D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)

[EzekielRaiden]

I am not the one saying this is a fact that balance does nothing for the game. Even though I have my opinion, and I am confident in it, I am fine saying we don't know how balance affects the game or someone saying I am wrong.

If it is a fact that balance does nothing for the game

give your evidence for that claim.

Hold yourself to the same standard you hold others.

As a point of fact, 5E is not well balanced at all levels and it has far exceeded the original goals for which it was designed.

No, it hasn't. Crawford himself explicitly said that in an interview. He explicitly said that the Warlock was falling behind other classes because people weren't taking enough short rests.

That is, by the designer's own explicit words, failing to meet the goals for which it was designed.

Sales figures are not design goals, no matter how much you might wish otherwise.

Are we to believe that the game designers don't realize these imbalances exist?

In a word? Kinda.

In rather more words? Not exactly, but not entirely "no" either.

Sometimes, yes, it will be just sheer ignorance. Sometimes it will be mistaken beliefs; that's what caused the problems with Warlocks. Sometimes, it will be a lack of testing: that's what caused the "ghoul surprise," and made them hastily scramble to try to fix saving throws. Sometimes, it will be love of an idea that makes them overlook the faults (Mearls, for example, loves throwing fistfuls of dice, so he preserved fistful-of-dice mechanics long after they had proven unpopular and problematic.) Sometimes, it will be running out of time. That's what screwed over the Sorcerer (and also Warlock); they completely abandoned the first playtest attempt (which was actually incredibly cool and I'm still super mad they instantly yeeted it rather than trying to improve it), and never did any further public playtesting, which meant the class we got out the other side was half-baked.

Sometimes, they do know the imbalance is there, but (rightly or wrongly) believe it won't matter that much. Sometimes, they (rightly or wrongly) believe that people will overreact to the change, and then settle down later. Sometimes, they (rightly or wrongly) believe that other shifts or changes will compensate for the difference.

I'm simply going by their actual words. The designers of 3e, 5e, PF1e, and PF2e have all explicitly stated that making a balanced game is something they desire and seek out. They have made design errors that resulted in unbalanced things during playtest, such as the aforementioned "ghoul surprise," and taken steps to correct that imbalance, rather than leaving it in place. They have responded--sometimes explicitly!--to player feedback saying that a subclass feature is unbalanced, and have removed that feature. (In this case, it was giving extra spells to new Sorcerer subclasses. Sadly, they took the wrong lesson; what people were saying was, "It sucks that the old Sorcerer has so few spells, if you're going to give this to new ones, give us errata so older subclasses also get spells!" What they took from that was, "oh, we shouldn't give these new Sorcerers bonus spells? Gotcha.")

While I am at it, doesn't the alleged existence of the "Wizard mafia" itself imply that they are interested in not balancing classes?

Nope. It means that they have either conscious or subconscious beliefs/attitudes which are logically incompatible, but which they do not know are logically incompatible. That is a big problem when working on large, complicated things. Worldbuilding, for example, often runs into trouble like this because people want a world which makes sense and follows rules that are common between the fictional world and the real one (e.g., riviers flow downhill), but they often are woefully ignorant about how rivers actually work and will thus make ridiculous fantasy geography that couldn't possibly work. Or they'll have civilizations that have lasted for fifty thousand years completely unchanged, when humanity hasn't had civilization for a tenth of that time and has changed in more ways than we could possibly describe. Etc.

The designers of both 5e and PF2e have expressly said, both in their own personal statements and in the books they've published, that different player classes are meant to be team players, not casters and caddies. They have explicitly recognized that having casters be significantly more powerful than non-casters is a flaw that should be corrected. That's (explicitly) why 5e includes the Concentration mechanic when 3e didn't--it was intended to bring better balance to casters. (It is a step, but other steps weakened that goal.)

Balance is something game designers value. Degenerate solutions and dominant strategies are undesirable; they produce dull, un-engaging gameplay. A balanced game eschews these things.

