately failed a save against one of the monster's Implosion SLA's (there was a swarm of them, in hiding). I quit the game, heard how the DM got frustrated and tried to have the entire pantheon attack the party (and the gods lost), and just declared the entire universe as destroyed, ending the game. I decided, "yeah...this isn't the game for me."

Why did I post that overly long story? Because it took me almost a year away from the game after those horrors to realize the simple truth. The game itself was fine, it was the people abusing and/or breaking the rules that make games go awful. The game may allow you to do some crazy, powerful things. But it's still a world. There's still authorities to answer to. People who want to live and will band together against you if they feel forced to. Gods watching from other planes, who'd rather kill a potential threat before it grows to serious than leave it alone. And above all else, a DM who's supposed to have the rationality to maintain the game. Some groups might like a whacky, rules-loose game, others might want a very harsh, gritty, roll-as-it-falls style, but in any case, the system doesn't (or at least shouldn't) tell you where in those options the style should fall. It's up to the group to decide, and the DM to steward.

Hence, I can't help but shake my head at all the people complaining about Clerics who "kick arse" after 5 rounds of pre-combat buffing, or the 15 minute workday. Nowhere in the 3E rules does it tell the DM he has to allow the players to pull that crap. And it also never states he's obligated to never let them pull such things off. Sometimes a one combat day, where the casters can just spell dump as they please can be fun. If it isn't for your group...don't allow it? It's pretty sad when people need the books to DM for them.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Back. Cheers to the new ENWorld.

I wanted to make a comment related to my previous posts, which is relevant to the balance topic of this thread.

Remember Drizzt Do'Urden? You know him, right? I think we all do. He is a very famous character. A drow, made legendary by a very fine writer by the name of Salvatore.

But what made drow - *drow* - famous in the first place?

What made drow famous is that they were able to multiclass AND in some cases they DID NOT HAVE level limits.
Drow females could advance to Unlimited Levels as clerics, and very high as wizards.
Drow males could advance to Unlimited Levels as wizards.
Both could advance very high as fighters.

This - along with their innate powers (especially Magic Resistance) and there fearsome disposition - made them the threat that they were.
Or, to paraphrase Gary Gygax:

The drow had obtained the might to achieve their dream: to reconquer the surface, and to utterly destroy the elves. The only thing (the *only* thing) stopping them, seemed to be the fact that they were simply no longer interested in doing so. They had become content with their world in the Underdark.
Of course, that could change at any time, and when it did, may the Elven Gods help everyone, because against the drow nobody could hope to stand.

And why would nobody be able to hope to stand against the drow?
Because the drow could be FIGHTERS AND WIZARDS AND CLERICS, have all the benefits of these classes simultaneously, WITHOUT LEVEL LIMITS or with high level limits.
And since drow lived to over 1,000 years of age, they could achieve levels in cleric and wizard undreamed of by human clerics and wizards, since humans were short lived.
Back in those days, we were talking 40th, 50th, 100th level. With a thousand years to work on the subject, the drow could achieve titanic power!

If a few humans could, in their short lifetimes, obtain 30th level, there was no question what the drow - with a thousand years and an ultimate attitude problem - could accomplish.

And all this, because of one change in one basic rule: the removal of level limits from some classes accessable by the drow. Changing that one rule, made them stronger than everyone else.

EDIT: Of course, the GDQ modules helped make the drow famous, too.

 

[WayneLigon]

So you're saying the rules of the game itself have to paternalistically (I may have invented a word) protect us from these abusive gamers/DMs? .... And it also never states he's obligated to never let them pull such things off. Sometimes a one combat day, where the casters can just spell dump as they please can be fun. If it isn't for your group...don't allow it? It's pretty sad when people need the books to DM for them.

The game - any game - should come with more instruction on how to deal with particular exploits like these, or should be constructed in such a way that creating such loopholes is harder than it currently is. It should not assume that everyone has had the experience of playing in a well-run game with players who were all actively engaged in having a good time and making sure that they were not ruining the fun of the other players.

I'm mainly thinking about new GMs who get victimized by people whose idea of having fun is to squeeze every bit of advantage they can out of a situation. I strongly suspect that more people would play and more people would GM but for situations like that; they come away thinking 'well, D&D just must be meant to be played like that, and I didn't have much fun; I'll take up photography as a hobby instead'.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The game - any game - should come with more instruction on how to deal with particular exploits like these, or should be constructed in such a way that creating such loopholes is harder than it currently is. It should not assume that everyone has had the experience of playing in a well-run game with players who were all actively engaged in having a good time and making sure that they were not ruining the fun of the other players.

I agree, it certainly doesn't hurt to provide more advice in the DMG and maybe even the PH about how ot deal with such issues and to make it clear the point is to have fun, and that often times, trampling all over the rules with some clever loophole that makes your character ridiculuously overpowered compared to everyone else is almost always not fun for the rest of the group. Just cause something's an option doesn't make it a good idea to take it. And while it'd be nice if there were a system with no openings for abuse, this will just never happen. D&D is a very intricate game, with so many different variables going on at once (which is awesome!) that it's impossible for the designers to forsee every potential broken combo. Even 4E, with its focus on balance at any expense, had been broken before it even officially went on sale, thanks to Cascade of blades. Frankly, comparing the core 3E books to the core 4E, I'm not sure which edition even has the most potential abuses. 3E once high level spells come into play, but for the levels most often played at, it's not much worse in that regard, IMHO. Ultimately, it's up to the DM to take charge in these situations, and for the group to agree on what to do, rather than bicker over it, when a player's new power / feat / item / whatever becomes too much. I don't see why the rules themselves should be turning the dungeon into a padded cell, if you will, when such measures barely help.

I'm mainly thinking about new GMs who get victimized by people whose idea of having fun is to squeeze every bit of advantage they can out of a situation. I strongly suspect that more people would play and more people would GM but for situations like that; they come away thinking 'well, D&D just must be meant to be played like that, and I didn't have much fun; I'll take up photography as a hobby instead'.

It is rather unfortunate, and I know not all who are new will want to come back after a bad experience, but even so. IME, rotten players will be rotten no matter what system you use, and they'll find a way to ruin the game anyway. In some ways, it might be better in the "wild west" of 3E where such players tend to stick out rather quickly than in 4E, where they can't do too much damage to the game at any one point (due to the wholesale slaughter of any potentially overpowered options in the interest of balance), and so instead slowly degrade it over time. I'd rather just weed such people out early, drop them from the group, and move on, instead of realizing the problem deep into a campaign and things getting messier. I don't know if that makes any sense to you, it's hard for me to explain.