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

[S'mon]

Of those who complain about the relative power of characters, have you considered dropping feats and multiclassing? Of those who have dropped feats and multiclassing, is there as much concern about power imblanaces? Lastly, of all the complaints about “bags of hit points” creatures “easily defeated,” is this as much of a concern with no optional rules?

My 5e online game runs without feats/multiclassing (highest PC reached 17th), my offline 5e game runs with both (highest PC is 11th). I can't say I've seen much of an issue with either. I guess when I've been a player my Barbarian felt stronger than the Fighter and in another game my Fighter felt weaker than the Barbarian. But casters seem well balanced vs non casters and issues are really minor compared to 3e; of all D&D editions only 4e is more balanced. My Barbarian-5 with Polearm Master & Greatweapon Fighter is more powerful
than a Barb-5 without feats (but higher stats), but not in any way that affects enjoyment unless
maybe the two were played side by side.

 

[Tony Vargas]

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.

I think niche protection in the classic game 'worked,' as you say when done 'right' - as niche-protection, because that's what we labeled it. That is, it fostered the attitude that you 'needed a cleric' and meant the cleric was constantly casting Cure..Wounds and that the DM put in lots more monsters when they were undead, quite successfully. That didn't balance the cleric (the intent) nor make it fun to play (hopefully also intended), but it made it 'niche protected.'
And then, there was the Thief ...

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

Not to mention they were bad at their niche until said niche had long since stopped mattering because of said spells &c.

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.

Apparently there's enough.

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.

Sure, and it's inevitable that'll happen, whether it happens more or less 'fairly' around the table is something the system can help with balance, and the DM can impose fiat. Niche protection just makes it stereotypical - the Rogue always takes the stage when the party needs to see how a trap works. (Wow that was awesome! Yeah, was it from Grimtooth? There goes another charge from my Staff of Resurrection.)

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

Tolerable. But any involvement helps. Not just in keeping everyone happy, but it making the time on the stage count, because everyone else isn't off playing Nintendo (yeah, I'm old) in the next room...

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).

Not so much. ;(

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.

Nod. Our group 'fixed' Polymorph in those two campaigns by the odd expedient of a) never having a Wizard and b) the Sorcerer in each case never learning Polymorph.

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...?

Chicken and egg, I guess. Do campaigns break up before getting to high level because the game goes all wobbly, or does the game go all wobbly because designers don't bother to balance the bits that most folks never get around to using? Sounds like they could feed back on eachother, anyway.

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

Tony "glad one of the jokes didn't bomb" Vargas

 

[Lanefan]

I think niche protection in the classic game 'worked,' as you say when done 'right' - as niche-protection, because that's what we labeled it. That is, it fostered the attitude that you 'needed a cleric' and meant the cleric was constantly casting Cure..Wounds and that the DM put in lots more monsters when they were undead, quite successfully. That didn't balance the cleric (the intent) nor make it fun to play (hopefully also intended), but it made it 'niche protected.'

The thing with the Cleric is - and I'm not sure all that many people ever really got this - that their niche along with healing is information gathering through their various divination spells. The role of Cleric is mostly that of support...which can be approached in one of several ways:

Boredom: "oh, sigh, all I get to do is support these guys while they have all the splashy fun" (this one became an unfortunate stereotype)
Zealot: "if you want a cure you'll have to swear allegiance to my deity" (player already has dice in hand ready to roll up her next character)
Showman: "I'm going to be the most memorable and entertaining - and useful - Cleric you've ever seen!" (my preferred modus operandi)

And then, there was the Thief ...

Not to mention they were bad at their niche until said niche had long since stopped mattering because of said spells &c.

True, but relatively easily fixed by tweaking the thieving-skills tables to increase success chances at low levels and slowing down the increments so the high-level chances stayed about what they were. But yes, the Thief has always been kind of an oddball (and for the sake of sanity let's ignore Bards and Monks, shall we?)

Re: stage time short-term

Sure, and it's inevitable that'll happen, whether it happens more or less 'fairly' around the table is something the system can help with balance, and the DM can impose fiat. Niche protection just makes it stereotypical - the Rogue always takes the stage when the party needs to see how a trap works. (Wow that was awesome! Yeah, was it from Grimtooth? There goes another charge from my Staff of Resurrection.)

Tolerable. But any involvement helps. Not just in keeping everyone happy, but it making the time on the stage count, because everyone else isn't off playing Nintendo (yeah, I'm old) in the next room...

