Class Balance - why?

[Deadboy]

I also think that some of the Oberoni Fallacy arguments are a bit illogical. You are saying there is only one situation, and we are pointing out other possible situations that make all classes shine.

I say "the dm should give magic items to if the fighter is feeling week" you say "Why should he have to?"

I say "the DM should have a varitey of situations to make all classes powerful" you say "Oberon Fallacy! You have to make a situation for the fighter to shine!"

and on, and on...

But In D&D the DM DOES set the parameters, and he IS supposed to set the parameters to make the game fun right? That's the purpose of the DM. So perhaps if in your game a class was running around being god, maybe it was the DMs fault in not puttin up situations where other classes could shine.

But isn't it a problem if a DM has to DESIGN AROUND a particular character to keep them from shining too much or another character to keep them from shining too little? Shouldn't each class have the capability to shine ON THEIR OWN without being coddled by the DM? That's the heart of the Oberoni fallacy. A DM shouldn't have to design adventures around poor character class design, he should be able to design adventures as he chooses and still know that the characters can find ways to conquer them while each shining in their own way.

My favorite thing to do as a DM is sling an encounter at a group of PCs while thinking, "I can't WAIT to see how they get out of this one." It's way harder to do that if I also have to figure out ways to neuter the Wizard and coddle the fighter.

I must also point out another reason why I think balance is so important - my time playing a 3.5 Fighter was literally the only time I've ever been outright bored playing an RPG. By 8th level, my low intelligence, low skill points and limited skill list meant I had little to offer the party out-of-combat besides climbing walls; and in combat, if I didn't get lucky and roll a high initiative, one of the parties two casters would either outright win or at least marginalize the entire combat before I could go. Even if I won initiative and charged a monster, I was usually doing the party a disservice because now I was just in the casters' way.

[MENTION=36874]Giltonio_Santos[/MENTION]: I pretty much told my game group that if we weren't going to play 4e I would play 2e or even 1e before I would consider playing 3.5/Pathfinder.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Over sixty posts in a class balance debate and no one posted this yet?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw]Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit - YouTube[/ame]


The massive imbalance exists more in 3rd Edition then in any other. In 2E and before, it was balanced but in ways that would be strange today. Wizards sucked at low levels but ruled in high levels, had difference exp rates, spells had strange drawbacks, etc.

 

[Jiggawatts]

The only thing from AD&D that I completely cant defend is Thieves. A single classed thief in AD&D is gimped in so many ways it hurts. Yes he has those nice thieving abilities, that a wizard CAN emulate if he chooses (although he is giving up resources for the day that could be allocated elsewhere in doing so), but that is it, he is a weaker fighter, does less damage, has worse saving throws, everything. The fact that the thief leveled the fastest was supposed to compensate for this, but it never did, and it was almost always better to play a fighter/thief or mage/thief than a single classed thief (certain exceptions may exist, such as the swashbuckler kit).

However this is easily fixed in two ways, the first being 3E style sneak attack instead of (Im lucky if I get it off once a fight) backstab. Now this would need to be at a much lower rate, 10d6 on a dual wielding thief in AD&D would be disgustingly OP, maxing it out at 5d6 would be much better, although I would say he shouldnt be able to do this all the time, so keep the rule that the victims back has to be facing the thief, but the ability to sneak attack isnt gone after your initial one if he is stupid enough to keep his back towards you (still immencely better than backstab). The second simply being a better attack bonus, gives thieves the same THAC0 rate as a cleric, problem solved.

 

[Gronin]

It is well and good to talk basic math, but are we playing the game to crunch numbers or have fun?

For some crunching numbers is part of the fun.

 

[SKyOdin]

The entire point of class balance is so that a player doesn't have to worry about whether or not the character they want to play will be effective or not. In a well-balanced game, players are free to focus on creating a character that fits the archetype and story they have in mind without worrying too much about mechanics. In a poorly balanced game, a player might be forced to learn how to min-max a character in order to play the character they want to play, and even then might have to make some significant compromises.

While a perfectly balanced game is probably never going to happen, it is an ideal that any game designer needs to strive towards.

 

[Elf Witch]

I think striving for balance is a good thing. But balance does not mean to me that classes are equal in ever situation. There are times that someone gets to shine and others are just supporting them.

