D&D 5E What is balance to you, and why do you care (or don't)?

Balance among PCs is for me about equal opportunities, not equal capabilities. More "free market" and less communism (strictly meant as a metaphore, not intended as a real-life comment!). I want players to be able to create their PCs focused on a pillar or role at the expense of another if they want, not to be forced into all pillars or roles. It is therefore ok that different classes are more focused on one pillar or role, just like different races, different spells, different feats etc also do. I only need balance as a whole, so that no character feels left behind. But that feeling is important when you compare two characters built for the same role: an example of possible imbalance in 5e is Wizard vs Sorcerer, when you try to create a Sorcerer character towards a specific concept, you almost always get the feeling that you could create a Wizard for the same, and get a slightly better result due to vastly more known spells. In this case it's not like the Sorcerer character isn't good, just like there is almost always a slightly better option.

This leads to the other kind of balance I care about: competitive choices must both have a reason to exist. This is not the same as must be equal in all circumstances. An example is combat cantrips: if they all had the same damage they would be equal, but then I wouldn't like it because the choice would be mostly cosmetic, other than a minor difference in damage type. Instead 5e cantrips are designed with various trade-offs between damage and secondary effects, so that each cantrip is different but they all feel reasonably good, and even if some feel somewhat less good you can still think they can be the best choice under given circumstances. This is some kind of balance which I think 5e has achieved better than every edition, without sacrificing variety.

Bayushi_seikuro said:

One of the best pieces of wisdom I think about when I hear talk about 'balance' is something the game designer John Wick said:

Often, people talk about 'balance' when really what they're talking about is 'spotlight' being shared between the characters.

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People talk a lot about "spotlight" balance. I find that it is nowhere near as effective as most of its advocates would have one believe.

Lyxen said:

As for me, the only kind of balance that matter is that of fun for the players.

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That's...not a very useful guideline. More than a little like saying, "Morality is simple! Just be a good person. Problem solved. I don't see why this was so hard!"

Li Shenron said:

I want players to be able to create their PCs focused on a pillar or role at the expense of another if they want, not to be forced into all pillars or roles.

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The problem here is that, by definition, all of the pillars are vital to play. That's literally why we call them pillars, as in, they are the foundation of the play experience. If they're supposed to be pillars, everyone is supposed to be able to meaningfully participate. Otherwise they're something else.

EzekielRaiden said:

People talk a lot about "spotlight" balance. I find that it is nowhere near as effective as most of its advocates would have one believe.

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My goal is a DM is to ensure that all of my players feel "cool and special" periodically. Not every moment, some sessions it might be player A, next session player B gets the gold star, but over time all of the players get to have their moment. Now that moment can mean different things to different players, and that is a key reason why the DM is so important. Winning a combat maybe player A's favorite thing, whereas player B couldn't care less. However, player B likes to be supportive, and the moment when their buff made the difference, or their healing saved another's life...that to them is their moment.

To me, balance is around two general concepts:

• The Hooks: Do the character classes, feats, abilities, xyz provide solid ways for me as the DM to highlight and make the player feel neat. Quick example, a fire resistant character fighting a bunch of fire dealing creatures....suddenly they are much more effective than normal and get to feel "cool and special". A monk's speed, cleric's ability to turn undead, rogue's super stealth... all are hooks that can be used in various encounters. When a concept lacks good hooks, as a DM I have to struggle to highlight the character, which is a balance concern.
  
  
• The "Constant Pull": When concepts are relatively equal balancewise, then as a DM I find I can sprinkle my attention around all of the players, again using their hooks to highlight them (or hit their weaknesses to provide interesting challenge). When balance is off, you start to focus on a single character. If I feel I constantly have to work to make one character shine...then that suggests the concept is not shining enough on its own. Likewise if I start having to organize all of my combats or encounters around a single character....that suggests the concept is out of balance.

Stalker0 said:

My goal is a DM is to ensure that all of my players feel "cool and special" periodically. Not every moment, some sessions it might be player A, next session player B gets the gold star, but over time all of the players get to have their moment. Now that moment can mean different things to different players, and that is a key reason why the DM is so important. Winning a combat maybe player A's favorite thing, whereas player B couldn't care less. However, player B likes to be supportive, and the moment when their buff made the difference, or their healing saved another's life...that to them is their moment.

To me, balance is around two general concepts:

• The Hooks: Do the character classes, feats, abilities, xyz provide solid ways for me as the DM to highlight and make the player feel neat. Quick example, a fire resistant character fighting a bunch of fire dealing creatures....suddenly they are much more effective than normal and get to feel "cool and special". A monk's speed, cleric's ability to turn undead, rogue's super stealth... all are hooks that can be used in various encounters. When a concept lacks good hooks, as a DM I have to struggle to highlight the character, which is a balance concern.
  
  
• The "Constant Pull": When concepts are relatively equal balancewise, then as a DM I find I can sprinkle my attention around all of the players, again using their hooks to highlight them (or hit their weaknesses to provide interesting challenge). When balance is off, you start to focus on a single character. If I feel I constantly have to work to make one character shine...then that suggests the concept is not shining enough on its own. Likewise if I start having to organize all of my combats or encounters around a single character....that suggests the concept is out of balance.