Don't have much confidence in your rogues, do you? But if what's going on is entertaining enough (and the party can see it e.g. being in the room while the 'face' does the talking) then in theory the entertainment value will beat that promised by the Nintendo...right?

Not so much. ;(

I tend to look at the long term as well as the short; and I try to make it clear to anyone looking to play one of the on-again-off-again classes (Druid and Illusionist are two such) that there'll be times when they'll be most likely in the background and other times when they'll be front-and-centre.

Nod. Our group 'fixed' Polymorph in those two campaigns by the odd expedient of a) never having a Wizard and b) the Sorcerer in each case never learning Polymorph.

My 3e wizard had it; the most memorable time (and one of only a very few times) she used it was when she'd run afoul of a curse that turned her into a twisted wreck of a Part-Elf - she cast Polymorph on herself to turn herself back into herself!

Lan-"poly self on self to self - you just should never have to do this!"-efan

 

[Tony Vargas]

The thing with the Cleric is - and I'm not sure all that many people ever really got this - that their niche along with healing is information gathering through their various divination spells. The role of Cleric is mostly that of support...

Nod, but it's protected niche was healing, so people didn't always get that the cleric was there to do more. See? Downside of niche protection.

Don't have much confidence in your rogues, do you?

To paraphrase Wesley as the Man in Black: "I've known too many 1st-edition Thieves."

I tend to look at the long term as well as the short

I prefer it work either way - for both long campaigns and one-offs...
...and, for that matter, long campaigns with some PC turnover.

My 3e wizard had it; the most memorable time (and one of only a very few times) she used it was when she'd run afoul of a curse that turned her into a twisted wreck of a Part-Elf - she cast Polymorph on herself to turn herself back into herself!

Lan-"poly self on self to self - you just should never have to do this!"-efan

So, in 1e if you were a shapechanger, and you failed a save v polymorph, you just changed back next round. It mostly protected the many monsters that shapechanged, including lycanthropes, IIRC, but 7+ level druids also counted as 'shapechangers,' one of the many little known things they had going for them.

(The only thing worse than successful niche protection like the band-aid cleric got was mistaken niche protection - "A Druid? nah, they're only good in the woods - play something else!")

 

[pemerton]

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.

If my character finds a magic weapon or tames a magic steed, won't those things by on my PC sheet?

The game does not and should not have every eventuality built into the system.

Does not? Perhaps. Should not? Why not - other games with short rulebooks have managed that.

The DMs purpose is to guide a story

That's not true across all D&D tables. A rough generalisation would be something like "The less it is true, ie the more it is the players who drive events at the table, then the more inter-PC balance matters".

 

[Manbearcat]

4e introduced inherent bonuses in place of magical attack bonuses. 4e came the closest to having martial be comparable in the other pillars though it did it by reducing the magical effects available (and then bolstered them with more free form effects with DM fiat combined with page 42/skill challenge results) as much as by bolstering martial abilities (especially if you used a playstyle similar to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] or [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]).

If you're running the game in the way that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] or I might, then you won't have a set-up quite like the one [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] described in his early post in the thread: for instance, there wouldn't be a timeline that the PCs have to meet in order to succeed; rather, the sort of time-driven pressure/failure that Nagol describes would be an outcome of resolution (probably in a skill challenge). Likewise, the presence of handy water breathing potions in a surface lair would be more likely to be the outcome of a successful check or initial skill challenge, than something preset by the GM.

Quick contribution to the thread (that is, surprise to no one, in line with what Nagol and pemerton have written).

The 5e game I stand-in GM about every 6 weeks (or so) is for a couple of 16 year olds and their mid-40s dads. The regular GM has his own world with backstory and a standard hexcrawl map (1 mid-size hex = 6 miles and a zoom-in to 1:1 mile) with all kinds of adventuring sites. He sees 5e's Ability Check system exactly as I've expressed; the "natural language" interpretation of the Ability Check system is one governed by in-setting causal logic with the common man as the baseline and the DC descriptors (Hard, Nearly Impossible, et al) as one characters would use in-game rather than metagame cues for the players at the table. Therefore, DCs are objectively established and adjudication. Hexcrawl and poor man's process sim. That is how he runs it. Consequently, that is how I run it when I stand in for him (out of courtesy, continuity, and coherency). And I agree with him. This is what 5e has systemitized. You can drift it (and surely run into some dysfunction that will require further hacking), but that is what the game supports.

