D&D (2024) Symmetric Balance vs Asymmetric Balance.

[Reynard]

yes, and no.

you can have 4 classes based on martial/magic aptitude:

martial:
d12
no spellcasting
extra attacks at levels 5,9,13,17,20

gish:
d10
half-caster
extra attacks at levels 5,11,19

adept:
d8
2/3rd caster: 7 spell levels, gained at class levels: 1,4,7,10,13,16,19
extra attack at levels 5,

caster
d6
full spellcasting
no extra attack,

having more open classes leads to huge open design space.

OFC, PHB can come with 3 or 4 build examples for every of 4 classes that somewhat resemble current classes.

I don't think hit points and attacks per round are the right balance for spellcasting abilities. The former is only useful in combat, and spellcasting is useful everywhere. Not only that, why not make your "martial" with d12 hit points and 4 attacks an elementalist blaster rather than an archer, or whatever.

The problem I think folks want to solve is the imbalance in versatility, not combat power.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't think hit points and attacks per round are the right balance for spellcasting abilities. The former is only useful in combat, and spellcasting is useful everywhere. Not only that, why not make your "martial" with d12 hit points and 4 attacks an elementalist blaster rather than an archer, or whatever.

The problem I think folks want to solve is the imbalance in versatility, not combat power.

Which is why I personally advocate for moving a lot of class features into narratively achieved progression. Have your main combat schtick and your numbers go up with level, your horizontal progression and your utility abilities should be achieved in play and open to any character.

 

[Horwath]

The only reason I don't think this is a good idea is that there are several spells that only exist to undo the various terrible things that can happen to players, and a Sorcerer simply lacks the spell choices to acquire these.

I saw this play out in Pathfinder 1e; everyone in my play group thought Oracles (spontaneous divine casters) were far superior to Clerics in every respect. What they quickly found, however, was the ability to cure poison, disease, exhaustion, et. al., is perfectly doable when you can simply prepare them as needed each day. Having a situational restorative spell taking up a limited spell known is thus quite problematic.

Now if the game didn't have so many things that could happen to adventurers where magic is the go to solution, that'd be fine, but...yeah.

Then there is always wizards way with a spellbook.
That way you are still limited by how many spells you find and what can you buy and how much can you buy.

Better than cleric that just wishes new spells next day.

 

[Horwath]

Which is why I personally advocate for moving a lot of class features into narratively achieved progression. Have your main combat schtick and your numbers go up with level, your horizontal progression and your utility abilities should be achieved in play and open to any character.

That is why this kind has lots of "feat" slots.
Then you can spend that feats on more magic, feats similar to fey touched, shadow touched, telekinetic, telepathic, eldritch invocations, wood elf magic, deep gnome magic, etc...

or you can go with skills with skill expert feat, taken several times,

or martial adept 6 or 7 times,

or movement feats,

 

[TwoSix]

That is why this kind has lots of "feat" slots.
Then you can spend that feats on more magic, feats similar to fey touched, shadow touched, telekinetic, telepathic, eldritch invocations, wood elf magic, deep gnome magic, etc...

or you can go with skills with skill expert feat, taken several times,

or martial adept 6 or 7 times,

or movement feats,

You can do that, definitely. The downside is that the more you move power budget into general selection feats, the closer you get to the cognitive weight problem of point buy.

My preferred approach is simply less player authority over the meta game of character progression. Deep and complex character creation, but progression is very much “play and find out what happens”.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

Wizards aren't better, it's just that better players play wizards!
That's a bold strategy, Defcon1. Let's see if it pays off for you!

Anyway, I think that we are missing two important things when it come to the question posed by @Asisreo above.

In terms of asymmetric class balance, there is one other way that should be considered-

Niche protection. One of the big issues with 5e, IMO, is that there has been a lessening of the barriers between classes. Through the feat system and the ubiquity of spellcasting, as well as the desire to harmonize DPR, there just isn't a lot to fully differentiate classes in the same way that there used to be.

