Balance: How important in your game?

[KB9JMQ]

The only balance I care about is PC to PC. As long as PC A does not make PC B feel uselss, I'm fine with it.

I agree with this but I also add as long as I am not killing pc's so fast the players are bored and they are not mowing thru creatures so fast that I am bored and we are all having fun then its ok.

 

[Starglim]

I voted Moderately Unimportant. I exercise firm control of what optional rules come into the game to uphold the integrity of the setting, rather than for balance reasons.

Any character is only as powerful as the amount of time that the GM provides for him to do the things that the character is optimised for.

 

[Ds Da Man]

Only slightly important, you know, no bringing in 12th level PCs while the party is 6th level!

If your a halfway decent DM, you can adjust for anything. If too powerful PC, and other players getting bored/mad, kill too powerful PC!

 

[MonsterMash]

PC-PC balance is important - all PCs need to be able to contribute meaningfully. PC vs world balance matters in that the GM needs to be able to design encounters that are challenging but probably won't kill anyone if the players play competently. If the line between cakewalk & TPK is razor-thin, that's a sign of an unbalanced game IMO.

Actually the last geme session we had was a good example of PC balance - all party members contributed whether with spell casting, skill use or by being able to melee effectively and probably both main combat encounters could have swung between the success we achieved or near total failure, but were not a cakewalk despite some good die rolling by the two spellcasters.

 

[S'mon]

Actually the last geme session we had was a good example of PC balance - all party members contributed whether with spell casting, skill use or by being able to melee effectively and probably both main combat encounters could have swung between the success we achieved or near total failure, but were not a cakewalk despite some good die rolling by the two spellcasters.

Yup - it felt to me that there was a good chance of you being wiped out, especially by the orcs (they came to about EL 6 vs your 2nd level party, with NPC support you were effectively about a 4th level party equivalent) but everything seemed to work very well and there was a satisfying battle with one PC dropped but no PC -10'd*.

*I use Fate Points from Conan to let PCs be 'left for dead' - this lets me run a nice hard campaign (Lost City of Barakus) without MonsterMash having to generate a new PC every other session.

 

[Pinotage]

Not really an option I would go for on the poll. I think balance is very important in my games, but, story if more important. I'd allow a player to do something fun if storywise it makes sense and it is at least loosely supported by the rules or a set of rules. Call them one-offs if you like. I'm different when it comes to spells and feats, though. If it even looks remotely unbalancing, I won't allow it.

I like sticking to core for the players, then use monsters and encounters to 'playtest' new rules in-game before allowing players to take them as well.

Pinotage

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I voted that it was very important. I have had many a 2nd edition game ruined by lack of balance. The issue is with expectations. When, as a DM I can not longer assume certain things about the powerlevel of the group, the game falls apart.

The best example was a game in 2nd Edition where a player extremely powergamed his character. He used the Skills and Powers rules to make up the best combat monster he could, and I said it was fine because he had to take a lot of disadvantages to get those powers, so the game was still "balanced". Or so I thought at the time.

I figured that if his character had to be pig headed, arrogant, beligerent, and a jerk to make up for his fighting ability that he'd be dead in no time. I started the game at low level and had a high level fighter bump into his character to prove a point, knowing that if he played his character flaws correctly, he'd start a fight, and would die to the obviously overwhelming power of the fighter. But, I play by the rules. The player won.

So, I had the city watch after him for killing someone in the middle of the street. I figured all the guards were around 3rd level and I believe he was 1st. So, I had him surrounded with 5 guards and a level 5 captain. The player then proceeded to kill all of them, singlehandedly. Then the player asked for his xp for killing them all. figuring he could get to 2nd or 3rd level by this point. I told him that the town would send larger and larger forces against him. He didn't care, he was confident he could beat them, especially after the power increase he got from picking up the items off the corpses of the people he already killed. He pointed out that everyone I sent against him that didn't actually kill him would only increase his wealth, experience, and give him whichever magic items they decided to try to use against him.

I decided to end the game at that point, conceding to his point: Trading a role playing disadvantage for a combat advantage isn't balance. This is why I will no longer sacrifice balance for story reasons.

This process has been repeated with 5 players feeling useless in another game because one player was too good and they felt there wasn't even a point in them showing up to the table. To me, the ability to have a fun combat without any player feeling left out or the combat being mostly pointless because the result is inevitable. That's why I leave most low CR encounters out of my high level games, even if it makes sense story wise because it isn't fun for the players or DM to run an encounter they don't care about.

 

[Pbartender]

Oh, I like my games mostly balanced... but wobbly, if you catch my meaning.

A perfectly balanced game eventually becomes exceedingly dull.

Not all characters are equally powerful, but all have areas of strength and weakness. Not all encounters are moderately challenging, some are milque runs, and others are death traps. I make certain my players know this going into the game, they copious hints as to the power level of a threat in game, and the rest is up to them. In my games, sometimes discretion IS the better part of valor.

 

[Flyspeck23]

Balance is very important, because that means less work for me as the GM:

- No PC will feel useless, no PC will constantly steal the spotlight from the others. If the rules aren't balanced, it means much more work for the GM to prevent that from happening. (Granted, even in a balanced system the GM must still be cautious, but less so.)

- Choosing challenges for the party is easier.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I'll allow many new rules with only my guess as to how they work in-game. I'll let the players customize a lot. If a rule doesn't work I'll change it. But as far as I'm concerned, "balanced" means that everyone is (reltively) happy.