D&D 5E I think Wizards balances classes using damage on a single target nova over 3 rounds.

[EzekielRaiden]

Can you point out where I said this in the post you quoted? I don't see it anywhere in what I have said on this thread.

In team sports where one team is cooperating against another there is not generally balance between the individual players, yet the players on a team all cooperate towards a common goal. This is true whether we are talking about professional football or sandlot baseball.

Teams are not made of identical people: therefore, balance can only mean being identical and nothing else. What else was this supposed to mean?

Same with card games like Pinochle where a team of 2 cooperates against another team of 2 and on the team that won the bid there is generally a very disproportionate power relationship between the players with the biding player typically having a much stronger hand than the non-bidding player being in a supporting role. The non-bidding player usually intentionally weakens his own hand to strengthen the bidding players hand. Yet they cooperate to win the round together.

Teammates in some card games can have different power: therefore, balance can only mean uniformity and nothing else. What else was this example supposed to mean?

Those are a few examples of cooperative games where there is not parity between individuals cooperating.

Here you explicitly use the word "parity." What else could you mean here, other than that being balanced must mean being uniform and identical?

As for the rest of the points, player skill is a wholly separate consideration--and I absolutely, fundamentally disagree with your core assertion. No amount of player skill is going to let a Fighter player rewrite in-game reality. Unless you can show some other way for Fighter players to perform feats that affect the game world to a degree similar to casting wish? I would absolutely love to hear it--that would be a conclusive slam-dunk against casters being grossly overpowered!

I am not attacking anything and one of things I suggested - having experienced players play Fighters and noobs play more powerful classes like Wizards - is actually an example of attempting to achieve "asymmetrical" balance by pairing players with an advantage in the game with characters that are at a disadvantage.

And I'm saying it's both wrong-headed and actively bad for the game to outright punish players who like Fighters by enforcing that their characters MUST be weak, and likewise to reward players simply because they like playing Wizards.

Because that's what actually happens in practice. Repeatedly.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I would not have been a fan, but it wouldn't bothered me a whole lot either. TBH I am more concerned about giving Clerics and Rogues Armor proficiency on a multiclass, and that has nothing at all to do with power.

I think in the new ONE playtest they are all prepared casters now, are they not?

To the best of my knowledge, nothing has changed about the way Sorcerers interact with spellcasting; the most recent UA has given them 7 extra spells known over the lifetime of the character (22 instead of 15.) What they have done is, effectively, invert the "known" vs "prepared" distinction. Now it is Wizards who have "known spells" (spells present in their spellbook.) Wizard select known spells to prepare each day. Sorcerers do not, formally speaking, "know" spells at all--but they receive new "prepared" spells as they gain levels.

It's the exact same system. They've just changed the words in weird ways.

 

[Pedantic]

To the best of my knowledge, nothing has changed about the way Sorcerers interact with spellcasting; the most recent UA has given them 7 extra spells known over the lifetime of the character (22 instead of 15.) What they have done is, effectively, invert the "known" vs "prepared" distinction. Now it is Wizards who have "known spells" (spells present in their spellbook.) Wizard select known spells to prepare each day. Sorcerers do not, formally speaking, "know" spells at all--but they receive new "prepared" spells as they gain levels.

It's the exact same system. They've just changed the words in weird ways.

The language is a bit tortured, particularly when we already had an established set of definitions around "Known" and "Prepared" to work from. That, and they now essentially have two slightly different features with the same name, which is difficult to parse. Everyone "prepares" spells, but the timeline on which you are allowed to prepare them varies from "each long rest" to "when you level up" which is a big difference.

 

[Pedantic]

As for the rest of the points, player skill is a wholly separate consideration--and I absolutely, fundamentally disagree with your core assertion. No amount of player skill is going to let a Fighter player rewrite in-game reality. Unless you can show some other way for Fighter players to perform feats that affect the game world to a degree similar to casting wish? I would absolutely love to hear it--that would be a conclusive slam-dunk against casters being grossly overpowered!


And I'm saying it's both wrong-headed and actively bad for the game to outright punish players who like Fighters by enforcing that their characters MUST be weak, and likewise to reward players simply because they like playing Wizards.

