D&D 5E Balance of Power Problems in 5e: Self created?

[sunrisekid]

I dropped multi-classing and permit limited feat access. Players understand (and cooperate) with my distaste for power-gaming and exploiting rules. Game is pretty balanced.

 

[Ahrimon]

I think you are making the point. DM needed to provide magic weapons & mounts for the warriors. Wizards just use a spell.

I guess that depends on your point of view. If the only way to feel special is to have the answer to every problem on your character sheet then low magic characters will always feel like 2nd class citizens. I prefer to be a part of the world. If there are magical things in the world they can be sought out to solve those problems.

I don't see that movie as the DM providing answers to a problem as much as I see the players thinking outside of the character sheet and finding solutions.

The answer to every adventure problem can't be "Just let the wizard fix it".

 

[Nagol]

You forget that DnD is an heroic game. The pc are the right heroes the world need.
with this mentality most heroic tales in book and movie would have failed.

1) D&D can be heroic game but it doesn't have to be any more than Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser or Croaker of the Black Company are heroes.

2) No, the PCs just become one of the many groups that couldn't stop X from happening. Most TV and movie heroes are the right people in the right place at the right time. It just turns out the PCs, if they fail, didn't manage to line up sufficient winning conditions.

3) Even heroes lose. What is important is what they do next.

 

[Nagol]

I guess that depends on your point of view. If the only way to feel special is to have the answer to every problem on your character sheet then low magic characters will always feel like 2nd class citizens. I prefer to be a part of the world. If there are magical things in the world they can be sought out to solve those problems.

I don't see that movie as the DM providing answers to a problem as much as I see the players thinking outside of the character sheet and finding solutions.

The answer to every adventure problem can't be "Just let the wizard fix it".

And that's great. Really. I just wish the rule set would provide some base guidance on what analogues to spell casting exist and how the DM can incorporate them and the effects differing types and availabilities have on campaign play.
Do I include such analogues? Absolutely. Have I been in campaigns that don't? Absolutely.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I think you are making the point. DM needed to provide magic weapons & mounts for the warriors. Wizards just use a spell.

There was a wizard in that party. DM still needed to provide the mounts etc because the wizard didn't know the Teleport spell.

DM's needing to either adjust the adventure to take party capability into account or tell them that they can't do it because they aren't playing the right characters goes beyond just "what classes are in the party".

 

[Tony Vargas]

You forget that DnD is an heroic game. The pc are the right heroes the world need.
with this mentality most heroic tales in book and movie would have failed.

D&D does mostly fail to emulate heroic tales in book & movie.

1) D&D can be heroic game but it doesn't have to be any more than Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser

Even anti-heroes are still heroes, and I question that those two are that far from the traditional heroic mold in what they accomplish and how they go about it. It's mainly the writing of their stories that was a departure from the classics of fantasy. Sex, violence, & moral ambiguity, not them being killed by kobolds at 1st level, distinguished Lieber's heroes from the more traditional kind.

2) No, the PCs just become one of the many groups that couldn't stop X from happening. Most TV and movie heroes are the right people in the right place at the right time. It just turns out the PCs, if they fail, didn't manage to line up sufficient winning conditions.

Right, not the heroes of their own story, but the dire warnings in the actual heroes' stories.

3) Even heroes lose. What is important is what they do next.

Decompose?

Meh...I find niche protection vital in that without it characters tend to end up able to more or less do everything...

Niche protection is not the only way to do that - and 'that' BTW, is balance - nor is it a good way to do it. It's just one of many mechanisms tossed out in the early game when no one really had any idea how to balance RPGs. It did not work at all well, and 5e has not forgotten all the lessons of those early failures in it's rush to evoke the fad feel of the early game. As I pointed out, niche protection is already quite dead in 5e.

at which point what do they need the party for?

I suppose that's what Clerics or Druids have asked themselves. That and "How can we work 'zilla' into this strained but obvious reference to 3.5 Tier-1 caster dominance?" ;P Though, with some token attempt at seriousness, the answer was rarely 'nothing,' nor even 'carrying our vast collection of wands/staffs/rods.' There are always 'warm body' uses to put even the most benighted PC to - especially in 5e where a warm body rolling a natural 20 can do just about anything an Expert rolling a 2 could.

...some interdependence within the (normally-well-rounded) party, which to me is a Good Thing.

'Synergy' is probably a nicer way of putting it than interdependence, but yes, it's nice if everyone doesn't just take turns contributing some of the time, but actually all participate most of the time. Not that turn based initiative exactly sets the stage for that... (whole 'nuther kettle of wyrms).

Or a DM vs. system problem; and I've hit the exact same wall a few times in the past. At some level or other every version of D&D starts to wobble, and eventually the wobbling gets unbearable; some - maybe a lot - of that wobbling is caused by aggregate party power.

