What do you do without balance?

[Voadam]

Ah. At that point, the game would begin to fall into "niche-protection" style balance and the gun-toting PC blows everyone away in combat where the scientist cowers in fear, but the scientist can hack a computer system to stop a missile launch while the gun-toting PC yawns and looks for lab-animals to practice his aim on.

IMHO, that's an acceptable form of balance, as long as it can be achieved. However, I can see potential problems (PCs who become good at more than one niche and squelch singlely specialized PCs, screen time, making a challenge so simple no one else need roll).

Again, no RPG system designed by man is immune to problems.

I hate that kind of balance.

I played a lot of Shadowrun. I had a ton of fun playing it and think there are really cool aspects of the game. Astral and cyberspace adventuring however were terrible IMHO, take a couple hours where only a few or one PC gets to do anything and everyone else sits around not playing the game, waiting for them to do their thing and come back to the rest of the group.

RPGs are a group game and I hate sitting around as a player not playing or as a DM sidelining PCs while other things are resolved.

These problems can be alleviated by having the DM have different things happen to the two groups and split his time between them, but I find having a DM with a whole group twice as good as having a DM with each half of the group only half the time. Similarly the DM or structure of the game could limit the side trips with quick resolutions so that they happen but don't split the group for too long in real time.

Another way is to provide a base competency for combat. Storyteller point buy allows you to make hugely different characters on the combat competency scale, but add on the vampire base package and bookworm librarian vamps can dive into combat effectively, take massive damage, and throwdown some smack based on the basic vampire powers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That is a good approach and the sign of a good GM that takes the power discrepancies into account. But how do you make sure the MDC characters don't attack the non-MDC foes?

Again, its the "sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander" situation.

If the MDC PCs ignore the big MDC NPCs/targets in favor of the "NPC squishies," you can be sure the MDC NPCs will either target PC squishies (resulting in their quick deaths) or join with the NPC squishies to concentrate fire on MDC PCs until all that is left is PC squishies.

It isn't just about fairness, its actual RW mixed-force tactics that popped up around the end of WW1 and were in place as standard tactics for certain countries at the start of WW2. Armor goes after Armor, Infantry goes after Infantry (except those specialized units that are equipped to go after Armor, and vice versa). If Armor ignores Armor to go after Infantry, it gets blasted. If Infantry ignores Infantry, those specialized anti-Armor units get a free pass, AND they'll be in danger of being overwhelmed by forces they ARE equipped to fight, leading to things like cut supply lines.

I wasn't bored when I played Rifts because my character couldn't take out a tank in one hit. I was bored because the opponents I could take out were wiped out by the dragon PC before I could blink.

That IS a problem at the DM level, but its not unique to RIFTS- it can happen in any RPG. Essentially, he underestimated the power of the Party (or individuals within it) and didn't design his encounters appropriately.

I nearly did the same thing in the very first combat of the last D&D campaign I ran. The campaign was supposed to kick off with the PCs getting kidnapped by raiders from another Prime Material Plane- the other PMP was the setting for the campaign.

I didn't take into account the possibility that the PCs might get a few lucky rolls, and I REALLY underestimated the tactical savvy of at least 2 of the players. Had that encounter not turned when the NPCs got a couple of lucky rolls themselves, I would have had to design a second kidnap scenario.

And I made that mistake despite DMing since the early 1980s.

Your game was fun because you recognized the imbalance and worked with it and I assume you had players who shared the same viewpoint.

Some of them did, some didn't.

One who was key, though, was a guy playing a Druid. He happened to be a Marine in RL, and he subtly influenced the party in their tactical decisions. I don't know how much was on purpose and how much was unintentional, but the end result was what mattered.

 

[Voadam]

Melniboneans and Pan Tangians were incredibly powerful. However, you only had a 1% chance of being a Melnibonean and a 2 or 3% chance of being Pan Tangian.

How did this work if someone rolled that luckily? That Melnibonean or Pan Tangian was pressed into service as the guy supplying all the magical goodies to the rest of the party. That also meant that he took all the risks associated with binding a Demon, Virtue or Elemental into an object. Fail that control roll, and...

In your Stormbringer games Melniboneans and Pan Tangian characters played by the maxim "with great power comes great responsibility" to the group? And not as the selfish, exploitative, domineering, power hungry, evil that the game and books described them as? Not to mention that their power came from making personally risky pacts with Chaos demons so their altruism was also putting themselves at greater risk.

This is one way to make balance in a group, not that I'd expect to see it. In the games I've played in and run PCs don't press each other into service for the group and I wouldn't feel right as either a player or DM trying to pressure someone to do something like that.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

In your Stormbringer games Melniboneans and Pan Tangian characters played by the maxim "with great power comes great responsibility" to the group? And not as the selfish, exploitative, domineering, power hungry, evil that the game and books described them as? Not to mention that their power came from making personally risky pacts with Chaos demons so their altruism was also putting themselves at greater risk.