Because that's what actually happens in practice. Repeatedly.

To put a third position into the mix, we could also just not have a Fighter, and pick an archetype that doesn't cause these debates instead to cover the martial niche. You know, one that can appropriately rewrite game reality, and also carry a sword. If you don't print a Fighter, no one can argue it's too magical, nor be disappointed that it isn't comparably effective.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To put a third position into the mix, we could also just not have a Fighter, and pick an archetype that doesn't cause these debates instead to cover the martial niche. You know, one that can appropriately rewrite game reality, and also carry a sword. If you don't print a Fighter, no one can argue it's too magical, nor be disappointed that it isn't comparably effective.

Sure. But in so doing, one is openly saying, "This game isn't for you. Go away." That's almost certainly never going to happen.

If we could design without care for what people are going to think, your solution would be simplicity itself. But people in general are extremely unlikely to respond positively to, "We couldn't make a Fighter work the way people want it to, so we simply chose not to make one. If you want that, we believe you would be better served by a different game."

After all, in multiple editions running, Fighter is the most beloved class in the game. (Which shows that it has little to do with implementation and everything to do with theme, but that's a separate consideration.) Cutting out one of your most popular offerings because it is hard to work with is a risky play at best.

 

[Pedantic]

Sure. But in so doing, one is openly saying, "This game isn't for you. Go away." That's almost certainly never going to happen.

If we could design without care for what people are going to think, your solution would be simplicity itself. But people in general are extremely unlikely to respond positively to, "We couldn't make a Fighter work the way people want it to, so we simply chose not to make one. If you want that, we believe you would be better served by a different game."

After all, in multiple editions running, Fighter is the most beloved class in the game. (Which shows that it has little to do with implementation and everything to do with theme, but that's a separate consideration.) Cutting out one of your most popular offerings because it is hard to work with is a risky play at best.

I'm unpersuaded, because we simply haven't ever offered an effective alternative. The game can't really, while the Fighter still exists, because it serves as the grounding baseline for martial effectiveness, and it's unfortunately both too broad and too narrow, in that it eats up a bunch of other potential martial archetypes that could benefit from more specific definition (Archer, Knight, Swashbuckler), and limits the scaling potential of those archetypes when they do exist (Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger) by anchoring what they're "supposed" to be able to do.

The Fighter's popularity is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you provide support for things people like about Fighters, like getting into melee, wielding big weapons, wearing heavy armor, surviving getting hit hard and so forth, they aren't going to care if you change the chassis.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean, he's right.

The way D&D fandom works, the only way to get a good fighter at this point is to devest ourselves of the fighter so people will shut up about verisimilitude and what the guy at the gym can do. It's like how 'wizards' will never have a competent casting mechanic because they are fused to that spell book and Jack Vance like Jeff Goldblum and that fly.

 

[TwoSix]

The Fighter's popularity is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you provide support for things people like about Fighters, like getting into melee, wielding big weapons, wearing heavy armor, surviving getting hit hard and so forth, they aren't going to care if you change the chassis.

I don't see why we can't replace Fighter with some kind of classic JRPG Hero type class, where the character has good martial skills and some magic without actually touching on any "mage" tropes. Use subclass and or/class features to customize the exact kind of magic and fighting style the character uses. One might use preternatural blade techniques, another might have a subset of utility spells, etc.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The Fighter's popularity is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you provide support for things people like about Fighters, like getting into melee, wielding big weapons, wearing heavy armor, surviving getting hit hard and so forth, they aren't going to care if you change the chassis.

You underestimate the appeal of "Badass Normal" characters. They're prodigious in fantasy fiction (consider Conan the Barbarian, John Carter of Mars, or Beren son of Barahir) and often quite beloved both classically and currently (consider Sokka from AtLA, or Batman, particularly DCAU Batman.)

There are absolutely folks who love D&D that would feel explicitly excluded if you told them, "No one is allowed to be Badass Normal in this game."

 

[Vaalingrade]

D&D players don't seem to believe in Badass Normal though.

Hell, they don't believe in actual human being capable of impressive feats like Oylmpians or Jack LaLane.

And they work very hard to hedge out those who do.