 

[Oofta]

It is a concept and many people believe it to be true, but there is no evidence it is true.

It is a hypothesis. It does not have sufficient evidence to even qualify as a theory, let alone a fact.

There's also a big difference between the structure of video games, especially competitive ones, and TTRPGs. D&D is a team game, different classes have different roles and different strengths.

Of course thanks to bounded accuracy, backgrounds and more flexibility on proficiencies, PCs can and do contribute outside of their default role if it is important to the player. People do it all the time.

 

[Oofta]

If it is a fact that balance does nothing for the game

give your evidence for that claim.

Hold yourself to the same standard you hold others.
...

That's not how it works. We are not stating opinion as fact. You are the one doing that.

The only thing we can state as fact is that 5E is more popular than any previous edition of D&D. It is reasonable to conclude that the supposed lack of balance has not prevented that popularity. We can even note that when WOTC pursued balance as one of the primary goals of 4E, that edition was not a runaway success.

If we really want we can speculate that the desire for balance in 4E potentially hurt the game. We can state preferences and state that to us it did not make for a better game.

But I don't remember anyone stating as fact that balance was why 4E was not as popular as 5E. Because it is not a fact. Just like balance being inherently positive for a game is not a fact.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But I don't remember anyone stating as fact that balance was why 4E was not as popular as 5E. Because it is not a fact. Just like balance being inherently positive for a game is not a fact.

Then you have not been paying attention. It has been said, in various ways, multiple times. Over many years. It would likely not be wise for me to name names in this thread, but I could do so if I really wanted to. I just don't.

 

[Minigiant]

If balance wasn't important, the designers who were making oodles selling D&D would not be trying to balance 5e in 2024,

So can we stop with the "balance doesn't matter" stuff?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If balance wasn't important, the designers who were making oodles selling D&D would not be trying to balance 5e in 2024,

So can we stop with the "balance doesn't matter" stuff?

I made that very argument earlier. It was roundly dismissed as irrelevant. So no, I don't think we're going to be able to stop, as much as I would prefer that we do.

 

[Vaalingrade]

If balance wasn't important, the designers who were making oodles selling D&D would not be trying to balance 5e in 2024,

So can we stop with the "balance doesn't matter" stuff?

Along with the 'tyranny of fun', it's one of those weird rants only the D&D fandom seems to have concocted.

 

[FrogReaver]

If balance wasn't important, the designers who were making oodles selling D&D would not be trying to balance 5e in 2024,

So can we stop with the "balance doesn't matter" stuff?

I think there’s a fine line between ‘balance doesn’t matter’ and ‘too much balance can be detrimental (assuming compromises to other areas of the game were taken to achieve balance - which IMO is almost inevitable)’

I think there’s some that have stepped over that line too far. Though there’s also others that say ‘more balance is always better’ and IMO they are just as wrong.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think there’s a fine line between ‘balance doesn’t matter’ and ‘too much balance can be detrimental (assuming compromises to other areas of the game were taken to achieve balance - which IMO is almost inevitable)’

I think there’s some that have stepped over that line too far. Though there’s also others that say ‘more balance is always better’ and IMO they are just as wrong.

I am of the opinion that more balance is always better.

I am not, however, of the opinion that every method for achieving balance is always better.

The simplest way to achieve balance is uniformity: identical and unchanging things are necessarily balanced. But uniformity is a tool that must be used very carefully. Overuse results in games that are just as boring as games that have obvious degenerate solutions or dominant strategies: overly uniform games are dull because every choice is the same choice, without texture or distinction; unbalanced games are dull because every choice is a false choice, because there's always a correct answer.

