D&D 5E (2014) How much should 5e aim at balance?

[Neonchameleon]

If you make character optimization not pay off, however, then you have an impossibly generic system, because your choices don't matter at all. The system would have to be "perfectly balanced."

This isn't actually true. You just need a narrativist system (3:16 will do).

But even where this is true it is deceptive. Talking about perfect balance is like talking about a frictionless environment. You may never reach it. But this doesn't mean that lowering friction doesn't improve the running of the engine - or the play of the game.

 

[Neonchameleon]

OK, you link right to it but you're also saying, pretty much directly, that you're missing his point. He says there are superior options, sure, but the so called "trap" options are not described as such. They're not traps and they're not actually "Timmy" cards. They're weaker options that have their uses, most of which won't apply to PCs in most circumstances, and that would have been better served with more explanation in that regard.

No. I'm linking to him because I understand what's going on. You, I think, have been reading The Alexandrian on the subject. And that is Monte Cook's own best gloss on what happened.

Toughness is, in 3.X, a generically recommended feat within the 3.0 PHB for certain classes. As a recommendation it is a trap. Even for a first level elf wizard it is a bad choice except in a one shot game because you can never retrain it out.

System options that you wouldn't think of taking except in rare cases because their use is not immediately obvious are one thing. System options that are highly substandard except in rare cases and then are recommended for generic builds are another.

 

[Yora]

The only way you are going to get that is by having a game where if something isn't listed on your character sheet you can not do it. And that might work in a boardgame or tabletop wargame but is utterly unacceptable in an RPG.

No. A great deal would be accomplished in which a class that is supposed to be a specalist in something is actually the best class in doing it.

Do not make the druid better in fighting than a figher.
Do not make the wizard better at making trapped corridors save for passing than a rogue.
Do not make a cleric better at tracking than a ranger.

 

[Steely_Dan]

No. A great deal would be accomplished in which a class that is supposed to be a specalist in something is actually the best class in doing it.

Do not make the druid better in fighting than a figher.
Do not make the wizard better at making trapped corridors save for passing than a rogue.
Do not make a cleric better at tracking than a ranger.

Total.

The Paladin should be the best out of beating the "living" crap out of demons.

I'm hoping for feind joy with the 5th Ed (sorry, cannot call it D&D Next, makes it sound like a brand of soda...) Paladin.

 

[Yora]

It is 5th Edition. We know it, they know it, they just have to admit it. ^^

 

[Ratskinner]

I'm not sure that it's so hard to make a system without significant imbalance and with player choice: HeroWars/Quest is an example. PCs are built out of freeform descriptors, with a certain number of good and middling bonuses to assign to them, and rules on the GM side to balance broad against narrow descriptors.

The scope for player choice isn't in relation to the dimension of mechanical effectiveness, but rather in relation to the fiction that a given PC generates and leverages (via the descriptors chosen).

Yup. I would add Capes to the list. Capes characters are precisely mechanically balanced and yet as different as can be. Of course, the mechanics side of the game is so abstract....dare I say "dissociated"...that I think it would drive most D&D to distraction. Still, as proof of concept, its perfect for this.

Admittedly this is quite different from D&D, and especially 3E and 4e D&D; and it requires dropping all pretence to simulationism in your PC build rules. <snippages>

No doubt. Its part of why I'm starting to lean toward Dungeon World over 5e (13th Age promises a lot, without revealing how it works its magic...makes me skeptical...prolly end up buying the stupid thing anyway.). Although I think it might be possible to create a more structurally D&Dish thing by mashing up concepts and structures from FATE and Capes, I don't know that I could sell that to anyone as D&D. Certainly the celebratory barbecue would be serving a lot of sacred hamburger.

 

[Lanefan]

If I understand correctly, you are saying that 3e rewarding system mastery is a problem.

When system mastery becomes the focus of the game, it's a problem.

In playing 3e I found myself spending far too much time trying to learn the system - and this is without intentionally trying to optimize - which just got in the way of playing the game at the table.

Lan-"rules are like referees - if you don't notice them, they've done their job"-efan

 

[Magil]

Because I'm not sure what kinds of games you want to play, it's hard for me to judge the truth of this! My point is more modest - that there can be RPGs with meaningful choice but no mechanical optimisation.

A clear example: if I buy my PC the power "Deal handily with undead" and you buy your PC the power "Deal handily with corrupt governmental officials", and if the encounter design rules tell the GM to build encounters that reflect the signals sent by the players in buidling their PCs, then neither of us is more optimal than the other - in play, for example, we can expect to have to deal with a city government corrupted by a death cult. But the choice to build the different PCs is still meaningful - my PC is going to live out the story of Van Helsing, yours the story of Antonio Di Pietro.

Well, to be honest, I don't want to play a system where I have to second-guess the GM to that degree Typically, I don't "buy" character options that only work in one particular situation, unless I can create the situation myself. And if the only choices (or even the majority of them) in a game were those kind of choices I probably wouldn't want to play! Just not my style. I should note that I'm not terribly familiar with those kinds of systems that, as you said earlier, were very different from DnD. I play DnD because that's the kind of style I like.

This isn't actually true. You just need a narrativist system (3:16 will do).

But even where this is true it is deceptive. Talking about perfect balance is like talking about a frictionless environment. You may never reach it. But this doesn't mean that lowering friction doesn't improve the running of the engine - or the play of the game.

I'm not against seeking balance--actually, I'm all for it. There can be a point where too much is sacrificed in the name of balance, but I don't think DnD will ever go down that road in my eyes. Though I'm willing to bet that 4th edition represented precisely that for some.

This is what I tried to highlight earlier when I said that Pun-Pun was okay, the Batman wizard is not okay. To me, Pun-Pun isn't enough to make me think less of a system, but the Batman wizard says to me that the system is broken (though perhaps I should rather use the druid or divine metamagic cleric as more direct examples).

 

[pemerton]

Well, to be honest, I don't want to play a system where I have to second-guess the GM to that degree

In the sort of system I'm talking about (and I'm assuming that [MENTION=6688937]Ratskinner[/MENTION]'s Capes, and [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]'s 3:16 are similar), the GM is obliged to follow the leads of the players - so as to avoid the second-guessing you're properly worried about.

This is what I tried to highlight earlier when I said that Pun-Pun was okay, the Batman wizard is not okay. To me, Pun-Pun isn't enough to make me think less of a system, but the Batman wizard says to me that the system is broken (though perhaps I should rather use the druid or divine metamagic cleric as more direct examples).

Agreed. It's not corner cases or obscure combinations that are the problem; it's when core builds break the game even when everyone's just trying to have a good time playing their PCs!

 

[Tony Vargas]

If I understand correctly, you are saying that 3e rewarding system mastery is a problem.

I struggle to see where system mastery is not rewarded in any version of D&D, but more importantly, I struggle to see why you think it shouldn't be.

3e supposedly set out to build in rewards for system mastery, intentionally, and that turned out to be a gasoline-on-a-fire sort of problem.

4e, OTOH, set out to minimize that problem, to keep system-mastery down as much as ever it could, and was regularly 'updated' to that end. The CharOp forum never shut down. You can find no end of powerful/effective builds for 4e. They're not /as/ over-the-top as 3e, and they're not as crowded around broken spell-casting classes, but there's no shortage.

You can't eliminate the effect of system mastery in an RPG. RPGs are just too complex. Any complex system can be 'gamed.' There's no need to set out to reward it, trying to do so just results in a broken system.