The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

[Tony Vargas]

Gandalf is not "balanced" with Bilbo Baggins.

That Bilbo was such a DM's pet, way OP...

 

[hawkeyefan]

Necessary but not sufficient, is how I'd see it, at worst. Games need to be balanced to avoid being terrible, non-functional, or boring (like tic-tac-toe, above), but they can still be all three, in spite of being balanced.
The greater the depth and scope the game attempts, the more important balance becomes to keep all those elements meaningful & viable, and thus more than just window-dressing for a storyteller's backdrop or chaff for system masters to winnow away.

RPGs often try for tremendous scope and have the potential for great depth of play by their very natures. Balance is thus critically important to deliver on that. If the game doesn't provide it, the players have to, by some sort of informal agreement or voluntary restraint (as in Freestyle RP), or the DM has to impose it by fiat (as in classic D&D or 5e). Otherwise, so much of that potential depth & scope is lost. What's left might still be pretty significant, though: put a group of equally-capable powergamers together to play 3.x/PF, and there's still a lot of game left for them to use, it's not just X-in-the-corner, O-in-the-center, every time. ;P

I feel like this may be more true of competitive games....chess and tic-tac-toe being examples that were mentioned....but in a collaborative game such as most RPGs, I don't think it's quite as necessary as all that.

Of course, it all depends on what you mean by balance....there are a lot of ways we could apply the term to an RPG and to D&D in particular. But given the OP and the way this conversation has gone, I look at it as a game not having "clearly superior options" in the form of feats or class combinations.

And I think that's clearly not the case. Sure, a feat like Great Weapon Master may be seen by some as a clearly superior option, and a player who doesn't select it is not being "optimal". But that's only when combat efficacy is the only goal.

For those who aren't as concerned with combat efficacy, or at least for whom it's not the sole concern, such balance is far less important, and certainly not a necessity. This is the fundamental flaw with CapnZapp's premise; it's an issue for his game (and certainly some others', too), but that doesn't mean that the game needs to be revised. It means he and his players should revise the way they play the game....either by house ruling to achieve the desired outcome, or by shifting their focus a bit, and maybe playing the game a bit differently than they always have.

If you want to apply the term balance more loosely....perhaps as "most of the existing options will appeal to someone"....then sure, balance is required. Because the goal is fun, so as long as all the players are enjoying themselves, then the game is balanced.

 

[Gadget]

I find it interesting that rather than argue the OP's logic & proposals, we get a lot of hand waving and philosophical "perfect balance is impossible" and "who wants balance anyway?" type of arguments. I'm not convinced a Sorc with twinned Firebolt is over the top (or if it is, not by much). I think things like sorlocks and sorcadins are kind of ridiculous and don't really give them much credence. The real question here is how much balance is really needed? Why even have levels? Many will have different answers.

I like 5e and think they did a great job, by and large, of stepping back from the edge of system mastery & complexity while largely capturing the 'feel' of D&D. That does not mean that it is not without flaws and couldn't be improved; especially after a few years in the wild. For instance, I think a lot of the spells could be better designed, yet I acknowledge that they paired down the worst of the 3.x excesses. I see nothing wrong with the assertion that feats tend to favor one or two specific weapons over others and caster at-wills threaten martial's damage niche in non-feat games. I'm not convinced on every aspect, but I can see the argument.

This takes nothing away from the fact that charm person cleaned out a whole bandit hideout for you that one time; indeed it validates that experience. The Sorcerer/Wizard/Bard/Warlock/AK/AT (or some touch of the previous mentioned) was using a leveled spell resource to solve a problem in an interesting way and had no need of high dpr at-will cantrip to 'blast' his/her way through the encounter.

 

[Lanefan]

A more problematic case is the sorcerer 9 / warlock 2. ...

An honorable mention is the Paladin 6 / sorcerer 5 ...

Maybe one possible solution is to ban multiclassing outright?

 

[Tony Vargas]

I feel like this may be more true of competitive games....chess and tic-tac-toe being examples that were mentioned....but in a collaborative game such as most RPGs, I don't think it's quite as necessary as all that.

Fairness is certainly an important aspect of competitive games. Chess may not be perfectly balanced, and tic-tac-toe very badly so, because of the advantage of going first, but in a tournament you play multiple games, so each plays white some of the time, and it's reasonably fair.

In a cooperative game, fairness a bit less important, because you just need to be fair to the cooperative unit, as a whole (and, really, it doesn't even need to be /that/ fair, if you're 'playing against the game,' the game's not going to get it's feelings hurt - and, D&D is probably an example of that, as well, it tends to favor the players). But, balance becomes even more important, because you're not trying to provide meaningful/viable choices to just one player, but to multiple players all trying to contribute to a single goal, as individuals.

