D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Micah Sweet]

But that isn't actually balance. Like even in a long-term sense, it's not actually balance.

It's literally not long-term balance, because in the long term, things become more unbalanced than they were before.

Instead, it is, at absolute best, temporary middle-term balance: a range of levels where the exponential wizard is comparable to the linear fighter, rather than painfully behind or ridiculously ahead.

Long-term balance looks either like oscillation, where two things repeatedly crisscross one another and neither maintains a lead for long, or like convergence, where two things take different paths to reach the same result. Middle-term balance just means you have two things genuinely comparable over some range, and anywhere else, anything goes.

It straight-up is not balanced to make one thing objectively horrible for the early run, comparable for a little while, and then objectively the best thing after that. Because all that does is teach players, "Optimize the early run so you can get nigh-infinite power. Keep trying until you get it, because once you get it, you'll be too powerful to lose."

Keep in mind, I don't accept uniformity as balance. That's the lazy non-answer. True balance--asymmetrical balance, where different paths really are different, but they're still comparable across a broad range of play--is a difficult but extremely rewarding target to reach. Many, many games have achieved it. D&D is only special by its all-too-frequent stubborn refusal to even try to seek it.

Can you provide a non-narrative example of a game that has done so? I'd really like to know.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And it was balanced around the idea that players had multiple PCs.
Gygax design are players have a retinue, real time resting, and a hubtown.

You could play fighters early and switch to high level MUs if some survived your throwaway sessions as your fighters healed up.

95% of tables don't do that.

And almost none of them will ever have any interest in starting. Which is the bigger thing, since (remember) Lanefan's arguments often boil down to "well if we force them to play X way, they'll just go along with it and then we'll change how people choose to play."

Which is, perhaps surprisingly, a very rose-colored-glasses perspective on how player psychology works.

AKA the superhero teamup (Non-DC ).

People with different powers but similar power level.

Fans just wince because they know what kind of warrior would have to exist to stand near a high level arcanist or priest,

The only reason they wince is because it forces them to recognize how powerful they've demanded that they be, vs. how much power they'd have to grant in order to not be Simply Better.

I frankly haven't decided which is worse--those who deny the double standard that is plainly evident (y'know, given how martial vs caster balance has been a consistent problem and even other companies that have taken up the torch have admitted it), or those who admit the double standard and claim that it's somehow the best thing ever, rather than...y'know, objectively unfair and biased.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How do you think the fighter should have that comparable impact?

Mighty Deeds. Not something they get access to instantly, something they grow into. A Mighty Deed at (say) 5th level might be holding up the portcullis so all your friends can get out safely, then slipping under yourself. Something no living human on Earth could do, but which is only the teeniest, tiniest bit outside the realm of what ordinary Earth humans could do. It's something Conan could probably do, and something John Carter of Mars could almost certainly do on Mars, because his Earth-trained muscles make him superhuman in Mars' lighter gravity. (Naturally that's not really how lower planetary gravity works...but I don't see people tearing into Mr. Burroughs for the unrealism there.) Chokeslamming dragons and flinging an ogre across the room, tearing open steel gates with you bare hands. Stuff that is still extremely grounded, just probably a bit beyond what is 100% unequivocally achievable by merely well-trained fit humans IRL.

Around 10th level, things like what Beowulf describes, swimming for literal days in full armor, AFTER having just fought a long, pitched battle. Things that are genuinely just impossible in our universe, but which feel like they should be completely possible for people who are legends that breathe. This is Odysseus shooting through the axeheads and

And then around 15th level, the kind of stuff Herakles and Liu Bu get up to, redirecting rivers for fun and profit, staring down entire armies and mkaing them piss themselves rather than fight you, firing so may arrows it blots out the sun, that sort of thing.

It is fantastical. It is also emphatically nothing like "magic", it isn't anything that Wizards or Clerics or Druids practice. It's physical might, personal intimidation, that sort of thing. Perhaps rolls might be required, but I would expect this to be...maybe not "lenient", but open-minded, shall we say. If it required a crit, that would be far too punitive, and getting at least something for one's efforts (even if it comes with serious downsides) should be very achievable.

Hell, perhaps make it literal. Being a high-level fighter makes you a living legend. That's something powerful, that isn't spellcasting. Being the stuff of legends has its perks, but it also has its limits. Herakles could move a river to clean a stable. He couldn't move at the speed of Hermes. That's still showing there are limits.

Maybe the player needs to choose one or two specific areas they can do such Mighty Deeds in. Maybe some are charismatic and enduring, while others are strong and wily. Dunno, entirely spitballing here.

This would, of course, require extensive playtesting, because I always expect extensive playtesting for all proposed mechanics, whatever they might be doing. I would never ask of others what I don't ask of myself on this front, and I've definitely expected playtesting of others' ideas.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Can you provide a non-narrative example of a game that has done so? I'd really like to know.

13th Age.

