Class Balance - why?

[Deadboy]

I think striving for balance is a good thing. But balance does not mean to me that classes are equal in ever situation. There are times that someone gets to shine and others are just supporting them.

Whenever I play a magic user I never feel like the rest are my henchmen I am very aware that they can make it without me but I can't without them.

I play high level fighters in 3E and I never felt that I was not as good as the magic users. I was swinging my sword 4 times and because of the feats I had a crit was a 15 and 90% of the time I confirmed it. I would wade through the battlefield leaving destruction in my wake it was really awesome. Sure the magic users may have been taking care of the enemy casters but if it wasn't for me taking care of the BBEG men they would have swarmed the wizard and killed him.

Yes there should be balance in the game but the DM also needs to be able to balance encounters if he doesn't then it realy won't matter how balanced the classes are it will not be fun for someone.

First, no one is saying all characters should be equal in all situations. That's just silly. What we are saying is that they should be able to contribute equally - something the 3.5 Fighter just can't do.

Also, it sounds to me like you and the players in your group aren't playing Wizards to their full capability - it sounds like you're not even particularly using all the tools they have available to them in the PHB, nevermind all 3.5's splatbooks. Do the Wizards in your group utilize Scribe Scroll and Craft Wondrous Item to break past their spells per day limitations? Do they utilize Save-or-Die or Save-or-Suck spells which can effectively end combats before they've started? Do they utilize utility spells that allow them to steal other players' niches?

If not, then you're very lucky to have such a well-behaved group to not play the Wizard class as its written. Though you have to realize that its not really fair to argue about the Wizard class as your group has specifically neutered it (whether intentionally or not) rather than as it is in all its horrific, unbalanced, as-written glory.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

the only class balance I worry about is that all classes are equally fun to play. Combat balance doesn't matter. Hell, the AD&D thief is pathetic in combat, in Basic, he was even worse. But I never saw a lack of people playing thieves. The thief was balanced because he had lots of cool stuff to do outside of combat. Stop the game from rushing from one combat to the next, make combats fast and furious, and class balance matters a whole lot less.

No one in our group would play a single class thief. It was no fun at all. You NEEDED a thief because there were traps in every dungeon. Deadly ones that would kill the whole party if they weren't found and disarmed. But playing a single classed thief meant you were more a tool that got taken out of the backpack long enough to search the door and disarm, then put back in. During combat, you had to watch other people have fun. Unless you multiclassed with something that could fight.

I also don't think that "If you fight less, the problem becomes less important" is a solution. It's very similar to the Oberoni Fallacy. The idea is that if combat is no fun for some of those classes, it should be fixed so that even if you spend 100% of your time doing combat, the game is still fun.

 

[Phaezen]

My thoughts on why game balance is important are fairly close to this blog post by Mike Mearls: The Keep on the Gaming Lands: The Issue of Game Balance

At the end of the day, though, if you balance the game just right everyone's happy. The guys who don't care about balance get lots of options and toys to play with, because you picked the right lines and didn't take away stuff they liked. People who like the challenge of breaking the game work harder to bust the game's math. They have a steeper mountain to climb! The players in the middle get to have fun picking options based on what looks fun, interesting, or that fits a character concept. You're not stuck with a lame character because you think it would be fun to play a samurai. DMs get to run engaging campaigns without taking on too much work that the designer left for him.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I fully understand that we all want to be special flowers at the table with our characters, but should that not be more about character development and roleplaying than stat blocks? You can make your 1st level rouge just as interesting and fun as a 20th level sorceress with the power to level mountains. The rules should not try to force that, but rather compliment play to make sure you have fun regardless which class you try to play instead of sit around comparing die sizes all evening.

D&D is a very combat heavy game, and there are some serious drawbacks to having characters with a big difference of combat effectiveness in the same group. Running combat takes up a massive amount of time in the game, so a players ability to effectively participate is going to dramatically affect their ability to enjoy the game.