Of course, it all depends on what you mean by balance....there are a lot of ways we could apply the term to an RPG and to D&D in particular. But given the OP and the way this conversation has gone, I look at it as a game not having "clearly superior options" in the form of feats or class combinations.

Feats and classes (and combinations thereof) are choices, yes. It wouldn't be /just/ that, but they're examples the OP directly referenced, he's also indirectly looking at spell choice and such, too, I'm sure...

...as far as that goes, the question is whether those choices are 'balanced' - by my preferred definition, are they all meaningful & viable - and if they're not, are there a few OP culprits that can be eliminated or nerfed so they stop obviating other choices. My personal conclusion is that the inclusion of feats & MCing simply isn't worth it, but one could go through and selectively ban/nerf/buff various feats to address the issues Zapp & others have found, rather than just toss them all out as a unit...

Maybe one possible solution is to ban multiclassing outright?

Ding! Feats & Multi-classing are both explicitly optional in the PH, to begin with, you just decline to opt into them! It's not even as ringing a condemnation as 'banning,' you just choose not to deal with the added complexity, and the problem vanishes.

(To, Zapp would point out, be replaces by the problem of DPR weapon-users being overshadowed, but no solution is perfect...)

And I think that's clearly not the case. Sure, a feat like Great Weapon Master may be seen by some as a clearly superior option, and a player who doesn't select it is not being "optimal". But that's only when combat efficacy is the only goal.

Or if combat efficacy is a class's primary meaningful/viable contribution. Zapp isn't worried that a Druid with GWM is going to outshine a knife-throwing wizard, he's concerned with the Fighter with SS out-shining the TWFighter or the S&B fighter or what-ever, and, if he doesn't allow the feats, also with the more DPR-oriented classes like the fighter not shining sufficiently, at all.
It's a legitimate concern, but probably not one best addressed by extensively re-writing already-optional rules, IMHO.

This is the fundamental flaw with CapnZapp's premise; it's an issue for his game (and certainly some others', too), but that doesn't mean that the game needs to be revised.

Revising 5e isn't even really on the table, it's not designed or structured to be errata'd into a better game as it goes, it's designed as a common starting point that will be customized to varying degrees by each DM who uses it. Any revision of the game could pull the rug out from under some of those customization efforts - and they may well constitute a great deal of effort, indeed. Each revision also creates a schism in the experience of the game before and after the revision, not like edition schisms, obviously, but why risk it...

If you want to apply the term balance more loosely....perhaps as "most of the existing options will appeal to someone"....then sure, balance is required. Because the goal is fun, so as long as all the players are enjoying themselves, then the game is balanced.

Not s'much, no. Imbalanced games generally have a balanced sub-set, once the chaff is winnowed away. Such may or may not be enough to constitute a worthwhile game. A solved game, like tic-tac-toe, for instance, not really. A vastly more complex game like D&D, though, even when you have eliminated the 'trap' and 'chaff' options probably has a fair amount left. If it's enough for a given group, they can have fun with it.

If the imbalances aren't all winnowed away, then the 'system master,' who can leverage those imbalances is going to have just that much more fun, too, until everyone else has gotten wise... ;>


Maybe, in the end, though, it's only an aesthetic/value judgement that a game should even try to set as few traps and leave as little chaff on the floor as possible?

 

[5ekyu]

Well, I'm guessing you didn't actually mean to make that claim when you said:

... but, that's really the only way to take it. You present the continued play of the game by many people as proof that not only Zapp's observations of imperfection in the system are false, but that, by implication, any/all other criticisms must also be dismissed.

It's fallacious reasoning.

It's not necessarily a wrong conclusion, though, not technically - I'm not trying to 'prove imperfection' (I don't think it's really necessary, but it's not what I'm doing), but if you did want to support it, you'll need something stronger than a classic fallacy.

I'm glad to hear that's not what you were going for, though.

First, your posts shuffle and jive aside, nothing i said implied or claimed or anything close to the idea that the game as is is perfect. Not one bit.

Most sentient beings can recognize there is a wide gap between the extremes of "perfect" and "hopeless" and i think its not all that controversial to suggest that a great many games played every day help to support that conclusion.

it seems however that often those with agendas tend to thrive when the extremes are the glasses through which they see the "position."

As for the somewhat difficult to connect to part about how you see something about that somehow adding up to dismissing all criticisms - again not said, not claimed, not implied - maybe you should have kept reading to the few sentecnes you cut out of the post you quoted... so you could see some contexxt...

"Its alnost like some of them dont get upset over stiff and just play without worrying if adding a few extra bad guys at level this or level that is against somrone elses idea of an ideal game?
I bet there are even games run out there where gms dont use the cr calculator sustem at all and just throw together adversaries drawn from the campaign logic and their experience with their group."

