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Legends & Lore 09/03 - RPG design philosophy
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<blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6011779" data-attributes="member: 22779"><p>True, Defcon1, but, swinginess isn't really the entire issue here either. You can have swingy combat that is still balanced. </p><p></p><p>For example, if you took 4e PC's and cut their HP in half, the balance between the classes would stay exactly the same, but, combat would be a heck of a lot swingier, with a lot more PC fatalities due to simple die rolls.</p><p></p><p>It seems to me like you're pointing to a slightly different aspect of balance than what people are talking about. Sure, 4e made combat more predictable because it removed a lot of the swinginess of d20 combat - fewer SoD effects, much high HP threshholds, no more weak saves, etc. But, that's generally not the problem. That just means that it's easier to design encounters.</p><p></p><p>When people talk about class balance though, it's not really lethality that's the issue. It's more once class stepping all over the toes of another class. Again, going back to the druid vs fighter discussion (is that in this thread or is my tired brain cross posting?) - pound for pound, a druid is just an all around better class than a fighter. There's nothing the fighter can do that that druid can't do better.</p><p></p><p>And that's the problem, I think, that people are trying to address. It's no different than the 1e thief. A 1e thief's skills were so abysmal that, at low levels, and for quite a while, it almost wasn't even worth having him there. IME, all I ever saw were multiclass thieves - wizard/thief, fighter/thief, that sort of thing. Just because, with the 1e xp tables, tacking thief onto another class generally didn't make much difference to your level. At the absolute worst, you lost one level to gain an equal or even higher level thief.</p><p></p><p>Why would you play a single classed thief, if that was the case?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hussar, post: 6011779, member: 22779"] True, Defcon1, but, swinginess isn't really the entire issue here either. You can have swingy combat that is still balanced. For example, if you took 4e PC's and cut their HP in half, the balance between the classes would stay exactly the same, but, combat would be a heck of a lot swingier, with a lot more PC fatalities due to simple die rolls. It seems to me like you're pointing to a slightly different aspect of balance than what people are talking about. Sure, 4e made combat more predictable because it removed a lot of the swinginess of d20 combat - fewer SoD effects, much high HP threshholds, no more weak saves, etc. But, that's generally not the problem. That just means that it's easier to design encounters. When people talk about class balance though, it's not really lethality that's the issue. It's more once class stepping all over the toes of another class. Again, going back to the druid vs fighter discussion (is that in this thread or is my tired brain cross posting?) - pound for pound, a druid is just an all around better class than a fighter. There's nothing the fighter can do that that druid can't do better. And that's the problem, I think, that people are trying to address. It's no different than the 1e thief. A 1e thief's skills were so abysmal that, at low levels, and for quite a while, it almost wasn't even worth having him there. IME, all I ever saw were multiclass thieves - wizard/thief, fighter/thief, that sort of thing. Just because, with the 1e xp tables, tacking thief onto another class generally didn't make much difference to your level. At the absolute worst, you lost one level to gain an equal or even higher level thief. Why would you play a single classed thief, if that was the case? [/QUOTE]
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