'Balancing' rolled characters

[diaglo]

did you forget the elven clasp?

 

[Bauglir]

I had forgotten that, but it still doesn't really compare. When you have an unbalanced party like that it's the more powerful ones that get to shine, and who push the story along. The elven clasp didn't really do anything but confirm what they had already learned using their tracking abilities..

Gandalf fought and defeated the Balrog.
Legolas, Aragorn & Gimli were key characters at Helm's Deep.

In each of these scenarios the characters got to use their skills to the full and perform great acts of heroism. They got the spotlight so to speak. Time in the spotlight is a big part of any D&D game. When did merry & pippin do anything like that?

Even Frodo's big moment at Mt Doom was largely a product of circumstances rather than of his own achievement. (It isn't as if he used his skills of infiltration to get there - it was a combination of a powerful magic item (the cloak) and a lot of luck)

Not that there's anything wrong with luck, but one cannot build a character based around always rolling a 20 when it's needed; this is where stories differ from roleplaying games.

 

[Petrosian]

item 1: balance to me is also just a matter of the character's abilities being relevent and useful to the challenges the GM scripts... which basically ends up serving as screen time and impact. As such, the vast majority of "trade offs" you see in "balancing" are irrelevent except in the context of the GM and his script. So, if the fighter has a net +10 in bonuses while the thief has a net +3, the Gm can script for the thief skills to be more relevent.

item 2: The downside to rolled stats is two fold for me... its not as easily done away from Gm and not every Gm is skilled at item 1. I myself tend to roll really bad stats... imagine a rolemaster pc with five score in the 21-29 range, two 90's and no other bonus scores AFTER promoting two 90's. I named him fishbait and played him but my Gm did nothing to use the few rather unique skills i had.

Item 3: if you want a mechanic counter then do something rather simple... "Dolabo the god of lost causes favors heroes going up against great odds and realizes that those with natural gifts are heroic but sees those more normal people whole still go heroic even more. So he awards luck to heroes." Then give the guy with the highest stat bonuses 1 luck. Give everyone else 1 luck PLUS the points in bonuses they are lower than he. So if the jock was +10 net bonuses among his atts, he gets 1 luck, while the +6 rogue gets 5 luck, and the +4 mage gets 7 luck. Allow each luck to allow a reroll of any roll and the points to "refresh" each level.

This provides a notable but not seriously overwhelming benefit to offset the random shifts. Will it be balanced, thats going to depend on the GM, but it provides a "trade off" which is really all you need as a handle for balance.

 

[diaglo]

Not that there's anything wrong with luck, but one cannot build a character based around always rolling a 20 when it's needed; this is where stories differ from roleplaying games.

roleplay is also about being in the right place at the right time. and doing what is right or needed. merry and pippin caused the downfall of saruman's plans by meeting treebeard.

sam and frodo had the character to bear the ring where others failed. they also had the drive to continue even though they knew they might not make it. and in the end or when they thought it was the end. they continued to struggle. (just before they were rescued on Mt Doom)

some like to play the underdog or underhill

while others like to hog the spotlight in combat. but still who was more important? neither IMO as they helped drive the story and made it fun to read or play.

 

[HomerJS]

While it is true that it isn't fun for some people to play characters with crappy stats, it can also be said that some people hate when events come down to a dice roll, pass or fail, but that's the way the game is and has always been. Point buy wasn't even in our vocabulary until 3E but it never really bothered us before. Bad characters aside, a lot of the game is randomness and I'm not always comfortable "balancing" encounters, because I do agree that in RL people are not always equal, and in gaming they shouldn't be either.

Sorry but most everyone we play with doesnt want to mimmic real life. I give people a choice. 32 or roll. The only reason I do that is because the game isnt based on die rolls but choice the person makes. If you just roll you have been subject to complete randomness. The only time of the game where you make no choice to affect your character is when you roll them up.

yeah i know, it probobly makes no sense. Im having trouble putting it into words.

