Balancing act!

[tecnowraith]

One of my main concerns now form what we have seen so far is where is the balance for the game? Points of interests: No racial penalties, combat classes and no social classes like a Noble class Wizard seems to be the boom class not the utility class anymore. Not sure about the Bard class though. Also the paragon paths seems cool ( i like so far) but what is the balance for them so they not get to overpowered instead of adding to it.

 

[Hussar]

One of my main concerns now form what we have seen so far is where is the balance for the game? Points of interests: No racial penalities, combat classes or combat all the time and no social classes like a Noble class Wizard seems to be the boom class not the utility class anymore. Not sure about the Bard class though. Also the paragon class seems cool ( i like so far) but what is the balance for them so they not get to overpowered or over used?

I'm a bit confused about some of your terms, so I think there's a bit of misinformation in here.

1. "combat classes or combat all the time" - Firstly, there's no evidence of this. In your thread about the playtests, it was already addressed why you don't see a lot of social interaction in playtesting. Playtesting is for making sure mechanics work, not for actually sitting down and playing a normal game.

2. "no social classes like a Noble class" - There is no evidence of this whatsoever. We have no idea if there are no NPC classes or, if there are, what they will be.

3. "Wizard seems to be the boom class not the utility class anymore." - This is outright false. Wizards still have utility spells. We know they have invisibility and teleport. I'm fairly sure they will have others as well.

4. "Also the paragon class seems cool" - There is no "paragon" class. Paragon is simply the title for play between levels 11 and 20. (or is it 10-19?). However, all classes are "paragon classes". So, there are no balance issues.

 

[FireLance]

Depends on what aspect of balance you are looking for.

PC vs PC balance? Most likely, this will be achieved by giving every race and class abilities that are at about the same level of usefulness.

PC vs Challenge balance? I expect this is where the underlying math and the bulk of the playtesting comes in. The underlying math will be used to work out what the approximate statistics of level appropriate challenges should be, and the playtesting will confirm how often the math plays out.

Balance compared to your own ideas of what characters of level X should be able to do? Well, that is entirely a matter of personal taste, and that is best addressed by actually playing the game and discovering where your "sweet spot" lies in the new range of levels.

 

[med stud]

One of my main concerns now form what we have seen so far is where is the balance for the game? Points of interests: No racial penalties, combat classes and no social classes like a Noble class Wizard seems to be the boom class not the utility class anymore. Not sure about the Bard class though. Also the paragon paths seems cool ( i like so far) but what is the balance for them so they not get to overpowered instead of adding to it.

I: No racial penalties. This doesn't mean anything by itself. The game will be balanced within the boundaries of itself and therefore the absence of racial penalties won't tell us anything about the balance of the game.

II: (...) combat classes and no social classes like a Noble class (...). All classes will be able to contribute to combats. This, again has got nothing to do with balance. No social class like noble; well, since all classes are meant to be useful in combat, you don't need a low combat, high social class anymore. If you want an NPC noble I think they have a solution in the rules or you just go the AD&D level 0- way. Give the NPC HP 5 but +10 in social skills.

III:Wizard seems to be the boom class not the utility class anymore. As stated in a post above this is simply not true. If you make a bold statement, it's generally a good idea to get your facts straight first.

IV:Also the paragon paths seems cool ( i like so far) but what is the balance for them so they not get to overpowered instead of adding to it.
Overpowered compared to what? The other paragon paths? In that case, it is imbalanced. I think internal balance is priority #1 to the designers so I think there won't be any blatant imbalance between them but you can never be sure of course.

 

[Doug McCrae]

We've been told that 4e will be a lot more balanced in terms of non-caster classes getting better relative to casters. In 3e, druids, clerics and wizards were just too good, imo.

As far as I can see, the new ethos is that every character can contribute more or less equally in combat. I don't think we know much about non-combat abilities yet though the siloing article that mentioned Phantom Steed suggests wizards will still have some utility powers.

If all classes are equally good at fighting I would expect fighters and the like to get improved skills to compensate. So maybe now your fighter can climb, jump, ride, swim *and* intimidate?

 

[Dragonblade]

You don't need racial penalties to have balance. As long as the racial bonuses and classes have a degree of parity then they are all balanced with each other.

Likewise, the 4e design philosophy is to give every class parity in combat and parity across all levels. Likewise each class will have useful social abilities. This has been hinted it at numerous times. Besides social utility is largely a function of a particular group's playstyle, anyway.

Combat abilities should NEVER be "balanced" with social abilities. Likewise, weakness at low levels should NEVER be balanced with power at higher levels.

In 3.5 and prior editions, it seems that balance was often achieved by making sure that everything was equally lame. Thankfully, in 4e the philosophy seems to be to balance everything by making everything equally cool.

 

[helium3]

It seems like there's at least two kinds of balance, balance between the members of a party and balance between your average part and the monsters that a party of that level should be fighting. Mostly we've been hearing about intra-part balance and not so much about the other kind.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

I dunno, but for all we always said of WOTC, they are very devoted to balance -generaly.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It seems like there's at least two kinds of balance, balance between the members of a party and balance between your average part and the monsters that a party of that level should be fighting. Mostly we've been hearing about intra-part balance and not so much about the other kind.

Did we not? I thought the discussion about Minions, Regular, Elite and Solo monsters, monster level did touch the balance between party and monster.

The base concept seems to be that a party of level X can stand best against monsters of level X, whose XP total an amount f(X). (But you can use higher and lower level monsters, provided you don't exceed the total XP "allowed". If you use less, well, don't be surprised if the combat becomes a cake walk. )

Reducing the importance of magical items (less Christmas Tree) also seems to indicate that party vs monster balance doesn't require a lot (if any) items. (I still haven't figured out if they actually create the balance with _no_ magic items in a party, or if there is still a "wealth per level" mechanic in place that says how much items a party should have to meet the expected effectiveness)

I think both balances were already a big focus in D&D 3, but:
- magic items were definitely a requirement for party - monster balance
- inter-party balance was seen over all levels of play, instead of each individual level (low level spellcasters weaker than low-level fighters, but high level spellcasters stronger than high level fighters)
- party and monster balance assumed approximately 4 encounters of party level per day.

I think they are trying to "micromanage" the balance more in 4th edition, so that at each level, against each type of monster setup, at every "time of the day", characters and monsters (or rather: monster encounters) are in balance.

 

[Morrus]

4. "Also the paragon class seems cool" - There is no "paragon" class. Paragon is simply the title for play between levels 11 and 20. (or is it 10-19?). However, all classes are "paragon classes". So, there are no balance issues.

Terminology aside, I assume he's refering to the "paragon paths" (and "epic destinies"). "Paragon" is more than an arbitrary term for play between levels 11-20; there are associated mechanics.