The game is about team work. A wizard by themselves can't survive they don't have enough hit points, if they don't get enough sleep they run out of spells, without the ability to cast magic they have lousy ACs.

Every time I read one of these threads it becomes all about how over powered the wizard is. I read things that make me want to bang my head.

Someone said who wants to play a character who hides under the table while the wizard does his thing. That was a big WTF for me. In my experience the only class I ever saw hide was the wizard. I have never seen a cleric, fighter or rogue need to hide but I have seen wizards out of spells need to hide because otherwise they would be killed.

People talk about fireball and how the wizard can just open the door and take out all the orcs with it. Again I have to wonder about the DMs in these situations they make every room so big that there is no chance for that fireball to also hit the party?

I am playing a wizard and there have been plenty of times the more mundane characters have shone. We fought a group of rogue doppelgangers I threw a fireball at them and every last one of them make their evasion roles and took no damage. Then two of them got on top of me and I had to combat cast and I only made it once I lost two spells and then they took me down. The rogue and the cleric were the ones that shown that day with a little help from the warlock who channel his eldritch blast through his rapier.

In another session we were attacked all night long so our sleep was interrupted my wizard spent the next day throwing a few cantrips and my crossbow became my weapon of choice. The rogue lack of sleep didn't hurt him and while the cleric lost spells it didn't effect him wading in with his sword and lopping off limbs.

My point is that a good DM should be able to plan encounters that play to the characters strength and weakness. If the wizard is the only one who ever shines then that is a DM issue and the sign of a poorly planned encounter.


Whenever I play a magic user I never feel like the rest are my henchmen I am very aware that they can make it without me but I can't without them.

We are playing Age of Worms which has a lot of dungeons in it. I can't tell you how many sessions I have just doodled on my notes because the rogue is in the spotlight checking for traps, picking locks , scouting ahead. It is sometimes boring for me and for the rest of the players but we know this is the rogue place to shine.

I play high level fighters in 3E and I never felt that I was not as good as the magic users. I was swinging my sword 4 times and because of the feats I had a crit was a 15 and 90% of the time I confirmed it. I would wade through the battlefield leaving destruction in my wake it was really awesome. Sure the magic users may have been taking care of the enemy casters but if it wasn't for me taking care of the BBEG men they would have swarmed the wizard and killed him.

Yes there should be balance in the game but the DM also needs to be able to balance encounters if he doesn't then it realy won't matter how balanced the classes are it will not be fun for someone.

 

[Aldarc]

Agreed, but is this a responsibility of the rules or of the DM? I think thats where the major difference of opinions arises from. Some want the balance forced through the rules, others think it should be more of a DM / party / story component.

It's easier to create approximate balance through the rules than it is to rely on a particular DM/party/story to have the proper component. It's like expecting everyone to be a software engineer who can patch the problem on their own when they buy a bugged piece of software. When you ship out a product, you try to reduce the number of bugs, glitches, and problems to a minimum.

I wonder how many people who don't mind the imbalanced classes would feel playing in a system wherein the fighters and other mundanes repeatedly trumped second-class wizards who were designed to be more like Orko of He-Man than Raistlin of Dragonlance.

 

[Mircoles]

Because everyone playing should be having fun, not just the ones playing the "Uber" classes.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

the only class balance I worry about is that all classes are equally fun to play. Combat balance doesn't matter. Hell, the AD&D thief is pathetic in combat, in Basic, he was even worse. But I never saw a lack of people playing thieves. The thief was balanced because he had lots of cool stuff to do outside of combat. Stop the game from rushing from one combat to the next, make combats fast and furious, and class balance matters a whole lot less.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I do not understand your argument here - perhaps you are speaking of something else? What I was implying was encounter balance and maybe I did not phrase it well. It is the DMs responsibility to ensure the encounters are balanced to properly challenge the party. If the enemy wizard has the capability to do those things to the party, does the party wizard not have the same ability against the encounter?

What I'm saying is that I build encounters often before I even know what PCs will be in the group. I come up with the plot and idea for an adventure before the first session even starts. So, I'll write down "Orcs attacking nearby village. PCs will be hired to hunt them down, the town knows where they live, in a cave. In the first room, there will be 10 Orcs who are eating dinner when the PCs arrive. In the second room is where their 2 wizards live. It is too far away for them to assist quickly into the first room but they will arrive after 10 rounds if the battle isn't over. The last room has the Chieftan and his 2 Shamans. They are so far away they can't even hear battles occurring in the first two rooms."