Actually, it was less altruism and more like enlightened self-interest.

It was a freewheeling "sandbox" type campaign, and these guys bolted out of the gate, raiding cities and such- it was the closest I've ever come to running a pirate-themed campaign. Nobody would have mistaken this group as "good guys." At best, they helped out those they liked or allies of the moment. At worst, they simply helped themselves.

But if the Melniboneans and Pan Tangians hadn't equipped their partymates with something, they would have been overwhelmed by the forces they attacked. Maybe not the first time, or the seventh time, or even the seventeenth time, but eventually, someone more powerful than themselves would have sent dragonriders or a powerful demon- or both- after them. (And they did, eventually.)

They needed competent and well-equipped partymates around them to achieve their goals, and the best way to do that was to equip their "buddies" themselves.

 

[Voadam]

Well, that really wasn't my point V. I wasn't saying only one character, class, or individual should be the extraordinary individual, but rather that all can be extraordinary in certain circumstances.

I personally don't think that "the fight" is the game though. Combat is an important aspect of heroic fantasy but it is far from all consuming, unless one is playing in a combat-only setting.

I do though think that is a DM problem and issue, not a game designer one. That is to say it is not the job of the game designer to create opportunities for all characters to thrive but it is the job of the game designers to provide designs where it is possible for all characters to have a chance to thrive.

The game designer provides the chance, the DM the actual opportunities, and then the players through their characters have to exploit those chances and opportunities.

I'm not dismissing your point, by any means, merely saying I have a different view of whose job is what exactly.

I'm much more of the view that as a group game I don't want PCs to be significantly out of the action for long periods of time.

Fighting is as you say an important aspect of heroic fantasy and I will say IMO an important part of the game. I want all PCs involved in the combats.
So I want balance in PC combat abilities.

For example, I think it is a design flaw that 3e rogues biggest combat ability of sneak attack does not work against undead and constructs, the typical guardians of recently uncovered ancient dungeons and not uncommon typical D&D adversaries. It leads to a PC being marginalized in a common D&D scenario. I do not think the opportunity to shine on deactivating traps fixes the problem. This would be the same as a wizard would be in an anti-magic zone and a cleric would be in a plane cut off from divine magic.

As an occasional situation dealing with such adversities would be a fine experience and challenge, but the more the marginalization happens the less competent and heroic the PC feels and therefore the less fun I feel it is for PCs.

I still feel it is a design issue and not just a DM issue.

Shadowrun designs in an opportunity for deckers and mages to thrive exclusively and shine through cyberspace and astral space. A DM can give the opportunities for these PCs to thrive by including elements of the adventure that can be solved through cyber or astral space. A PC can take the opportunity presented and thrive.

This for me is not the ideal, it is a problem. While the decker is doing his cyber run, the rest of the PCs are not. They could be doing other things, in which case the DM is splitting his time, or they could wait for the decker to finish and rejoin the group. I like Shadowrun and its astral space concepts, but I do not like how the game design effectively leads to a group splitting for solo adventures.

A DM and players can work around these problems, but they are inherent in the design and must be addressed if you don't want the problems of PCs being left on the sidelines for significant portions of the game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For example, I think it is a design flaw that 3e rogues biggest combat ability of sneak attack does not work against undead and constructs, the typical guardians of recently uncovered ancient dungeons and not uncommon typical D&D adversaries.

While I can see that as an issue of fairness/balance, I think it is logically consistent. Sneak attacks work by targeting "vital areas"- things those foes lack.

A rogue can sneak attack only living creatures with discernible anatomies—undead, constructs, oozes, plants, and incorporeal creatures lack vital areas to attack. Any creature that is immune to critical hits is not vulnerable to sneak attacks. The rogue must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. A rogue cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment or striking the limbs of a creature whose vitals are beyond reach.

So I have no problem that a base-class Rogue has a problem sneak attacking such foes.

However- please do correct me if I'm wrong- there are Feats/PrCls/magic weapon abilities that address that directly.

Mechanically speaking, Warriors (other than those like Paladins) don't have any special abilities that let them do more damage to those foes, they just do more damage to all foes in general (due to better BAB and weapon/feat options). They have a constant expectation of damage regardless of their foe's type.

Rogues, OTOH, have a damage booster that occasionally applies, and can situationally lift their damage output to more than a warrior's. They're not going to surpass the warrior's output on a regular basis, but they will do so from time to time.

To me, that is a fair trade-off.

