D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[Distracted DM]

Having played an AD&D fighter without strength bonuses next to one who had 18 percentile strength the imbalance was continuously noticeable to me as a player and was detrimental to my fun as a player.

I have played B/X basic, AD&D, Rifts, GURPS, White Wolf, and 3e where you can have lots of imbalance between characters.

I prefer balanced PCs as a player and as a DM.

That's a fighter with ~12 strength vs a fighter with 18/## strength .. yeah that's a huge gulf regardless of edition. I guess the positive is if gauntlets of ogre power come up the 18/## fighter will probably let you take them
Though balance can mean different things to different people though, especially between a player and a GM.

That's one of the reasons I'll always want to use point buy. I'm okay if I play a PC that isn't always as powerful as PCs with other classes (although I find 5E did a pretty good job here most of the time), it's that I've seen people roll at the table and in 5E we would have had 1 PC with a 20 in their primary stat (with no bad stats) and one with a 14.

Of course it's all personal preference, but if given a choice between point buy and rolling I've taken point buy every time.

Yeah I wish there wasn't a stupid voice in the back of my head that always says "hey rolling is fun, let them roll!" when it's time to lay out the rules for character creation for a campaign. sometimes I can ignore the voice, but more often it's slipped in somehow in some from.

 

[Distracted DM]

I find myself having to add HP or cheating on saves etc to make to many 5E fights not a waste of time. I suppose at some point I'll figure out how to run it better. Maybe 5.5 will have it all figured out. Cant wait to see.

Considering characters have largely grown in power... I doubt it . Unless they drastically alter monsters in the revised MM and a 2024 Ogre is worth two 2014 Ogres...

 

[Umbran]

In my experience, there are also a lot of players(and DMs) who just don't care about balance.

I think it depends on what "balance" means.

I think it is actually pretty reasonable to say that most players don't want their characters to be useless, or too frequently upstaged. If, when the action gets rolling, they always end up asking "Why am I even here?" that's probably not a great time for the player.

So, maybe they don't care about balance qua balance, but they probably don't want to get the short end of the stick, either. Like, someone buying a soft pretzel doesn't care about the Maillard reaction, but they want the pretzel to taste good.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Want balance? Try Dungeon Crawl Classics! No one ever said that's unbalanced!

 

[Maxperson]

I think it depends on what "balance" means.

I think it is actually pretty reasonable to say that most players don't want their characters to be useless, or too frequently upstaged. If, when the action gets rolling, they always end up asking "Why am I even here?" that's probably not a great time for the player.

So, maybe they don't care about balance qua balance, but they probably don't want to get the short end of the stick, either. Like, someone buying a soft pretzel doesn't care about the Maillard reaction, but they want the pretzel to taste good.

I think you are probably correct when you say most players don't want their characters to be upstaged. However, I have played in three different groups, two if which were very long term and had many different players, that didn't play that way. I would estimate 60ish all told.

We had people with high ECL races, but without the XP penalty, along side vanilla humans and elves. We had groups with level 1 PCs mixed in with PCs of up to level 17. We weren't upset that others in the group were a lot more powerful and had a blast playing in those games.

So while most players probably don't want their characters to be upstaged, there are still a significant number of us who don't care about that sort of balance.

 

[ECMO3]

IME when players get upstaged or feel useless it is most often due to dice, and when it is not due to dice it is usually due to adventure specifics and the individual character builds (example Wizard focused on Fire spells in part of a campaign with lots of devils), it is rarely due to actual mechanical imbalance.

 

[Hussar]

IME when players get upstaged or feel useless it is most often due to dice, and when it is not due to dice it is usually due to adventure specifics and the individual character builds (example Wizard focused on Fire spells in part of a campaign with lots of devils), it is rarely due to actual mechanical imbalance.

Well, yes and no.

If I can do X and you can do X just as well as I can, plus you can do Y and Z, it can start to get a bit frustrating. I remember watching my 5e sword and board fighter standing beside another sword and board paladin. Almost identical stats for the characters. Both human. About the only real difference between the characters was the class.

And because of Divine Smite, he was doing a LOT more damage than I ever could. Yes, I was playing a Battlemaster, so, sure, I got an extra handful of D8's every short rest. But, by about 10th level, he was dealing nearly double the damage my character was doing, plus defending just as well as I could, being a tank just as well as I could and pretty much outshining my character in every possible way. And, let's not forget having a handful of spells on hand as well.

Totally not deliberate on his part by the way. The campaign rarely had more than a couple of encounters per day, so, he could nova all the time. I mean, sure, I'm playing a sword and board fighter. I'm not going to be the damage dealer. Fair enough. I got that. But, because of balance issues, his character was doing everything I could do, a lot better than I could do it.

So, yeah, balance can be a mechanical thing.

 

[Zardnaar]

IME when players get upstaged or feel useless it is most often due to dice, and when it is not due to dice it is usually due to adventure specifics and the individual character builds (example Wizard focused on Fire spells in part of a campaign with lots of devils), it is rarely due to actual mechanical imbalance.

I've seen a fire sorcerer load up on only fire spells. Fire Giants derp.

 

[Lanefan]

Totally not deliberate on his part by the way. The campaign rarely had more than a couple of encounters per day, so, he could nova all the time. I mean, sure, I'm playing a sword and board fighter. I'm not going to be the damage dealer. Fair enough. I got that. But, because of balance issues, his character was doing everything I could do, a lot better than I could do it.

So, yeah, balance can be a mechanical thing.

Balance or not, in my view the bolded is a real problem.

A front-line sword-and-boarder should be the damage dealer...and damage absorber. Giving and taking damage is its job.

 

[Hussar]

Balance or not, in my view the bolded is a real problem.

A front-line sword-and-boarder should be the damage dealer...and damage absorber. Giving and taking damage is its job.

Well, that is pretty much how D&D has always worked. Go two handed or two weapon fighting and you give up defense for offense. Either should be dealing more damage than a sword and board character.

So, yeah, the barbarian with a great axe is dealing more damage than the sword and board fighter. I've no problems with that. My issue was that both characters were sword and board concepts. Basically identical in every way, save class. And that difference, plus fairly short adventuring days (which, I understand, is part of the problem - I get that) meant that the paladin was absolutely mopping the floor with my character.

It got particularly egregious when paladins get that +d8 damage to every hit. Yes, now I'm getting that third attack, but, it still doesn't make up for the HUGE amounts of damage a paladin can do with smites.

And when we're both at 2 attacks? Yeah, I can just make out the paladin's tail lights in the distance.