Then, I find out what classes and races the PCs are afterward. I don't plan for "The PCs have a wizard, so I have to put one enemy wizard into each battle as a counter to him."

I don't argue that things got more imbalanced over time. But this is not a discussion of how imbalanced things had gotten, its more about the necessity of roles needing to be balanced in a new edition. Clearly, if one class is a "god" among classes, it needs to be fixed. But does that mean that all classes need to have the same levels of powers? Do we need to dumb it down in the rules so everything is equal and every class feels special in every encounter?

It started out imbalanced. Just most groups didn't notice it at first. I certainly didn't. When I first started playing D&D, I just thought it was so cool that I got to pretend to be a half-elf fighter/thief and that I could pick locks and beat people up with a sword. It wasn't until about 6 months or a year of playing before I started noticing how weak I was compared to our wizard. And how often I felt like I could just do nothing on my action in combat since the Wizard had the proper spell to take care of the enemy and was acting right after me. Given...my first game was one where we were already 12th level. And our DM allowed a Netbook of Spells that was floating around the internet, filled with even more overpowered spells. Which made it even worse. But it WAS imbalanced. And it took a while, but it did start to get no fun. So much so, that the rest of my characters were pretty much Wizards after that.

I don't think all classes need to be at the exact same level. But similar, yes. I have to feel that the attack I made with my sword is at least similar in power to whatever the wizard did. I have to feel that if we replaced our wizard with a different class that we could still beat the encounter. I'd be ok with doing 10 damage with my sword if the wizard had to use up a daily resource to do 20. I'd be ok with the same wizard doing 5 damage in an area of effect. But I'm not ok with the power discrepancy being as high as it is(sometimes the wizard is doing over 300 times more damage than the fighter).

Your example of the 5th level wizard is fine. But he is a one and done with that fireball. If you play by the RAW, it will slow things way down for him to re-memorize that to be used again. So he just cleared out a room with 20 orcs using his most powerful spell (and hopefully not frying everyone in the party at the same time). There are 20 more rooms to go. I guess he will be a god in all of those as well? Your damage calculations will more than average out over the course of those additional room, I think (and probably fall vastly in favor of the melee types).

This was less of an issue in 1e/2e, I agree. However, most wizards tended to collect scrolls, wands, and other magic items to supplement their spells since there were so few of them.

You are right, in that most of the time, after that one spell, the wizard sat in a corner for the next 2 or 3 fights doing nothing and waiting for the rest of the party to defeat the encounter, since he had no spells left.

But many times, the group would simply stop and rest for the night to have the fireball available next combat. It might slow things down, but most of the time, there was no problem with slowing things down.

Sometimes that room was the only difficult fight all day. Sometimes those 20 rooms would be empty. It really depended on the DMs adventure design. If he decided to throw 20 more rooms of monsters at you...well, you might as well pull out your gameboy and start playing games, because you weren't going to contribute meaningfully to the rest of the session.

I don't think it'll ever balance in favor of the melee types. But it will get closer. 5th is a bad level, because it is only the beginning of where the wizard gets powerful. Take a 11th level wizard who can cast a 10d6 fireball a number of times per day, and probably a delayed blast fireball, and a number of other spells. But even the 5th level wizard still has a number of magic missiles to take care of the lesser threats. In practice, there was rarely more than 6 fights a day, so you didn't have to save too many spells.

It is well and good to talk basic math, but are we playing the game to crunch numbers or have fun?

I do have fun crunching numbers. Sometimes. I'd prefer not to pay attention to them. That's what I like about 4e. For the most part, I don't have to concentrate on them. I know that no matter what striker class I pick, I will be doing an appropriate amount of damage. I know that no matter what leader class I pick, I should be able to keep the party alive. When I pick my powers, I know that all of them are roughly equal(not exactly equal, that would be no fun...but roughly).

I never had fun choosing spells in 2e, because I always looked at the list of spells and thought "Why would anyone use any of these spells except these 3. The rest are downright poor in comparison." It always felt that if I didn't pay close attention to the numbers, I'd end up as dead weight in the party.