Balance... does it really matter that much to you?

[lukelightning]

I definitely believe in a level playing-field for the players, and ideally all the classes would be balanced; I don't specifically mean combat-balance, but utility and game-play balance. This is especially important in D&D where it is pretty much mandated that you have a fighter, a wizard, a cleric, and a rogue (or classes with similar roles); if classes were unbalanced then you may get stuck in a class that sucks just because the party needs it (e.g. if rogues totally sucked but you need one to take care of traps).

Additionally, while the effectiveness of a character is mostly a result of the player's choice, having an unbalanced class system would limit a player's choice.

When I've seen games with an unbalanced class system, it was easy to see it was more about the DM's bias than any other factor; typically a DM is either a wizard lover or wizard hater and alters the class to suit his opinion.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Each character in the party should, idealy, be equally useful in the ongoing campaign. Getting this to happen properly is a balancing act for the DM. Rogues are underpowerd in a campaign where 90% of the opponents are undead, for instance, regardless of the inherent mechanical properties of the class. The DM has an obligation to create a campaign which draws on the abilities of all of the PCs roughly equally - otherwise some players are getting more action than others, and that's not fair. Please note that the vague term "equally useful in the ongoing campaign" doesn't necessarily indicate combat equality. If some PCs are social/city adventure oriented, then you should be sure to include enough such aspects in the campaign to make the characters useful.

The players know what they want from the game, and it's up to the DM to provide it while still having fun himself.

 

[drnuncheon]

Balance comes in a lot of ways. The DM can balance a game where one player is significantly weaker than the others, but if the rules do it properly, then his job is a lot easier.

I do agree that balance shouldn't just be 'balance in combat' - in fact, that's an awful way to do balance, because fighters ought to be the kings of combat, period, no questions asked, because that is all they do. On the other hand, combat is usually something that comes up in most games, and it wouldn't be much fun to have a character that was totally useless in it. And since it is bar none the most detailed part of the game, balance in combat is probably the largest element of balance in general.

J

 

[I'm A Banana]

No.

It is important for everyone who's playing to feel like they are contributing to the game. This is measured, mechanically, in 'balance.' In a "typical game," all 11 of the classes will have their niche to fill, and won't feel like they are ineffective characters...which is not fun.

Balance helps people to have fun...people don't want to play ineffective characters, and balance helps to make sure that all classes are equally fun to play, leaving the true choice up in the air, to personal preference more often than not. In addition, it's much harder to make something balanced than it is to unbalance something. If you ran a typical campaign, of plot-dungeon-home-plot-dungeon-home, all 11 would have something to add at some point. But if you ran a campaign that, say, was mostly political and involving the nobility of a large city, well, the players of the Bard, Paladin, and Rogue may be having a lot of fun with their useful skills and high Charismas, but the Druid, Ranger, and Barbarian will probably feel quite ineffective, which is not fun. But you're altering the game, and whenever you do that balance is effected.

If there was one class that was obviously better or worse than the others, encouraging people to either always choose it or never choose it, the game looses significant versatility, and, worse, if that class could do something no other class could do, but was sometimes essential (make clerics suck, but require traps that can only be bypassed by Turn Undead), it makes the person playing that class have less fun, or people playing any other class have less fun, because they feel that their character concepts are so much useless baggage by the way of things that are actually effective in the game, in a measurable, tangible sense.

 

[Wombat]

Balance is fine, in concept, but is rarely truly achievable.

Are the character classes balanced in power with each other? In some campaigns, yes; in others, no. It depends on what sort of opposition any given group might face. The same could be said for different types of spells, types of weapons, etc.

What happens, in the end, is there is an attempt in each campaign to achieve something very much like balance amongst PCs, but probably not precisely so.

In the end the important matter is having fun.

Play to the story, not to the rules. You will have more fun that way

 

[Henry]

I think that balance is important between characters, but not the simplistic version of balance that means "combat effective." All PC's should have a useful part to contribute to the game, whether it be in a role of offense, defense, support, or intel. The cleric for instance gets a lot of grief nowadays because with 3E it has left its traditional role of defense and support, and has ventured heavily into offense and intel as well. All classes should have some use in two or even possibly three of these roles, but a class that ventures into all four is the class that becomes a more attractive option than any other.