Success at a Cost (failure by 2) is used but neither Degrees of Failure nor Crit Success/Failure are used. Random Encounter tables are rolled at intervals of 1 hour to 10 minutes depending on the locale. Social Interaction conflict resolution mechanics are used. The Chase conflict resolution mechanics are not used.

Game is 17ish level. I've probably run...a session-ish at each level. The two teenagers play the spellcasters; Land Druid and Enchanter Wizard. The two dads play Totem Barb (Land Druid's brother) and Archer Battlemaster Fighter. There have been a few guest appearances, but that is the main group.

My observations regarding some of the things I've skimmed in this thread:

1) Skilled Hirelings became outmoded long ago.

2) Background Traits have been deployed more and more scantly as the game has progressed (to the point of being nearly outmoded).

3) The Ability Check system see most of its use with the Social Interaction conflict resolution mechanics (so Insight and Cha skills), Perception (generally, but also) vs Stealth contests, grapple contests, some Tracking, some lore/investigation, and to overcome some physical obstacles when the players don't want to spend spells to do so.

The players don't stunt (which would leverage the Ability Check system). I stunt with monsters pretty regularly, but that is about the extent of it a the sessions I've GMed.

As the two spellcasters have had their spell breadth and load-out proliferate, the Ability check system has become less and less relevant to proactive player moves to overcome obstacles in the Exploration and Social pillars or gain resources/assets. It is mostly cordoned off to reactive contests at this point.

Long story short, outside of the Barbarian's Commune With Nature Ritual (still gets deployed for fair utility...still a spell) and Beast Sense Ritual (...still a spell) + Druid Animal Friendship power play, the Druid and Wizard resolve pretty much all of the Exploration and Social conflicts. The Barbarian's Tracking and Stealthiness used to have much more utility for perilous journey travel stuff...but is now outmoded by spellcasting. The Fighter's Know Your Enemy contributed once to parley, Artisan Tool has never been relevant in conflict resolution, and the save rerolls have been brutally sparingly used against wilderness hazards/traps (maybe 2-3 times?...pretty much always used in combat...mostly against spells).

So I've been seing spellcasters being the lynchpin to the healthy majority of conflict resolution (especially noncombat - Exploration/Social). They are pretty much exclusively the obstacle-obviators, the scouts, the unfavorable scene-transitioners (combat or travel), the resource/asset-gainers, the intelligence-gatherers (save for the Barb's Commune With Nature ritual). And they still contribute mightily to the combat pillar with healing, buffing, debuffing/battlefield control, conjurations, and AoE damage.

I think (if you want a player-driven game...not GM-driven via application of force) parity wobbliness toward the end of the "Heroes of the Realm" Tier (half-way through the levels) and onward for mundane characters could be addressed with one or all of the following:

a) Go from hexcrawl (mechanics/scale) of granular map with rigid backstory to abstract/low resolution map with malleable ("No Myth") backstory that gets firmed up in play via action resolution.

b) Change the Ability Check paradigm from objective/grounded + task resolution to subjective/mythic + conflict resolution (Powered By the Apocalypse or 4e). Bare minimum, DC 30+ should be "a thing" (truly impossible feats) and Success With a Cost should be much more than fail by 2 (Probably 5).

c) Rein in spell load-out proliferation (and recovery) and/or breadth in the last 10 levels a fair bit. Dungeon World martial characters are easily more versatile and more potent than their 5e counterparts. Dungeon World primary spellcasters have much, much, much less proliferate spell-casting than their 5e counterparts. Meanwhile, the game is beautifully balanced!

d) Give martial characters non-spellcasting moves that provide legitimate author stance capability in the Exploration and Social Pillars in the last two tiers of play.

 

[Dualazi]

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.

Whether or not the game has the classes or options I/we want is sort of a tangential issue, since you can have a balanced or imbalanced game with only the four base classes. Additional options increase the chances of outliers cropping up, though.

I 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.

This is true when you encounter edge cases or specific rulings or contexts that require it, yes. The DM’s purpose is not to set up situations where one class can prove its usefulness because that’s its only means of doing so. Alternately, having to constantly hobble an overpowered character (whether they meant to be or not) doesn’t feel good for either party, either. I dealt with both of these recently when I tried to go back to Shadowrun, for instance, and in the end we dumped the campaign because even though the world and setting were really cool, running it was just too much of a pain.

I 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.

4e is probably as close of an offering as I’m going to get. Had they trimmed down combat length and expanded options in the other pillars I'd probably still be playing it now. I didn’t find that it reduced creativity at all, quite the opposite in fact, and the ease of encounter setup was a testament to its consistency.

