Balance Meter - allowing flavorful imbalance in a balanced game

[TwinBahamut]

True, but I wouldnt have posted if the statement wasnt consistant with my observation of 4e. Yes, There were SO many classes, but the balance obsession made them all same same (took 2 years of playing to realise that)

I stand by my post.

The problem with that logic is that it equates 4E's idea of enforcing balance with the idea of balance itself. Basically, I think it is possible to have balance without 4E's rather heavy-handed implementation of balance.

Put another way... 4E was designed so that it would be very easy to make the game balanced, which is a step beyond just making it balanced. That step is the one that is particularly confining, not the step to make the game balanced.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I examine the characters, find as many mistakes as I can and show them how to fix them. They rebuild their character. I miss a bunch of mistakes because the system is complicated enough that unless you have a LOT of experience with it(which I don't), you miss stuff.

Heh. Hero does get rapidly better with some experience, and is more balanced than I think you've portrayed here--if you set the tolerances reasonably tight, which most Hero campaign books advise you to do. (I haven't bought the 6E campaign books, and can't speak for those.) It also doesn't hurt to ban all of the risky powers until you get a better grip on the system. At the lower end, Speed imbalance will kill the game more than anything else.

And with all that, Hero is far more balanced in this regard than a modular D&D will ever be. That's because once you've correctly balanced "energy blast" to "force field" at all the possible power levels, it's balanced--whether the blast is fire or lightning or whatever. You might run into some trouble with "armor piercing" or the like, but after 6 versions, Hero pretty much has those down too. (If anything, some of the troublesome ones will come out too weak in certain configurations.) In contrast, D&D is having to balance a bunch of discrete elements, the combinations of which are too large for me to readily calculate.

 

[BobTheNob]

Especially because I don't know when I start an adventure what the percentages will be. I'm just going to run an adventure. I'd like the characters to be able to handle all situations I throw at them.

Now thats a nice closing statement. I want players to be able to dictate their solutions without the answer being "draw my sword" every time.

Another system I like is FATE. Its so far removed from D&D its hard to compare, but it tries to do something very unique. In encourages "organic" story growth. You just sort of put together a frame work (location, NPC's, whats going on) and once thats done let the players move there characters (which are fairly free form to put together) through the story they create.

The reason I bring that up is that you can play through as total non combatants, because the players dictate the solutions. Even using the word "balance" is utterly pointless in this context as combat is but one option.

I know its not D&D, but looking at other systems is a great way to get a feel for game dynamics.

The more D&D is combat boardgame, the more we have to balance it. The more we have to balance it, the more choice becomes and illusion. Looking at our epic group that had been playing for so long, the more I realised that to be true.

Im posting to this thread alot because I think there is something in it that scares me. Focusing on balance just comes across to me as a deceptive primary objective for 5e. Like there is a point to which you worry about it, but its a hell of a lot less than we have come to accept...

 

[hanez]

It is....They are a spectrum. You need to find a point on the spectrum that fits the best. Allowing too much choice will destroy balance. Too much balance will give you no choices at all. The problem is, most people don't see this and are advocating absolute freedom of choice. Which is absolute lack of balance.

The Hero/Champions system is excellent. ....

Where does allowing players to make classes that have been in D&D since pretty much its inception fit into this spectrum you speak of? D&D has been a pretty successful game as far as I can tell, and even the great unbalanced 3e had and has a huge following, I wont even mention the last edtion. You mention freedom of choice, but I don't see how this fits with people who dont want the illusionist school or the rogue/bard ditched or redefined to a class that they just AREN'T in D&D.

I'm all for limited choices, in fact I remember someone saying I was against choice a few posts ago but now the tables have swung. I would advocate choices that emphasize mostly combat expertise, but also choices that emphasize social interaction expertise and exploring expertise. Since they are all game aspects in Dungeons and Dragons it would make sense that players should have the ability to choose what area they want to specialize in.

While your proposal that they all be equally effective in each area may be more balanced, it will have the effect of banishing my gnome illusionist from the system. I suggest this proposal will be less true to D&Ds brand, while also being less fun. (I wont make predictions on whether it will be profitable, maybe a more combat centred, less roleplaying centred game would catch on, on the second try of course)

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Heh. Hero does get rapidly better with some experience, and is more balanced than I think you've portrayed here--if you set the tolerances reasonably tight, which most Hero campaign books advise you to do. (I haven't bought the 6E campaign books, and can't speak for those.) It also doesn't hurt to ban all of the risky powers until you get a better grip on the system. At the lower end, Speed imbalance will kill the game more than anything else.

