Might vs Magic

[Aldarc]

Allowing players to "play what they want" means that all character classes need to be able to handle every role possible. You end up with all the character classes generally feeling the same.

How so?

 

[WheresMyD20]

How so?

If every character can fill any role, regardless of class, then that makes it much more difficult to significantly differentiate between classes - except, perhaps, by giving different descriptive flavor to similar mechanical functions, which ends up being only a veneer of differentiation.

 

[Aldarc]

If every character can fill any role, regardless of class, then that makes it much more difficult to significantly differentiate between classes - except, perhaps, by giving different descriptive flavor to similar mechanical functions, which ends up being only a veneer of differentiation.

Bold: That's the fallacious assertion of class balance, because "Allowing players to "play what they want," does not, in fact, mean "that all character classes need to be able to handle every role possible," as that still frames the class design in a way that presumes the need or existence of roles at the outset.

 

[Andor]

Allowing players to "play what they want" means that all character classes need to be able to handle every role possible. You end up with all the character classes generally feeling the same.

This is true. But only if one of your design goals is isolating players from the consequences of thier choices.

Most games do not have "4 pillars." In Shadowrun your team would be running a mighty risk making a run without a magic-user on board, but if you want to do it, no one will stop you.

In 7th Sea game balance does not come off the rails if no one is playing a Swordsman.

In Earthdawn you do not need an Obsidiman Warrior to survive, however tough one might be.

Yes, basic D&D had 4 base classes. So what? 1ed AD&D had, what, 7? The game was not designed around having all 7 in the party. It wasn't designed around any particular party.

D&D does suffer from the peculiar task isolation of it's class design. In particular healing magic being restricted to Cleric has cast a long shadow over the game. This was not, and please don't kid yourself here, done for balance reasons. It was done for flavor reasons.

D&D is built like a log cabin, whose boughs were stolen from Tolkein, and Howard, and Grimm and Le Morte De Arthur and the like. Wizards do not heal becuase wizards in Swords and Sorcery fiction were usually the bad guys. Clerics heal because healing miracles were the provinces of Saints. The Thief was his own class because the axe weilding Dwarves hired a specialist in the Hobbit. The Monk was a class because E.G.Gygax like the Kung-Fu tv series.

It's probable that healing as the unique province of cleric is a sacred cow whose time is come. It's been chipped away at for a long time, with the Bard in 3e and the "Leader" role invented for 4e, even though we all know they meant "Healer."

Nonetheless if a party of 5 bards shows up for a grim and gritty war campaign they should get killed. If 5 thieves show up, maybe they'll be able do it sneaky ninja style. If 5 wizards show up they'll be great, until they run out of spells or get run down by cavalry.

The solution to unbalanced classes is not making them all exactly equivilent, it's communication between the GM and the players about campaign expectations, and amoungst the players.

Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue is the classic D&D party, but hardly the only one.

Ranger, Artificer, Druid and Bard fills all the same roles in 3e, but would be quite different in play.

Heck Totemist, Binder, Factotum and Psywarrior would be 4 do-all classes. Would you call them balanced? Do they slot neatly into 4e's role model? I bet it would be a heck of a lot of fun to play.

 

[Mercule]

Allowing players to "play what they want" means that all character classes need to be able to handle every role possible. You end up with all the character classes generally feeling the same.

No. It means that the GM must be equipped to handle the players' style (or vice versa). I'll grant that the dungeon is the default gaming environment and the one that best fits the module style of delivery. It's a reasonable assumption that most groups are going to spend a plurality, if not a majority, of their time dealing with dungeons. The game should handle that scenario well. The further along the D&D timeline you go, however, the less that seems to be an assumption and the more it seems to be myopia.

If you have a bard, a swashbuckling rogue, a beguiler, and a priestess of Aphrodite, the group is probably not going to be particularly effective in the dungeon. On the other hand, they promise to be really good (in theory) at courtly intrigue and, maybe, investigating threats to the city. The GM needs to be aware of that and deal appropriately.

The rules also need to make allowances for that. In 1e this was more implied than anything -- GM fiat ruled the day. 2e and 3e tried a couple different mechanisms (kits, a real skill system) to deal with it. Each had strengths and flaws, but they definitely tried. At some point in 3e (3.5?), the system changes started focusing on the dungeon to a very high degree. 4e went off the deep end to the point of having OCD about it. 4e definitely has some great ideas, but it's that neurosis that I think is killing it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yes, basic D&D had 4 base classes. So what? 1ed AD&D had, what, 7? The game was not designed around having all 7 in the party. It wasn't designed around any particular party.