 

[AllisterH]

Er, there is no such thing as mixed infantry and armour units though....

It WAS tried in WWII but the result was that infrantry was just too fragile that even being in the backwash of a tank was dangerous (if a tank gets hit, the surrounding area is pretty much flattened as well).

You basically have to run two separate combat encounters where neither infantry and armour could possibly interact with it. I'm honestly wondering how people did this in RIFTS since RIFTS does have rules for area wide explosions and MDC type characters seem to have loads of area wide effects.

As for the rogue restriction, I always though this was bogus, ESPECIALLY given that one of the most iconic campaigns for D&D is filled with undead. The thing about face time is that it implies that each party member will be at times sidelined as another character gets to strut their stuff....

That doesn't exactly hold true for the wizard now though...

 

[Remathilis]

I hate that kind of balance.

I played a lot of Shadowrun. I had a ton of fun playing it and think there are really cool aspects of the game. Astral and cyberspace adventuring however were terrible IMHO, take a couple hours where only a few or one PC gets to do anything and everyone else sits around not playing the game, waiting for them to do their thing and come back to the rest of the group.

RPGs are a group game and I hate sitting around as a player not playing or as a DM sidelining PCs while other things are resolved.

These problems can be alleviated by having the DM have different things happen to the two groups and split his time between them, but I find having a DM with a whole group twice as good as having a DM with each half of the group only half the time. Similarly the DM or structure of the game could limit the side trips with quick resolutions so that they happen but don't split the group for too long in real time.

Another way is to provide a base competency for combat. Storyteller point buy allows you to make hugely different characters on the combat competency scale, but add on the vampire base package and bookworm librarian vamps can dive into combat effectively, take massive damage, and throwdown some smack based on the basic vampire powers.

To be honest, I do to.

D&D has tried all forms of "balance" at one form or another, what's unique about D&D is that it does all three simultaneously. It tried to balance the ultimate power of a wizard (balance over time) with the niche-protection of a thief to the fighter as "baseline" (and clerics, well, they've never been balanced).

At any given time, there was supposed to be a check. Sadly, as magic became more and more the "go to" guy in D&D, magic began to rebuff these checks and overrule niche protection, creep down into lower levels (while maintaining the high-level BoT) and somehow throw bones to other classes to call it "all sides equal" balance.

It never worked. No one here has argued that the fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard were balanced. They've stated it didn't matter, that it balanced out in the long run, or that the DM could overcome this and balance the game himself, but no one can say to me (with a straight face) that the D&D classes were balanced.

 

[Remathilis]

So I have no problem that a base-class Rogue has a problem sneak attacking such foes.

However- please do correct me if I'm wrong- there are Feats/PrCls/magic weapon abilities that address that directly.

Mechanically speaking, Warriors (other than those like Paladins) don't have any special abilities that let them do more damage to those foes, they just do more damage to all foes in general (due to better BAB and weapon/feat options). They have a constant expectation of damage regardless of their foe's type.

Rogues, OTOH, have a damage booster that occasionally applies, and can situationally lift their damage output to more than a warrior's. They're not going to surpass the warrior's output on a regular basis, but they will do so from time to time.

To me, that is a fair trade-off.

1.) There was two magical item properties (both coming late, Magic Item Compendium late) that gave rogues SA for undead and constructs. In addition, there was a single PrC (skullclan hunter, Mini's HB) that gave rogues a pseudo SA, but required cleric levels to enter. Lastly, there was a class feature in Dungeonscape/Complete Divine/Expedition to Ravenloft that gave rogues 1/2 their SA dice vs. undead and constructs in exchange for trap sense. Almost all of these fixes (save the Mini HB PrC) came in 2006 or later.

2.) Rogue are such a schizophrenic class. You need one to disable locks and find traps in ancient dungeons (without magic, they are the only PHB class to do either) but the typical guardians of these dungeons are immune to their assault. Once you factor in the scaling Bab of Rogue vs. Fighter Vs. CR 15+ AC, rogues routinely end up (literally) sitting out combats because they cannot hit and if they do rarely do enough damage to break DR or even hurt their foes. Fighters can hit, wizards and clerics resort to magic.

If your campaign features a lot of these types of foes (such as Ravenloft or AoW) you can reliably invest in a ring of invisiblity (or a good hide score) and start the body searching while everyone else is healing up, since you're not much good for anything else.

While I do like 3e still, this is one of the areas I adore 4e's approach. Rogues can actually do something in combat that is flavorful and meaningful.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

While I do like 3e still, this is one of the areas I adore 4e's approach. Rogues can actually do something in combat that is flavorful and meaningful.

Rogues in 3.X CAN do something in combat that is flavorful and meaningful.

They just can't do it against every foe.