Game Balance - A Study in Imperfection (forked)

[nightwyrm]

That's rather simple. Treat the dead PCs like they're...people. They may be dead, but they might have families who expect to inherit that loot. There could be funeral costs. Maybe if they rob from the dead anyway, a ghost of the fallen PC haunts them or some curse afflicts them...

In any case, DM controls treasure output. If the party plays keepsies with the slain PC's gear, just throw them up against monsters that drop no treasure until you feel their wealth has been properly balanced (obviously, factor in the rest of the party's sudden wealth gain and the upcoming gp drought when telling the player of the deceased PC how much gear his new PC can start with so he isn't screwed over). Heck, be blatant about it, don't even try to disguise your intentions. Tell them flat out why they're not going to be fighting any dragons or NPCs with class levels (or other things that give tons of loot) for the next 10 sessions at least, until they realize trying to game the system like that is just paddling upstream.

And hence Balance by DM Fiat is perfectly described.

I don't have much to contribute, but I do feel that a part of changes in how balance is achieved in early vs later D&D editions is due to changes in the expected rate of character turnover in early vs later editions.

The older editions, the focus of balance was between the players. It didn't matter as much if you rolled up a poor character or made poor character build choices because the character will most likely die a horrible death and you get to make a new one. You get to spin the roulette a lot if you wanted, as it were.

In newer editions, there's an expectation that you'll play your character for quite some time. You may be stuck with a character with poor stats or poor built for an entire campaign. This causes a shift to focusing balance between characters, since character balance = player balance.

 

[Orius]

Pre-3e, at least the later versions I played had four types of balance mentioned above.

Balance by Rarity was one of the big ones. The powerful classes had the higher ability score and were supposed to be harder to achieve. That was the case if you were rolling 3d6 for the scores, but introduce a method where the player can assign scores at will, and that system breaks down. Especially if said system is the 4d6 method, where 15s, 16s, and 17s becomes easier to get and then are assigned at will. And that's just one example. A lot of powerful stuff was kept balanced by making it rare, however, I'd say it wasn't the best solution because if the random rolls come up right, the stuff gets in the game and might end up being overpowering. Even worse if the stuff isn't rolled randomly and deliberately placed. I'd rather stuff be balanced by keeping classes relatively equal but diverse, having a general power level for spells by level, and having an intended level range for magic items. It makes it easier for a less experienced DM to keep things uder control.

Balance over Campaign was another. The older rules really balanced things out over the campagin as a whole rather than by adventure or encounter. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it can lead to problems where the casters want to keep adventuring because they get more spells while the players with the fighter and thief are bored because all they get from leveling are a couple of hit points. Here the problem was that the game was origianly only designed up to about level 10, new spell levels were tacked onto the casters without giving anything interesting to the non-casters except maybe running a kingdom or something.

Balanced by DM Fiat was another big thing. It didn't matter if say the PCs couldn't fight equally well, becuase the DM was expected to give everyone something to do. If something entered the campaign that messed things up, then the DM was encouraged to remove it or tone it down. This can either be good or bad depending on the DM, really. An inexperienced DM won't always know how to handle things, and bad DMs often use it as a power trip.

Balance by Risk was the last. Some spells and items were more dangerous to use, items couldn't be easily identified and so on. I don't have a really big problem with this, though I'd rather not see too much risky stuff either.

 

[Doug McCrae]

There's another kind of balance with the cleric and druid in 3e. It's pretty well recognised that these are the most powerful classes in the PHB. This boost in power from 2e was deliberate because it had been noted that in many player groups, no one wanted to be the healer. The idea is either that being the healer is an unpleasant duty so one should get extra pwnage as recompense, or that the cleric/druid has to expend spell slots and actions on the unfun tasks of healing and protecting the party so on the few occasions they are not doing that they should get to be really powerful.

 

[KidSnide]

"Amortized Pwnage" - The idea here is that all PCs receive a similar amount of ZOMG PWN moments, but only if you count them over the scope of a whole campaign from levels 1 - 10 (or whatever your "name level" was).

When talking about older edition balance, it's important to remember that the "campaigns" conceived of by Gygax et al involved the same players running multiple (potentially many) characters over a substantial period of time. What really matters is balance of player opportunity. If everyone is running multiple characters, a random distribution of character power is mitigated by the fact that everyone has strong characters and weak characters. So (in theory at least), your overall player experience is balanced even if the power distribution of any given session is widely variable.