It's not just the risky powers that are the problem, however. If you use some of the premade villains from the books because you don't have the time or inclination to spend all your time designing villains....well, now you have to figure out what the baseline is. Do all of them average 10d6 energy blasts or 6d6? Are their defenses 10, 20, 30, or 40? If an enemy has a 50 in a defense...is that unfair to the PCs who mostly have 10d6 EB? It's very difficult to tell.

And there's no real way to tell how powerful an enemy will be in combat simply based on point values. Sometimes their powers are even deceptively powerful. Someone with a 2d6 autofire, double AP, double penetrating attack and a speed of 8 doesn't SEEM that powerful compared to the guy with the 15d6 energy blast...but you soon see otherwise.

The balance doesn't come from the point system, it comes externally from the GM. The system itself doesn't create the balance. The DM instead sits down and says "We're going to make characters based around a 10d6 energy blast standard. 35 damage will be the average damage rolled, so 30 should be the average defense. You shouldn't take more than 45 in any defense, because that will make the average attack completely ineffective against you. You also shouldn't go lower than 20 in your defenses, because otherwise the average attack will stun you."

Which has the side effect of removing choice from all the characters. Which is my point. To balance something, you need to remove choice. It becomes either the DM's responsibility or the system's. I'd prefer it be the system's so that there is less work for me.

And with all that, Hero is far more balanced in this regard than a modular D&D will ever be. That's because once you've correctly balanced "energy blast" to "force field" at all the possible power levels, it's balanced--whether the blast is fire or lightning or whatever.

You can balance D&D the same way, however. You look at AC vs attack and HP vs damage. You balance these two things and the game is balanced the same way that Hero is.

You break that balance if you start providing too many options, however. Allow people to take a -1 to their AC for a +4 to diplomacy and it's perfectly fine. Allow people to take a -1 to their AC as many times as they want and each time it gives them a +4 bonus to a skill and allow them to permanently lose 5 hitpoints in exchange for a cool non-combat power....and you'll end up with characters who get hit 100% of the time and die when they get hit.

Characters already end up like this in Hero due to too many options.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Now thats a nice closing statement. I want players to be able to dictate their solutions without the answer being "draw my sword" every time.

That's true. On the flip side, however, I want the option SOMETIMES to be "draw my sword" and when that IS the option, I want everyone in the group to be good at it and for it to be something other than running through the motions. There should be risk involved for the PCs but controlled risk. To be able to do that, you need balance.

The more D&D is combat boardgame, the more we have to balance it. The more we have to balance it, the more choice becomes and illusion. Looking at our epic group that had been playing for so long, the more I realised that to be true.

The reverse is also true, however. The less balance there is, the worse it is at being a combat boardgame. And not just a combat boardgame, but a combat GAME in general.

After all, if choice becomes more important than balance, then it doesn't matter if you take that feat that gives you +1 to hit with your sword. That choice is invalidated by someone choosing to carry around a blowdart filled with magic poison that causes instant death to anyone hit by it. Or worse yet, it might just be invalidated by someone saying "I sweep the leg, then I jump on top of him and choke him until he dies". If you DM likes the idea, it might succeed automatically...making your choice of feat useless.

Also, choice is an illusion ALWAYS, whether there's balance or not. The game always involves a DM and they get to make whatever decisions they want based on any criteria they want. I've played many systems, but they've all come down to "DM Fiat" at some point in the resolution chain. The more freeform, the more the game relies on DM Fiat. Then how valuable your choices are come down to how much the DM likes them. You play the DM instead of playing the game. Your DM likes cars? Find a car related solution to a problem and I bet it succeeds more often.

Like there is a point to which you worry about it, but its a hell of a lot less than we have come to accept...

I've always worried about balance. At first, I didn't realize what balance WAS but I still worried about it. From the first time when I was 15(back in 2e) and my players trounced the group of enemies I had attack them without taking a single point of damage, I wondered "Hmm, that sucks, shouldn't monsters be able to do SOMETHING to the PCs?"

It wasn't until later that people gave a name to it(sometimes around the time 3e was coming out) that I began to think "Wouldn't it be good if the numbers were close to the same on both sides so that one group didn't have a clear advantage?"

 

[BobTheNob]

The problem with that logic is that it equates 4E's idea of enforcing balance with the idea of balance itself. Basically, I think it is possible to have balance without 4E's rather heavy-handed implementation of balance.

Put another way... 4E was designed so that it would be very easy to make the game balanced, which is a step beyond just making it balanced. That step is the one that is particularly confining, not the step to make the game balanced.