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I like this framing. My issue is, in general, that a magic-centric character is so covered in hooks you wonder if it's velcro made for giants, while non-magic-centric characters often have only a small number of hooks (possibly only one single hook), and may not even be particularly good at using that hook. Likewise, magic-centric characters pull more strongly by their very nature, doubly so because most magic-centric characters are able to choose whether to "nova" or to spread their features out, while non-magic-centric characters are often forced to only choose "slow and steady wins the race."

Balance is always tricky in D&D, that does not mean that we should not try to get it as good as we can.

1st, game cannot be balanced around PvP, nor it should be, that is at best a tertiary concern in balance.

We have the combat, roleplay and exploration part of the game.

Combat is mostly based as we know, on attacks, AC, DCs of spells and some minor skill usage.

roleplay/exploration is mostly based on skill usage and so called "ribbon" class features.

Now, we come to feats/ASIs. They had an evolution in perception of them in last 8 years:
from optional to defacto mandatory now. Especially with new UA background options that give one feat and the latest that gives 2 feats.

IMHO, feats should be split into combat and non-combat categories, or better, tier 1 and tier 2 feats.

A fighter that takes Skilled or skilled expert feat, should not feel like an idiot next to a fighter that takes PAM or HWM or SS or similar feat.

Those two categories of feats cannot be balanced between each other so they should be on separate counter(resource pool).

If we have those 2 separate, we never have to have the GWM vs. Skilled debate. It simply does not matter.

So, getting 2 extra feats at levels 1&4 that are not "top tier" is a good thing for roleplay/exploration part of the game.
If some of them are half-feats it might even help you with your primary stat.

James Gasik said:

Let's compare game design to music. In the studio, bands can spend long hours, weeks, months even, searching for that elusive quality- perfection. You have a group of creative people, working together, but trying to push their vision to the forefront. The result is a mishmash of different takes, take a little bit from session A, add in a bit from session B, maybe use that awesome drum solo from session C, and sure, we can keep the xylophone bit to please our producer, but then overdub it to the point it's barely audible on the final track! If you did your job right, you have a classic on your hands.

Otherwise, it's a hot mess.

But live? On stage? It's not about perfection. It's about the moment. Connecting with your audience, and blowing them away with your passion and energy. So you're exhausted from touring. You're all out of tune. So you forgot some of the words (decades later, people will remember the time you quipped "does anybody remember laughter?" in the middle of a song). Your drummer decides this would be the perfect time for a 20 minute solo! It doesn't matter, as long as everyone leaves the auditorium energized.

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There are some musicians who play to a masters proficiency even live. I have heard bands take the first 30 seconds from a live recording in Milwaukee and than the next 30 seconds from Miami and it sounds identical to the album. I have heard folks in the audience at concerts arguing about if the band is on or not and how the physics of sound carrying in the room changes perception on when a note is actually played.

So, I am sort of with you on the analogy here, but different musicians and fans have different expectations. I am definitely an in the moment kind of music lover. I can appreciate prog music and such, but its not where my love is. I want to feel the experience, not intuit it. I have similar expectations from RPGs. I like design to start from a place of balance. A north star for me as GM to guide my playing. Though, I like room for improvisation too. Some games are too tightly designed to allow for me to do this. Others, have so little guidance that it is really up to the experience the game is trying to provide on whether or not I find it balanced.

That is all about my experience and preference though. A definition is a game that produces fair outcomes based on its ruleset. I only care in so much as that the game provides the experience I want from it. Sometimes the balance, or lack there of, gets in the way of an experience. So, thats what is important to me. I know folks out there that cant enjoy a game that isnt balanced like the folks arguing about the musician's timing during a concert. I'm not on that level of balance requirement, but I can appreciate it for folks who are.

Balance is the thing fearful players bring up because they want to be sure to have an equal chance to shine at the table. A good DM makes sure that all players have their chances to shine no matter the system.

EzekielRaiden said:

People talk a lot about "spotlight" balance. I find that it is nowhere near as effective as most of its advocates would have one believe.


That's...not a very useful guideline. More than a little like saying, "Morality is simple! Just be a good person. Problem solved. I don't see why this was so hard!"


The problem here is that, by definition, all of the pillars are vital to play. That's literally why we call them pillars, as in, they are the foundation of the play experience. If they're supposed to be pillars, everyone is supposed to be able to meaningfully participate. Otherwise they're something else.

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I'm pretty sure that in vanilla 5e, they are something else, regardless of what they're called. If WotC thought it was important for fighters to be able to contribute mechanically outside of combat, they would have done something about it by now.

I guess I'll just share this again. . .



Re-typed here for accessibility:
"For me 'balance' in D&D means everyone has an equal chance to have fun and contribute (not just mechanically) to the game action, not that every choice at every point for every character class or type must be equally good."

Balance is the second priority, a servant--as all other game elements should be--to fun. Balance is necessary to make sure everyone is able to have a reasonably equal feeling of effectiveness.

The problem comes when people take balance as necessitating making things weaker., more difficult or more of a pain, or decide that's not the system's responsibility (nothing ever seems to be) and saddle the DM with punching something effective out of a pile of burning garbage that doesn't care about balance.