I can't read the minds of dead men, so I can't say with certainty how it was designed, but the 4 iconic classes each had functions that a party would be disadvantaged in having to do without. The fighter was a high-ac/high-hp front line that could stand up to attacks that others couldn't. The Cleric healed and could trivialize combats vs undead. The Theif dealt with primarily with traps, and scouting. The wizard was a nearly indespensible utility character, in addition to having combat-ending spell power. With AD&D, there were sub-classes that could fill in. A paladin or ranger could presumably fill in for a fighter on the front line. A Druid could heal, if not as well as the cleric. An Assassin had some theif skills. An Illusionist could pull some wizard tricks, but it's effectiveness was even more varied from DM to DM.

4e's formalized roles make building a 'balanced' party easier on the players, and designing encounters for it easier on the DM. It's a nice advance. It would be even nicer if it could be extended to or mirrored on the non-combat side.

 

[FireLance]

Nonetheless if a party of 5 bards shows up for a grim and gritty war campaign they should get killed. If 5 thieves show up, maybe they'll be able do it sneaky ninja style. If 5 wizards show up they'll be great, until they run out of spells or get run down by cavalry.

Actually, this whole "You must have X to succeed" (where X could be a thief, a cleric, etc.), or its close cousin, "If you are X you will fail" mindset is something that I hope will not translate into 5e. Why should a party of five bards expect to get killed in a war campaign? I can accept that it might be harder for them to succeed, but to have no chance of survival at all? Not acceptable, in my book. The same goes for the other side of the coin: clerics shouldn't trivialize undead encounters, thieves shouldn't be the only ones who can get past traps, and so on. Other characters might have to do it differently, or might not be able to do it as well, but the extremes of hyper-competence and total incompetence are things that I hope 5e will manage to avoid.

And thus, by a somewhat roundabout route, I get to the quote that started this thread. Yes, I expect fighters to be as effective as spellcasters in all situations, at all levels, although not necessarily exactly as effective, and not necessarily in exactly the same ways. A fighter should be able to fight, but he should be able to do more than just fight.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

One of the things that 4E got a bit closer to right on was the concept that a D&D character is two things:

• A general adventurer, capable of basic competence when going to dangerous places, fighting monsters, exploring wilderness, dealing with nobles and other powerful people.
• A specialist that brings some real power in some limited area.

One of the things that 4E fell well short of while doing this was the idea that +1/2 level on skills, a closer mix of hit points, and some reliable attacks--satisfy the first one. Those are all useful and probably even necessary things to satisfy being a general adventurer, but they are not sufficient.

Make each character sufficiently capable as a general adventurer (or at least able to do so if the player chooses), and you can then afford to get a little more divergent with the specialization applied on top of that. Which is to say that I agree with Firelance's post above.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Bold: That's the fallacious assertion of class balance, because "Allowing players to "play what they want," does not, in fact, mean "that all character classes need to be able to handle every role possible," as that still frames the class design in a way that presumes the need or existence of roles at the outset.

If you don't need roles or if they don't exist, then what is the purpose of class other than for descriptive variation? If there are no roles, then there's no need for variation.

Your assertion is a logic tautology. It's like saying that you don't need different players on a team to play different positions if different positions don't exist. In essence, it is supporting the very point I'm making.

 

[WheresMyD20]

Yes, basic D&D had 4 base classes. So what? 1ed AD&D had, what, 7? The game was not designed around having all 7 in the party. It wasn't designed around any particular party.

AD&D had four classes: cleric, fighter, magic-user, and thief. It also had 5 subclasses: druid (cleric), paladin (fighter), ranger (fighter), illusionist (magic-user), assassin (thief).

A subclass in 1e essentially fills the same role as the class that it's based off of. That makes sub-classes harder to balance because you need to ensure that they are roughly equivalent to the main class. The four main classes themselves don't necessarily need to be balanced as carefully against each other since they all play different roles and all of them are needed to have a successful party, regardless if you are playing a high level or low level game.

In 1e, think of the 4 main classes as the positions on the team and the sub-classes as variations on how those positions get played. AD&D certainly was designed around the same 4-role party as "basic" D&D. That's why they're called "sub-classes" and not simply "classes".

The point I've been making is that balance between the main classes like fighters and magic-users isn't all that important as long as their classes are both needed in a party. I've already stated my position that it's the classes that fulfill similar roles (called "sub-classes" in 1e): fighter vs barbarian, magic-user vs illusionist, thief vs assassin, are the ones that require more careful balancing.

Note: There are also two "oddball" classes in 1e: monk and bard. The monk was a holdover from OD&D supplement 2 and Gygax listed it last, out of alphabetical order, since it really didn't "fit in". The bard was put in an appendix and is a fighter/thief/druid triple-class. Neither of these classes really fit into the cleric/fighter/magic-user/thief structure of the game, which is why they have unusual placement. I don't know Gygax's though process on these two classes, but he did state that he wished that he left the monk out of the PHB and left it for Oriental Adventures. In fact, in OA, he recommended that the monk presented in the PHB be ignored.