Factoring out class, if you have a 4th level adventurer in the same party as a 7th or 8th level fighter, the DM is going to have a very difficult time creating worthwhile combat encounters.

- If you balance the encounter towards allowing the 4th level character to be effective, than the 8th level character will dominate the encounter. Maybe that character will blast out most of the targets with a single spell. Maybe the monsters will be too weak to damage the high level character at enough to make attacking him worth while.

- If you balance the encounter towards challenging the 8th level player, the 4th level player is not going to have much fun. The 4th level character will miss most of the time. For 3rd edition games, the best spells may still matter, but there wont be enough of them, especially if you run more than one fight. On top of that, the monsters can probably drop that character without trying too hard.

The emphasis on mechanical balance of 4th edition may have put off many players due to immersiveness issues. But it made the DM's job a hell of alot easier.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Someone]

Clearly, if one class is a "god" among classes, it needs to be fixed. But does that mean that all classes need to have the same levels of powers? Do we need to dumb it down in the rules so everything is equal and every class feels special in every encounter?

Even after reading the whole thread I still can't understand well why do you think this is a bad thing. I know it's not your intention, but you really sound that you're not able to have fun unless someone else isn't. This combat, the wizard shines and everyone else feel superfluous, the rest of the day the wizard shoots his crossbow and the fighter shines.

 

[stevelabny]

Too many of these wizards-do-it-all posts ignore the stupidity of the 5 minute workday. If the DM and the other party-members allow the 5-minute workday, then YES the wizard is overpowered. In reality, there should be no chance this happens. The DM should do everything in his power to prevent this from happening, and the other players should absolutely leave the wizard behind if he wants a nap after one room/battle in the dungeon/cavern/forest/etc.

Have I seen 3.x wizards use scribe scroll or craft wondrous items? yes. More often than not, those items are given to other party members to provide party balance and versatility. And once again, time is a factor. If the wizard has become a stay-at-home crafter who wants months off between adventures...he has to miss some adventures. Campaigns MUST have certain elements on a timeline.

Most wizards I've played or played with haven't taken the replace-other-class spells, because they were a waste of resources if you already had a friend you traveled with who could perform the same function. As a matter of fact, it would be perfectly in character for a thief PC to watch a wizard cast Knock for the 3rd time in a week and shiv him in his sleep. Or at the very least, to go find a different adventuring party. What kind of tool wizard selects spells that kill team morale?

Most wizards I've seen have had to contend with one or more of anti-magic doohickeys, silence, lack of spellbook/spell component pouch, magic-is-evil cultures, lack of sleep, super-long workdays, decoy targets to draw out spells, surprise encounters that haven't been prepared for, and a ton of other things that can EASILY "balance" them well through 12-15th level at the very least.

And this isn't "the DM fixing things" as all of these things are specifically spelled out in the rulebooks. You CANNOT have a D&D game without a DM. Even if you're playing a videogame, the developer is the "invisible DM". The encounters do not exist without a DM and therefore asking the DM to balance them is a perfectly valid requirement.

And if the wizard thinks he is being "picked on" with all these balances, he needs to only look at the rogue whenever there is a roomful of undead, Or a fighter when there's a locked stone door. The difference is, no rogue ever whined when he encountered plants or undead because they are expected to be a semi-common occurrence. And the one time or two times per campaign a wizard has his spellbook stolen, the wizard says its because the DM sucks.

Class drawbacks are a part of the balance. And the nebulous idea that drawbacks aren't fun and that we should never not have have fun is one of the things that is killing gaming. (See various save-or-die threads or videogame threads for further details)

 

[Elf Witch]

First, no one is saying all characters should be equal in all situations. That's just silly. What we are saying is that they should be able to contribute equally - something the 3.5 Fighter just can't do.

Also, it sounds to me like you and the players in your group aren't playing Wizards to their full capability - it sounds like you're not even particularly using all the tools they have available to them in the PHB, nevermind all 3.5's splatbooks. Do the Wizards in your group utilize Scribe Scroll and Craft Wondrous Item to break past their spells per day limitations? Do they utilize Save-or-Die or Save-or-Suck spells which can effectively end combats before they've started? Do they utilize utility spells that allow them to steal other players' niches?

