D&D 5E Is the imbalance between classes in 5e accidental or by design?

[Warpiglet-7]

After thinking about 1e, maybe more "imbalance" could be better. Make Wizards REALLY suck in combat. Stuff like Dex bonuses to AC and Con bonuses to HP could be restricted to certain classes, move them back to d4 HP. That's might fit better narratively. A high level Wizard should be able alter the world. They should also be really fragile. It's too easy for a Wizard to get 14 Dex and Con under point buy. As it is, I throw my low level Wizard into combat quote a bit. With Mage Armor, 14 Dex, and 8 HP at first level - dual wielding daggers actually works way better than it probably should.

In the old days you either ran around with fighters or had retainers.

I think they made spell casting too easy. If you could interrupt any spell, there is no question that fighters are essential. Balance at all levels would be a less the question than ones about necessity.

 

[Maxperson]

No, it doesn't, and never has. That's trivial balance, which is axiomatically boring. Nontrivial balance, on the other hand, is extremely difficult to design, but very, very worthwhile for cooperative gaming.

It's not extremely difficult to design. It's impossible to design. Even something as simple as 1d8+stat fire damage vs. 1d8+stat slashing damage is not balanced. The things encountered that are resistant to one or the other is going to be varied and uneven, so one will end up being better than the other, despite the equal damage numbers.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's not extremely difficult to design. It's impossible to design. Even something as simple as 1d8+stat fire damage vs. 1d8+stat slashing damage is not balanced. The things encountered that are resistant to one or the other is going to be varied and uneven, so one will end up being better than the other, despite the equal damage numbers.

It is not impossible. Star Craft does it all the time.

Your statements are simply false. Especially because "balance" does not mean (and has not ever meant) absolute mathematical parity, it means (and has always meant) approximate equivalence up to a statistical standard.

That's literally how ACTUAL balanced systems are designed. I don't mean "balanced" in the sense of games. I mean "balanced" in the sense of physical devices.

Please stop summoning straw golems.

 

[Maxperson]

It is not impossible. Star Craft does it all the time.

Your statements are simply false. Especially because "balance" does not mean (and has not ever meant) absolute mathematical parity, it means (and has always meant) approximate equivalence up to a statistical standard.

That's literally how ACTUAL balanced systems are designed. I don't mean "balanced" in the sense of games. I mean "balanced" in the sense of physical devices.

You should Google Starcraft sometime. There are races that are stronger than others. They are not balanced. So no, Starcraft does not do it all the time. They get pretty close, but they fail to achieve both balance and diversity.

Please stop summoning straw golems.

I have twisted nobodies statements. It's not a Strawman just because you don't like the argument.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You should Google Starcraft sometime. There are races that are stronger than others. They are not balanced. So no, Starcraft does not do it all the time. They get pretty close, but they fail to achieve both balance and diversity.

I have twisted nobodies statements. It's not a Strawman just because you don't like the argument.

Star Craft is repeatedly held up as a great example of asymmetrical balance. Like, this is something all over the internet. "They get pretty close" is exactly what I'm talking about.

Because you keep raising this strawman of perfection. That it must be perfect balance, utterly unassailable under any context no matter how bizarre. That is false, and always has been.

It's not a matter of disliking the argument. It's a matter of you saying that balance demands perfection when it doesn't and never has.

 

[Maxperson]

Star Craft is repeatedly held up as a great example of asymmetrical balance. Like, this is something all over the internet. "They get pretty close" is exactly what I'm talking about.

Because it gets close. Close does not equate to balanced.

Because you keep raising this strawman of perfection. That it must be perfect balance, utterly unassailable under any context no matter how bizarre. That is false, and always has been.

Perfection is what balance means. Go to a business where weight matters and see if it's okay that the scales just be close in weight, or whether balanced means exactly the same weight on both sides. Hint: it's exact.

Once we understand that balance is a pipe dream, we can discuss how much imbalance is acceptable.

It's not a matter of disliking the argument. It's a matter of you saying that balance demands perfection when it doesn't and never has.

It doesn't become a Strawman unless I am explicitly altering a specific person's arguments. Making an argument that disagrees with what you believe doesn't make my argument a Strawman. It makes it a dissenting opinion. I disagree with the position that balance = not balanced, which is what "That it must be perfect balance, utterly unassailable under any context no matter how bizarre" means. You are arguing that something that is not balanced still qualifies as balanced.

Balance = perfect balance. Period. It cannot mean anything else and still meet the definition of balanced.

 

[Alzrius]

Star Craft is repeatedly held up as a great example of asymmetrical balance.

I've never played StarCraft, and I'll admit I haven't reviewed the rest of this thread, but even if we grant that StarCraft is an example of balance done right, is that really helpful in the context of D&D? StarCraft is a video game, where restrictions on options (in character creation, actions available during play, etc.) are far greater than that of a tabletop RPG.

EDIT: Or are we talking about the StarCraft setting for the Alternity RPG?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

What consensus? The consensus of people who believe the wizard is not balance who claim that you must require house rules to make them balanced? Because I don't have many house rules, certainly none that would shift the balance towards casters. I don't see an issue in games I play. I don't recall anyone who doesn't see the issue stating that they have many house rules on this.

Don't you use the gritty rest houserule suggested in the DMG in order to fit long adventuring days into adventures more easily?

 

[Minigiant]

Its accidentally on purpose.

D&D fans want casters to have certain characteristics.

But the fandom didn't realize that is is only balanced under a rather rigid playstyle. So it is easy to change or miss one thing and "Oops Casters are broken".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've never played StarCraft, and I'll admit I haven't reviewed the rest of this thread, but even if we grant that StarCraft is an example of balance done right, is that really helpful in the context of D&D? StarCraft is a video game, where restrictions on options (in character creation, actions available during play, etc.) are far greater than that of a tabletop RPG.

EDIT: Or are we talking about the StarCraft setting for the Alternity RPG?

If someone is declaring that a particular design goal is impossible--as Max explicitly did--then it should not matter whether it is in the context of video games or tabletop games or board games. Asymmetrical balance is a goal for essentially all multiplayer cooperative video games, and these are substantially bigger than D&D, making millions or billions of dollars.

Perhaps you would prefer an example that is a roleplaying game, and thus more obviously directly applicable? Final Fantasy XIV is an extremely well-balanced game, despite having asymmetrical classes. The differences between the performance of the absolute highest-performing, top-tier jobs and the worst-performing jobs is....5.5%. That's it. Literally the entire spread of class performance in FFXIV right now is a window of 5.5%, and even that is only in the high-performance, bleeding-edge content. If you're just a casual player playing ordinary stuff? You'll almost never notice these differences. Skill, individual investment, and player preference vastly outweigh these concerns in anything other than "world first races" (trying to be the first group to complete difficult content) or "ultimate prog" (trying to advance through, and eventually beat, the specially-made ultra-brutal content.)

The developers have set a reasonable standard of balance, and pay careful attention to the long-run performance of the various jobs. If there are issues, they can and will be addressed, and usually very quickly. Now, an MMO is both much more complex and much more editable than a pen-and-paper RPG, but the first is a boon (it's much easier to test!) and the second just means thorough testing is warranted.

It is, 100%, possible to produce well-balanced, asymmetrical play experiences in video games, even ones explicitly rooted in D&D (anyone who's played the Final Fantasy series can identify D&D's influence on the franchise!) It is likewise possible to produce well-balanced, asymmetrical play experiences in tabletop games. This is not some unattainable goal off in the stratosphere, some lofty perfection that cannot be reached even in principle. It is practical, it can be done.