It’s also not something I view in absolutes. I wouldn’t call 5e a balanced game, but it’s balanced *enough* and it brings so much to the table in other ways that I like it all the same. And that’s all I really ask, is for the game to be ‘close enough’ such that I’m not having to go out of my way to address game-warping issues.

I 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?

Not really, no. Ignoring an issue is not the same as there not being an issue, as I said elsewhere. Throughout the playtest and in polling since, balance has been a recurring concern for a not-insignificant number of players, and it can reasonably be assumed that this affects their enjoyment of the game. Nowhere would this be more prevalent, I think, than in environments like the Adventurer’s League. In pre-written adventures with relatively stringent requirements in regards to house-rules, classes that reliably underperform are going to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, no matter the outcome of the adventure. Doubly so if that outcome is a failure/wipe, when they (and the team) wonder if a better class choice would have saved them.

More philosophically, a well-balanced game helps bridge the gaps between tables in discussions just like this one, because it requires less work for each GM to overhaul the game to their specifications. It leads to a more common shared experience where you don’t have to list a plethora of changes when you talk to others in the hobby so you know where you stand.

Lastly (and I know I go on too much here, sorry) is that the ‘essence’ of D&D itself is somewhat debatable. Some people just want to kill green men and take their stuff. Some want a riveting story with memorable characters. Balance is important to me in these regards because it’s the closest we can really get to objectivity in PnP RPGs, which are inherently incredibly different on a table-to-table basis. I see balance as the foundation for other elements of the game, aiding the implementation of those intangibles I mentioned rather than hindering them.

 

[Lanefan]

Not really, no. Ignoring an issue is not the same as there not being an issue, as I said elsewhere. Throughout the playtest and in polling since, balance has been a recurring concern for a not-insignificant number of players, and it can reasonably be assumed that this affects their enjoyment of the game.

Which makes sense if only because much of their audience is coming from the 3e-4e era where balance was talked about so much that people started noticing it even if before they might not have; and maybe now the pendulum has swung such that balance is getting more attention than it deserves.

Nowhere would this be more prevalent, I think, than in environments like the Adventurer’s League. In pre-written adventures with relatively stringent requirements in regards to house-rules, classes that reliably underperform are going to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, no matter the outcome of the adventure. Doubly so if that outcome is a failure/wipe, when they (and the team) wonder if a better class choice would have saved them.

Which raises another important question: should they be designing to suit that environment or the home-game environment? That the two environments are different there is little doubt; the same was true back in 1e with the RPGA and it hasn't changed much since.

More philosophically, a well-balanced game helps bridge the gaps between tables in discussions just like this one, because it requires less work for each GM to overhaul the game to their specifications. It leads to a more common shared experience where you don’t have to list a plethora of changes when you talk to others in the hobby so you know where you stand.

Maybe.

I know that without too much effort (relatively speaking) I could kitbash 5e into something I'd run, I could probably even mangle 3e into something tolerable with quite a bit more effort, but I really don't think I could twist 4e into a game I'd want to run no matter how many hammers and saws and axes I took to it...and I'm a reasonably experienced "refiner" of systems. Yet 4e by all accounts is the most balanced of the lot.

Lastly (and I know I go on too much here, sorry) is that the ‘essence’ of D&D itself is somewhat debatable. Some people just want to kill green men and take their stuff. Some want a riveting story with memorable characters. Balance is important to me in these regards because it’s the closest we can really get to objectivity in PnP RPGs, which are inherently incredibly different on a table-to-table basis. I see balance as the foundation for other elements of the game, aiding the implementation of those intangibles I mentioned rather than hindering them.

Well put.

I'm not entirely sure I agree that balance is the foundation on which all else rests, or if it is that it needs must be exactly level. I guess an analogy might be the sea: from a distance it looks flat but get up close and there's some pretty big waves. The question for each of us is our waves-vs.-flat tolerance.

Lan-"red sails in the sunset"-efan

 

[Nagol]

Quick contribution to the thread (that is, surprise to no one, in line with what Nagol and pemerton have written).