You don't have to be powerful in offense or defense to be useful; see the 3.5 bard and the rogue for this point. however, support and intel are "unglamorous" and "unsexy" roles, and hence have fewer proponents.

If you looked at each class as a mix of 4 parts of any of the list above (offense, defense, support, intelligence), the breakdown might look close to:

Fighters offense 2/defense 2
Barbarians are offense 3 / defense 1
Paladins offense 2 / defense 2
Rangers are offense 3 / support 1
Druids are offense 2 / support 2
Bards are support 1 / intel 3
Rogues are offense 1 / intel 2 / support 1
Wizards are offense 2 / defense 2
Sorcerers are offense 3 / defense 1
Monks are offense 1 / defense 2 / support 1
Clerics, by contrast, now seem to be offense 1 / defense 2 / support 2 / intel 1, whereas in the past they were closer to defense 1 / support 2 / intel 1.

At least, that's a very rough look at how the classes seem to me to balance with one another in terms of various in-game roles.

 

[UltimaGabe]

Personally, I'll agree whole-heartedly that balance is important- after all, without balance, the game kinda goes in the dumpster- but not to the extent that 3e/3.5e has made it.

Above all, having fun is the main goal. I've never played the earlier editions, but from what I've heard, one of the main advantages was that you could customize almost anything to however you wanted it. In 3e and 3.5e, however, they've put plot and storyline and the underlying theme- that is, fun- on the back burner, enforcing balance over it all. Most people that play 3e, and most of the books and rules in 3e, seem like the entire goal of the game is to achieve the perfectly balanced, perfectly rolled game- where everyone rolls 10's and everybody's got equal stats. So many things that made the game fun, and so many things that were actually worth using in 3e- such as the original Haste, Improved Critical and Keen stacking, and all sorts of things were nerfed in 3.5 because they just "didn't seem balanced". And yet, half of the people that play 3.5 still use these rules, because they're simply more fun than the new rules.

Basically, balance IS important, but 3e and 3.5 put WAY too much emphasis on it.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Obviously combat effectiveness is what D&D balance should be measured against. D&D is structured to be a combat game. Deny it all you like but the entire XP system is structured to grant the greatest reward for going out and killing monsters. There are roleplaying rewards mentioned in the DM's guide but players always get more for combat. Most of the spells in the PHB are for use in combat. A lot of the replies have referred to overall balance but in D&D there is no such thing since combat plays such a large roll in character progression.

Once again for all of those people waiting in the wings to begin their flame attacks these are simply my opinions gathered after playing D&D and other assorted RPG's for over 20 years. God I'm getting tired of putting disclaimers in here.

 

[Umbran]

If your concept is outshined in a particular area, then don't complain about balance.

The issue isn't whether a character is outshined in a particular area. The issue is if they are outshined overall.

The only useful definition of "balance" in the game that I've seen is thus: two things are balanced if, as a choice for PCs, they both lead to the character being equally effective and useful in the long haul, over the course of a varied campaign.

So, yes, one can have a weak melee combatant balanced against a strong one, so long as the weak one has other areas in which to shine.

And while it is true that, "All the skills, feats, powers in the world will not really balance a PC's usefulness if the player behind it is a moron," that knife cuts both ways. Even a genius player cannot bring a character with no feats, skills, and powers up to snuff. So, you design your classes under the fairly reasonable assumption that your players are, by and large, all of roughly equivalent smarts.

 

[d4]

Deny it all you like but the entire XP system is structured to grant the greatest reward for going out and killing monsters. There are roleplaying rewards mentioned in the DM's guide but players always get more for combat.

no it doesn't. the XP system in D&D grants rewards for overcoming challenges. there's nothing in the books that says that killing monsters is the only way to earn XP, or the way to earn the most XP.