Really truly excellent game design--that is definitely not a narrative game. Unless you consider 4e to be a narrative game, which I'm fairly sure you would not.

Great example thereof: They actually solved the 3.5e Druid Problem. That is, the problem that the 3rd edition Druid is both an extremely popular character archetype (to the point that it is almost single-handedly responsible for the WoW Druid class having the form it has), and also ludicrously broken because it's got like three full classes' worth of class features (animal companion, full spellcasting with an emphasis on summoning, and wildshape). 13th Age solves the problem by splitting up the powers into six buckets, which you can get either a portion of (1 talent) or the whole thing (2 talents). Each Druid gets exactly three talents to spend, right at the start.

This means that the Druid retains the ability to express any part of the 3.5e Druid, so everyone can still go to that class and get the thing(s) they really really loved about it. But no single druid can do all of it the way the 3.5e Druid could.

 

[Micah Sweet]

13th Age.

Really truly excellent game design--that is definitely not a narrative game. Unless you consider 4e to be a narrative game, which I'm fairly sure you would not.

Great example thereof: They actually solved the 3.5e Druid Problem. That is, the problem that the 3rd edition Druid is both an extremely popular character archetype (to the point that it is almost single-handedly responsible for the WoW Druid class having the form it has), and also ludicrously broken because it's got like three full classes' worth of class features (animal companion, full spellcasting with an emphasis on summoning, and wildshape). 13th Age solves the problem by splitting up the powers into six buckets, which you can get either a portion of (1 talent) or the whole thing (2 talents). Each Druid gets exactly three talents to spend, right at the start.

This means that the Druid retains the ability to express any part of the 3.5e Druid, so everyone can still go to that class and get the thing(s) they really really loved about it. But no single druid can do all of it the way the 3.5e Druid could.

Thank you. Unfortunately, while 4e is not a narrative game (though more so than any other version of D&D ever produced), I strongly dislike it for other reasons, chief among them that it is unabashedly Mechanics Over Fiction. I'm not interested in making up fiction to justify the mechanics.

 

[Chaltab]

Thank you. Unfortunately, while 4e is not a narrative game (though more so than any other version of D&D ever produced), I strongly dislike it for other reasons, chief among them that it is unabashedly Mechanics Over Fiction. I'm not interested in making up fiction to justify the mechanics.

I mean... with 4E you don't have to. The designers already did that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean... with 4E you don't have to. The designers already did that.

Those little one-liner blurbs at the top of every power are pretty weak as fiction.

 

[Lanefan]

I like it, but its pretty time consuming unless you are using a VTT.

Doesn't take long each round - just get the players to leave their init dice on the table in front of them rather than noting them all down or sorting them. Then, count down through the numbers.

If a player invests in it, it ought to help them. I think a small bump is different than the gulf that 3E feats, traits, stat jacking could achieve.

On a d20, +1 every round isn't that big a deal. On a d6, like we use, it's huge.

Hence, my preference is that init modifiers not be there to invest in in the first place.

 

[Zardnaar]

There are plenty of communities that actually understand and embrace good gaming requires some limitation.

Just because 9/10 Children voted for Candy for dinner, does not mean its correct.

For D&D it's 9/10 kids with wallets.

 

[Lanefan]

And that's precisely what I'm calling out. You are taking one thing as a bedrock assumption so fundamental it doesn't need to be discussed, while rejecting the other explicitly, without justification. It's just...."well of course that's how it is, it just...is!" That, that thing right there, is a double standard in action. And most double standards end up being exactly what you described here: one thing is taken to be good/warranted/acceptable/justified/etc. at a level so fundamental it's beneath discussion, while the other is bad/unwarranted/unacceptable/unjustified/etc. explicitly, but without any explanation. It just isn't, and the previous just is, and the gap is never explained nor reconciled.

Wizards do not deserve a handwave free pass just because we call them "Wizards". If the Fighter is being explicitly called to justify learning impressive beyond-natural techniques, the Wizard needs to be held to the same standard. Anything less is "Well the Wizard deserves to be better than the Fighter because that's Just How Things Are Done."

I thought we were talking about warriors learning their trade in mercenary guilds or martial-arts schools the same as wizards learn in academic settings and guilds and clerics learn in temples or monasteries and thieves learn in guilds or on the street.

That all looks pretty much the same to me. So what am I missing?

Then what are Fighters getting that is comparable?

Because if the system isn't giving Fighters comparable--NOT identical, comparable--impact on the world, then you're openly admitting to "Well the Fighter just needs to be worse than everyone else."

What Fighters should be getting is to be the clear-cut number-one damage dealers in melee, at any level. 4e made them damage absorbers instead, but that's only halfway right: they should be both the best damage absorbers AND the best damage dealers. But somehow Rogues got given the damage-dealing piece, where their party role should be as sneaks and scouts and trapfinders with their combat abilities being a secondary thing at best.