If not, then you're very lucky to have such a well-behaved group to not play the Wizard class as its written. Though you have to realize that its not really fair to argue about the Wizard class as your group has specifically neutered it (whether intentionally or not) rather than as it is in all its horrific, unbalanced, as-written glory.

I was speaking about how I look at balance not commenting on how anyone else looks at it. And I would like point out that not everyone agrees that the 3.5 fighter cannot contribute equally. I play fighters and have never felt that I could not contribute equally to any other class and I have players in my game that play fighters all the time and don't feel this way.

I use all resources available to my caster when I played one and my players do the same. I scribe scrolls and make magic items for my self and the party. As a matter of fact most of the items my latest wizards has made was for the rogue.

But since we are on a mission to stop the evil churches from ending the world as we know it I have not had a ton of down time to make a lot of items and to scribe scrolls. I have to wonder how much downtime most DMs give in other games because I keep hearing about all these scrolls and magic items the party wizard is taking the time to make. Not to mention all the gold and XP costs.

And yes we use save vs death and save vs effect spells all the time and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't always work because you see they are not automatic success. And when they do go off everybody at the table is cheering and high fiving each other.

The DMs I play with and the way I DM plan encounters that give everyone a chance to contribute so the wizard fingers of death someone that is just one less baddie to deal with because there are always more.

As for stealing other players niches well lets look at that my wizard made an item that allows the rogue to use knock twice a day now that he has that I don't memorize it any longer because I don't need it as a back up if he can't get a lock open I now can put something else there. I memorize an improved invisibility but I usually cast it on the rogue so he can move around the combat area and do massive damage with his sneak attack Also it comes in handy when he scouts. Yes I try to keep a scroll of invisibility handy in case things go bad for me and I can get out of combat before I die.

I carry potions of fly that I made for the entire party in case we need to become airborne. Most of the other scrolls I have done are buffs not just for me but for the entire party to make them stronger when we need it.

When I play a wizard and when others play a wizard we don't just play it as someone who is there to outshine everyone else as a matter of fact we don't try to make any character that is going to outshine anyone else.

We play as a team so since we are a team we all look at ways to make the entire team more effective. We are friends who play to have a good time and we believe that everyone at the table is responsible for making the game fun for everybody not just themselves.

We are also blessed with DMs who know how to run games so that no one is going to be the star.

And since I do not neuter my wizards I can argue very much that imo the biggest problem with wizards being seen as OP in earlier editions before 4 is because of DMs not knowing how to properly craft encounters that let all classes shine and players not playing as a team and having the mentality that it is all about them.

 

[FireLance]

I've primarily just lurked on the forums the past few years, but now that the new edition has been officially announced I wanted to discuss something that bothered me with 4E (and to some extent 3.5). What is the obsession with class balance? Why should a magic-user and fighter or rouge and cleric all be comparable in power at the same levels? Isn't balance a subjective quality that can shift based on play conditions?

I think one of the things that did the most damage to class balance was putting all classes on the same xp progression table (I think this occurred in 3E). Granted, the XP progression in AD&D was a bit wonky, but I think they were on the right track in some regards. It makes sense that a fighter or rouge class would progress more quickly than a magic using class. If you make the progression ratio 1.25:1 (or something like that), you have suddenly balanced out the tables a bit, especially when you consider the challenges most magic-using classes face with survivability in the early levels. True, once a magic using class reaches higher levels, they are very powerful. But should they not be? The god-like wizard, sorceress, or priest that is a force in the world for good or evil is a staple of classic fantasy. I think 4E magic using classes lost that mystique by trying to force balance through the rule set rather than putting that in the hands of the DM.