Low level could be a bit wobbly, too, in a different way. D&D has generally had a sweet spot, and it's bounds were always debatable:

The classic game (yes, I'm lumping 3+ editions and two 'prongs' together), it started once even the weaker (but not appallingly unluck) PCs became a bit survivable and could contribute a bit more often, maybe as low as 3rd (ish, a single-class Thief for instance might easily be 4th or even 5th by the time the last PC was 3rd in at least one class) and trailed off as magic got out of control (as early as 5th or possibly even 4th level spells becoming available, certainly by 12th level or so).

3e beefed up low-level characters nicely, so was positively playable as early as 2nd or even, arguably 1st - but it also went south the moment Polymorph was on the table (nor only that). E6 neatly kept 3.5 in that sweet spot. Though, IMHO, with enough player restraint, 3.x could hold together into the low double-digits.

5e definitely has the old '1st level problem' (though, like all old problems, it's also a classic-feel feature), but it also has a clever expedient in that you're barely 1st level for any time at all, you can easily be 2nd by the end of the first session! That exp advancement continues through 3rd or 4th, taking you out of 'Apprentice Tier' and into the sweet spot. Advancement then slows until sometime in the early double-digits, so clearly whoever wrote those exp tables thought the sweet spot started around 4th and continued to at least 10th (and published adventures go as high as 15th, so there's an outer bound of what they might think is still reasonably playable). I feel like the sweet spot starts at 3rd, myself. I haven't explored the opposite limit, at all.

While whole-party viability is the culprit at 1st level, beyond that it's balance - both class balance and as ogre mage alluded to, encounter balance - that makes it increasingly difficult to keep the game from 'wobbling' as your party rises in level.

Back during our 3.X days, our group usually found that the "wobbling" started around Level 10. No 3.X or Pathfinder campaign I participated in lasted beyond Level 12

Sounds about right, the two longest (whole run, from 2000 to 2008) made it to 14th (though there was no actually play /at/ 14th in one of them) and we'd been feeling the cracks for a while, in spite of having a very nice non-powergamey group for the most part.

I didn't play enough of 4E to make a judgment.

I've run an informal campaign into Epic, and played at all levels - class balance holds up at all levels, encounter balance holds up if you use MM3 style monsters. But, the tone changes* and the bar for system mastery edges up going into Paragon and Epic (especially pre-Essentials eClasses mostly have more constrained choices, and clear default paths), so even in 4e, there's reason, if mainly of taste, to prefer Heroic Tier play.

In 5E the balance seems to have held a little longer. In the two instances a 5E campaign reached high level, it started to lose balance around Level 12.

Just about the time exp advancement has started to speed up again. Thanks for the supporting data point!











* actually it doesn't have to: you can go on playing Paragon and Epic Tier just like you did Heroic Tier, it's just more and more likely to get boring.

 

[Hathorym]

If you want to come off as moderate, probably shouldn’t refer to someone else’s points as “screed”.

Furthermore, the people who don’t care about balance shouldn’t care about people who do work for it, since they can evidently have fun either way, it’s a non-issue to you and yours regardless of how others react to it.

Much of the reason there is frustration with this is because of people spouting your mantra of “just have fun” without realizing that it’s not something people are able to control on a whim, and that their complaints may be entirely legitimate. There were many complaints of caster supremacy back in the 3.5 days and “just don’t think about it” is as useless and insulting now as it was then.

Lastly, yeah, actually, it is a team game. (and a contact one too, at least for the characters). So seeing your character have no point or no value to the team certainly does affect people’s enjoyment therein.

Is there anything this extreme in 5e? Thankfully no, at least in my experience, but having heard many of these “just don’t care” or “the DM can fix it” claims in the past, I find them an unsuitable defense for bad game design.

I guess the point is that I don't recognize the bad game design. Does it have everything I would like in a game? No. Does it have things that I wish were not part of the game? Yes. But that doesn't mean it's bad game design, only that individuals have a great varying degree on their preferences in game design.

And you know, saying "the DM can fix it" is legitimate commentary. The game does not and should not have every eventuality built into the system. The DMs purpose is to guide a story and adjudicate issues using the rules as a guide. I guess my real question is, what game, in your opinion, is everything you want in balance? How could such a thing be possible without sucking the very creative spark the game is built upon? To me, perfect balance is for board games, not RPGs.

Here's the thing: we both play the same game but come at from vastly different angles. Doesn't that imply the balance is more in the eye of the beholder rather than an issue with the design of the game? How are we diametrically opposed in seemingly the very essence of D&D?

 

[Lanefan]

You forget that DnD is an heroic game. The pc are the right heroes the world need.

In your game this may be true, but it's certainly not true of all games. 'Round here, sometimes heroism is merely an unintended side effect of the real reason for adventuring: killing monsters because they have stuff, and taking that stuff.

with this mentality most heroic tales in book and movie would have failed.

Which is why they're books and movies rather than role-played games: a book or movie (usually) only has one storyteller who can fashion the tale any way s/he likes. RPGs have these annoying things called players, contact with whom no story has a chance of surviving.

