Balance - A Thing of the Past?

[Chimera]

The really unbalanced class in 3E is the fighter, because it's TOTALLY a "Mother May I" class. If your DM is some schmuck that builds his campaigns around investigation and talking, rather than killing weird creatures and evil scum, you're screwed. All your game abilities center on fighting, but you have to rely on the DM to serve up some ultra-violence.

Simple solution, dude. Don't play those games!

Or don't play a fighter in those kind of games.

I've only heard, mostly indirectly, of games where there is no combat. I was invited to play in one about five years ago, but when they told me that they had started as apprentices (under 3.0 rules) and hadn't even made 1st level after more than a dozen sessions...

I laughed and said NO.

Me personally, I'm that schmuck who tries to run more investigative games, tries to involve more talking. Doesn't mean (much) less combat, just requires INTELLIGENCE and an understanding that not every encounter is meant to be resolved with combat. In that kind of game, Balance is not necessarily a primary consideration, because I as GM DON'T CARE if the encounter is 'balanced' from a combat perspective. Screw up and attack someone you're intended to get information from, and you well deserve to get your butt handed to you. I'll gladly TPK the 1st level party if they mouth off to the 17th level Evil Wizard.


As I said in another thread, D&D is essentially rigged. If every encounter is balanced so that the party can't possibly lose, then it's rigged in favor of the party. It's like playing a computer game on a skill level that allows you to beat the game every time.

Is that "Balance"?

Consider why people want that out of D&D, but don't play other games that way.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I guess I am among the very few who believe in a balanced game.

For me it comes from wanting to keep an even game after years of people making nonsense rules off-the-cuff to cover something they saw as wrong or stupid, or one player exploiting an easily swayable DM to gain an upper hand. And since I'm not good at debating, my words didn't dissuade them.

With the current edition, the basics of the rules were designed very well to be as balanced as possible (even the math involved), and I appreciate that quite a bit.

That doesn't mean every thing about the game is balanced, and with more options comes more potential for something breakable to sneak out, but any DM who pays attention can make sure that doesn't happen.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I really hope that this is being said tongue and cheek.

Yeah, it was. I guess I wasn't over-the-top-enough.

If every encounter is balanced so that the party can't possibly lose, then it's rigged in favor of the party. It's like playing a computer game on a skill level that allows you to beat the game every time.

I agree; I gave in to the temptation to be sarcastic, which almost never goes over well. Oh well...

(Tangential comment: I commend you on the use of the word "lose." The all-too-common mistake on that one makes me lose my mind and set loose my inner spelling-and-grammar-nazi.)

I guess I am among the very few who believe in a balanced game.

I think there needs to be some degree of balance, but I also think that balance has become something of a questing beast -- endlessly pursued and agonized over, and never found. I think the 3E approach of attempting to balance every class at every level is partly to blame for that tendency. Personally, I prefer the old approach that allowed classes of equal level to be more or less powerful than others, but addressed the issue with different XP advancement. Neither approach is perfect, but I find the "separate XP chart" approach easier to nudge/tweak. I don't mind different "power curves" for the classes. YMMV.

 

[Templeton580]

*

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

here is my opinion of balance. i would allow a Pun-Pun type character so long as the player figured out how to do it on his own without help from the internet, and actually went through each and every step.

 

[Fieari]

Let's consult the master of game balance, David Sirlin. He writes articles on game design in general, and video game design in specific, and COMPETITIVE video game design in more specific, but his words on balance work no matter what the game or medium or genre.

Here's the definition he offers: (from his article "Game Balance, Part 1")

A game is balanced if a reasonably large number of options available to the player are viable–especially, but not limited to, during high-level play by expert players.

The basic thing he says is that variety is the bane of balance. The more variety you have in a game, the harder it is to balance it. Go is the mother of all balanced games. Every peice is identicle, and there's basically only one thing you can do anyway... put a peice on the board. It's a VERY pure game. But although the strategy and depth of Go is deeper than any other game I can think of on the planet, there isn't a lot of variety in what you see. Just dots.

