D&D General How do you define balance?

[Minigiant]

Balance is like the word.

Something is balanced when an items strength or weaknesses is easily recognized and identified with a corresponding bonus or penalty elsewhere which seems appropriate.

Unbalanced items either don't have an easily spotted tradeoff or if the tradeoff is seen as not as heavy.

 

[Morrus]

D&D gets talked about in terms of 'balance' in a way that most other TTRPGs do not, and usually -- but not always -- it's couched in terms of combat ability. I honestly think people worry about the magical 'balance' too much. Sure, you don't want stuff to be wildly broken to the extent that they ruin your fun, but you if you focus too much on 'balance' you can end up with a very dry game where everything is meticulosity designed to be exactly equal to everything else, and the result is less 'equal' and more 'the same'. Have some fun!

 

[Horwath]

Pretty much. Consider the ability scores: when's the last time you saw a character with a negative Con modifier?

I have never seen character with less than 12 CON in 5E.

Con should be deleted and just add 2 HP per level to every PC.

 

[Lyxen]

D&D is not a technical game like chess where it’s all about equal chances, because these are for games that you are playing to win. As has been said as early as in Basic, but which has been repeated in all (good ) editions of D&D since then, D&D has not been designed to be won, just to be played and enjoyed.

So for me, the only balance which is important Is not technical at all, it’s about allowing all your players, including the DM, to have fun while playing the game. And recognising that different people have different views about what is fun in playing the game, we all have different tastes.

And this shows why technical balance is ultimately irrelevant, so many factors come in to impact it that, even if it was perfectly designed, it would have little bearing on what matters in the game.

Of course, if you play a very technical game, with a heavy focus on combat, and where the fun of the players comes mainly from overcoming technical challenges (I’m not making any judgement here, it’s as valid a way of playing the game as any other), balancing the combat and the capacities of the players might seem very important, but in the end, it all bows down to other types of balance which are not inherent to the system, but to the circumstances. For example, if the encounters are designed in a way that always favour certain types of approach, or certain ways of gaming, it will disturb the balance of the system. Or the tactics of the players might influence it. Or their preferences in terms of play. Or their inherent capacities. Or what kind of items they find during the game. Or the relationships that they develop with NPCs, and the reactions of the later.

And I’m not even mentioning the fact that I’ve never met a group that was as single minded as the above, when you take into account all the other elements that contribute to fun for actual tables.

So 5e made exactly the right decision, to have a game that is not completely unbalanced, but recognising that not only would it be futile to spend too much effort on this, but that previous efforts in that direction resulted in editions that were in the end not even more balanced (3e, I’m looking at you), or editions where the need for technical balance caused the rules to “severely limit what characters can do, which would be counter to the open-endedness of D&D”, in the designers’ own words, which I fully agree with.

So just balance the fun that your players are having using all the incredible means at your disposal as a DM, including the rules if you need to, it realising that they are just that, one of the many many tools, not an aim in itself.

 

[Li Shenron]

In my experience at the table, the answer and most important litmus is success percentage.

It really means nothing if the PCs are OP, underpowered, someone has a powerful magic item, etc. so long as you understand that normally you want to give the players a 45%-70% chance of succeeding at anything in the game. When the circumstances warrant a probability outside those ranges, skew probabilities accordingly.

The reason for this system of thought, is that I found through play testing that the players and myself had the most fun within these ranges. Understanding the math allows you to tweak things a little in the background when you think it will improve the player's experience. DC, armor class, NPC stats, ability checks, whatever you can think of may benefit from this strategy, so I've explored that a bit.

I must say my own definition of balance is completely different.

I absolutely do not see balance in terms of "players VS the game", so for me % of success is not only unimportant, but it actually feels wrong for me to set a predefined number for it. Challenges are as difficult as they are, and variety is paramount against the game being too predictable.

Instead I only see balance in terms of "players VS players" and "players VS selves".

By "players VS players" I mean that I generally want all players to have equally good opportunities. It is however hard to define... it means that very generally I want all macro-choices to be equally attractive: all classes first and foremost should normally result in characters equally amazing to play. But it doesn't mean that every character should be equally good at all pillars or at all roles, it is for me only meant in very general terms. Races are already less important but still fairly so, therefore I don't mind too much if some races are slightly off, but feel mostly equal. Backgrounds even less important, but they are also following such a simple structure (at least in PHB) that they are automatically balanced. I worry slightly less whether all combinations of those macro-choices are equally good... it doesn't bother me too much if there are better and worse class-race combinations, as long as differences are small, and there aren't single winners or losers.