The 5e game I stand-in GM about every 6 weeks (or so) is for a couple of 16 year olds and their mid-40s dads. The regular GM has his own world with backstory and a standard hexcrawl map (1 mid-size hex = 6 miles and a zoom-in to 1:1 mile) with all kinds of adventuring sites. He sees 5e's Ability Check system exactly as I've expressed; the "natural language" interpretation of the Ability Check system is one governed by in-setting causal logic with the common man as the baseline and the DC descriptors (Hard, Nearly Impossible, et al) as one characters would use in-game rather than metagame cues for the players at the table. Therefore, DCs are objectively established and adjudication. Hexcrawl and poor man's process sim. That is how he runs it. Consequently, that is how I run it when I stand in for him (out of courtesy, continuity, and coherency). And I agree with him. This is what 5e has systemitized. You can drift it (and surely run into some dysfunction that will require further hacking), but that is what the game supports.

Success at a Cost (failure by 2) is used but neither Degrees of Failure nor Crit Success/Failure are used. Random Encounter tables are rolled at intervals of 1 hour to 10 minutes depending on the locale. Social Interaction conflict resolution mechanics are used. The Chase conflict resolution mechanics are not used.

Game is 17ish level. I've probably run...a session-ish at each level. The two teenagers play the spellcasters; Land Druid and Enchanter Wizard. The two dads play Totem Barb (Land Druid's brother) and Archer Battlemaster Fighter. There have been a few guest appearances, but that is the main group.

My observations regarding some of the things I've skimmed in this thread:

1) Skilled Hirelings became outmoded long ago.

2) Background Traits have been deployed more and more scantly as the game has progressed (to the point of being nearly outmoded).

3) The Ability Check system see most of its use with the Social Interaction conflict resolution mechanics (so Insight and Cha skills), Perception (generally, but also) vs Stealth contests, grapple contests, some Tracking, some lore/investigation, and to overcome some physical obstacles when the players don't want to spend spells to do so.

The players don't stunt (which would leverage the Ability Check system). I stunt with monsters pretty regularly, but that is about the extent of it a the sessions I've GMed.

As the two spellcasters have had their spell breadth and load-out proliferate, the Ability check system has become less and less relevant to proactive player moves to overcome obstacles in the Exploration and Social pillars or gain resources/assets. It is mostly cordoned off to reactive contests at this point.

Long story short, outside of the Barbarian's Commune With Nature Ritual (still gets deployed for fair utility...still a spell) and Beast Sense Ritual (...still a spell) + Druid Animal Friendship power play, the Druid and Wizard resolve pretty much all of the Exploration and Social conflicts. The Barbarian's Tracking and Stealthiness used to have much more utility for perilous journey travel stuff...but is now outmoded by spellcasting. The Fighter's Know Your Enemy contributed once to parley, Artisan Tool has never been relevant in conflict resolution, and the save rerolls have been brutally sparingly used against wilderness hazards/traps (maybe 2-3 times?...pretty much always used in combat...mostly against spells).

So I've been seing spellcasters being the lynchpin to the healthy majority of conflict resolution (especially noncombat - Exploration/Social). They are pretty much exclusively the obstacle-obviators, the scouts, the unfavorable scene-transitioners (combat or travel), the resource/asset-gainers, the intelligence-gatherers (save for the Barb's Commune With Nature ritual). And they still contribute mightily to the combat pillar with healing, buffing, debuffing/battlefield control, conjurations, and AoE damage.

I think (if you want a player-driven game...not GM-driven via application of force) parity wobbliness toward the end of the "Heroes of the Realm" Tier (half-way through the levels) and onward for mundane characters could be addressed with one or all of the following:

a) Go from hexcrawl (mechanics/scale) of granular map with rigid backstory to abstract/low resolution map with malleable ("No Myth") backstory that gets firmed up in play via action resolution.

b) Change the Ability Check paradigm from objective/grounded + task resolution to subjective/mythic + conflict resolution (Powered By the Apocalypse or 4e). Bare minimum, DC 30+ should be "a thing" (truly impossible feats) and Success With a Cost should be much more than fail by 2 (Probably 5).

c) Rein in spell load-out proliferation (and recovery) and/or breadth in the last 10 levels a fair bit. Dungeon World martial characters are easily more versatile and more potent than their 5e counterparts. Dungeon World primary spellcasters have much, much, much less proliferate spell-casting than their 5e counterparts. Meanwhile, the game is beautifully balanced!

d) Give martial characters non-spellcasting moves that provide legitimate author stance capability in the Exploration and Social Pillars in the last two tiers of play.

We come at this from different ends.