In 5e, as in 3e before it and arguably even 2e as well, the correct answer is always to use spells to solve as many problems as possible as long as spells are available, because spells are essentially always the best way to solve problems, and then to rest as soon as possible after spells cease to be available. This obvious dominant strategy then becomes the foundation of a GM/player arms race, with the players rewarded for every time they successfully counter the GM's attempts to force the players to not repeatedly 5MWD their problems into submission, and GMs having to resort to increasingly draconian measures to ensure compliance with the intended balancing mechanisms. This antagonistic cycle never ends, unless the players actively choose to play more poorly than they could, because the rewards are essentially always worth the effort due to how powerful, diverse, and flexible D&D magic is.

Despite what some have claimed, we have never had an actually uniform game. Uniformity has existed in various forms in most editions of D&D, reaching a peak in 3e or 4e depending on exactly how you count certain elements. (IMO, 3e was more uniform because of its foolish effort to make monsters and PCs perfectly uniform in rules; others will argue 4e is more uniform because every class uses the same power schedule. Debates over the like are fruitless. Just recognizing that both included high degrees of uniformity, in different places, is all that really matters.)

I am in full, complete agreement that making things too uniform, too homogenized, is bad for a game experience.

I reject the claim that improving balance always means increasing uniformity. Asymmetrical balance exists. It is a challenge, to be sure; it is inherently harder than the trivial balance of uniformity. But it is the only acceptable form of balance for a TTRPG. The choices must be different, but all of such similar value that brute calculation cannot usefully guide you toward the best options.

Consider: Fire spells do more damage up front, but are the most commonly resisted spell and rarely if ever have secondary effects (apart from "even more damage.") Cold spells are replete with control or defense effects, and fewer creatures resist cold. Lightning is reliable but niche; it's spells are less versatile in effect, but almost always useful against the vast majority of enemies. Acid (in BG3 anyway) is the debuffer damage type, setting enemies up for a fall and being weak but almost always useful. Etc.

This is a great example of asymmetrical balance in action. In terms of raw damage, many of these types are actually very similar when you account for the risk of resistance. In other words, their compared secondary effects are the most relevant aspect, and comparing them cannot be reduced to a mere calculation, because they don't have commensurate values. Debuffing enemies and setting them up to be ripped apart by your allies could be powerful or pointless depending on the foe. Squeezing out a bit of extra damage could secure kills or barely be worthy of note. Etc. The choice becomes a matter of what the player values, not what the player mathematically calculates as the maximal choice.

We can do the same thing with class design. We can have Rogues and Barbarians and Monks and Rangers that all do very nearly the same DPR, but with significantly different methods and rider effects. Asymmetrical balance: multiple distinct routes to the same end, and/or multiple routes to distinct but incommensurate ends.

There is no such thing as too much asymmetrical balance. The more asymmetrical balance you offer, the more real diversity of choice the game provides, and the more depth and texture there is when engaging with those choices.

Bland uniformity is garbage. Uniformity must only be used when it delivers tangible benefit, e.g. having a unified success mechanic delivers clearly beneficial results. (D&D uses a unified d20, PbtA uses a unified 2d6, etc.) In other words, uniformity is a tool, and can absolutely be overused.

But asymmetrical balance literally describes the situation of making multiple good options where players must decide for themselves which good option to pick, rather than simply doing the thing that is always the best choice. More asymmetrical balance means more interesting, meaningful, non-solvable choices.

The illusion of choice induced by having seven identical options is no more or less illusory than the illusion of choice induced by having one amazing option and all other options being a distant second place. Both choices are equally illusory. Asymmetrical balance eliminates the illusion. Choices matter. And making fewer illusory choices is always a good thing.

 

[Minigiant]

I think there’s a fine line between ‘balance doesn’t matter’ and ‘too much balance can be detrimental (assuming compromises to other areas of the game were taken to achieve balance - which IMO is almost inevitable)’

I think there’s some that have stepped over that line too far. Though there’s also others that say ‘more balance is always better’ and IMO they are just as wrong.

Well.

The issue with 5e like I said many times, is that the original design goals do not match the current fans desired. So 5e is by definition behind the line where balance is detrimental.

Like the designers stated, it's 10 years old without pain points addressed in default rules.