And if you think about it, there was additional balance built into AD&D that a lot of people just chose to ignore (it was too hard to use, slowed game play, etc.). That balance was in the form of weapon speed factors and dynamic initiative. It was completely plausible that a 5th level fighter could defeat a 10th level magic-user if they got the jump on them and had a little luck with the dice (and the 10th level magic-user is not a Monty Haulizard). Could you say the same for a 5th level magic-user taking out a 10th level fighter, even if they got a jump on them? I think the later is a lot less likely.

Wait - you wonder why there seems to be an obsession with class balance and then argue that magic-using classes should be balanced by requiring more XP, lower survivability, and rules such as weapon speed factors and dynamic initiative? This would suggest that you are arguing more about the means of class balance while acknowledging that there is nothing wrong with the end of class balance in itself.

Now, with respect to the means of class balancing, different XP tables in themselves are actually quite meaningless. If a magic-using class requires 25% more XP, but each level grants it 25% more power, then you might as well just scale back both the power and the XP required and have a unified XP table. If a fighter with 50,000 xp is supposed to be on par (however that is defined) with a wizard with 50,000 xp, does it matter whether the fighter is 8th level and the wizard is 6th, or both are 7th level?

Lower survivability can be a balancing factor in a game that features high character turnover or multiple characters per player, but it does not suit games in which the players are limited to one character each, and the same characters are expected to progress through a campaign. Hence, it is not suitable for all styles of play.

Frankly, I don't see how balanced classes could make it harder for the DM to ensure that every character gets a share of the limelight, or make it more difficult for the players to co-operate. So really, neither of the above are reasons to favor more class balance over less.

That said, the initial 4e classes have been criticised for having similar power structures and similar powers and abilities, which have caused some players to feel that the character do not play differently enough. However, that to me is an indication that classes and powers should be made more distinct, and not an argument against class balance per se.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

And yes we use save vs death and save vs effect spells all the time and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't always work because you see they are not automatic success. And when they do go off everybody at the table is cheering and high fiving each other.

It sounds like your character isn't nearly as optimized as the game lets you be. The Wizards I've seen started with a 20 in their Int, then they put every point into it. They've gotten a +6 Int item as soon as possible, crafting it so they can get it cheaply. That increases the save DCs to the maximum on all their spells and gives them more spells per day. Then they've taken feats to increase their spell DCs, preferably 2 or 3 feats to do so. Then taken a PrC to increase it again.

That way, when you cast a Save or Die spell, the average enemy fails on less than a 16. That way, it isn't a special event when it happens, it's the majority of the time. And in order to make sure they die, you should prepare one of the Save or Die spells Quickened so you can cast 2 of them in the same round.

I remember one encounter we played where the DM pulled out this big nasty creature, who was CR 16. It was the first time he had ever run a monster that powerful before. He looked at its abilities and thought "This is insane, I've never DMed a monster this powerful before, but I think it's going to kill all of them." We were all around 13-14th level. Our 14th level Wizard cast a Quickened True Strike followed by a Disintegrate. It died on round one.

Most encounters in D&D take place against 1 or 2 big monsters. It sounds like your DM doesn't do that. Which favors the other characters until you switch spells. If he is sticking with the proper EL rules, then a number of enemies mean they are all lower CR, which means a lot less hitpoints and saves. In this sort of game it's best to switch to area of effect spells, to kill more than one at a time. Spells like Cloudkill, Fireball, and Glitterdust become your best friends.

 

[Hassassin]

I remember one encounter we played where the DM pulled out this big nasty creature, who was CR 16. It was the first time he had ever run a monster that powerful before. He looked at its abilities and thought "This is insane, I've never DMed a monster this powerful before, but I think it's going to kill all of them." We were all around 13-14th level. Our 14th level Wizard cast a Quickened True Strike followed by a Disintegrate. It died on round one.

Assuming it had spell resistance, that was four chances for the disintegrate not to work: attack roll (1 fails), Fort. save, CL check and damage roll. A barbarian or rogue might have scored a critical and killed it in one due to massive damage.

Yes, 3.5 wizards are powerful, but the combat is also just swingy, which isn't inherently a bad thing - you may like it or not.