It does. I guess I pointed out the 4e example as it pushed balance very hard. You can step back from this and create something not quite so focused and walks that line a bit more finely between character differentiation and balance.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The more D&D is combat boardgame, the more we have to balance it. The more we have to balance it, the more choice becomes and illusion. Looking at our epic group that had been playing for so long, the more I realised that to be true.

Im posting to this thread alot because I think there is something in it that scares me. Focusing on balance just comes across to me as a deceptive primary objective for 5e. Like there is a point to which you worry about it, but its a hell of a lot less than we have come to accept...

The more you equate balancing combat with being a "boardgame", the harder it will get to see the key distinctions that matter here.

Besides, who said anything about it being a primary objective? Something that is foundationally important to large swaths of the enterprise, but irrelevant to other parts, are not necessarily primary objectives. I think we all agree that the English edition of 5E needs to be written in English--preferably well. There is a certain minimally acceptable level there, and then after a fairly wide range of increasing excellence, a point at which it is merely wasting time better spent elsewhere. But no one thinks that the editors and proof-readers are setting the primary objectives.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

You mention freedom of choice, but I don't see how this fits with people who dont want the illusionist school or the rogue/bard ditched or redefined to a class that they just AREN'T in D&D.

That's exactly my point. Allowing some of those things in the game imbalances it...so you either have 2 choices: Imbalance the system on purpose to make people happy because they get to play their favorite class exactly how they want to OR restrict that choice and keep the game balanced.

And since this is a group based game, allowing that choice might make the game fun for the person playing the class that is overpowered...but how does the rest of the group feel about it? Does the DM get frustrated because things don't go anywhere near the way he planned and end up in a not-fun way for him? Do the other players feel overshadowed because their awesome combat abilities never get used since the Illusionist bypasses all the encounters? Or does the Rogue get annoyed that his ability to open locks is completely useless since another party member bought a magic item that opens all locks?

And is all of that worth it in order to give choice to the one person who IS having fun?

Since they are all game aspects in Dungeons and Dragons it would make sense that players should have the ability to choose what area they want to specialize in.

And I agree...to a point. "Specializing" in an area should make you maybe 100% better than someone who didn't specialize in it. The problem is, most people don't want characters to be that close. They call it "bland" and "everyone is the same". They want their Bard to wave his hand in front of every NPC and have them obey their every wish while the Fighter can only stare at NPCs until they walk away awkwardly.

When proper specialization should say "If the fighter has a 40% chance to succeed at convincing someone to do something, the Bard should have a spell that has an 80% chance of doing whatever the Fighter could convince them to do. The problem is, most of the situations turn out to be more like "The Bard has a 100% chance to make NPCs do things that the Fighter has a 0% chance of succeeding in."

It often isn't a matter of choosing to "specialize" in something. It's a matter of choosing whether you want the ability to do it at ALL.

While your proposal that they all be equally effective in each area may be more balanced, it will have the effect of banishing my gnome illusionist from the system.

It might be worth it if it makes the game more fun for the other 5 people sitting around the table. And what if it just made your gnome illusionist better? What if you got to keep all the abilities you used to have but now also get a bunch of cool combat abilities you didn't used to have?

I suggest this proposal will be less true to D&Ds brand, while also being less fun. (I wont make predictions on whether it will be profitable, maybe a more combat centred, less roleplaying centred game would catch on, on the second try of course)

Any mythic "focus on roleplaying" was entirely the focus of your OWN group and not the game system itself. I played a combination 1e/2e game for many years. Trust me, the idea that someone would play an illusionist was kind of silly in most of our games. They were underpowered(and often close to useless) in combat and exploration and since 80-90% of the game was combat and exploring dungeon passages...Well, we questioned why they were even in the game. After all, the game was about combat, being able to fool someone with an illusion might get an enemy to move away from a door or something, but you'd just have to fight them somewhere else.

 

[hanez]

Besides, who said anything about it being a primary objective? Something that is foundationally important to large swaths of the enterprise, but irrelevant to other parts, are not necessarily primary objectives. I think we all agree that the English edition of 5E needs to be written in English--preferably well. There is a certain minimally acceptable level there, and then after a fairly wide range of increasing excellence, a point at which it is merely wasting time better spent elsewhere. But no one thinks that the editors and proof-readers are setting the primary objectives.

I think his use of the word primary objective is fair. After all its a reaction to the last edition which can had balance as a primary objective at the expense of other large swaths of the enterprise. Not sure if you see this as arguable, but Im sure I could make a pretty big list of things that were absent or signifigantly changed in 4e in exchange for balance.