Older Editions and "Balance" when compared to 3.5

[MerricB]

Before thinking that multiclass was an easy path to more power remember that training costs needed to be paid for each class trainer. At lower levels, getting the gold to pay for single classed training was tough enough, imagine trying to come up with the dough to pay 3 trainers!

That would result in a fair bit of adventuring being done by these multi-classed wonders without XP gain since they had to actually attain the new level before any more xp could be earned.

Erm... the problem here is that needing proportionally more XP, they also gained proportionally more gold. A fighter/magic-user would have double the gold of a regular fighter by the time he reached the 4000 XP he needed for 2nd level fighter...

Cheers!

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think there was some effort made in older editions to ensure that no character class or race would be completely useless and boring to play. After all, it's not so important that every character be equal. It's important that every character can play a productive and meaningful role in the party.

I agree completely. The problem is that what sounds good IN THEORY doesn't work out in practicality. It was easy to sit back and say "Wizards only have so many spells per day and they have low hitpoints and poor AC, so they die easily, while Fighters have good AC and lots of hitpoints and can attack infinitely, and although thieves aren't good at attacking normally they can get a huge amount of damage in rare circumstances...besides, they are the only ones who can find traps and open doors, so they have their use, Clerics are the only ones who can heal." Unfortunately, in play when groups insisted on resting and recovering spells long before the Wizard ran out, it often made them much more useful to the party than the rest of the characters. The same thing happens when the only locked doors you come across can be easily opened by a knock spell.

In practice having your entire character replaced by a ring of regeneration, a potion of healing, or a knock scroll made you feel like you didn't have a "productive and meaningful role in the party".

I admit, some groups didn't have a problem with this at all. I ran into them on my travels. They were so wrapped up in the roleplaying of their characters and the idea that the game was supposed to model "reality" that the idea that the game might be more fun if they felt as useful in the group as the other characters never occurred to them. After all, when they chose to play a Thief instead of a Wizard, they KNEW they weren't going to be as useful to the group. It wouldn't be very realistic if they were.

But our group grew beyond that idea pretty quickly. Nearly everyone was multiclassing, because you were just better that way. Pretty much everyone was triple classed if their DM would let them. After all, you got all the advantages of 3 different classes without the disadvantages of any of them. And in exchange, you just had to be a level or 2 lower than everyone else. Which didn't mean much. The only time someone didn't pick that option is when we started at 1st level. Until you were about 3rd or 4th level, you were actually a little weak. If the game started above that, it was a no-brainer.

 

[Bluenose]

I doubt "balance", as we understand it these days, was really a design goal of the older editions. After all, real life isn't at all balanced. Most characters in fantasy novels aren't balanced. Sorcerers are often portrayed as major powers in fantasy stories. Thieves rarely are. If one of the goals of an RPG is to create the illusion of a fantasy world, then having a little imbalance might not be such a bad thing.

I can't remember the exact quote, but Gary Gygax said in a thread over on Dragonsfoot that the reason clerics were only given blunt weapon proficiencies was a balance issue. He also wrote about it in his book on GMing, where I'm pretty certain he said it was more important than realism. I'm pretty confident that he and Arneson did consider balance - it might not have been the sole consideration, but it mattered.

As for sorcerers as major players, and thieves not. How often is the sorcerer a major figure in the setting, and a thief a relative novice? It's perfectly plausible to say high level characters are major powers and low level ones aren't. And if we're taking examples from novels, well; Let's look at Conan. He gets knocked unconscious three times. Once by magic; twice by sling stones. Clearly, slings should be more powerful than magic. Convenient for thieves.

 

[joela]

Thanks for posting this. I am (was) a "gamer" from pre-3e myself and from looking at various boards in recent months I've really wondered this myself...so now I'll throw in my 2 coppers.

I don't recall us EVER having debates or complaints about "balance."..and we DID get into some higher levels...think my high school group was averaging levels in the mid to high teens...that's what I think of when I think "high" levels.

All of the time and energy and product after product after product, forum after thread after forum, talking and gravely concerned with "balance." It just baffles me.

The game is (or should be) balanced among the players (and DM) themselves. Everyone's good at something different...the fighter fights, the cleric clerics, the thief thiefs, etc. etc. I understand "Oh gods, the mages get soooo powerful."...Yeah, I guess they could be...when (if ever) they're over 8th-10th level or so. (or used to be...who knows what level with the game as it is now?) And it took, if memory serves, PAINFULLY FOREVVVVER to even get to 5th!

At the same time, at/around 7th-8th level, the fighter was laden with magical armor, weapons, massive hit points and most likely strength enhancing magic items. Thieves had a bevy of items (probably something for invisibility or flying or climbing or silence...if not all of the above), greatly heightened stealth skills and (probably) amassed riches they could have accrued by then. Clerics got their butt-kicking spells too (along with the magic armor and weapons and items)...soooo who was so much more powerful/unbalanced than whom?

I don't see how mages were so outrageously "overpowered" or making the game "unbalanced" as seems to be the common consensus.

BUT, as I've said before, I am sorely out of the loop when it comes to actual game play for a few "editions" now...so I'll leave that kinda analysis to the mechanics & rule-mavens to hash out.

For me, the game (D&D or AD&D or OD&D or however you want to label...pre-3-3.5) was always more about imagination, story telling and character CREATION (as in developing a Character, capital "C", not just the rolling stats & pick a name part) than feats, scores, "balance" or character BUILDS...Oh yeah...and FUN. It was about fun and being social too. "Balance" never really entered the equation.