Niches and niche protection can be an issue even between two characters of the same class. In my Brotherhood of Rangers game (3.5e with gestalt characters), the party has two fighter-ranger gestalt characters. One was a greatsword-wielding melee guy, while the other tried to be both a good bowman and a good swordsman - and this split focus caused problems. So the player and I did a few tweeks to turn the character into the party's supreme bowman - and that fixed the issues.

More generally, the game works for my group because while the characters are all gestalt rangers (and thus all able to do ranger-things) they also have niches from their non-ranger class - wizard, cleric, rogue, and two fighters.

My experience is that it isn't good when only the niche-guy can do niche-things, and that it's better when the niche-guy shines in his niche while everyone else is still able to contribute their mite.

 

[TwoSix]

To compare this to (American) football- if D&D is a team sport, you need players at different positions. You need a QB, sure, but you also need RBs, and WRs, and offensive lineman. And that's before you think about the defense.

The problem, such as it is, is that every player in D&D wants a QB. And maybe that's the best way to make the game! But it does lead to less differentiation between classes when every player wants their class to be equally good at all the things that other classes do.

If we're going to compare modern D&D to a team sport, I think basketball would be a better comparison. Everyone is above average (even the shortest NBA players are taller than median height, and most are in the 99th percentile), a team is 5 people, and everyone takes the same general actions, generally being very good at one or two facets and OK at everything else. And a few players manage to roll multiple 18s and dominate play while still needing some assistance from the rest of the team.

 

[Reynard]

That is why this kind has lots of "feat" slots.
Then you can spend that feats on more magic, feats similar to fey touched, shadow touched, telekinetic, telepathic, eldritch invocations, wood elf magic, deep gnome magic, etc...

or you can go with skills with skill expert feat, taken several times,

or martial adept 6 or 7 times,

or movement feats,

Ability progression for different modes of play (aka "pillars") should come from different resource pools, otherwise you end up with the unbeatable specialist and useless dilettante problems.

 

[Maxperson]

Personally, I don't believe in niche protection anymore. I did for a really long time, but I think its better if the niche is based on BOTH the class and subclass, and not the class. This is precisely because of your last line about how every D&D player wants to be a QB.

I don't think giving characters minor access to other class abilities weakens their niche. A feat that gives 1d6 sneak attack that doesn't stack with existing sneak attack isn't going to step on the toes of the rogue, who is going to be past that by 3rd level.

 

[Emberashh]

having more open classes leads to huge open design space.

Issue is that having more open classes isn't the same thing has having more classes, and thats where you're closing off the design space.

The dissatisfaction with those that came after the original 3/4 is rooted in bad, if not nonexistent, design. Like how the Ranger to this day is still just a cobbled together homebrew mishmash rather than a bespoke design. (With the only attempt to do bespoke being so poorly executed now people are biased against it)

Classes should matter if they exist, and if they don't matter they shouldn't be there.

And fwiw, I personally think a hybrid approach is best. My own game has classes that are designed as such, but multiclassing is so permissive that in practice it acts as a point buy type system. Between 20 classes and 80 subclasses and the ability to mix and match all of them, including taking multiple subclasses, while still supporting Classes that actually matter, you do a lot better than going one way or the other.

Those who don't want to care about their build so much won't have to, and those that do will be given a more substantial playground to do so than anything else on the market. (Given theres Skill Paths on top of this as well as another big dimension to character building)

Like, there is no niche protection

Niche protection is stupid and an unnecessary constraint when you want the game to be permissive towards people playing what they want to play, and not what the game needs them to play.

And its especially stupid because its a cooperative game and you shouldn't be coming into it from that kind of selfish perspective in the first place. You're not lesser if someone else can do the same thing.

Which is why I personally advocate for moving a lot of class features into narratively achieved progression. Have your main combat schtick and your numbers go up with level, your horizontal progression and your utility abilities should be achieved in play and open to any character.

That tends to lead into the Prestige Class problem where people are eventually going to skip the required plot beats just so they can play what they want to play.

Its one of those things where one has to be conscious of how people are playing the game and embrace it. Probably the wisest design decision from WOTC that they haven't repeated that mistake in two editions.