D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[CreamCloud0]

And If you take away the combat pillar and you’re only 33% effective does that mean you should be 33% more effective in the combat pillar than someone who’s 66% effective outside the combat pillar?

@Tony Vargas no hate genuinely curious, what are your thoughts here and why did they result in you putting the sadface react on my post? if a class has little to no ability in the social or exploration pillars besides the most default options available to everyone should they not be a comparatively superior entity in the combat pillar? (or any combination thereof between their ability in the three pillars)

 

[Tony Vargas]

Have you tried PF2?

I have checked it out, it bears very little resemblance to 4e. The take on the Warlord as an archetype was especially disappointing.
The degree of success dice mechanic is an excellent effort at getting more out of the d20, though.

13th Age is closer in spirit, but it returns to D&D's traditional varied mechanical resource schemes, and uses a blunt-force recharge schedule to balance them.

ORCUS seems like a real labour-of-love effort to clone 4e, and it uses almost every SRD out there to try to piece it back together.

But, you just can't clone 4e the way PF1 was a clone of 3.5, the GSL is too great of an impediment. Under the GSL there could have been continuing support, but, you do need to get WotC's permission under it, and, last I heard, they'd stopped responding to anything regarding the GSL.
WotC has made some vague statement about maybe releasing older editions to Creative Commons. Unless that actually happens, 4e will remain essentially contraband D&D.

@Tony Vargas no hate genuinely curious, what are your thoughts here and why did they result in you putting the sadface react on my post? if a class has little to no ability in the social or exploration pillars besides the most default options available to everyone should they not be a comparatively superior entity in the combat pillar? (or any combination thereof between their ability in the three pillars)

No worries. That kind of reasoning seems fine on the surface, it'd be fair, right, if one class wasn't so good at combat, but was great at other important things like, oh, finding & disarming traps, sneaking past monsters, climbing sheer surface and the like - the Exploration pillar, no?
Well, that class was the Thief, in Greyhawk Supplement II (1975) and it sucked. Mainly because it was actually really bad those things, in addition to being really bad at combat. But, even at higher levels, where it achieved competence, the net effect was that a Thief player would sneak about ahead of the party, doing his thing with the DM, while everyone else waited, then if it found a monster that couldn't be avoided, either die if it spotted him, or hide on the sidelines and try to backstab (another rule so vague whether you'd ever use it was entirely up to the DM).
What became like, the poster boy for that kind of balance, tho, was the cyberpunk netrunner, who would just go on a VR adventure by itself, eating up solo table time, then be useless when the rest of the party did anything in the real world.

Another obvious issue is if a campaign leans heavily towards one pillar, the character options that sacrifice that pillar to be good in another become non-viable. And the ones that do the opposite dominate, so even 'balanced' characters good in all pillars become laggards compared to the single-pillar specialists. And, while that might seem like it's easily side-stepped by just, only playing the characters best for the pillar that gets the most play in a campaign, well, while some campaigns are 'balanced' and others all but single-pillar, a campaign can also vary over time, or turn out differently than everyone planned (a wonder of RPGs, really)

RPGs are games, and games should keep most of the players engaged, most of the time.
Characters should be contributing most of the time.

 

[Umbran]

This is quite a dishonest reply TBH, IMO.

... but moreover this paragraph is extremely dismissive and condescending.

Mod Note:
As always, if you feel someone is behaving badly in violation of the rules, we ask you to report the post and disengage.

If you insist on being confrontational yourself, calling folks liars and the like, then you are increasing the size of the issue, and making yourself part of the problem.

 

[overgeeked]

But, you just can't clone 4e the way PF1 was a clone of 3.5, the GSL is too great of an impediment. Under the GSL there could have been continuing support, but, you do need to get WotC's permission under it, and, last I heard, they'd stopped responding to anything regarding the GSL.

Considering OSRIC, For Gold and Glory, Old-School Essentials, and dozens of other TSR-era D&D clones were created from the 3.5 SRD, I think you might be over stating things. I’d argue things like old-school saves are far more different when compared to their modern equivalents than something like the bloodied condition or the ADEU power setup is to their modern equivalents.

