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What does balance mean to you?
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<blockquote data-quote="Xeviat" data-source="post: 7155138" data-attributes="member: 57494"><p>1- What does balance mean to you?</p><p></p><p>There are two kinds of balance in D&D for me: Player Balance and Encounter Balance. Player balance means that no builds overshadow similar builds, and that no options are so vastly better or worse than others to be automatic choices or never choices. Encounter Balance means that the system allows the DM to make encounters that will feel the way they want them to feel: hard fights are hard, easy fights are easy, etc.</p><p></p><p>2 - When you balance an encounter, what is your desired outcome for that encounter? Do you balance combat on the encounter level, the adventuring day level, or the campaign level?</p><p></p><p>Encounter and day. Campaign level is more about feel and less about mechanical balance when you zoom out that far. </p><p></p><p>3 - When you look at your players/other players what things make you feel like something is not balanced?</p><p></p><p>Two characters aren't balanced with each other if they're trying to do similar things and one overshadows the other constantly, or when one character is so weak as to feel worthless to the party. A very strong character can make multiple characters feel useless (a 3E Druid could easily overshadow a fighter with their companion and still give a wizard a run for their money).</p><p></p><p>4 - If you claim that you do not worry about balance in your encounters, what are your overall desired outcomes from combats?</p><p></p><p>I don't require all encounters to be "balanced"; I just want the feel be what I'm going for. I don't want the climactic fight to be a pushover, and I don't want a random goblin pair to kill the party. </p><p></p><p>5 - If something seems imbalanced to you, how do you go about fixing it?</p><p></p><p>I'm more likely to boost weak things than nerf strong things, especially when both look like they should be valid. </p><p></p><p>6 - In video games or card games something is considered balanced if it has an overall 50% win rate against the field. A character in a fighting game would be imbalanced if it consistently won more than half its matches. Or a deck in Magic would be OP if it was more than 50% to beat the field. In dungeons and dragons that sounds absurd. My parties are probably around 100% win rate. Do either of these numbers make sense to you? Would you play in a game where the players "won" half the time? What does that mean to you?</p><p></p><p>This depends on the feel of the game. D&D is more about the story. You could run a "hard mode" board game style D&D adventure, where the encounters are designed to be "fair" but the DM is running antagonistically and is trying purposefully to kill the players. But that isn't normal. At least not for me. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Xeviat, post: 7155138, member: 57494"] 1- What does balance mean to you? There are two kinds of balance in D&D for me: Player Balance and Encounter Balance. Player balance means that no builds overshadow similar builds, and that no options are so vastly better or worse than others to be automatic choices or never choices. Encounter Balance means that the system allows the DM to make encounters that will feel the way they want them to feel: hard fights are hard, easy fights are easy, etc. 2 - When you balance an encounter, what is your desired outcome for that encounter? Do you balance combat on the encounter level, the adventuring day level, or the campaign level? Encounter and day. Campaign level is more about feel and less about mechanical balance when you zoom out that far. 3 - When you look at your players/other players what things make you feel like something is not balanced? Two characters aren't balanced with each other if they're trying to do similar things and one overshadows the other constantly, or when one character is so weak as to feel worthless to the party. A very strong character can make multiple characters feel useless (a 3E Druid could easily overshadow a fighter with their companion and still give a wizard a run for their money). 4 - If you claim that you do not worry about balance in your encounters, what are your overall desired outcomes from combats? I don't require all encounters to be "balanced"; I just want the feel be what I'm going for. I don't want the climactic fight to be a pushover, and I don't want a random goblin pair to kill the party. 5 - If something seems imbalanced to you, how do you go about fixing it? I'm more likely to boost weak things than nerf strong things, especially when both look like they should be valid. 6 - In video games or card games something is considered balanced if it has an overall 50% win rate against the field. A character in a fighting game would be imbalanced if it consistently won more than half its matches. Or a deck in Magic would be OP if it was more than 50% to beat the field. In dungeons and dragons that sounds absurd. My parties are probably around 100% win rate. Do either of these numbers make sense to you? Would you play in a game where the players "won" half the time? What does that mean to you? This depends on the feel of the game. D&D is more about the story. You could run a "hard mode" board game style D&D adventure, where the encounters are designed to be "fair" but the DM is running antagonistically and is trying purposefully to kill the players. But that isn't normal. At least not for me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk [/QUOTE]
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