Just my thoughts.
SD, the great and powerful, has spoken.
That is all.

Total awesome.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I doubt "balance", as we understand it these days, was really a design goal of the older editions. After all, real life isn't at all balanced. Most characters in fantasy novels aren't balanced. Sorcerers are often portrayed as major powers in fantasy stories. Thieves rarely are. If one of the goals of an RPG is to create the illusion of a fantasy world, then having a little imbalance might not be such a bad thing.

That might be true of 2e, definitely not 1e or OD&D which are both heavily gamist and intended to be balanced.

The logic behind it all was drawn from game balance as much as from anything else. Fighters have their strength, weapons, and armor to aid them in their competition. Magic-users must rely upon their spells, as they have virtually no weaponry or armor to protect them. Clerics combine some of the advantages of the other two classes. The new class, thieves, have the basic advantage of stealthful actions with some additions in order for them to successfully operate on a plane with other character types...

It is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals

- Gary Gygax, Strategic Review 2.2, 1976

Each gaming character must provide interest for the participant through its potential, its unique approaches to the challenges of the game form, and yet be roughly equal to all other characters of similar level...

Were fighters to be given free rein of magic items in AD&D, and spells relegated to a potency typical of most heroic fantasy novels, for example, then the vast majority of participants would desire to have fighter characters. This would certainly lessen the scope of the game...

Keep roles from novels in their proper place-either as enjoyable reading or as special insertions of the non-player sort. The fact that thus-and-so magic-user in a fantasy yarn always employs a magic sword, or that Gray Mouser, a thief, is a commensurate bladesman, has absolutely nothing to do with the balance betwen character classes in AD&D.

- Gary Gygax, Dragon #31, 1979

 

[S'mon]

Or you can't make the Ability Score requirements but still want to hit things with something sharp. With a 17 Cha requirement for a Paladin you had approximately a 1.5% chance of getting that 17, plus you needed a 13 Wis, and a 10 Str. Paladin's and Rangers were more powerful for sure, but they showed up pretty rarely, plus the Paladin code was a lot more restrictive.

The Cha 17 requirement is a huge evener-up. The player with a Paladin PC IMC got lucky and rolled a 17 as one of his 6 stats (best 3 of 4d6 any order). He could have put it in STR (+1 to hit +1 damage, and would have gone to 18 due to Age mods +1 STR +1 CON, giving him a % exceptional STR roll, from +1/+3 to +3/+6). He could have put it in DEX (+2 to hit with missile weapons, -3 AC) or CON (+3 hp, > 18 gives +4 hp/die, where monsters mostly do around 4-5 dmg/hit). Putting it instead in CHA, which has no direct combat effect, is a huge commitment IMO. It meant he was no better in combat than the Fighter PC whose highest roll was a 13, and who advances faster too.

 

[S'mon]

I currently play Labyrinth Lord and I haven't noticed any balance issues. Seriously. Everybody has a useful role to play, and the party functions coherently. Isn't that what the game is about?

I've seen an issue at 1st level with LL in that Elves are just so much better than Magic-Users in every way. I solve it by starting everyone at 2500 or 5000 XP, this puts Elves 1 level behind Magic-Users and Thieves 1 level ahead, making them all fairly well balanced options.

 

[Aegeri]

Reading those quotes, it's easy to see why Gygax held such distain for third edition. One of the things that rapidly became apparent as I played more high level 3rd was that concentration really removed the disadvantages from spellcasting. When spellcasters could get metamagic and sustain buffs for an entire day on themselves without having to recast them (therefore preserving spell slots for actually useful abilities) it got way out of hand. When my players figured out the "Batman" wizard the fun levels in my games just went down massively.

Perhaps it was an age thing, but I don't recall these problems in the time I ran 2E. Generally things were pretty even actually and spellcasting wasn't the be all and end all. Losing a spell if you were hit, the fact they could take multiple rounds to cast and other issues helped keep a spellcaster in line with the other party members (you also got less spells per day). The lack of free multiclassing all over the place was also a good thing (that I recognize now, but not at the time to be honest). Players that could dip into the best of numerous things were able to combine tons of mechanics in really unintended ways. Some classes became "one rank wonders" like Rangers as they were so useless beyond level 1, but so top heavy in class features at low levels.

One of these days I'm going to have to pull out my 2E stuff and see how it holds up now I'm more mature, my friends know their DnD a lot better and we won't get sidetracked with Dwarf fighters called bottom (don't ask).

 

[S'mon]

BTW while I think that 0e& Classic were well balanced (except 1st level Elves in Classic), 1e PHB-only was well balanced but leaning towards Clerics & Rangers, and OSRIC's 1e+UA Weapon Spec is well balanced but leaning towards Fighters & their subclasses, Unearthed Arcana did introduce a lot of unbalanced elements - notably Cavaliers, also Drow and Deep Gnome PCs. And 2e removed or reduced many 1e balancing factors by eg raising demihuman level limits, or the appalling 2e Stoneskin spell. Overall I'd say the drift was *away* from balance, culminating in 3e with its worthless high level Fighter and CODzillas. 4e has made a serious effort to restore balance to the Force... to the game. Although I'm not certain that's made it more fun.

 

[S'mon]

Unless, like us, you used Unearthed Arcana and now the paladin player is rolling 9d6, take the best 3 to get his paladin.

Or, prior, you just let people roll until they got the character they wanted.

Which might contribute to the balance issues we had.

Yes, both of those approaches (and lots of the stuff in UA) destroy the balancing factors in the 1e PHB.