(a) -- not a fan for D&D. There are better games for that and the play I'm seeking when I run/play D&D is more PCs attempting to wring success from the uncaring world which D&D has generally done reasonably well.
(b) -- mixed feelings about extending the ability check system. I agree DC 30 and 30+ should be a thing, but I still want to limit the expression to world-coherent literally-possible-if-unbelievable results. Additionally, as we've discussed before, the way the current edition is set up one of the primary beneficiaries of such extension is the Bard -- a full-caster class -- and the Fighter gets little aid to achieve such results.
(c) -- can work. 5e already takes steps in this direction with steep reductions in high-level slot availability compared to 1e-3.Xe. I'd prefer to see non-casters buffed before reducing casters though.
(d) -- is a start. This is what the games has evolved away from since 1e. Although it wasn't expressed well in 1e, I found part of the value of land-holding and followers was in giving the martial types many hands to accomplish many things and the henchman system in 1e went a long way to evening out player access to the spell system.

I'd add the following options (since they are the ones I use!):

(e) Provide strong rewards for in-game engagement through factional allegiances/favours earned that express differently for the different classes.
(f) Provide guidance to both the players and DM on how (and why) to grow breadth of capability as opposed to depth of specialization through rewards earned in play -- be that types of magical items kept, supernatural abilities gained, or mundane abilities such as low justice, landowning, titles, and leadership.
(g) Provide guidance to the DM regarding circumstantial effects on social endeavours from reputation, social position, and gossip.
(h) Provide guidance to the DM on how (and why) to include other gifted or leveled NPCs for the PCs to exploit as part of the setting. The discussion should touch on the pathological versions (DMPC, PCs as errand boys, PCs aren't needed) as well as discuss hirelings, cohorts, specialists-for-hire, allies, and rivals.
(i) Provide guidance to the DM and players wrt placing and leveraging environmental resources.

 

[Dualazi]

Which makes sense if only because much of their audience is coming from the 3e-4e era where balance was talked about so much that people started noticing it even if before they might not have; and maybe now the pendulum has swung such that balance is getting more attention than it deserves.

Eh. I think 3.5 and 4e were just accelerants on an already burning fire. I didn’t play much of 2e before 3e came out, so maybe you can correct me on this, but I was pretty certain that internet communities and resources for D&D at that point were pretty scarce, and most of the scene was driven by magazines, conventions, and local gaming groups. Even if there had been no edition change since then, the massively wider audience and communication would have highlighted cracks in 2e that many groups might have missed by happy accident or as a result of playstyle preferences. The rise of video games has also shifted focus onto balance, even in cooperative situations.

“Getting more attention than it deserves” may very well be the case, but the premise of the thread was asking if these problems were self-created, and as such I think the answer is no.

Which raises another important question: should they be designing to suit that environment or the home-game environment? That the two environments are different there is little doubt; the same was true back in 1e with the RPGA and it hasn't changed much since.

I think the popularity of 5e is because they answered this question correctly; design it stable enough for tourney play but freely encourage deviation on your own. This goes back to my comments about balance being the foundation. For example, the game is balanced around the assumption of no magic items, but the DMG freely states you can hand them out like candy if you want that kind of game. It warns you of course, but the fact that they built the game in this fashion is a large reason the choice flows so well. In 4e and 3.5, magic items were assumed, and even the inherent bonuses really didn’t do an amazing job of going backwards. While 4e was pretty balanced and 3.5 definitely was not, they were similarly rigid in this design. 5e succeeded in mostly keeping the balance aspect while creating greater freedom for people to have varying level of item prevalence.

I know that without too much effort (relatively speaking) I could kitbash 5e into something I'd run, I could probably even mangle 3e into something tolerable with quite a bit more effort, but I really don't think I could twist 4e into a game I'd want to run no matter how many hammers and saws and axes I took to it...and I'm a reasonably experienced "refiner" of systems. Yet 4e by all accounts is the most balanced of the lot.

4e was a weird beast, in that designing things for DMs, like items and monsters, was incredibly easy. Designing things for players, like powers, classes, and feats, was stupidly hard. I don’t know that this is an indictment of balance, though, just 4e’s method of achieving it.

I'm not entirely sure I agree that balance is the foundation on which all else rests, or if it is that it needs must be exactly level. I guess an analogy might be the sea: from a distance it looks flat but get up close and there's some pretty big waves. The question for each of us is our waves-vs.-flat tolerance.

Fair enough, though to continue the analogy my problem with the supposition of the thread is that some people might say “you can stay afloat regardless of if it’s calm or stormy” which is where the variation lies. To put it another way, saying things to the effect of “only the story/RP matters” comes dangerously close to one-true-wayism or an absolute statement, and those are usually untenable positions. We just have to decide as individuals, and to some degree as a community, how much is too much on either side.