(Of course, this bears little resemblance to my experience with 1e, but game balance wasn't really a high priority either in 5th grade...)

-KS

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

OTOH, Balance by Rarity also leads into Imbalance by Positive Feedback. Someone rolls better stats - which are an advantage - and then qualifies for a better class/race set up to get a second advantage out of the first one. Two for the price of one. And then such stat advantages make it more likely that the character survive where a weaker one would fall, so there are improved chances of getting levels and/or treasure.

RAW, that uber character is not that much more likely to survive. Even with straight 18 stats and max hit points at first level it only takes a single crit or a couple of spear jabs to end the character. 12-14 hit points is still just 12-14 hit points. Dead at zero is a harsh mistress.

Now, if house rules are used (such as death at -10) to limit lethality, most of these ideas of balance are thrown out the window as death will most likely only come on a TPK.

 

[Stoat]

1E was balanced by the campaign.
2E was balanced by role-playing restrictions.
3E was balanced by the adventuring day.
4E is balanced by the encounter

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Balance at the table in the moment, as established by the DM is edition neutral. I.e.:

1) Determining which foes attack which characters

2) Providing opportunities for particular characters to shine

3) Fudging rolls where necessary

In every edition I've played, this remains the preeminent factor.

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

This topic fascinates me, especially as it relates to character creation and advancement.

First Edition:
Edit: Take the 1E section with a grain of salt as I did not do my research I do know there was a first edition of DnD (I think )

• Stats 3d6 in line
• Random HP
• Death at 0
• XP through wealth acquired
• Different XP tables
• Multi-Classing (don't know)
• Base classes were it

Second Edition

• Stats 3d6 in line
• Random HP
• Death at 0
• XP through overcoming monsters and bonus XP based on class type (fighters per HD defeated, thieves per gold gained, Wizards for overcoming challenges with their magic, Clerics for furthering their faith)
• Different XP tables
• Demi-human multiclassing, human dual-class
• Base Classes and character kits

Third Edition

• Stats 4d6 drop the lowest, arrange as you like
• Max HP at first level, random after that
• Death at -10
• XP through overcoming monsters based upon CR level and Party Level
• Unified XP table
• Gain a level, pick any class you'd like
• Base classes and Prestige classes

Forth Edition

• Point buy stats
• Static HP per level
• Death at -1/2 Hit Points or 3 failed death saving throws
• Static XP based upon monster type (minion, standard, elite, solo) and level
• unified XP table
• Multi-classing is done via feats or hybrid classes
• Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies

What do these shifting paradigms mean to me?

1. Balance shifted from the player to the character
2. Balance shifted from a seat at the table for a player to characters becoming statistically balanced (note the total lack of random elements in character creation in later editions). Additionally, because character turn over becomes less common, it becomes more important to make sure everyone is playing with the same numbers.
3. Different levels among the PCs is against the social contract of later editions. This reflects the balance between characters instead of players.
4. Overcoming challenging monsters as means of gaining XP has shifted the focus of the game to combat. Being clever and avoiding a big fight (which often comes from player creativity) is rewarded less and less as editions change (the default assumption being the PCs wade into combat).

 

[Obryn]

Sadly, I must spread XP around before giving it to Nifft again.

-O

 

[Obryn]

First Edition

• Stats 3d6 in line
• Random HP
• Death at 0
• XP through wealth acquired
• Different XP tables
• Multi-Classing (don't know)
• Base classes were it

Method I for stat generation in the 1e DMG was 4d6, drop low, arrange to taste. And, from every survey I've seen online, this was very common at most tables; few people playing 1e used 3d6-straight. The stat tables basically stop making sense if you use 3d6 straight because most mechanical differences are far out on the periphery - usually 3-6 and 15-18.

Also, there wasn't really a sense that the "base classes were it." Even before Unearthed Arcana, you had a series of new classes released in Dragon. Many of these were called "NPC-only," but given their XP tables and the like, they were pretty regularly used in play, too, as I understand it.

(It's been a while, but from what I've read recently, 2e moved back to 3d6-straight as the normal means of character generation. But 2e also had a strong "Rath Effect" built into the game, where players were encouraged to run mechanically bland characters.)

-O