And finally by "players VS selves" I mean that, when looking at a certain micro-choice for each player (i.e. within the chosen class) in a vacuum there is pros and cons for every choice, and reason for anything to be chosen. It doesn't have to be so that e.g. every single 3rd-level spell for a certain class is always equally good, but that they are reasonably within the same range of usefulness, and if something is sub-par then at least it has some redeeming feature that makes it certainly a good choice for someone. Despite this type of micro-balance being perhaps less important, it is very irritating when you see two very similar alternative choices with one of them straight better than the other, that makes you think the latter should never be chosen.

 

[payn]

I dont need Euro board game levels of balance. I do enjoy a splash of Ameritrash in my D&D. As long as there are not huge gulfs between effectiveness of characters in all pillars im fine.

 

[Oofta]

Does everyone feel like they meaningfully contribute to the game on a fairly regular basis? It the answer is yes then it's balanced. Pursuit of perfect balance in a game like D&D is not a worthy goal. I don't think it's even possible to do at all levels across different types of games without making everyone identical.

 

[James Gasik]

Balance to me, has a few levels. First is: "spotlight time". If one character does more damage, negotiates with most of the NPC's more successfully, and solves all problems with an extensive toolkit of abilities, I find that problematic.

Next, we have fun. In a Pathfinder game, one player had decided to play a super high AC, very mobile, Dex-based Swashbuckler. Most of the time, they weaved in and out of combat, avoiding damage, and dealing some themselves- not a super high amount, and sometimes they'd just use a bow if they were worried about taking a lot of damage. At first, I didn't mind it- their AC didn't matter, as they spent so much time avoiding enemies outright, and their damage contribution, while it could be noticeably higher, still seemed to help get the job done.

But then we had a few hard fights, and I noticed something. Everyone else was focusing on defense as well, except for the group's Fighter, who used a big sword and opened themselves up to use Great Cleave and Lunge, and enjoyed the reach and damage granted by Enlarge Person. Since this person was most likely in the thick of it, they started taking a lot more damage. And then they started to go down, because when in doubt, the enemies tended to be near the Fighter, and not near the Swashbuckler. And with the larger damage output, it made sense for the Fighter to be a priority target anyways. Which meant he kept dropping to 0 hit points, and it occurred to me part of the problem was the Swashbuckler refusing to take his fair share of the beatdowns, lol.

I don't go out of my way to create enemies specifically to tear down one player- as a DM, since I have infinite opponents to set into the world, I feel that's a bit cheap to pick on someone's weak points often. I generally set attack and defenses of enemies so they have a reasonable chance to hit the median AC characters, and a reasonable chance to be hit by the median attackers.

This came to a head during an incident where the party (due to poor decision making) got separated in a dungeon. And the Swashbuckler proceeded to waltz past every enemy they encountered because they simply were too hard to hit. The rest of the players were less than thrilled to see that one player could solo the content they were struggling with.

This is the moment I had to step in and make adjustments to the campaign, because one character was sucking the fun out of the proceedings. Bad terrain, traps and enemies that inflicted "crowd control" effects, and smarter tactics from opponents were employed, so that no one character could become an island.

 

[le Redoutable]

I must say my own definition of balance is completely different.

I absolutely do not see balance in terms of "players VS the game", so for me % of success is not only unimportant, but it actually feels wrong for me to set a predefined number for it. Challenges are as difficult as they are, and variety is paramount against the game being too predictable.

Instead I only see balance in terms of "players VS players" and "players VS selves".

By "players VS players" I mean that I generally want all players to have equally good opportunities. It is however hard to define... it means that very generally I want all macro-choices to be equally attractive: all classes first and foremost should normally result in characters equally amazing to play. But it doesn't mean that every character should be equally good at all pillars or at all roles, it is for me only meant in very general terms. Races are already less important but still fairly so, therefore I don't mind too much if some races are slightly off, but feel mostly equal. Backgrounds even less important, but they are also following such a simple structure (at least in PHB) that they are automatically balanced. I worry slightly less whether all combinations of those macro-choices are equally good... it doesn't bother me too much if there are better and worse class-race combinations, as long as differences are small, and there aren't single winners or losers.

And finally by "players VS selves" I mean that, when looking at a certain micro-choice for each player (i.e. within the chosen class) in a vacuum there is pros and cons for every choice, and reason for anything to be chosen. It doesn't have to be so that e.g. every single 3rd-level spell for a certain class is always equally good, but that they are reasonably within the same range of usefulness, and if something is sub-par then at least it has some redeeming feature that makes it certainly a good choice for someone. Despite this type of micro-balance being perhaps less important, it is very irritating when you see two very similar alternative choices with one of them straight better than the other, that makes you think the latter should never be chosen.

what would you think of a priest who betrays his pals to help an evil being whose time is close to end ?

 

[Umbran]

I consider balance mostly a matter of spotlight time and general contribution. The game and party is balanced when these are generated just out of the normal course of play, without the GM having to force the issue with any frequency.