Lan-"assuming, of course, the campaign has a story at all; as opposed to a true sandbox"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

There was a wizard in that party. DM still needed to provide the mounts etc because the wizard didn't know the Teleport spell.

Besides, even if the wizard did have teleport the 'cool' factor of flying mounts just wins everything!

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Niche protection is not the only way to do that - and 'that' BTW, is balance - nor is it a good way to do it. It's just one of many mechanisms tossed out in the early game when no one really had any idea how to balance RPGs. It did not work at all well,

I disagree, to at least some extent. I think in some ways it did work well, and in others - the parts that weren't done right - it failed. The MUs depended on the Fighters to keep them upright, the Fighters depended on the Clerics to keep *them* upright, the Clerics depended on both the Fighters and MUs to do the heavy work, and the whole lot depended on the Thieves* to get them past the traps and hazards in order to even get to the battleground.

* - niche protection for Thieves in 1e is very poor; the right combination of Cleric and MU spells could mostly substitute.

Though, with some token attempt at seriousness, the answer was rarely 'nothing,' nor even 'carrying our vast collection of wands/staffs/rods.' There are always 'warm body' uses to put even the most benighted PC to - especially in 5e where a warm body rolling a natural 20 can do just about anything an Expert rolling a 2 could.

Yeah, strength in numbers and all that; but there's not many players out there who would be content with playing the 'warm body' character long term. So...

'Synergy' is probably a nicer way of putting it than interdependence, but yes, it's nice if everyone doesn't just take turns contributing some of the time, but actually all participate most of the time.

Where I don't mind situations where one player or character takes the stage and just does their thing for a while...as long as it's entertaining. And this can be both on the short-term (the party 'face' does the negotiating while the rest of us [try to] shut up) and the long-term (the Illusionist is nigh-useless against all the undead in this adventure but will be the party MVC against all the ogres we're up against next trip out).

Low level could be a bit wobbly, too, in a different way.

True that, but it's invariably much more fun! Give me low-level wobbles over high-level ones any day!

D&D has generally had a sweet spot, and it's bounds were always debatable:

The classic game (yes, I'm lumping 3+ editions and two 'prongs' together), it started once even the weaker (but not appallingly unluck) PCs became a bit survivable and could contribute a bit more often, maybe as low as 3rd (ish, a single-class Thief for instance might easily be 4th or even 5th by the time the last PC was 3rd in at least one class) and trailed off as magic got out of control (as early as 5th or possibly even 4th level spells becoming available, certainly by 12th level or so).

3e beefed up low-level characters nicely, so was positively playable as early as 2nd or even, arguably 1st - but it also went south the moment Polymorph was on the table (nor only that). E6 neatly kept 3.5 in that sweet spot. Though, IMHO, with enough player restraint, 3.x could hold together into the low double-digits.

Completely agreed in principle. For me the sweet-spot numbers are about 3rd-9th in 1e and 3rd-12th in 3e. And it's pretty easy to fix Polymorph in 3e by just substituting the 1e versions with all their attendant risks and limitations.

5e definitely has the old '1st level problem' (though, like all old problems, it's also a classic-feel feature), but it also has a clever expedient in that you're barely 1st level for any time at all, you can easily be 2nd by the end of the first session!

On behalf of those of us who find 1st-level play to usually be a blast: yuck!

Good thing DMs can spin the dial on advancement speed.

That exp advancement continues through 3rd or 4th, taking you out of 'Apprentice Tier' and into the sweet spot. Advancement then slows until sometime in the early double-digits, so clearly whoever wrote those exp tables thought the sweet spot started around 4th and continued to at least 10th (and published adventures go as high as 15th, so there's an outer bound of what they might think is still reasonably playable).

Or, they're guessing the majority of campaigns (and thus, the majority of the market) just don't last long enough to get to those levels...?

Re: 3.xe

Sounds about right, the two longest (whole run, from 2000 to 2008) made it to 14th (though there was no actually play /at/ 14th in one of them) and we'd been feeling the cracks for a while, in spite of having a very nice non-powergamey group for the most part.

The 3e (later 3.5e after an on-tye-fly system change) game I was in was very much the same - the one quasi-powergamer had long since been made to see the light, so it was a reasonably mellow group - but at about 14th it wobbled right off the rails mostly (I think) because the DM was burning out trying to come up with new ways to reasonably challenge the party.

Same DM's got a PF game going now on the very-slow-advance track - 4 (or 5?) years in and they just got to 8th-ish level. So far all seems well.

I've run an informal campaign into Epic, and played at all levels - class balance holds up at all levels, encounter balance holds up if you use MM3 style monsters. But, the tone changes* and the bar for system mastery edges up going into Paragon and Epic (especially pre-Essentials eClasses mostly have more constrained choices, and clear default paths), so even in 4e, there's reason, if mainly of taste, to prefer Heroic Tier play.

Can't speak to 4e in play but going from my readings of various published adventures I can mostly understand where you're at here.

Lan-"brilliant comeback with the 'decomposing' line, by the way, which is why the 'laugh' on the post"-efan