Chess offers variety, but balances it by making both players identicle. When both sides are even, than clearly there's balance. Chess is also a good game, but these days, we look for more in the way of variety. We look for ASYMMETRICAL variety. Where one player has something that the other doesn't. I'm a fighter, you're a wizard. My fighter does stuff the wizard can't, and your wizard does stuff my fighter sure as heck can't.

That creates imbalance right from the start.

Let's assume a hypothetical situation. Just assume that two players have assymetrical options, but are in fact, 100% perfectly balanced against each other. Now give one of those two completely different yet balanced creations a slight edge... let's say, one can now move 5 feet faster. A slight change, and one that would likely get overlooked in all the craziness of the asymmetricality, but given our first assumption that they WERE balanced before, now one of the two is clearly better than the other, due to this extra little thing that would be practically impossible to see.

That's the challenge of balancing. And that's what makes variety the bane of balance. And that's why pure perfect balance is practically impossible.

Wizards isn't trying for pure perfect balance. Wizards is offering variety, and variety in SPADES. Now, they're trying for some sort of balance, but it's mostly eyeballing things, nothing all that rigorous (as can be seen many times; if they were rigorous, Pun Pun wouldn't be possible!)

Wizards is following what Sirlin calls "The Capcom School of Balance", which I'll quote here:

Give every character something "so good that it’s broken." Include so much variety that by the time anyone ever figures out which broken thing actually does ruin the game…the game will be dead by then anyway.

And you know what, for the most part it works. And D&D players have a huge advantage over console fighter players: We have DMs that can say "No!"

Are things balanced? Heck no. Do we have variety? Heck yes! Is the game fun? Oh yes. Is there still some semblance of balance? Yes. Is the game unsalvagable even if broken things are found that make the game no fun anymore? No, because of DMs.

I don't worry too much.

 

[Agent Oracle]

As far as i have noticed, nothing is out of balance. Any time someone points out something imbalanced, they are either deliberately ignoring a rule, completely misunderstanding the ability, or citing a very, very, VERY specific set of circumstances wherein a certain ability functions well.

For example:

Warlocks:
What they see:
-Eldritch Blast Unlimited casting per day!!!1!!

What they ignore:
-Low damage output
-Roll to hit
-Terrible BAB.

Example #2: Knight.
What they See:
-OMG Spell-Free Mind Control!1!!!

What they ignore:
-Does not make target mindless berserker or actually force a behavior.
-Tight restrictions.
-Saving throw.

 

[Psion]

No, balance is not a thing of the past. Imbalance is. Or well, at least it was. In 1e & 2e, new supplements seem to throw caution and quality control to the with supplements. I don't see this so much in 3e. The idea of paying out levels for all your benefits has been a boon for the game AFAIAC; allowing benefits for near free or (almost worse) in exchange for an attitude problem was disruptive to balance.

To what extent do your old gaming experiences shape your expectations and condition your responses to new experiences?

1) There is such a thing as imbalance.
2) It can be managed by the GM, but makes the GMs job harder.
3) It can be tolerated with the right scenarios and the right group of players (I played a 13th level mage in a party of 5th level characters sans mage... it worked out.)
4) It is highly dependant upon campaign circumstances.
5) It reduces variety and player satisfaction. If you feel like you can't play a class you want to play because it is weak (or, contrawise, can't play a strong class because the DM bans it), then the field of viable characters is reduced.

 

[Banshee16]

How many people have made 3 out of every 4 of their melee characters centered around the spiked chain?

I haven't had a *single* player in any of my campaigns, create a character that uses the spiked chain...tonnes of fighters that use greatswords, longswords, mauls, rapiers, daggers, and bows....but never a spiked chain.

Banshee

 

[Agent Oracle]

I tried to make a rogue centered around spiked chain... but i never even got up to the exotic weapon proficiency... The GM didn't like my character and killed it in a GM Fiat. He was a lousy GM and did that a lot...