 

[Scribe]

No worries. That kind of reasoning seems fine on the surface, it'd be fair, right, if one class wasn't so good at combat, but was great at other important things like, oh, finding & disarming traps, sneaking past monsters, climbing sheer surface and the like - the Exploration pillar, no?
Well, that class was the Thief, in Greyhawk Supplement II (1975) and it sucked. Mainly because it was actually really bad those things, in addition to being really bad at combat. But, even at higher levels, where it achieved competence, the net effect was that a Thief player would sneak about ahead of the party, doing his thing with the DM, while everyone else waited, then if it found a monster that couldn't be avoided, either die if it spotted him, or hide on the sidelines and try to backstab (another rule so vague whether you'd ever use it was entirely up to the DM).
What became like, the poster boy for that kind of balance, tho, was the cyberpunk netrunner, who would just go on a VR adventure by itself, eating up solo table time, then be useless when the rest of the party did anything in the real world.

Another obvious issue is if a campaign leans heavily towards one pillar, the character options that sacrifice that pillar to be good in another become non-viable. And the ones that do the opposite dominate, so even 'balanced' characters good in all pillars become laggards compared to the single-pillar specialists. And, while that might seem like it's easily side-stepped by just, only playing the characters best for the pillar that gets the most play in a campaign, well, while some campaigns are 'balanced' and others all but single-pillar, a campaign can also vary over time, or turn out differently than everyone planned (a wonder of RPGs, really)

RPGs are games, and games should keep most of the players engaged, most of the time.
Characters should be contributing most of the time.

A lot of this is basic game design questions though, its still not answering the thrust of the question.

Lets assume that I'm playing a Barbarian, and that there are 3 Pillars. Combat, Social, Exploration.

Lets assume, that a Barbarian is pretty bad at Social, middle tier of Exploration, it would seem to me that they should be upper tier in Combat.

That would seem to be balanced, for a given defintion of balance.

Take a little from Column A, and give it to Column C.

The problem then is, well what if the campaign or adventure, is ALL about Social (Column A)? Then the character 'sucks'. Meanwhile if its all about Column C, with a little of B? The character is 'awesome'.

Its still a balanced class, but the method of utilization around that class is flawed.

And hey, some of us just want to swing an axe, and dont care about the other columns.

TLDR: Its way too complex for it to be as simple as 'is this balanced'.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A lot of this is basic game design questions though, its still not answering the thrust of the question.

I take it as an axiom of basic game design that the game should be balanced - or, at least fair, in a straightforward, competitive game.

The problem then is, well what if the campaign or adventure, is ALL about Social (Column A)? Then the character 'sucks'. Meanwhile if its all about Column C, with a little of B? The character is 'awesome'.

That's the problem. While an imbalanced class design might seem balanced in a narrow range of play - like a 6-8 encounter day, or a campaign with a given proportion of time given to each of the "three pillars" or whatever - the narrow range of play is also a symptom of imbalance.

And hey, some of us just want to swing an axe, and dont care about the other columns.

Which is fine, really, and not detracted from by allowing all characters to be contributing in all pillars - you just don't use the abilities you don't care to engage with.

 

[Scribe]

I take it as an axiom of basic game design that the game should be balanced - or, at least fair, in a straightforward, competitive game.

Right, for "a given definition of balanced".

I don't believe a Fighter or Barbarian should be remotely on par with a Bard or Rogue, in the Social pillar, any more that a Bard/Rogue, should be able to keep up with a Fighter/Barbarian in Combat.

Asymmetrical design/balance is not a sin.

For a given definition of balance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I take it as an axiom of basic game design that the game should be balanced - or, at least fair, in a straightforward, competitive game.

Who are you competing with in your view when you play D&D?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Who are you competing with in your view when you play D&D?

D&D is a cooperative TTRPG, mere fairness is entirely inadequate.

 

[overgeeked]

Right, for "a given definition of balanced".

I don't believe a Fighter or Barbarian should be remotely on par with a Bard or Rogue, in the Social pillar, any more that a Bard/Rogue, should be able to keep up with a Fighter/Barbarian in Combat.

Asymmetrical design/balance is not a sin.

For a given definition of balance.

The thing I keep running into with this is the hacker problem. In D&D combat, everyone has something to do. They have different roles, but everyone can contribute. In exploration and social, not so much. A few classes utterly dominate both pillars. Sit there and do nothing while someone else does everything for 20-30 minutes is both terrible design and boring as hell. It’s why, over time, every class was buffed to have plenty of things to do during combat. So why not do the same with the rest of the game?