Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7454216" data-attributes="member: 4937">In general, I tend to find that the following to things are equivalent:a) Having the answer for every problem.b) Having a hammer so big that every problem becomes a nail.In WoD this was referred to as, "Potence/Celerity is every Discipline."   Perfect balance is probably not attainable.  What you should be going for is making sure that no build has an answer for every problem, either by breadth or depth of power, and you yourself would be content to run either character (and preferably, have done so).  Incidentally, this is precisely why most "Jack of All Trade" builds end up (and arguably must end up) as "Masters of None".   If you really do have an answer to every problem, then it can't be a very effective answer, otherwise, what do you need a party for?  Whereas, a character with a narrow power can be quite powerful indeed, if they still need to depend at least some of the time on some other specialist.   In general, Beta is going to be balanced with Alpha......if assuming a new form is costly in and of itself, thereby limiting the flexibility.  For example, if assuming a new form consumes at the least time, during which you lose actions or are otherwise handicapped, then that in and of it self would go a long way to balance many forms versus one.  You can implement this as a delay, or you can implement this as only a certain number of transforms in a period.   Other than time, you could do this with pretty much any valuable resource.  If transforming consumes 10% of some otherwise valuable resource, not having to transform becomes a big deal....if none of Beta's forms are so potent than a PC running a Beta tends to stay in a single form most of the time (suggesting that form tends to make it an Alpha in disguise, plus other powers in other situations). ...if the Alpha form is relatively weak against situations that are not unusual.  However, beware that you aren't making hard constraints on encounter design that are going to be burdensome to GMs.  ...if Beta can't defeat Alpha in the area that Alpha supposedly excels in.  ...if two Beta's working together isn't better than a Beta and an Alpha in practically all situations.   Think Alpha is worth 1 in its key situation, and .2 in all others, whereas the Beta is worth .8 in all situations.  Then it's almost certainly better as a group to be all Betas and have no weak link and no forced upon the group strategy.  In most groups, party loyalty means that certain strategies tend to be deprecated even if available, because player's won't leave a man behind (as it were).  But a true power gaming group will build synergy by dropping the party weak links, and if you can build a party so that every player has the right answer for every situation that can get out of hand in a hurry.Keep in mind that at best, a character that is just really good in combat is going to be like tier 3 - especially if there exists some sort of trump to the combat ability.  A melee brute that can't deal with invisibility, flight, walls of force, or any number of other issues is ultimately not that potent even if it is a very capable melee brute.  You have to be reliably able to overcome physical obstacles and reliably deal damage in all situations before you have that hammer that is big enough to treat everything like a nail.  A good example of this in D&D history is the Tarrasque, which in most variants actually lacks the flexibility to be truly potent against parties that you might otherwise try to threaten it with.  Built to be an ultimate monster, it's actually not flexible enough to achieve that (slow moving, can't fly, no ranged attacks) because it can't find any answers to a typical PC parties tactical flexibility.  It's only strong against a party that is only strong in the same areas it is strong and so must go toe to toe with it.I personally feel that nothing but playtesting can expose balance.  Experience will get you close, but you never know until you play it.</blockquote>

Verification