 

[Bauglir]

roleplay is also about being in the right place at the right time. and doing what is right or needed. merry and pippin caused the downfall of saruman's plans by meeting treebeard.

One could also interpret that the DM tore down Saruman's plans and that the presence of the PCs was merely incedental..

sam and frodo had the character to bear the ring where others failed. they also had the drive to continue even though they knew they might not make it. and in the end or when they thought it was the end. they continued to struggle. (just before they were rescued on Mt Doom)

Depending on the quality of the DM, and of the players, something like this would be very difficult to pull off and still be fun. D&D has no quantifiable way to express this sort of character, and not many DMs could achieve that level of immersion (where the players wouldn't feel that the DM was leading them by the nose to play out his story). If you can pull it off, and enjoy it then more power to you.

I think what I'm trying to say is that the only contribution these weaker characters can really make to the story is the one the DM hands to them, while the stronger characters can 'forge their own destiny' so to speak.

some like to play the underdog or underhill

True, but some don't. In a balanced system one may simply make some suboptimal choices to create an underdog style character (or deliberately make a weaker character by, for example starting a level lower). In an unbalanced system certain character styles will be unavailable without also accepting that underdog role, whether you like it or not. Personally I wouldn't enjoy a character that doesn't have some strength to contribute to a group.

 

[diaglo]

Depending on the quality of the DM, and of the players, something like this would be very difficult to pull off and still be fun.

but this is the case with or without rolling the dice and/or using the point buy.

 

[Brekke]

Using LOTR is not a good analogy to compare same level characters with different stats. Come on Gandulf is epic level while Strider and the Legolas are at least in the teens. The Hobbits are low level. So even if they had great stats they could not compete with the higher level characters.

 

[Trickstergod]

Currently, the system I make use of is this:

Take the difference between your highest, unmodified stat, and 18. The difference may be used as points that can be placed into any stat except for your lowest, modified stat (in the case of a tie, the racially modified stat is considered lowest, otherwise, chosen as is appropriate for the character as the most appropriately low). This means that any character has a chance at an 18, no matter how poorly they roll.

Conversely, while I don't use this rule at the moment, I've been thinking about instituting this, in addition to the first rule:

Take the difference between your lowest, unmodified stat, and 8. If your lowest stat is above 8, these are points that must be subtracted from your stats, except for your highest, modified stat (again, racial adjustment taking precedence, most appropriate otherwise). If the lowest stat is below 8, these are points that may be added to any stat, except for the highest, modified one (I'll bet you can guess how ties work for this one, too). Thus, even someone who has the best stats in the world will be toned down a bit (10 points if your lowest, unmodified stat is an 18, which, come on, is hardly all that unfair, being that one could still have 16's across the board, and then one 18). Meanwhile, someone who rolled abysmally may get a few extra points out of it (in addition to whatever they received from the difference with their highest stat and 18).

Someone who rolls really well will still have an advantage over someone who doesn't do so hot, but at least those who the dice simply do not like will still be able to do well at one thing (or fix a few of those weak points). I also generally allow re-rolls when the stat modifiers, total, are below +6.

 

[Bauglir]

but this is the case with or without rolling the dice and/or using the point buy.

Precisely.

An unbalanced adventure can only stay viable until the dice start to roll. When you think about it, it's next to miraculous how a couple of untrained hobbits made it all the way across mordor alive. Were you to actually run a game of that, they would be pretty likely to die messily and early.

If it had been say, Aragorn & Legolas doing the run through Mordor then they might have had a better chance. Both had some training in being stealthy, and had the ability to dispatch small groups of orcs if it became necessary to cover their tracks

Originally posted by Brekke
Using LOTR is not a good analogy to compare same level characters with different stats. Come on Gandulf is epic level while Strider and the Legolas are at least in the teens. The Hobbits are low level. So even if they had great stats they could not compete with the higher level characters.

I think it's a good analogy to discuss the concept of balance in general, as the party has such a gross imbalance as to clearly demonstrate any consequences.

Incidentally Gandalf was not just epic level he WAS a minor god.