You may note there references to games in actual play adjusting - not at all a sign of things a "perfect " thing would require. But sure, keeping that part of the post would not have supported your revisionary take on it so, i get it.

But, even tho to you this was somehow a condemnation of the criticism... it wasn't. it was a challenge of sorts to the "concluisions" and the exaggeration of the impact of the problem with words like "hopeless" and the more extreme positions on fixes needed etc...

If instead of "hopelessly lopsided" for instance it has been "more lopsided that it needs to be" or "more lopsided than i like" it would have been a little different sort of conclusion and presentation - one more conducive to the focus on the criticisms, as opposed to the conclusions.

Planting one's flag in the extreme doesn't in my experience help one's position to be on solid footing... any more than inventing "dismiss all criticism" for other's positions does.

But, it is illustrative and informative, so thanks for that!

 

[Krachek]

Maybe one possible solution is to ban multiclassing outright?

I prefer the scalpel rather than the hammer, but I admit I would enjoy no MC for paladin.
Otherwise I prefer nerfing two feats and the quicken eldritch blast, rather than scrap all the MC.

 

[Mistwell]

I feel like the real issues thread like these tend to run into is the focus on Damage Per Round to begin with. I feel like it's very similar to the early days of tracking professional basketball statistics.

DPR is basically Points Per Game. It's the most simple, basic level of evaluation for an individual character/player. It does not take into account a massive amount of the game. In basketball, it would ignore how often you miss, rebound, steal, assist, block, and even more advanced concepts like your value over replacement player, reduced offense from the person you're guarding, wins produced while you are on the court, and all sorts of elements.

And for years those more "advanced" statistics were ignored in basketball because they were more difficult to obtain data on, and more difficult to interpret. Everyone knew what Points Per Game meant and how to get that number (you look at the score board) but very few knew how to obtain further information or how to read that data.

It seems to me D&D is sort of still stuck in that early statistical read on the efficiency of a character. If your goal is "experience points" or "treasure" or "survival" then "casting charm person on the chieftain of a tribe which avoids combat and gets the party XP and treasure similar to if they would have gotten if they had killed the entire tribe" should have high value. But if DPR is the only thing you assess, it has zero value unless your charm person spell caused extra damage to be dealt.

Just because it's hard to come up with some more advanced assessments of efficiency doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted. Isn't it time we had some stats that measured "avoided getting hit with X amount of damage avoided" or "prevented harm by avoiding an encounter with X amount of draining of resources" or "reduced the risk of death of a PC"?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Most sentient beings can recognize there is a wide gap between the extremes of "perfect" and "hopeless" and i think its not all that controversial to suggest that a great many games played every day help to support that conclusion.

That'd've been a clearer way of putting it. Acknowledge that, yes, Cap'n Zapp found a flaw in the 5e diamond, but opine that it's still pretty shiny, and with the right setting, can be just as beautiful as he'd like it to be...

If instead of "hopelessly lopsided" for instance it has been "more lopsided that it needs to be" or "more lopsided than i like" it would have been a little different sort of conclusion and presentation - one more conducive to the focus on the criticisms, as opposed to the conclusions.

Yep, and, to be fair, I think he has had some pre-final words on the subject that were maybe not that extreme, and the 'final word' is as much about the community as the game.

But, to be equally fair to those shouting him down every time: he does seem fixated on getting the game to change, rather than changing the game at his table.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

I feel like the real issues thread like these tend to run into is the focus on Damage Per Round to begin with. I feel like it's very similar to the early days of tracking professional basketball statistics.

DPR is basically Points Per Game. It's the most simple, basic level of evaluation for an individual character/player. It does not take into account a massive amount of the game. In basketball, it would ignore how often you miss, rebound, steal, assist, block, and even more advanced concepts like your value over replacement player, reduced offense from the person you're guarding, wins produced while you are on the court, and all sorts of elements.

And for years those more "advanced" statistics were ignored in basketball because they were more difficult to obtain data on, and more difficult to interpret. Everyone knew what Points Per Game meant and how to get that number (you look at the score board) but very few knew how to obtain further information or how to read that data.

It seems to me D&D is sort of still stuck in that early statistical read on the efficiency of a character. If your goal is "experience points" or "treasure" or "survival" then "casting charm person on the chieftain of a tribe which avoids combat and gets the party XP and treasure similar to if they would have gotten if they had killed the entire tribe" should have high value. But if DPR is the only thing you assess, it has zero value unless your charm person spell caused extra damage to be dealt.

Just because it's hard to come up with some more advanced assessments of efficiency doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted. Isn't it time we had some stats that measured "avoided getting hit with X amount of damage avoided" or "prevented harm by avoiding an encounter with X amount of draining of resources" or "reduced the risk of death of a PC"?

Good points.

However, there is one important question to be asked in this analysis. How will people be able to brag about these sorts of things?